Nola (4 page)

Her hands were
clenched in the bedspread beside her hips - she'd learned in the past two days
- the hard way - not to interfere with whatever it was he wanted to do to her.
But he found himself unwilling to allow her free range, so he grabbed her right
wrist with his left hand, tugging it just the slightest bit, forcing her to
offer even more of herself to his eager lips and tongue.

His right hand
wasn't idle, either, though. She had amazed him that first night by exactly how
virginal she was, and he had stayed away from that particular area since then
to give her some time to heal. But he was going to make damned sure that she
didn't feel a thing that wasn't specifically designed to make her absolutely
crazy with pleasure.

When Brandon
pressed just his index finger up inside her, he couldn't quite tell if her
arched hips were meant to be an invitation or a method of protest. Either way,
it didn't matter. He was going to do what he wanted to do, regardless, and what
he wanted to do was pleasure his wife. He'd been very pleasantly surprised by
how readily her body had reacted to him, and he intended to indulge himself
whenever and wherever he wanted to, especially knowing that she wanted him to -
even if she wasn't willing to admit or acknowledge that fact.

His eyes were
glued to her face as he entered her carefully, though, looking for any signs of
true discomfort. There was a little bit of a twinge around her eyes, but
nothing that made him feel the need to stop, and even that tightness
disappeared completely when he settled his mouth over her burgeoning clit and
began to move that solitary finger in and out of her, all the while holding
that wrist - and pretty much Nola herself - completely immobile, completely at
what little there was of his mercy.

"No - I don't
want this - please - stop!"

Her husband
didn't say one word to her desperate, humiliating plea. His mouth was, however,
most definitely, sinfully occupied, and there was nothing she could do to get
away from it. His abilities - his bald, bold knowledge of her body and the way
he used how it continually betrayed her had Nola wishing every time he touched
her that she'd never succumbed to Wilde's pleas to go to that blasted ball.

But when he
applied himself earnestly to cajoling her fiery pleasure, she thought she had
died and gone to Heaven - only Heaven couldn't possibly admit someone as sinful
as she was for enjoying what he insisted on doing to her. And she did enjoy it
- all too much.

The first time
he'd entered her there - not with his finger - she'd screamed. He'd done it all
at once, not stopping or waiting or even speaking to her about it. He simply
invaded her, painfully, and remained seated within her as she struggled beneath
him, trying to get her off and out of her, but that was akin to a mouse trying
to move a lion.

At that time,
she'd felt very sure that she would never want anyone to touch her down there
again. It hurt too much. She felt as if she'd been ripped from stem to stern
down there, and was even more ashamed as tears rolled down her face because of
it. It wasn't a terribly horrible pain - not nearly as bad as being spanked by
him by a long shot - but it was the unexpectedness of it, she supposed, along
with the inherent intimacy of the location of the pain that had her gasping and
crying with it.

But this time,
there was almost no pain - only that God awful pleasure that he delighted in
conjuring just to humiliate her. She had been so scared the first time it had
happened that she'd screamed, more out of fear than out of the actual ecstasy
that had wracked her body. She hadn't had any idea where all of those
sensations were going - what it was all building towards - until she'd fallen
over the cliff, and had naturally screamed as a result.

Her scream had
made her husband break into a huge grin as he labored over her, plunging deeply
into her, not deliberately trying to hurt her, but not being all that careful
of her, either. He was concentrating on bringing her to the heights of ecstasy,
and he knew he'd hurt her, which made it that much more of a challenge to him.

And he'd
succeeded.

He'd managed to
repeat his success several times since then, despite the fact that she'd let
him know it no uncertain terms that she had no interest in reliving the
experience ever again.

And that, of
course, just made him want to make sure she did.

Every time he
wanted her to, without fail, and this time was no exception to his rule.

Nola could feel
her control slipping as soon as that hot mouth closed around her, and his
broad, flat tongue began to bathe the entire area with his own hot wetness,
rubbing over and over every molecule of that area, and she couldn't do a thing
to get away from it. That was almost worse than anything else - the complete
and utter helplessness that he created - because it amplified those feelings a
thousand fold, and she knew it shouldn't.

He was
relentless, never coming up for air, never giving her a moment's respite, even
when she
arched
against him violently and groaned
through clenched teeth, entirely unwilling to give him the satisfaction of
screaming again; groaning was quite bad enough as far as she was concerned. If
she could have stopped that, she would, but she truly couldn't. Nola had always
considered herself a strong willed woman, but her husband was turning out to be
more than a match for her, and she hated him for it.

As her body
dissolved into the almost familiar bliss, and he joined them together in that
horribly intimate manner she hated to love, she bit her lip as hot wet tears
slid into the fine hair at her temples.

Chapter
Three

Their honeymoon
had officially begun the next day. They were scheduled to do the usual Grand
Tour of Europe - Switzerland, Paris, Rome, London as well as other, smaller
spots - but Brandon's father had taken sick the night before, so their honeymoon
was put on hold. Her husband told her in an extremely matter of fact manner, as
if he thought it shouldn't matter to her in the least that they would have to
delay the trip, and frankly it didn't.

Her almost
complete lack of reaction - although he was certainly happy that she wasn't
weeping and wailing all over him - was something of a surprise. He at least
thought she'd be in somewhat of a snit or
something, that
she'd do the de rigueur moaning and complaining that most women would do.

But she didn't.
She seemed almost happy not to be going, and that made him even more curious
about her. He knew he'd picked someone different - that had been a very
deliberate choice on his part. But perhaps he hadn't realized just how
different.

She even came
with him to see his father, calling him Papa Sawyer, and making him smile, if
somewhat weakly. Nola found herself a chair and moved it next to the bed,
reaching out to take a hold of the older man's hand. "Is there anything I can
get you?"

It was a truly
ridiculous question - this was one of the richest men in the country who had
servants, doctors and nurses dancing attendance on him every hour of ever day -
but again, it was something that not everyone would offer. Geoffrey Sawyer
found strength enough to ask her for some cold water, and although his ever
present nurse rose to get him some, it was his new daughter in law that went to
the trouble of going downstairs to fill a pitcher with water and ice, coming
back up quickly and efficiently to pour him a small glass.

Brandon knew
that, with that small gesture, she'd weaseled her way into his father's heart.
After that, he could barely pry the two of them apart. If his father had been
twenty years younger, Brandon might have been worried. But instead, it ended up
that she helped him to recover quickly - and more so - than he might have from
a small heart attack. Still, he found himself being resentful of the amount of
time and attention his new wife was lavishing on his father.

But he was between
a rock and hard place - he could hardly forbid his wife from seeing his father,
especially when his father's doctor has expressly mentioned how well Geoffrey
was responding. As his frustration grew, so did his appetite for his wife, as
if he was staking and
restaking
his claim each
evening. She got up when he did and went off to take care of his father, but he
insisted that she be home by seven to have dinner with him by eight.

Their somewhat
strained dinners together didn't bother him, because directly after dinner he
would take her hand and lead her up to their bedroom. Some nights, he played
the ladies' maid and undressed her slowly, his big fingers nimbly working the
thousands of tiny buttons that her maid, Ruth, usually argued with. But he'd
given her a standing order that she wasn't to come to their room again after
helping Madame with her dinner ensemble. Neither Ruth nor Nola had been
particularly happy with that order, but Nola had reassured the only somewhat
older woman the next morning that she was fine with her husband's assistance.

That was
somewhat of a lie, of course, but she didn't want Ruth worrying, regardless.
She was a married woman, and apparently his nightly - and sometimes, much to
her shock and horror, he did it to her during the light of day -
pawings
were apparently something that married couples did.

But she didn't
have anyone she could talk to about what was happening between herself and her
husband on a nightly basis - usually multiple times. She certainly couldn't
speak of such things to her mother, whose idea of a woman to woman talk the
night before her marriage had been assorted tips on how to treat the household
staff and several of her father's favorite recipes.

The girlfriends
she'd had as an adolescent had all drifted away one by one as they got married
and had children and became involved in their own family's lives. The only
person she was truly close to was Wilde, and she wouldn't - she couldn't - ask
him questions about such an intimate subject.

Could she?

Since the
honeymoon had fallen through, she had set a luncheon date with Wilde at a
small, intimate cafe they had frequented for years. They knew the proprietor
well, and he greeted them by name, tucking them into the small booth they'd
always favored and bringing them beignets piled high with powdered sugar and
strong, hot cafe au
lait
.

Wilde looked her
boldly up and down.
"So.
How does married life sit
with you, Mrs.
Sawyer.
"

Nola was still
very uncomfortable with that name, feeling she'd done nothing to earn it,
besides spread her legs every night and scream her husband's name at the most
embarrassing of times. "Uh, it's... uh..."

Wilde could read
that blush on her face like a book. He and Nola had never discussed sex at all.
It would have been completely inappropriate, especially considering his
personal preferences, and he knew just how innocent she was, despite how
involved in women's causes she was. She'd been completely sheltered from
knowing anything about the physical side of being a woman - beyond that a woman
was expected to submit to her husband in all things, he was sure.

He raised his
eyebrows at her and tried to be as casual as he could in his approach, not
knowing exactly how far she would let him get with this. Sitting back against
the plush but well worn velvet upholstery of the booth, he filled in words he
figured a woman like her might use when thinking about the marital bed.
"Embarrassing? Intimate? Awkward?"

Damn Wilde for
knowing exactly what she'd been thinking when her answer had trailed off like
that. He knew her too blasted well for her own comfort. She shifted her own
weight, feeling the stripes of his belt against her backside again as sitting
irritated them, even thought there was more than enough padding on the seat.
He'd laid it onto her well this morning, and had then kept her on her stomach
and violated her from behind!

She'd never even
conceived of anything quite like what he'd done to her - or the mortification
she'd felt from the fact that he'd tugged her hips back, so that she was on her
hands and knees, just so that he could reach around to the front of her and
make sure that she had that awful, horribly pleasurable explosion happened to
her, whether she wanted it to or not.

"My,
my.
That's not a very becoming shade of red, Mrs. Sawyer," Wilde couldn't resist
needling her.

"Stop calling me
that! I don't feel like I'm Mrs. Sawyer. I feel like I'm plain old Nola Hughes,
pretending to be someone she's not, pretending to be someone's wife and doing
things -"

Wilde said
nothing, just tilted his head in invitation for her to continue.

She tried, she
really did. But she just couldn't get the words out. It was too shameful. The
humiliation was just too incredibly awful.

Finally, her
companion took pity on her, of a kind, putting his hand on her forearm and
patting it gently. "Let me guess, since I've much more experience in these
things
- "

Nola scoffed
loudly, then reached for a beignet she'd promised herself she wouldn't eat,
sinking her teeth into it and feeling the hot pastry and the powdered sugar
melting together in her mouth in a manner that was at least as sinful as what
she and her husband did between the sheets in the middle of the night.