The Reclaiming of Ivy Leavold (Markham Hall Book 4) (2 page)

“You don’t want…?”

He took me by the hands and helped me up, pulling me tight to him. “What I want,” he said into my hair, his chest rumbling against my cheek, “is for you to do as I say before I spank your ass for disobedience. Now go.”

Heat flared in my core at his words, but the stern expression on his face told me not to test him, at least not yet—although I’d be lying if I didn’t say a part of me wanted to. Wanted to say no, just to see what he’d do. Wanted to defy him right up to the moment he held me down and pushed his cock inside me.

Then I heard a squawk from George—he and Bessie were in the parlor—and even though it was a happy squawk, it still brought everything else crashing down on me. The exhaustion, the exhilarating joy, the feeling like every nerve I had was scraped open and exposed. What was I thinking, gallivanting off for dinner by myself when I should be with my baby? Or if not with him, then attending to Julian’s neglected needs?

My husband saw my hesitation, and a stormcloud came over his features. “Go,” he said, and his voice brooked no argument. I went.

When I came back an hour later, Julian was reading the paper in the library while Bessie rocked a sleeping George nearby. I’d spent the first part of my hour away fretting and feeling guilty, but then the summer evening had been so sticky and hot that instinct had taken over and I’d gone for a long swim, and as I entered the library, I felt cooler and fresher than I had in weeks.

Julian folded the paper down and looked over the top, smiling when he saw my wet hair, and then flipped the paper back up to continue reading. And later that night, after George was asleep, rather than let him stay curled next to me, I tucked him in his cradle and turned to Julian expectantly…only to find that he too was fast asleep.

Fuck.
Fuck fuck fuck. Would he be angry if I woke him up? Would he be angry if I took care of this need myself?

But I didn’t want that. It wouldn’t be the same, not without him, not without his muscled form moving over me, driving into me. Not without his fingers twined in my hair and his low rasping voice in my ear.

So instead I settled myself against the pillow and stared at him, for the moment content simply to run my fingers along his naked chest, to trace the perfect, stern profile of his face with my eyes. This man, this grim, brilliant, attentive man. What was his plan, sending me off by myself? How had he known that I would enjoy it so much?

I fell asleep that way, staring at him, timing my own breaths to the slow measured rhythm of his and feeling more like myself than I had in a long while.

The next few days passed in a similar fashion. I would wake up, nurse George, and then be dressed by my husband. He’d abandoned the casual touches of the first day, and now was shamelessly torturing me—rubbing my clit before he pulled on my stockings, tweaking my nipples before lacing up my corset. But again, at night, rather than use our hour alone for dealing with the lust that he created, he sent me off alone. One night to read, another night to walk in the garden, another night to nap in front of the library fire.

And after four days of this, I was done.
Done.
Arousal clung to me like a haze, and I couldn’t shake it off. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t reason, all I could do was watch Julian like a starving predator as we went about our days. Watch the narrow hips under his pants, the tight forearms when he rolled up his sleeves. The stubbled line of his jaw as he answered letters and bounced the baby on his knee while he read.

That evening, I sat in the dining room at seven, fully expecting to be sent off on my own again and dreading it. The hours by myself had been amazing—relaxing and clarifying and peaceful—and each time I’d returned to my family, I’d been so incredibly grateful for Julian orchestrating all this. But now that I had regained my equilibrium, begun to remember who Ivy was beyond being George’s mother, I remembered who else Ivy was. She was Julian’s wildcat, and without him, nothing felt right.

“Mrs. Markham,” Julian said to me as he walked in the dining room. “You may stand. That chair will not be necessary.”

Confused, I stood.

He turned to our new butler. “Please arrange for my dinner to be brought in, and my dinner alone. Mrs. Markham shall eat hers later. And after the meal is served, I’d like this room cleared, and there are to be no interruptions for the next hour.”

If the butler found anything odd with these directions, he didn’t show it. Instead, he hurried to obey, the door swinging shut behind him.

My chest tightened with excitement, my stomach doing flips as Julian went to the clock on the dining room mantel and checked his pocket watch against it.

“Am I staying here tonight? With you?”

“Oh, yes, wildcat, you are staying. Do you remember our signal?”

Our signal. The word I would speak if the pain—physical or emotional—grew too much for me.

“Bluebell,” I whispered.

The pocket watch shut with a click and he turned. He was already hard, his dick a thick ridge straining against his pants, but the rest of him seemed completely composed, completely in control.

“I hope you’ll keep that word close at hand, my wife.” His eyes glinted green in the candlelight. “Very close.”

My meal was brought in, and after my plates were laid on the table, Wilson bowed and left the room exactly as I had asked. I locked the door behind him and turned to face my wildcat, whose cheeks were deliciously stained with color. Color that I’d put there with my days of teasing and torture.

I walked over to her and lifted her chin with my finger, examining that blush like an artist would examine his painting, pleased with the effect the flush had against her skin, my cock swelling at this small thing.

I wasn’t blind—I’d seen the need building in her the past few days, like a geyser threatening to erupt—and it was entirely on purpose. Her words the other day by the stream,
go ahead
, had unlocked something in me, some determination, some need to master her that had laid dormant since George’s birth.

Go ahead.

It was almost like a taunt, a dare, daring me to try to make her want me, and I had never been one to turn down a dare. And so that night when I’d stayed up late in the library, determined to find a way out of this, I’d listened to the darkest parts of myself, the parts that could sense what she needed from me, the parts that delighted in the idea of giving her those things.

And bit by bit, I had resurrected my wildcat, summoning her back to life like a magician summons a shade. Night after night, she came back to me and George with more of that feral perfection in her face, and night after night, I witnessed her frustrated desire growing and growing until she was practically frantic with it.

I had coaxed her back from whatever place she’d gone, and now it was time to remind her of why she would stay.

I let go of her chin.

“Mrs. Markham—” I loved calling her that, calling her by my name, and I especially loved it in moments like these, moments laced with discipline. “—there will be no need for your dress either. Please take it off.”

Her breath caught, and she hurried to obey, fumbling with her buttons and ties as I sat and picked up my wineglass, adjusting my erection as I did so. I held the glass by the stem, pretending to watch the swirling liquid while really watching her. Her long neck, her strong arms. Her delicate shoulders appearing from the husk of her discarded dress. The compressed curves of her breasts and the narrow lines of her waist.

She was undeniably beautiful like this…but she was more beautiful naked. I wanted all of her newly ripe flesh available for me to squeeze and plump, I wanted to run my fingers over every inch of soft skin, I wanted to trace the marks on her stomach, knowing that I put them there when I planted my child in her belly.

“Continue undressing, Mrs. Markham. I’ll wait.”

I savored my wine—a good red, laid down by my grandfather—and watched her progress, watched as she shucked her snowy white nursing corset and lace-trimmed petticoats until she was fully exposed to me, the flush on her cheeks mirrored by the one creeping up her chest.

Finally, she stood completely naked, too aroused to be shy, too far gone in her own lust to question me.

Which was exactly what I wanted.

“Bend over the table, Mrs. Markham. No, not there, here. In front of me. I want to see your cunt while I finish my wine.”

Slowly she stepped in front of me and slowly she bent over, stretching her arms out in front of her so that her back was flat enough that I could have balanced my wine glass on it if I’d wanted to. The table was just high enough that she had to stand on the balls of her feet to bend at her hips, and I wanted to devour the lines of quivering muscle that ran from her calves to her ass and then press my face between her legs and devour the silky wet heat there. And then I would stand up, unfasten my trousers and stab into her without any warning…

I ran a palm over my throbbing hardness, letting out a silent breath and willing myself back to complete self-control. I had denied myself these past days along with her, and I was full to bursting with the need to fuck this woman.

But the need to punish her was stronger, and so I would wait. I would feed the monster before I fed the husband.

I took my time finishing my wine, enjoying how every moment without my touch, without my voice, seemed to unravel her. I could see her fighting the urge to turn her head and look at me, biting her lip to keep from speaking, which was a very good wildcat, very good indeed.

I drained the wine and set the glass down as I stood up. I had planned on eating my dinner at a leisurely pace, on making her suffer more, but I couldn’t sit still a minute longer with her like this: legs shaking, ass up, pussy so close and so, so inviting…

I unknotted my tie, grateful she couldn’t see how painfully hard I was, how my fingers shook as I yanked the fabric away from my neck. I managed to master myself enough to keep my hand steady as I ran it up her flank and over the curve of her ass, up to the delicate nape of her neck.

“Ivy Markham,” I said, said it as if I were introducing her to an audience. “Ivy Markham. My
wife
.”

Her control fractured and she turned her head to peer up at me, her dark eyes wide and pleading. If I hadn’t already been hard, that look would have done me in.

She shrieked as my hand came down on her ass, hard enough that it stung my palm and I could see the livid lines of each finger on her skin. My cock twitched against my trousers, begging to be let free. I spanked her again, and again, and again, my breathing growing more ragged with exertion and arousal, my stomach clenching into a hot fist of angry desire.

I was angry. Yes, I could feel it, such a twin passion to lust, both so fiery, so energetic, both restless, agitating, primal feelings.

She could feel my anger too, I could tell, as her ass glowed red. Tears were sliding slow and silent from her eyes, dripping onto the tablecloth, and God, I wanted to lick those tears. I wanted to swallow her cries. I never considered myself a sadist—I preferred control, not pain—but in that moment, where the cost of four months of alienation and longing finally reared its ugly head, there was something so deeply, deeply moving about her offering physical pain to me, about her letting me exorcise this on her willing body. It scratched an itch somewhere so deep inside that I’d hadn’t known it was there, and I felt drunk with the relief of it.

I paused my work and took a deep breath, closing my eyes for a minute. Not because I was afraid of hurting her—she knew what to say to get me to stop—and because even as undone and raw as I was at this moment, I still knew her limits and my own strength. No, I needed a moment because if I kept going, I was going to abandon all of my plans and fuck her right now. And while I knew it would be delicious and healing, I wanted more than healing. I wanted renewal. I wanted rebirth.

When I opened my eyes, they fell on the bottle of oil near the center of the table, kept for vegetables and bread, and I entertained the brief but intoxicating fantasy of drizzling that oil on her most intimate parts, of working it into her ass and then fucking her there in a fit of hot, slippery glory.

I forced myself back. The monster before the husband, I reminded myself. There would be time for both.

Instead, I bent myself over her body, pressing my rigid dick against her naked ass as I spoke low in her ear. “All this time that you’ve been lost to me, you’ve never spoken your signal.”

My face was so close to hers that I felt rather than saw the confusion break through her mindless sensation. “What?” she asked, voice cracking.

I let my fingers trail over her hip and then back down to her ass. I slid my hand between my pelvis and hers, finding the tight, dry pucker I’d just fantasized about, and then dropping farther down to her slick, swollen cunt.

“Think about it, Mrs. Markham. All the times you shut yourself off from me, all the times in the past four months that you’ve laid back and became nothing more than an inanimate doll—why did you not simply tell me
no
? Why not use your safe word, when you know that I’d always honor it?”

“I…” Her voice was shaky and indistinct, as if she were struggling to formulate thoughts. “I…wanted to be a good spouse. I wanted you to get what you needed.”

There
…I found her clit, now a ripe little bundle, practically begging to be rubbed, pinched, plucked. I grazed a fingertip past her, so lightly as to barely touch her at all, and she moaned loudly into the table.

“See, I don’t think that’s true,” I told her. “I think that’s what you told yourself. I think that’s maybe even what you still believe. But deep down, there is another answer. The real answer. Do you know what it is?”

I shoved two fingers past the soft lips guarding her entrance, shoved them in deep. She moaned again, rolling her face against the table.

“I don’t know,” she managed, her feet scrabbling adorably at the carpet in her effort to open her legs wider, raise her hips higher to me.

“Yes, you do.” Leaving my fingers in her, I straightened and used my other hand to smack her ass again. She gasped, and then I took my fingers from her pussy and rubbed around her other entrance, using her own wetness to ease a finger inside, then two. She was trying and failing to catch her breath, her fingers turning into claws, twisting into the tablecloth. Wine glasses and vases of flowers were knocked over, and the sound of that coupled with the feeling of her ass like a scorching furnace around my finger was enough to break my resolve.
Just a touch.
That wouldn’t throw anything off, certainly, just a few strokes in and out to head off this desire and keep my head clear.

I reached down and unfastened my trousers, my dick tilting forward, but still pointing almost straight up. In a moment’s work, I had the oil in hand and spread around the crinkled skin, my shaft also covered with a glossy sheen, ready to take her dark flesh.

I pressed the head of my cock against her and she cried out.

“Yes,” she whimpered. “Yes, yes, yes.”

“Careful with that word, Mrs. Markham,” I said, halting my movement. “You don’t know what you’re saying yes to.”

“I’m saying yes to
you
, Julian,” she said, and it was so open, so vulnerable, the way she said my name, that all of my anger and all of my lust was now bound up with the tenderest feelings that a man can have for a woman. My precious wildcat, my sweet wife, whom I had vowed to take care of and whom I’d failed these last months.

No more.

I gritted my teeth and leaned forward, the sensation of her tight, tight skin giving way enough to make my balls tighten, and I wasn’t even inside yet.

“You didn’t answer my question from before.”

I talked as I pushed, going so slowly that it would almost be like I wasn’t moving at all, except I could see the incremental progress as her body swallowed my dick, took it deep within herself. She cried out as the wide crest of my cock finally pushed past the initial resistance, and I gave a little hiss, but I continued with my lecture.

“You know what I think? I think you didn’t use our signal because you wanted me to come after you. You wanted me to take you like you needed to be taken—roughly, without question, completely subject to my discipline. You needed me to crack open the shell of motherhood and let the wildcat back out, and instead, I let you fester inside of it.”

I finally slid home, buried to the balls, and her skin was so hot, so tight, and would I ever get enough of every part of her? Especially now that her body was so much fuller, so much riper, a body that begged to be kneaded and worshipped—and fuck, she was bucking into me, her body stroking me as I stayed still, and I was going to come right here and now if she didn’t stop, I was going to shoot my load in her beautiful ass, and I had other plans for it…and for her.

I pressed the flat of my palm against her back. “Be still, Mrs. Markham. Or I will pull out right now.”

She froze, but small sounds emitted from her throat that betrayed her abject distress.

“Now, where was I? Ah yes. You needed me, you were telling me precisely how you needed me by not using your signal, and I failed you. And for that, my wife, I am so, so sorry. It was my duty—my vow—to keep you and care for you, to break you and put the pieces back together every day for as long as we both lived…and instead, I coddled you. I treated you the very way you needed to be shown that you were not—I treated you as if you were fragile, as if you were powerless, as if you were weak. When all along, you needed me to show you how strong, how magnificent, how fucking beautifully powerful you are.”

She was crying now, crying from my words instead of my hands, and I leaned over her again to slide my arms underneath her and raise her up to a standing position. I had to bend my knees to keep inside of her, but fuck, the change in angle and the weight of her breasts in my hands had me nearly weeping too, trembling with the urge to fuck her hard. Especially when I felt those breasts grow heavier, when I felt her shudder, and then felt the wet warmth of her leaking against my palms. I knew many men shied away from this aspect of child-rearing, but I did not, because knowing that this sweet milky warmth was for the child that she had given me made me painfully, viciously aroused. The primeval male in me growled with pleasure, with the urge to create more babies with her, with the blind need to spill my seed inside my mate.