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Eventually, he achieved a lengthy, vigorous climax, one to match her own, and emptied into her. She flopped across the table, spread-eagled and messy. The robust table had held them both, and she ventured it had been chosen for such a purpose, as had the other furniture. She opened her eyes. He was there, panting above her head, his knees either side of her hips, one hand bound to her hair, the other holding her wrist behind her back, just as he had done when he spanked her.
“Ye gods,” he said, breathless. “Are you alright?”
He asked the question as if he himself had awoken from a dream.
“Yes,” she murmured. “But I would like some room to breathe.”
He laughed. “Agreed.” He removed himself off the top of the table and brought over his cloak. Their clothes lay strewn about the room, including the shirt he had used to tie her wrists together while he fucked her on the bench. She remembered bits and pieces, fragments that in retrospect might never come together to create a complete picture.
He helped her off the table and slowly, they dressed. He watched her like his hawk, as if aware she might collapse in a heap of exhaustion, which she felt close to achieving.
“I can walk,” she said. “With your help.”
He aided her down the stairs, across the courtyard, and to her chamber. He summoned Sara.
“Take good care of your mistress. You must know that she might be delicate in body, but she’s strong in heart. Remember that, Sara, when you bathe her. Do not judge me.” He paused by the door.
Matilda, finding her legs steadier, curtsied low and rising, offered him a beaming smile. “You judged me perfectly, sir.”
Chapter Twenty
“You survived a week of harnessing, you should be pro
ud of yourself.” He stretched out on the bed with one arm tucked under his head, the other tucked around her shoulders.
Matilda wriggled closer and used the tip of her forefinger to trace the musculature of his lithe frame, noting the puckered white scars and strange claw marks above one nipple. Three deep lacerations scratched into his flesh, so deep they had left a permanent mark.
“A week of profound torment,” she said lazily.
He guffawed. “I kept it slack during the day, and without the phalluses to impede your movements, and you did admit you found the gentle rub between your thighs... What was the word?”
“Torturous? Unbearable?”
“No, no. You said indulgent.”
“Undignified, I think was the actual word.” She had thought of many others, but kept them to herself.
“You tolerated it to such an extent, the mere tightening of the straps brought you whimpering to your knees begging for my cock.”
It had, and the shame of that moment lived on.
“My lord, it was a sufferance I bore for your pleasure,” she said, her finger now moving along the line of each rib.
“If that is the case, then I shall burn it, and—”
She propped herself up one elbow and stared down at him. He was grinning, his eyes sparkling with amusement, his teeth flashing in the light of the solitary candle.
“I don’t believe you would, sir. I think you know it will bring me to my knees at the mere sight of it.”
“Then, we shall keep it for special occasions. Perhaps our wedding night?” He raised his eyebrows.
She lowered herself into the crook of his arm and fell silent. A week of constant arousal, fed by the salacious use of a simple harness, and she had succumbed to its effect on her libido without protest. There had been no guests to the castles to admire her grace and fortitude, and if the servants suspected her dreamlike expression was due to lack of sleep, they were half-correct. The visits to her lord’s bedchamber had crept longer into the night, allowing her, like now, to probe him a little with conversation. Eventually, sleep would mean her departure. He refused to countenance her presence in his bed while he slept, and that was one condition of marriage she would request—they woke together at dawn in the same bed.
Marriage remained a distant goal for Matilda. Gervais was her lover, her teacher, and master, but not her husband. And while she appreciated the tender moments when he spoilt her with affectionate words and caresses, they were infrequent.
Geoffrey’s letters were arriving more often.
Her distant admirer continued to fill his missives with poetry. He was now ambulatory but unable to ride. He wished she was with him, and hoped that ‘upon his recovery, she would renew their courtship and bring to him great hope for the future.’ In her replies, she made no mention of her situation, her location, or why she could not visit him. She referred all of his enquiries to her father. It had been his decision to place her in this quandary; he could deal with the complications.
