“I am sorry for pretending to be ill, but I think I will need this milk if I want to fall asleep tonight.”
“Ah, but you said that you areveryill. You had your maid running across the corridors late at night. Since you are feeling so poorly, you must remain in bed. Yes, feverish and breathless people should remain bedridden. It is for your own good. For your health and recovery.”
Even as he said those words, he reached for the silk sash of her discarded coat. Madeline’s eyes widened as he took the sash and used it to tie her wrists around the carved posts of her bed.
“W-what are you doing?” she asked.
She did not remember the whole exercise to be about her fears, but his.
“You would not dare!” She gave one half-hearted tug against his grip—enough to prove she could have pulled free if she truly wished it. Then she went still, her heart hammering, and let him work the knot.
“You went to such lengths to have Gertie call me to run to your aid. I am here now, dear wife. Let us make you feel better. These efforts should not go to waste. You have my undivided attention now.”
“And what do you intend to do with me now?” she asked, as she saw him take another sash from her chair. Surely, one sash to tie her wrists was enough?
She was not afraid of him, either, even as frustration grew within her. His proximity and her immobility made her more aware of him.
“I do not believe you will behave if you can escape from your bed,” he murmured as he pulled at her ankles gently until he was able to tie them to the bedpost.
“This is outrageous.” But the protest came out closer to a laugh than a command, and she made no real effort to pull free. “I... Is this another way for you to punish me?”
“Oh no, Madeline. I am simply helping you get better. You are too weak to stand and walk away from this room,” Kenneth said, tightening the last knot that had her left foot tied to a footpost. His hand lingered on the curve of her instep. The mere touch had her trembling. Anticipating.
Kenneth then watched her, as if proud of his handiwork. Madeline lay spread-eagled against her bed, her hair creating a halo over her head. She could imagine what he was seeing: a woman with flushed cheeks who might have a fever if not for the determination in her face.
Then he stilled, and his eyes found hers, all teasing gone for a moment. “Tell me to stop, Madeline. One word from you, and this ends. I untie you and leave you to your warm milk.” He waited. “Shall I stop?”
She held his gaze. Her pulse was wild, her cheeks hot, and they both knew the truth before she spoke it.
“No,” she whispered.
“That is a good girl,” Kenneth said. “Now, let us give you the attention you need.”
“I... Is this part of our duties?” she asked, her words and tone giving out a challenge.
“Oh, no,” he said, as he leaned closer to her. He sat by her side, his lips brushing her temple. “This is a lesson. Consequences should be learned.”
Kenneth rested his hand on her bound ankle and dragged it slowly upward—over her calf, behind her knee, up the soft inside of her thigh—stopping just short of where she had already begun, traitorously, to ache and slicken for him. He watched her face the whole time, missing nothing.
“You went to a great deal of trouble for my attention tonight,” he murmured. “It would be ungentlemanly of me to rush.”
“Kenneth—”
“Patience, wife.” His knuckles grazed the crease of her thigh, a breath away from her sex, and her hips bucked up to chase him. He pulled back at once. “Be still, or I will make you wait all night. You asked whether I feel anything. Let us find out whatyoufeel first.”
He gathered her nightgown up to her waist, baring her to the firelight. Then he sat at her hip and laid his palm flat on her belly, his thumb tracing idle circles toward the crease of her thigh and away again, stopping, every time, just short of where she was wet and swollen and desperate.
“Kenneth, I... I cannot.”
“What is that? Are you dripping for me, Madeline?” he asked, his fingers gliding through the slickness at the top of her thigh without ever touching where she needed. “I have scarcely touched you. So much fire, from a woman who claims she will not give herself to me.”
“You are insufferable,” she gasped.
“And yet...” He drew one finger up through her slick folds, feather-light, circling close to where she throbbed and then retreating before she could grind against it. She groaned in frustration. “Tell me what you want, Madeline.”
She turned her face into her arm, as her pride was at war with the unbearable wanting. He only waited, idle, tracing lazy patterns over her thigh, until the need burned the last of her resistance to ash.
“Please,” she breathed.
