The immensity of her uncle’s threat was so great that she had feared her own destruction. Yet her husband had faced it, encompassed it, and apparently neutralized it.
Astonishment, affection, and respect surged within her, heightening her desire.
She supposed she should have learned by now that Nathaniel’s shows of carelessness and indifference were not to be read like those of other men. Beneath the disarming surface, a powerful and efficient machinery of mind, body, and spirit operated. A bullying blunderer like her uncle could never stand against him.
“Yes, money and legal threats have taken care of the scandal sheet, and Lord Ashworth has confessed to his part in this nefarious business,” Nathaniel told her. “With the evidence I have, your uncle cannot escape the consequences of his actions. What did you think I was doing in London?”
“I… I thought you might have gone to meet some other woman,” she admitted, ashamed of her lingering suspicions about Lady Mountingdon.
“I told you there are no other women for me, Cecily,” he said, with more puzzlement than anger. “I thought you understood that.”
Any attempt to maintain a modicum of reserve or composure was useless now, and she wept in his arms all over again until all tears were exhausted.
“I’m sorry,” she said once she was able to speak. “It has been so long since I have had anyone to help me. Since my parents died, I have always had to defend myself and Mary alone. This time, it was too much for me. I thought we were lost.”
“Did I not once tell you that a husband could defend you better than you could defend yourself?” Nathaniel reminded her.
“I didn’t know you then. I didn’t know anything, Nathaniel.”
“It is my duty to take care of my wife and family,” he said, then kissed her lips very softly. “But if I ever hear you talk of leaving me again, or of imagining that I am consorting with other women, I will spank you so hard that they will hear your squeals in the servants’ hall.”
Despite everything, Cecily began to laugh.
After pulling a face of mock-sternness, Nathaniel locked the bedroom door and swept her off her feet.
The half-hour that followed was filled with joy, laughter, and the most glorious pleasure and release. Sitting on the bed, Nathaniel did raise Cecily’s skirts and spank her across his lap until her bare bottom was heated and rosy, his words and gestures both playful and firm.
“This is for thinking of leaving me, Cecily,” he told her in a roughening voice as his palms fell in a deliberate rhythm on her flesh. “And this is for thinking that there could be another woman.”
Cecily wriggled and moaned in his wonderfully secure grasp, feeling his shaft hardening and pressing against her belly. She was safe here, safe and incredibly aroused.
“Who do you belong to, Cecily?” Nathaniel demanded, spanking her again.
“You. I’m yours, Nathaniel,” she gasped and received several more spanks as mingled punishment and reward.
“Who do I belong to?” Nathaniel followed up with equal sternness.
“Me. You’re mine,” she moaned, pressing herself against his hard cock and wishing she could kiss it. “This is mine.”
“Only yours,” Nathaniel affirmed, suddenly flipping her on her hands and knees. Her breasts fell out of her bodice. “This is a lesson I think you need to learn again, and learn often.”
She heard the sound of trousers being unfastened and pulled off, and then Nathaniel’s hot, seeking cock was at her entrance as he grasped her hips.
“Ohh!”
His hot, throbbing length sank easily into her eager and slippery depths. It felt utterly right in a way she could not articulate.
“Mine,” he whispered in her ear as he ground his hips against her. “This is where I belong. Only inside you, between your thighs or between your lips. You aremywife, no one else’s.”
“Yes,” Cecily gasped. “My husband—oh, Nathaniel!”
Nathaniel began thrusting into her while stroking her sex. He moved slowly and purposefully at first until she succumbed with a loud cry.
He paused to knead her breasts through the strongest contractions, then thrust harder and faster, his vigorous ministrations contrasting with the soft rills of pleasure that followed her peak.
Soon, he groaned his own ecstasy and held her tightly to him until the throbbing of his shaft subsided.
They rolled together onto the bed in damp, laughing dishevelment, their hands seeking and finding one another and instinctively intertwining.
