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I swallowed, remembering how, in his hands, that paddle had become the instrument of the devil. I had wanted him to use it on me. I wanted it still. But that didn’t stop me from trembling a bit in anticipation of the pain. “Yes, my laird…”
I rose to fetch it, my legs a bit wobbly under me as I contemplated both the way being spanked with it was likely to make me cry, but also relieve me of my guilt. Very humbly, I laid the paddle on the laird’s plaid-covered lap, then waited for him to make his move.
He pushed his queen into place, lifting his eyes to me. “I very much enjoy paddling you, Heather.”
I nodded, my eyes dropping to the floor.
He reached for my hand. “It’s a good tool that both serves as a true deterrent to misbehavior while giving us both so much pleasure as it did before, is it not?”
I nodded again, silently.
“But, lass, it’s not the only means I have of disciplining you. And asking you to bend over my knee is not the hardest thing I will ever ask of you.”
I felt a quiver of arousal in my belly at those words. What was so very wrong with me that whenever the laird proposed to do some dark and wicked thing, I was not only frightened, but filled with a pulsing, throbbing, desire to experience it? Surely the churchmen would condemn me for it. But then, as a harlot, I supposed I did not need to worry what the churchmen thought!
“Lass,” the laird said, very seriously. “I must ask for your obedience tonight.”
Quite proudly, I asked, “Have I ever disobeyed you, my laird?”
He raised a brow, then smiled. “Once.”
I gasped, my pride stung. “When?” I demanded to know.
“The first time you took me into your mouth,” he said, pulling me forward to kiss the tip of my nose with amusement. “I feared I would finish upon your tongue. And I told you to stop but—”
“Oh, no!” I cried, burning with sudden embarrassment and arousal at the memory of how eagerly I’d sucked him, marveling at the taste, the weight, and the feel of his member in my mouth.
I had disobeyed. Worse, I might do it again in the same situation…
He chuckled at my mortification. “You say oh, no! I say, oh, aye. And you swallowed my seed down, because you told me that to do otherwise would have seemed contemptuous…”
“I won’t disobey you again,” I promised, fervently believing it. “If I do, you must punish me as you should have punished me then.”
“T’was a minor matter, my sweet. I was so charmed—and so sated—that I would never count such delicious defiance against you. But the things I will ask of you henceforth, well, they matter a great deal more. It’s very important to me that you obey me, Heather. So I must know, before the the matter comes to a head, if you will resist my commands.”
It was important for me to be seen obeying him. He was the laird; he did not like to be disobeyed by anyone, but he it would cause him mortification if anyone should ever see me do it. At a time he needed sorely not to be challenged by anyone in the castle, I certainly would not challenge him. “I will never resist you,” I said, heartened to think that it was not merely his pride that made it so important—but also my own. It had become a matter of trust between us. It was our bond. Our promise to one another. The more I gave myself over to him in surrender, the better he seemed to care for me.
As if to prove it, the laird set the paddle aside, then drew me to him, so that I was kneeling upon the woven rug, my body wedged between his knees. “Do you remember, Heather, that I told you once I might share you with my men?”
It was good that I was kneeling because the world felt suddenly swept out beneath me. My chest tightened because I did remember it, though it seemed a lifetime ago. He had said this before taking my maidenhead. But afterward, he had also said that he might love me, and that he was not apt to share. Had this changed? “I remember…”
“You told me that you were mine to take or to give away.”
I nodded, numbly, remembering that too.
“Do you still feel this way?” the laird asked.
This question unleashed inside me a vicious war between the naive girl who foolishly wanted to be the laird’s lady love and the wanton woman who desired for him to do with me as he pleased. Still, I did not want him to share me. I didn’t want to have any man’s hands on me but his. I loved him with every part of my being. I loved him and only him. I had taken my pride and my solace in pretending to be less a harlot than his beloved mistress. But now he wanted to give me away?
Tears sprang to my eyes as I fought with my answer.
But there was only one answer. “I am yours, my laird. I have pledged it.”
He narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing every line of my face. “Even if it should please me to share you with another man?”
He should have accepted my answer and not pressed me. I was too fragile. Too swiftly becoming unravelled. And still blinking back tears, I whispered, harshly, “Aye, but why should it please you?”
His stern gaze softened. “Because it is an act of largesse from me to my men and because I enjoy the way a lass writhes when she feels entirely overpowered. I like listening to her try to stifle lustful cries that eventually overwhelm her as she tries to pleasure more than one man. When I have done it before…well, I told you that I like to leave my mark on a woman. Sharing her leaves a mark on the inside. Like a brand. Nothing can make her understand better that she belongs to me.”
