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“Rosalind—”
“Or are you the scoundrel everyone warned me you were?” Her eyes widened as she dabbed at her tears. “You’re running to India to get away from me and I’ve followed you like a fool.”
He didn’t know what broke his control. Perhaps speaking of spanking her was too much for his psyche to handle. Perhaps it was the high emotion between them or the accusation that he didn’t truly love her. That he was a scoundrel, a label that hurt ten times worse coming from her soft, sweet lips. Whatever it was, he found himself reaching for her, grasping her tightly and sitting on her bed to toss her over his lap.
“What are you doing? Marlow!”
She struggled but he collected her flailing arms easily, holding both her wrists in one hand. “You have been an incredibly bad girl,” he said, “and I’m going to spank you for it.”
“You can’t spank me. That wouldn’t be proper.”
“You want a life with me, yes? You want me for your husband. Well, I punish bad behavior with spanking. Most husbands do.”
She would be his wife. He wanted her for his wife, despite her questionable way of making it possible. So, he was giving his future wife her first spanking. Part of him wished to pause and savor the moment. The other part of him wanted to get on with it before sanity returned.
He landed the first smack over her black skirts, an opening shot to subdue and settle her. She cried out, kicking her elegant legs. He knew how to handle that. He balanced her over his left thigh and used his other leg to pin her restless ones. He wanted more than anything to throw her skirts and petticoats up and spank her bare bottom, but he understood that would be the end of him. One glimpse of her heart-shaped posterior would slay him. Even now, its contours were enticingly obvious beneath her pinned skirts.
“Let go of me,” she said, squirming against his body’s bondage.
He tightened his grip on her wrists. “I will, when you’ve been spanked as you deserve.”
“You’re not even my husband yet,” she cried as he delivered a crisp smack to each of her tensing arse cheeks. “I’m not sure I want you to be my husband anymore, if you’ll spank me for every little transgression.”
He let out a bark of laughter at “little transgression.”
“That’s a shame, darling Rosalind, considering your situation.” He began to spank her in earnest, because she was lovely and vital, and so secretly naughty beneath her prim, proper posturing. This was his soon-to-be wife’s first official punishment. He would go slow, be steady, and make it last because she deserved it. Then, maybe then, he could think straight again.
*
Rosalind couldn’t believe Marlow was spanking her. She’d been raised in a home where disciplinary infractions sometimes called for corporal punishment, but that had been her papa’s right. The few times she’d been summoned to his study, it had been a businesslike process, a stern lecture and instructions to bend over a bench for a few strokes of the paddle or birch.
She’d never been thrown over a lap and held tight this way, and spanked with an open palm until the pain built to horrible levels. Marlow had no right to spank her this way, no matter what she’d done.
“Please! Oww!”
“Hush, darling, or someone will hear.”
Someone must already hear, the way he was smacking her bottom, but she bit her lip to stop her cries, realizing the last thing she wanted was for someone to break in her door and check on her safety. She still flailed each time his hand landed against her hindquarters.
This was not the sort of reunion she’d expected with her love, her Marlow. Tears ran down her cheeks, partly from the pain and humiliation of being spanked like a child, but partly from the sense of betrayal. After all the risks she’d taken, after the way she’d upended her life for him, he wasn’t grateful. He was furious.
“I’ll go home,” she said, trying to pull away. “If you don’t want me, I’ll go home at the first opportunity—”
“How? How will you go home?” The spanking intensified. “We’re in the middle of the Algerian Sea, Rosalind. You’re not going anywhere but over my lap for the moment.”
“Ow. I’m sorry. Please! I can’t go back and change anything now.”
She squirmed, arching to look back at him. How stern he looked, yet so handsome. Oh, how could she still find him handsome at a time like this? She turned away, moaning at the throbbing fire in her cheeks. He stopped, resting his hand atop her bottom.
“You believe I’m being too strict with you?”
“Yes! You are.”
“But you’ve done a terribly misguided thing. It was bad of you, Rosalind.”
“I know. I only thought…I thought you would be happy. I thought…” She cried in earnest. “I hoped you would want me.”
“My dear love, I do want you.” He groaned and righted her, settling her in his lap. “I’m happy you’re here but I’m scandalized too. Can you understand that?” He rubbed her back as she shifted on her sore bottom. “You have been scandalous, Lady Rosalind Lionel. You deserved to be punished for it.”
