The Bride of Larkspear Read Free

clouds.
    I bring out the black silk sash again. The first time I bound her, she’d watched passively, almost uncomprehendingly, before becoming alert to my nefarious purposes. This time, however, as I fasten her wrists to one of the thick slats in the headboard, she flicks me a look of contempt—with a twinge of disquiet, as if she hadn’t expected that I would continue to bind her.
    I could tell her the reason for the constraints: I’d rather her tied up than lying beneath me like a martyr, resisting by not resisting. But I keep it to myself.
    Once she is secured, I strip off my waistcoat and pull my shirt over my head. My years of sports at school and university have built a musculature that has often been described as strapping. My bride turns her head and inspects me, her gaze giving no clue whether my physique passes muster.
    With no warning she smiles. I feel a distinct chill in my marrow.
    “Showing off, are we, Larkspear?”
    “Is there a man who doesn’t take off his clothes on his wedding night?”
    “You need not try to impress me, my lord,” she says, her tone as light as a soufflé. “I will never care for any aspect of you.”
    It is a cold, long knife that twists in my kidney. She might not know exactly what I plan to do, but she means to deny me success in every endeavor.
    Suddenly it is almost impossible to keep up the façade of the blithe cad who just wants to fuck her for fun. I hold up another length of black silk sash. “Let’s make this a little more interesting, shall we? Besides, I do care so very much for my masculine modesty.”
    Before she can offer any commentary, I tie the sash around her head, covering her eyes securely. And only then, when she cannot see my weakness, do I allow myself to brace my hand on the bedpost and breathe again.
    The pain in my heart is an old one: the fear that my unrequited love will always remain unrequited. That whatever I do, I will not break through this wall of ice between us that I have helped build with my words and my actions all these years.
    I stare at the blindfold itself, at the sharp contrast of dark, glossy silk against her skin. I stare at her slender throat, at the pulse I long to kiss. I stare at her gleaming shoulders, which I have stared at so often in the past, during dinners and soirées. In the firelight, she resembles a pagan sacrifice, a naked offering to the gods. My breaths grow more labored.
    “What are you waiting for?” she asks.
    Do I imagine it or is there a slight tremor to her voice? It would seem that she has misinterpreted my silence as a deliberate undertaking to make her wait while I concoct my next set of nefarious plans.
    Her breathing accelerates.
    Her nipples harden.
    All at once I am euphoric again. “I am only contemplating how wrong you will prove, my dear. You will come to like many aspects of me, and you will come to
worship
my cock.”
    I brace my hands on either side of her head and invade her mouth with mine, tasting the very tip of her tongue. She shivers, then holds perfectly still.
    “Why pretend you don’t like it? I will not think less of you for enjoying my lovemaking,” I whisper against her lips, knowing very well that it is her self-respect that worries her, not my opinions.
    “Mine is but the response of the flesh, nothing for you to crow about.”
    “Then it is nothing for you to fret about either.”
    I had a tray of fruits from the estate’s walled orchard sent up to her room. The tray now sits on her nightstand. I reach for a raspberry that was picked only hours earlier. It is tiny yet plump, a lovely deep red. I rub it against her lips.
    “What is this?”
    “Something delicious and succulent. Like you.”
    She opens her mouth and takes the raspberry—not a submissive gesture, but an aggressive one, depriving me of what she thinks of as my implement of torture. I watch as she chews, then swallows. A tiny smear of raspberry juice remains on her lower lip. I lick it, tasting the tart