The Bride of Larkspear Read Online Free PDF Page A

this morning. You will simply have to suffer the sight of me doing unspeakable things to you.”
    I go to my room via the connecting door and return with a sketchpad and a stick of charcoal. I pull a chair next to the bed, open my sketchpad, and survey her willowy form. I have always wanted to draw her. But rather than her breasts and thighs, perfect as they are, I yearn to capture the vibrancy of her eyes and the subtle sensuality of her lips. To capture the essence of her, all that fearlessness—the lioness within.
    Not that it is a hardship to sketch her nakedness. I settle into a comfortable rhythm, outlining her silhouette, then filling in the details, smearing the charcoal to define light and shadows. But I forget myself for a moment when it comes to her face. She has her eyes on the cherubs on the ceiling, and I gaze at her. And gaze at her. And gaze at her.
    Suddenly she turns her head and our eyes meet. Alarm rings in my ears—she could not possibly have failed to see the longing on my face.
    She studies me intently, then smiles a little. The lioness has scented blood in the air. She might not move in for the kill yet, but she is now on the hunt.
    Almost without thinking, I strike first. “I see your nipples are hard again. Are they always hard for me?”
    Time slows as our gazes continue to hold. I can almost count her lashes, each several shades darker than the color of her bright red hair. Her irises are not just green, but streaked with grey and black. And as I watch, her pupils dilate.
    In an almost theatrical gesture, she lifts her free hand and settles it on her breast; her nipple peeks out from between her index and middle fingers. My already tumescent cock hardens completely.
    “That is what you would like to think, wouldn’t you?” she murmurs, as she squeezes her nipple with the sides of her fingers. “Is that why you didn’t put a blindfold on me? So that it will be more difficult for me to imagine you as someone else? I do not think that is working at all.”
    It stings. But the way she plays with herself, her motion fluid and deliberate, makes it obvious she doesn’t just want to anger me; she wants to arouse me.
    I know why she wants to anger me—she is still furious that we live in a world where she has no choice but to marry me to save herself from the consequences of a sexual indiscretion. But why does she want to
arouse
me?
    I remain on the offensive to hide my puzzlement. “I have an idea to whom I should send that particular sketch. Do you think the man who ruined you will be overjoyed to see you so well settled in marriage?”
    Her voice tightens. “You are willing to let another man see that you must tie down your bride?”
    “He will see no such thing. All he will infer is that my bride is willing to be trussed for my pleasure. It might even excite him. Do you think he will stroke himself to the sight of you, naked and bound?”
    She inhales—and regroups. “I am a devoted wife; of course I will not wonder what some other man chooses to do with depictions of my naked person. I am far more concerned that you, my dear husband, might endanger your immortal soul by succumbing to such acts of depravity. Will you stroke yourself to the drawings you make of me?”
    She
is
trying to arouse me.
    And then what?
    The answer arrives in a flash of blinding clarity: Then she will try to control me with my own lust.
    I sit back in my chair. My lioness thinks fast on her feet—or on her back, as it may be. Until now her plan has been one of passive resistance, to navigate my carnal demands without having any part of her inner self touched—or sullied, from her point of view. But now she has a strategy of engagement. Now she is actively trying to shape this new reality of our lives. To her favor.
    On the one hand, I cannot be more proud of her—the woman I love is ever one to take the bull by the horns. On the other hand, this could spell disaster for me.
    “I may or may not stroke myself,”