If you enjoyed The Villain Duology, you might enjoy …
Submitting to the Marquis
A BDSM Regency Erotic Romance (Can be read as a standalone)
Lady Sophie Baxter must wed a wealthy lord by the end of the Season, or risk the ruin of her family. However, her father does not have just any lord in mind. He’s set his sights on Simon Fitzwilliam, Marquis of Ashton—a man known amongst the ton for being as cold and aloof as he is rich and powerful. While his frigid gaze and reserved demeanor prove intimidating, Sophie cannot help but wonder if there isn’t more to the marquis than meets the eye. Curiosity leads her to accept the marquis’ suit, and before long she learns that Simon’s secrets are far darker than she could have ever imagined. Darkest of all being the hidden chamber behind a locked door, filled with ropes, restraints, and implements of torture … a chamber her husband has specified she is never to enter.
Yet, Sophie soon discovers that what appear to be instruments of torment are capable of unlocking the most exquisite pleasure. Convincing him to teach her the ways of submitting to his dominance will be easy. Uncovering the secrets of his heart and soul will be one of the hardest things Sophie has ever done.
***Read a Sneak peek***
Sophie stopped in her tracks, turning to face him with the box held beneath one arm. “Thank you, Ashton, for an enjoyable afternoon.”
“It was my pleasure,” he replied, finding that he meant it.
He had never spent an entire afternoon in idle pursuits, but with Sophie, it hadn’t felt frivolous. It had served a purpose—to make her smile at him just as she was doing now.
“Perhaps tomorrow, we could go into town?” he suggested, hoping to seize upon her good mood. “There’s much to explore along Old Steine, and you might enjoy walking along the Royal Crescent, as well.”
She hesitated for a moment, lowering her eyes and taking her lower lip between her teeth. Simon cursed himself for a fool. Things had been going so well, but perhaps he’d attempted too much too quickly.
“If you would rather not, I understand,” he added.
Peering back up at him, she shook her head. “No, it sounds like a perfectly lovely way to spend the day. I only …”
“You are still angry with me,” he supplied when she fell silent.
She shook her head. “No. I was, but over the past few days, my ire has cooled. But … Ashton, I am so confused. I believe we get along well, don’t you?”
He felt his shoulders and spine loosening as relief stole the tension from his body. Confusion wasn’t nearly as hard to mend as anger.
“I do,” he agreed. “We are well-suited, as I knew we would be.”
“Except in one regard,” she countered. “Your predilections … I do not understand them. However, I find myself unable to stop thinking of them. I do not want them to come between us.”
Reaching out to grasp her shoulders, he held her tight. “They will not. The promise I made to you before we left London holds true. I will never engage in those activities again, nor will I make any uncouth demands of you.”
“But, they’ve already come between us,” she argued. “We might still be newly wed, but I thought we were coming to know one another. Now, I have discovered a side of you that I do not understand … that I might never understand. That saddens me.”
Wrinkling his brow, he grappled in his mind with what he was hearing. “What are you saying, Sophie?”
Taking a deep breath, she released it with a heavy sigh. “I want to understand, and I think there is only one way that I can.”
Simon fought for several seconds to open his mouth and produce words. After a while, he began to think that, truly, any words would do, so long as they were not ‘I could teach you.’
“You are asking me …”
“To teach me,” Sophie said with a firm nod. “If I am going to decide whether your … tastes are something I might appreciate, I should need proper lessons, shan’t I?”
His gut clenched while the rushing of blood away from his extremities and straight to his groin made him feel as if he might drop to his knees right there in the sand.
“Sophie … I am not certain you know what you are asking,” he managed, his voice coming out rough and thick.
“Then explain it to me,” she insisted, tilting her chin at an angle he had come to know as a stubborn one. “Were I to act as your submissive, what can I expect? How do you think I would perform under your dominance? Amelia seems to think that I have all the qualities of a good submissive.”
A pounding sensation began between his eyes, and he pinched the bridge of his nose to stifle it. “Damn Amelia, I am going to kill her.”
Never mind that his sister had been correct. He had seen in Sophie all the qualities that his sister had likely noticed. His wife would be a splendid submissive.
“Simon Fitzwilliam IV!” she cried, her voice rising as she stomped one foot in the sand. “We agreed to one personal question every day so that we might come to know one another. I am taking the liberty of asking in the light of day as opposed to the evening in our bed. You will answer me!”
“No,” he growled, taking a step closer to her and lowering his voice. “I will not.”
Damn and blast, he was succumbing to the desire causing his blood to run hot. Not the desire to make love to her, but the compulsion to throw her facedown in the sand, toss up her skirts, and spank her for daring to command him. To show her without words just what being his submissive would entail.
“I will not, because you are not to make demands of me … ever,” he continued. “You see, Sophie, that is what you should expect if I decide to allow you to act as my submissive. As a master, I require complete obedience at all times. You do not make demands … I make the demands. You will beg me for what you want, and will have it only if I decide you have earned it.”
Taking another step, he stopped once his body touched hers and reached up to take her face in his hands, his grip tight on her jaw.
“Your body would be mine to command, your pleasure subject to my whims. I would test the limits of your tolerance for pain and teach you the most exquisite pleasure you’ve ever known.”
Her lips parted, her breath coming out in short spurts. Unable to resist, he slid his thumb toward her mouth, pressing the pad against her lower lip. Opening to him, she tentatively flicked her tongue out to caress the tip. A growl simmered in his throat, and he pushed it between her lips, demanding entrance. She fastened them around him and suckled, closing her eyes as he moved his thumb in and out, in imitation of what he wanted to do with his cock. The organ in his breeches grew harder and longer, straining toward her with a mind of its own.
Simon had never been ruled by his prick, being a man of careful control. But Sophie proved enough to make him lose hold of his senses.
Pulling the thumb free, he smoothed his hand down until his palm rested against her throat. Closing his fingers around her neck, he kept a gentle but firm hold. Moving his hands up, he tightened slightly, just enough that he could feel her pulse thrumming at the base of her jaw.
“You are trying to frighten me,” she murmured, lifting her eyes to meet his gaze.
“Yes,” he agreed. “Is it working?”
“It is,” she replied. “But it is a good sort of fear, I think. The sort of fear that, once confronted, transforms into something exciting.”
God help him. What was she trying to do to him? Didn’t she understand why he could not do this? At the moment, however, he had a damned hard time recalling the reasons himself.
“I am not like other masters, Sophie,” he whispered. “There’s a darkness inside of me—”
“You have never spoken a harsh word to me in the time we have been wed,” she interjected. “Nor have you placed a harmful hand upon me. Even when I found you with Minette and Lord Tyrell, I was not truly afraid.”
“No, only disgusted,” he reminded her. “Because the things I do—the things I want to do to you—they are despicable. The look in your eyes the day you witnessed what I am capable of … I never want to see it again.”
Arching her back and pressing herself more fully against him, she smirked. “I suppose you shall have to do your best to deliver the pleasure you promised, will you not?”
The erection fighting against the front of his breeches grew painful, the blood filling the organ causing it to throb.
“Are you, or are you not, a man of precision and control in every aspect of your existence?” she asked when he did not respond.
He nodded, still incapable of speaking with the delicious temptation of her thrumming pulse beneath his fingers and her breasts seducing him with every breath she took.
“Then I trust you,” she said. “I trust you to teach me. I am your wife, Simon. If you are to act as master to someone, why should it be anyone except me?”
He flexed his fingers against her throat and pulled her even closer, until not a breath of space existed between them. She had never expressed such trust in him before. She had also never called him by his given name … and had done so now twice during this encounter.
Could he take what she offered him? Marrying her had done nothing to chase away his dark cravings. If anything, his desire for her had only exacerbated them. What could it hurt to give her just a taste of his dominance? He would be far gentler with her than any of the other women he’d mastered, and she’d never know the difference.
Lowering his head until their lips touched, he growled, “That’s ‘My Lord’ to you.”