The Reclaiming of Ivy Leavold (Markham Hall Book 4) Read online

“I’m saying yes to you, Julian,” she said, and it was so open, so vulnerable, the way she said my name, that all of my anger and all of my lust was now bound up with the tenderest feelings that a man can have for a woman. My precious wildcat, my sweet wife, whom I had vowed to take care of and whom I’d failed these last months.

  No more.

  I gritted my teeth and leaned forward, the sensation of her tight, tight skin giving way enough to make my balls tighten, and I wasn’t even inside yet.

  “You didn’t answer my question from before.”

  I talked as I pushed, going so slowly that it would almost be like I wasn’t moving at all, except I could see the incremental progress as her body swallowed my dick, took it deep within herself. She cried out as the wide crest of my cock finally pushed past the initial resistance, and I gave a little hiss, but I continued with my lecture.

  “You know what I think? I think you didn’t use our signal because you wanted me to come after you. You wanted me to take you like you needed to be taken—roughly, without question, completely subject to my discipline. You needed me to crack open the shell of motherhood and let the wildcat back out, and instead, I let you fester inside of it.”

  I finally slid home, buried to the balls, and her skin was so hot, so tight, and would I ever get enough of every part of her? Especially now that her body was so much fuller, so much riper, a body that begged to be kneaded and worshipped—and fuck, she was bucking into me, her body stroking me as I stayed still, and I was going to come right here and now if she didn’t stop, I was going to shoot my load in her beautiful ass, and I had other plans for it…and for her.

  I pressed the flat of my palm against her back. “Be still, Mrs. Markham. Or I will pull out right now.”

  She froze, but small sounds emitted from her throat that betrayed her abject distress.

  “Now, where was I? Ah yes. You needed me, you were telling me precisely how you needed me by not using your signal, and I failed you. And for that, my wife, I am so, so sorry. It was my duty—my vow—to keep you and care for you, to break you and put the pieces back together every day for as long as we both lived…and instead, I coddled you. I treated you the very way you needed to be shown that you were not—I treated you as if you were fragile, as if you were powerless, as if you were weak. When all along, you needed me to show you how strong, how magnificent, how fucking beautifully powerful you are.”

  She was crying now, crying from my words instead of my hands, and I leaned over her again to slide my arms underneath her and raise her up to a standing position. I had to bend my knees to keep inside of her, but fuck, the change in angle and the weight of her breasts in my hands had me nearly weeping too, trembling with the urge to fuck her hard. Especially when I felt those breasts grow heavier, when I felt her shudder, and then felt the wet warmth of her leaking against my palms. I knew many men shied away from this aspect of child-rearing, but I did not, because knowing that this sweet milky warmth was for the child that she had given me made me painfully, viciously aroused. The primeval male in me growled with pleasure, with the urge to create more babies with her, with the blind need to spill my seed inside my mate.

  Her leaking milk while I was in her ass made her cry harder. “Julian, I can’t do this. I can’t be both. I don’t know where my heart is…”

  I slid my hand up to press it against her chest. I wasn’t pumping now; I was simply inside her, against her…with her. “Your heart is mine, Ivy. To do with what I will.”

  She sobbed at the sound of her name, which I had deployed intentionally—tenderly—because she needed to know that she was still Ivy to me—still my wildcat as well as my wife. “Your heart is mine. And George’s. And your own. You are Mrs. Markham. And my wildcat. And Ivy Leavold. You can be all of these things at once.”

  “But how?” she pleaded. “How do I even start?”

  “You start like this. We start like this.” I kissed the back of her neck. “One hour at a time.”

  She didn’t answer directly, but I could feel her answer in the way she pressed against me, the way her sobs turned to mournful hiccups. And that made what I was about to do feel so unfair, so cruel, given her fragile state, but it was for the best. And besides…

  “Our hour is almost up, Mrs. Markham,” I said and I pulled out of her, wincing at the loss, my entire pelvis throbbing with the need to fuck. Oh, how good it would feel to bend her back over and just pound my way into oblivion with no regard except for my need for release…

  I turned her around, my own desperation somewhat alleviated once I saw hers scrawled across her face, alleviated with the tight stitch of love and adoration.

  “You’re not—we’re—no, Julian, we can’t stop like this.” Her chin dimpled with more tears—frustrated ones—and there was a shine of fury in the back of her eyes that did nothing to diminish my raging erection. “You can’t leave me like this, again. Tell me you aren’t. Tell me that tonight you will finish this.”

  I buttoned myself back up. “I can’t tell you that, Mrs. Markham. That would be a lie.”

  Pure rage spilled across her beautiful features, and a thrill zinged through me, straight to my balls. If I took her now—she’d scratch me and bite me and whisper dirty, angry things in my ear.

  God, I would come so fucking hard.

  It was that primeval man that stepped forward and licked—yes, licked, not kissed—the tears from her cheeks. It was him that ducked his head and ran his tongue around her erect nipple, tasting the sweet milk meant for his young. All of her—milk and tears, breasts and cunt, soul and mind—belonged to him.

  Belonged to me.

  “Get dressed,” I said as I stood straight again, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. “We only have about five minutes before Bessie will be expecting us, and I think she’d be rather shocked if you came before her like this.”

  “No,” she refused. “Not until you fuck me, properly. I won’t get dressed.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “I seem to remember you once daring me to wrestle you into your clothes. Is this you making good on that dare?”

  In the time that it took for comprehension to settle on her face, she was in my arms. She struggled, thrashing and strong, and it took a considerable amount of effort to keep her restrained while I scooped her corset from the ground and wrapped it around her waist.

  “No,” she was saying, “you can’t.”

  “Do you have a word you’d like to say to me, wildcat?” I growled in her ear.

  She stopped moving, just for a minute, which was long enough for me to hook the corset clasps in front. I used my own knee to buckle hers from behind, forcing her to the ground. She tried to wriggle free but I kept her on her stomach, planting a knee on her ass and a hand on her neck.

  Goose bumps erupted all over her body, and she whimpered into the carpet, her hips moving under my knee as she ground her clit into the floor.

  I slapped her ass. Hard. “I asked,” I breathed, finding the laces to the corset with my free hand, “if you had something you wanted to say.” I jerked the laces to tighten her corset, and she moaned, shaking her head.

  Still holding her down with my knee, I tied the tightened laces in a bow. I looked down at myself; wrestling her into her corset, pinning her down with my knee, watching her reaction to being pinned down…I was harder than ever. I stood up as she rolled over, dazed, now half-dressed.

  “Bad wildcat,” I said. “You’ve made me so hard. Come here and see what you’ve done.”

  She got to her knees, now kneeling right in front of me, and she pressed her cheek against my erection, rubbing her face against it like a cat.

  “Please,” she purred. “At least let me make you come.”

  Fuck, that was tempting. But no.

  “The hour’s up. Pull on your petticoats and dress and go fetch George. I would, but…” I glanced down at my tented trousers. “I don’t want Bessie to get the wrong idea.”

  A giggle—pure, wild, unladylike—escape
d from Ivy’s mouth, and I thought my heart would crack open with loving her so much. She was almost back.

  Julian made good on his word. He didn’t deprive me of his presence, but after George fell asleep and was placed in his cradle, Julian pulled me into bed and wrapped his strong arms around me, a gesture both loving and utilitarian—I couldn’t move my arms to touch myself or him.

  And even though his erection threatened to scorch an outline of itself against my ass, he didn’t grind against me or make any move to seek relief for it. Instead, he buried his face into my neck and fell asleep, his warm, heavy breaths so intimately, wonderfully male, that I found myself smiling as I too drifted off.

  But however intimate our sleeping snuggled together was, it was a paltry substitute for what I really needed, and I woke up the next morning to a hand grabbing my wrist. I opened my eyes to see Julian above me, George cooing on his hip.

  My husband’s face was stern, and I realized that I had been about to touch myself in my sleep. “Do I need to keep a watch on you at all hours, Mrs. Markham?” he muttered.

  I sat up and he let me go. “Sorry,” I murmured, reaching for the baby, who started babbling happily as soon as I took him and began the familiar motions of opening my gown.

  Julian himself was only half-dressed, wearing only his trousers, and I guessed that he hadn’t been awake for very long. “What are our plans for today?” I asked, eagerly, hoping they involved the nurse coming early.

  He shrugged on his shirt, the muscles of his stomach and chest and shoulders moving in a way that reignited everything in my core. “We will have our hour together at supper time.”

  “Not until supper?”

  He grinned as he buttoned his shirt. “Are you so impatient?”

  “Yes,” I said empathically. “I am. What I am I supposed to do all day until then?”

  “You’ll find something, I’m sure.” His face darkened. “Although, I will know if you’ve misbehaved, so bear that in mind, wildcat.”

  I shivered.

  After the baby was finished nursing, I set him on the floor with his rattle and I approached Julian, who’d already laid out my clothes for the day, and I let him dress me. Today, his fingers were efficient and direct—no lingering, no grazing, no teasing. And somehow, that aroused me even further, the brush of his knuckles on my back as he pulled me into my corset, the brief touch of his palms on my shoulders as he spun me around. The rough tug of his fingers in my hair…

  He leaned in to kiss me, and his lips barely touched mine before he pulled away.

  I wanted to sob at the unfairness of it all.

  The day was miserable. There was no way around it; out of all the miserable days I’d endured in my lifetime, this was in the top ten. George, at least, was as easy as ever, and I finally contented myself with spending the day splashing with him in the shallowest part of the stream, where he could sit in my lap and grab at the water with his dimpled fists and squawk at any birds foolish enough to land near us.

  The hours dragged on and on, my thoughts only about Julian, about being bent over the dining room table with his cock in my ass; about his deep, graveled voice in my ear, daring me to say my safe word; about his knee on my back as he laced up my corset.

  And then, thank God, it was time to get ready for supper. I took a quick bath and washed my hair, and changed into one of my nicest gowns—a deep scarlet silk that was almost black in places—and a ruby and diamond necklace Julian had given me on the day George was born.

  I gave George an extra squeeze as I handed him off to Bessie, and then I practically sprinted to the dining room, where I found…the butler.

  I stopped short, breathing fast, as Wilson bowed. “Mr. Markham has requested that you join him on the fourth floor.”

  Oh thank God. He hadn’t forgotten or deliberately delayed this very, very necessary interaction. I gave a quick nod to the butler and then hurried up the stairs of the central tower, up to the rarely used fourth floor, which was nothing more than a square stone room hung with tattered tapestries, drafty in the winter and broiling in the summer.

  When I arrived, Julian was standing by the window—an ancient thing of wavy, thick glass—the pink and orange light of the sunset coloring him into a vivid chiaroscuro painting. “Mrs. Markham,” he said, turning toward me. “I have something I want to show you.”

  He extended his hand and I took it, and we walked over to a tapestry, which he pulled aside to reveal a thick wooden door, a door so old that looked like it belonged inside of a fairy tale castle. He pushed it open, and then we were in a small, narrow stairwell that led straight up, and when we reached the top, he pushed open a trapdoor, and we emerged at the very top of Markham Hall, standing among the crenellations that could be so easily seen from the village and the forest.

  “This is amazing,” I breathed, moving over to the parapet to look out over our land.

  “You’re amazing,” he said, coming behind me and wrapping his arms around my waist. “And you’re mine.”

  Oh, those words. No matter how many times he said them, they still struck at the very heart of me. I turned to face him, the parapet digging into my lower back, a thrilling jolt of adrenaline racing through me as I realized it was principally Julian’s arms keeping me from toppling over the edge.

  He lowered his mouth to mine, and no truncated, businesslike kiss for him; he parted my lips and licked past my teeth, his tongue sliding against mine in a way that reminded me of how that tongue felt between my legs, and I sighed against him as my lower belly caught fire with want.

  And then he stepped back and his hands were on my shoulders, firm and not to be denied, and then I was on my knees, the rough stone of the roof catching on the silk of my dress. I didn’t care. Let it be torn to shreds, let it be destroyed, all that mattered was my Julian, what he wanted. He took off his jacket and unknotted his tie, and then took off his shirt, and the fading light only served to highlight the flat, lean muscles of his stomach, the delicious V-shaped muscles leading into his firm ass and narrow hips.

  I watched his cock slowly appear as he unfastened his trousers—the taut, straining head, the veined shaft—and then his hands were bracketing my face, and my mouth was full of him—the clean, soap smell of his skin, the slightly salty taste of his arousal.

  I moaned at the taste and feel of him, at the rough way he fucked my mouth, shoving in farther than I thought I could take him, pulling out so fast that I barely had time to breathe before he pushed in again.

  I missed this, I realized. I’d missed this so much and so deeply that I hadn’t been able to articulate it to myself, hadn’t been able to feel it as anything other than an empty restlessness in my soul. Julian was right—I had wanted him to reclaim me, I had wanted him to beat past all the minor burdens that came with changing into a mother and that added up, day after day, until they formed a wall that was almost impenetrable and dazzling in its height. I had needed him to break past that wall, tear it down brick by brick, and instead, he’d tried coaxing me over it, pampering me over it, when the real problem was that I couldn’t climb it on my own. And so we’d been on opposite sides of the wall, him growing more frustrated and desperate, me retreating into myself.

  As he continued fucking my mouth, growling things to me—it feels so good and deeper, I need deeper—and my pussy grew wetter and needier, I thought about how unique this situation must be. Most women, I supposed, needed precisely the tender attentions that Julian had tried to give me after George’s birth. But I wasn’t most women. I’d needed this, I’d needed last night. I’d needed to feel his discipline raining down on my ass in a series of sharp, stinging blows.

  I moaned again, remembering the spanking last night, and the vibrations from my throat made Julian moan too. He pulled out, his dick glistening. “Lie down,” he said hoarsely, and I did, my throat catching at the hungry way he got to his knees and dove for my skirts, clawing and pulling until his mouth pressed against my pussy in a searing kiss.


  “Oh God,” I panted, falling back, my legs falling open in a rustle of silk and lace. “Julian, if you don’t stop, I’m going to—oh—please—”

  He growled against my pussy, and I squirmed, panting, moaning, the sensation after so many days of deprivation too overwhelming to process. I could feel it, a tightening in my core, a cramping in my inner thighs, a quivering, poised thing ready to careen over the edge. And just as I felt it start to abandon itself to gravity and fall, he raised up, the monster, and wiped his mouth, and the climax hovered just out of reach.

  I whimpered. He grinned.

  There was no shirt, no tie, to grab on to, so I reached up and dug my nails into his arms, trying to pull him down to finish the job, and when he wouldn’t, I scratched my nails down his bare stomach as hard as I could. He hissed, the grin was gone, and then, without warning, he was on top of me, crushing me, his hand pinning my wrists above my head while his other hand was under my skirts, holding himself, positioning himself, and then there was the perfect, heavenly, sublime truth of his rigid dick filling me, claiming what belonged to him.

  The minute he slammed into me, my back arched off the floor and I cried out into the twilight sky, and then I bit his shoulder to stifle the rest of my cries, not wanting the whole village to hear us. My teeth sent Julian into a frenzy, and he pounded into me with a ruthless cruelty that dragged my orgasm back to the edge, all the stronger for the serrated lines of pain that came along with it.

  “Oh, I’ve missed this cunt,” he grunted, his hips flexing hard and fast between my legs. “I’ve missed making it come.”

  I could barely breathe—each breath was driven out by the relentless stabbing of his cock as soon as it was drawn—and every muscle in my body was twined so tightly that I thought I would slice clean through myself with my own orgasm, and then he moved up my body just a few inches, just enough that his pubic bone ground against my clit with each thrust, and that was it. I came. I came with four months of listlessness and isolation behind it, with four months of tame, tender sex, and the brutal weight of him against my clit and the furious fucking he was giving my pussy washed it all away, until I was lost to myself, lost to the world, lost to everything except his cock filling me and the clenching, cramping waves of pleasure that it gave me. My climax ripped up through my chest and down to my toes, over and over again, and still he kept fucking me, fucking me right into my second orgasm.