Doctor's Orders Ch. 03

first, thank you so much for your comments! they've helped enormously! i needed the validation, seriously!

parosysm is a period accurate word used in porn of the time (if you like stepsister hentai, you will love victorian porn)... its root is similar to paroxysm but it is a separate, if antiquated word... i do have a thing about trying to balance historical speech without awkwardness but nit using modern idiom too much!

lastly: this is histfic, the characters live before safe bdsm practices exist. please do not take them as a role model couple, this is fantasy, make sure any bdsm relationship is based on the absolute trust that safe words will be obeyed, that the sex is safe, and that the dynamic is healthy! do not isolate yourself! stay safe and happy, my loves!

anyway, onto what you're here for!

***

Chapter Three: An Assignation

"A letter, m'm," their household servant, Fanning, set it down beside her plate and Dorothea smiled up at her.

"Thank you, Fanning. Do you know if Mama has plans today?" She bent and then broke the wax and unfolded the page, curious at the handwriting.

Her eyes dropped to the signature, but it was absent, so she started to read and her world seized. Time stopped and her blood drained from her head and then rushed back to her cheeks.

Anthony.

"--, miss."

She raised wide eyes to Fanning and managed a word of thanks and assurance that she was fine with her tea and crumpets. Her hands shook as she watched the upright woman leave the room, calling to their footman to help her with a pre-arranged task.

Dorothea spread the page on the tablecloth, her hands were shaking too hard to read it and she was desperate to know he had not rejected her letter. Desperate to know what he thought of her. As she read her body throbbed with heat. His words made her trembling turn to shivering delight and the images he conjured made her squirm in her seat, feeling her own wetness between her legs as she thought of him pleasuring himself -- however a man did such a thing alone -- because of her and her words. Her mouth gaped, her tongue feeling too big within it as she reread the beautiful way he described her. Her breasts felt heavy and almost swollen against her chemise.

He was glad. He had given his address so they could continue their naughty letters but left off his name to spare her potential scandal. He wanted her body, the body she had learned to despise from a lifetime of comparison to others and a lifetime of tacit rejection from the men she interacted with, the body she now revelled in as it shook and melted and tingled.

For the first time in her life she understood what it meant to be naked beneath one's clothes. To be so aware of her own body that she could imagine his fingers on every inch of her skin. She only wished she could know what it felt like to have his tongue where his fingers had been. She put her own fingers to her mouth and touched her tongue, tracing the middle valley to the almost pointed tip.

I want you, Dorothea.

His raw-boned, bearded face came to her mind with one of those reassuring, polite, but arousing smiles. To know that he had been fighting his desire for her all that time made her so utterly, blissfully happy. She would have been honoured for any man to feel as he did, but that a man so handsome, so big and strong with his barrel chest and broad frame, his brown eyes that made her feel centred and his hands that had taught her to relax and let herself exist. God, she wanted his great weight on her, pushing her down, anchoring her in place while he kissed and bit her breast as he had during their-- her last session.

She reread the part where he had been writing and holding himself and a breathy moan escaped her, brushing past the fingers that lingered at her lips.

"Good morning, my sweet!" Her mother's arrival made her jump and she snatched the letter away from the table without thinking how guilty that made her look.

"Good morning, mother!" Her voice shook and it drew a frown.

"You sound anxious again, dearest," her mother's enquiries had always had the power to make even the slightest nerves accelerate. Cold, clammy anxiety began to swamp out the burgeoning desire.

"A little, mother," she folded the letter and slipped it into one of her capacious pockets. "What are your plans for today?"

A man had pleasured himself to the thought of her body, and said body was thrumming with need and want and memories of his fingers delving deep within her even if her mind was enerved, and coming down from that to talk calmly to her mother about the charity meeting Dorothea never went to -- choosing to contribute but not debate and chatter at the social gatherings -- was herculean. She did not want to focus on anything but the letter. She wanted to skip ahead to her mother's absence when she could touch herself and write to him again. She wanted to not have to feel wanting again.

Then her mother gulped her tea and waved a finger.

"By the by, I am out again tonight, my dear. I was thinking of taking my evening bodice to Mrs Cattering's as I am to dine with her before we head to the Mainwarings together. You are of course--" Her mother met her gaze and smiled understandingly, only a little pityingly. "You know I must offer. I do not mean to pressure you. I know you do not like to be out with people!"

She would be in front of a room of strangers and not mind a bit. After all, there was a whole galaxy of difference between polite conversation with judgemental socialites and not having to say anything but perhaps please, thank you, and yes, Mr Halloway.

"I shall be fine, Mama," she promised, her mind daring her, challenging her to prove the sessions with Dr Bridger and Mr Halloway were working. "I might even visit a friend this afternoon. It will save Cook the trouble of making dinner for just me."

Her fingers danced, twitching and flickering under the table. She could do this. She could absolutely do this.

"I have some letters to write, Mama, may I abandon you?"

Once in her room she locked her door and flew to her davenport, drawing out the letter once more and smoothing it on the leather surface. She had no wish to divest herself of all her layers in case one of her mother's maids entered or the woman herself, and the risk of telltale creases in her skirt made her twist her mouth in frustration. Then she paused, her head tilting. Perhaps... would he like that?

Sir,

I wish your letter had arrived while I slept, since I am fully attired and my corset, petticoats, bodice and all prevent me from the 'prep' I wish to practice. I do so wish to be a good student for you. Your letter--

She stopped, rereading the incendiary words and forcing a good half of her fist into her mouth to stifle the whimpers of pleasure not being satisfied as even thinking what she wanted to write sent a bolt of electricity up from her seat.

--has left me both strengthened in resolve and relaxation and utterly shattered in peace of mind. My body, sir, it shakes. A fever burns my cheeks, my throat, my breasts. Weight settles between my legs as I feel the wetness you evoke preparing me for your hand. You are not here.

Another shiver wracked her. She would go happily mad for the chance to keep these letters going.

But since I am alone this afternoon and this evening--

She stopped. Anxiety finally did rise and she forced her arousal to front of her mind, thinking of his hands, his eyes, knowing now that he had wanted to take her body under his perhaps for months while she had been dying for want of him. She would not be nervous. She would not back down from this challenge. She wanted it.

She deserved it.

I thought to make use of the address you foolishly allowed me. How silly of you, sir, to teach me confidence and then tantalise me with a place I might visit without being overheard by my mother's servants. A place where I might prepare for the exhibition. In truth, sincerely, I am a little nervous of doing something wrong or asking foolish questions before D. B.

And I want you too, sir. Desperately.

I fear that everyone I pass will see my desire. It tingles through me like electricity through lightening. I am hot and ready for whatever you deign to bestow.

It was not as passionate, but she had to trust that he knew her well enough to read both her nerves and her attempts to quash them. Feverishly, she tapped her left hand against the davenport, her nerves not as unpleasant as they usually were. Was this, perhaps, anticipation? It was!

Thinking of you and anticipating tonight, however long I must wait for your return to your lodgings.

She hesitated. He had not signed his letter, though her name had been scattered throughout it. Was that the way such letters were written? Or was he perhaps so wrapped up in thinking of her that he had merely not thought to sign off?

A penny paid to a post boy and she was stuck waiting for either a response or nightfall, so she threw herself into household chores, forcing her way through the accounts that she struggled with but had taken responsibility of to spare her mother's eyesight. Dorothea spent the rest of the morning on edge, but she kept her demon of panic at bay with thoughts of brown eyes and calloused hands that could be both gentle and implacable.

Shortly after two o'clock the footman brought her a scrap of paper, sealed.

Wear your new combinations. A.

Dorothea's knees gave way but her heart soared.

She pressed one hand against a wall and the other against her stomach, glad she had worn those lacy delights for her own sake that morning. He would see them.

Pausing as she left, hat on head and coat closely buttoned, she wondered suddenly if he would kiss her.

A fluttering very like anxiety made her heart feel like a trapped sparrow for just a moment. She reached into her coat pocket and gripped the letter and note. Drawing them out, she tucked them into her left glove so she could be constantly reminded that he wanted her there, that he expected her.

***

Sitting, watching his door, Anthony let his heart pound and his fingers twitch with impatience and anticipation. He felt odd. Giddy. Filled with a satisfied joy he had not experienced since he was a student. A feeling that life was manageable, worth the effort. Bridger had helped, finding Anthony through the rumours surrounding his dismissal while lecturing. The wrong woman had caught his attention. Snared his attention: she had been so very determined. And she had loved every moment they were together until she sank into his arms in bliss, naked and slick with sweat and their jism.

Only for her brother to return to the house. An absent brother. She had panicked, accused him of defiling her, and the argument and bitterness that had followed resulted in her pretending the flogger had been his and not hers, and him struck from practice of medicine.

With her it had been mischief. Fun and exciting mischief.

With Dorothea?

With Dorothea there was a deep, deep undercurrent of passion. With her it was not about technique and the scientific application of pressure to the body's natural switches, it was about watching her face and listening to her cries.

And tonight, God and the girl willing, he would kiss her. He would finally taste her. In every way she would let him. A shudder passed through his body and he took a sip of his tea. He should probably have a glass of brandy but after that event alcohol had become an expense, a luxury, and a temptation. While working as a labourer for an architect who shared his proclivities and still occasionally invited him to the Molly clubs where their people mingled with those whose own tastes made them unacceptable to society, the temptation to share gin to ease the aches had been overwhelming. It would have been far too easy to sink into the life of a drunkard, to give up. Had he done so, Bridger would have arrived too late. Instead he had been given this second chance. He might not be the doctor, but he gave peace and pleasure to women tangled up in their lives' cruelty and coldness.

And he still tasted the power that made play so enjoyable, a little.

Still, he had been bitter at his own fall, angry about the strings pulled to have a consensual act turned into something deviant and selfish. He had been weary often, unable to sleep with the anger to clear his name to men who would never understand. But that was before.

Before Dorothea.

Before her anxious posture and drumming heel while her mother talked. The slow revelation of how much her soul suffered once they had her alone. The brilliant revelation of her exultant climax and the thankful, wondering expression on her face when she looked at him after that first parosysm, they had been the first strings that wound about him. He had started looking forward to her appointments above all else. Waiting in the hall for her like a lover, not a practitioner.

None of that anticipation could compare, however, to the breathless excitement he felt now.

As the door resounded with one confident knock, and two subsequent quieter ones, as though she had startled herself with her own boldness. He soared from his chair, cup abandoned without conscious thought as he strode across the room with a gust in his wake.

Pulling open the door, Anthony looked down the couple of scant inches into her face. She had drawn in a breath, lips slightly parted, and looked up at him with a wide-eyed excitement and fear that fed the beast inside him.

"Mr Halloway," she whispered.

"Come in," he stood aside, the fist holding the door gripping it tightly as if he could feed his celebrating heart's energy into the wood and stop himself dancing her around and around in sheer delight. He could not have said whether the greeting was a command or a votive, desperate plea. "You came."

And she looked up at him, the saucy confidence he had helped her find twisting her lips.

"For you? Of course I did. These combinations deserve to be shared!"

He gave a contented little hum of approval, reached out, and pushed her back against the now closed door to his appartment. She squeaked, her eyes now devoid of fear even if she shook a little, and the door sent her hat into disarray.

He whet his lips, and he finally kissed her.

Her answering hum of relief and joy sent a quivering pleasure through his body, lifting him to the sky while standing. Her lips were still until he nuzzled a kiss against her bottom lip and she returned the movement. He rubbed his lips over hers and she mirrored him. She learned fast and she was happy to please and he was torn between getting her out of her hat and coat or staying here, kissing her, for at least an hour, maybe forever.

Then she retreated, hands on his chest and pushing him away. His heart turned over in an odd little panic, and he lifted his hands from her, showing her his palms, worried that she might be afraid of him. But it was not fear that was crumpling her face, it was doubt. He had learned to read her expressions like an expert reading brushstrokes on a painting. She was so very brave, even in uncertainty. God, he loved that about her!

"Tell me... please, Mr Halloway, tell me you do not think less of me for coming?" She raised her eyes to his briefly before dropping them once more to his chest.

His own hands dropped to his sides, even though his arms from shoulder to wrist ached to hold her close.

"I am delighted that you have come here, Dorothea," he took possession of her name for the first time aloud and the taste of it on his tongue gave him a quivering, delicious sensation. "I am ecstatic. Touching you each time you visit Dr Bridger has been wonderful but also the greatest test of my resolve and most agonising torment of my life. Not being able to kiss you, to taste your skin as a lover might, has been interminably difficult. Worth it, but oh so difficult. May I touch you again, Dorothea?"

He could say her name with every sentence he spoke and never tire of the lightening strike of pleasure that hit him in the heart at getting to use her first name. The tightness in his chest, however, he did not like. It would not do for them both to be nervous. He wanted to be everything for her, wanted to be her teacher in this world that was new to her, and a stalwart friend if she wished it. He could not do that if he started stammering and shaking.

She nodded, and then shuddered a breath, raised her head and showed him eyes that shone with relief but glittered with tears.

"I was worried," she admitted. "That you would return my letter or write to my mother or sever our connection..."

He was still standing there, fighting anxiety he was starting to realise came from a need to satisfy her, to chase away that doubt. Then she reached up to frame his face with her hands.

"Please, do touch me again, Mr Halloway."

He pulled her to him and kissed her gently, a poignant kiss for her esteem's sake. Then passionately because he couldn't resist her. Could not resist devouring her clever student of a mouth.

"Gladly," he groaned, a hum of noise from his chest to his lips. And as he spoke he was drawn to set his lips to her over and over, rubbing and tasting and coiling his tongue against hers. "I may couch this in terms of preparing you for... for the exhibition..."

She was learning fast, mirroring the sweet kisses and the hot, messier ones and giving him oak the like he had never felt. Knowing he was going to get her body to himself was a delight. Knowing that he was going to show her that her one lover had been a fool and a failure, that he would get to pleasure her until she was shaking and pleading for respite from the onslaught, was driving his poor balls to madness. He could feel his own heartbeat at the base of his cock and had the fashion for tight pantaloons continued he would have been utterly disgraced by her.

"But Dorothea," he remembered to continue speaking through the onslaught of sensation, "I have wanted the chance for your body since the moment you gripped my hand and asked me to forgive you for being hot and wet for me."

She turned her head down, knocking her forehead against the side of his neck, her breath hot and teasing against his skin. Her hat an annoyance he raised a hand to remove pin by pin.

"I was never wanton before you," she accused, flashing him mock accusation. "I... the things I... the things I dream about do not reflect a woman of manners or enlightenment. The curiosity I feel about so many things, Mr Halloway..."

He ran soft fingers up and down her back as he let the hat fall to the ground.

"You can call me Anthony when we are alone, Dorothea," he said, hoping she felt comfortable enough to do so despite the thrill hearing sir and mister from her lips gave him.

"I..." She pushed away again and he longed for her instantly, missed her mouth. "I know that, but... I... I enjoy saying... I enjoy calling you Mr Halloway. It reverberates in my soul and..." Shyly, she held his gaze and bliss flooded his veins. "It makes me... hot and wet."

Anthony growled, strode to her as she dipped past him into his receiving room with a grin on that beautiful face. His own face split with a smile he felt to his toes. She stripped off her gloves and dropped them on a battered sidetable. He caught her elbows and steered her past a couch to the shuttered windows alongside his davenport. He snatched her bare hands and lifted them above her head.

The shutters rattled. Deep, animal groans shook his throat as he devoured her throat above her jacket's collar. She cried out softly, her body rippling between him and the creaking wood panels. He ground his body against her, his hard cock against her hip, her curving flesh pliant but with enough firmness to torture him through layers of cloth. Her breath was already coming hard, and she moaned when he licked up along her pulse.

"I knew it," he bit her earlobe, toying with the quartz earring and then pulling it with his tongue so she stiffened with the absolute right hiss of quivering pain. "I knew you wanted what I want..."

He could have told himself he was imagining things, that he was projecting his wishes onto the woman he desired, but that little hiss, that wish to use his whole name. The way she shook the moment he had her trapped.

"Do you want me?" she pleaded, her self doubt still pulling her away from letting go and merely experiencing the pleasure.

"Buck against me," he ordered, his voice odd in his ears as he groaned the words out and she obeyed him, "rub your hips against my swollen member and know in your bones that I want you. Not just intercourse, intercourse with you. Sex, Dorothea, like you have never imagined. And I've wanted you for so long..."

She moaned, writhing against him until his own breathing came harder and his vision darkened to focus on her face, eyes closed, brow furroughed with desire and confusion, mouth open. He pressed a kiss to those sweet lips, pushing hard against her from his thighs to his hand pinning hers. He would make sure that by the time he got her home she knew how unutterably sexual and beautiful she was.

Breathing hard, he managed to grit out some words.

"Shall we play a little?"

Her response was a gasping whimper that made his knees feel weak.

"Strip to your corset, Dorothea," he commanded, with a smile on his face and a last caress from her upstretched wrists down one arm. "I'll pour you a cup of tea."

Unable to resist, he lightly touched her frown with his little finger, luxuriating in the way pleasure and lust for him were baffling her propriety and upbringing. Shattering the rigidity. Her eyes were soft and dark with desire, positively drenched in anticipation.

"You are so very handsome," her voice crackled and his cock hardened further so he had to shift his weight to let it move within his trousers.

"I--" but before he could reply or deflect her compliment, she was sweeping her warm fingers through his hair, her thumb brushing his forehead. The tenderness made something surge deep inside. He spent so much time touching others. He was shocked by what it did to him to be touched.

"Would you be offended if I said beautiful?" she asked, lips parted. Gentleness threatened to overwhelm him with the want to just listen to her talk about him until his pride was insurmountable. A need he had never realised he had began to keen inside.

But he had given her an instruction, and it was time to see if they were as compatible as he hoped. Excitement thrilled through him, and Halloway caught her hand and squeezed a little, not even slightly bringing his full strength to bear. She might be taller and larger built than many women, but she was not a physical match for him and there was a vast difference between the pain she'd love and pain for power's sake.

"I gave you an instruction, Miss Chase, did I not?" And there it was, a pulse in her eyes, widening of her lips, an intake of breath. Thank God.

"Oh." She began unbuttoning with one hand, and Halloway brought her other palm to his mouth and began to lick and nibble, teasing ticklish spots and biting the flesh between thumb and index finger lightly.

Tea! He told himself but her breath was uneven and he wanted to hear her noises.

"Ohhhh," she had closed her eyes but was still frantically trying to undress with one arm occupied, and the sighing moan made him feel a thousand feet tall. He might even believe he was beautiful, if she said it. Not too large. Not despoiled by having had to actually work like, heaven forfend, a member of the working class. Not too tall or too heavy. Beautiful. He released her hand, stepping back.

He was a man who loved to bring a woman to mad pleasure, blissfully undone and wholly ruined for any other kind of sex. He loved experienced women of London who knew their pleasure and would wait for him in appartments on their knees with rouged lips and honeyed cunts. He loved the unsure women marked as hysterical in social cages that would have him downright murderous. He might only indulge occasionally since he started work, in fact...

Anthony held up the trailing braids of her coiffure and kissed the nape of her neck. He did not know what he wanted, for her to wait for him like that, or for her to always come to him so he could wait for her knock. He was circling her, had barely noticed he was moving as he stared as wool gave way to linen, and linen gave way to cotton and lace.

More lace than cotton.

Forgot that he'd realised he had not sought out sex since he first met her.

She stepped out of her clothes, setting them carefully on a chair and turned to him in combinations, corset, stockings, and sturdy town boots.

From behind her, he could still hear the anxiety and desire in each breath. He had promised her tea, but standing there now he could not move. The generous curve of her arse begged for his hands beneath only one layer of sheer, silky fabric. The swell of her hips to her waist was the perfect proportion for sliding palms. His mouth was dry and he was so hard it hurt.

"A-anthony?"

And he realised that her anxiety was greater than she was showing. Her voice shook with it, the desire fading upstage, and he turned her around. Under his fingers lace and hot skin made him tremble a little. She was so very brave, so very beautiful, and he was going to make her his.

So he crushed her to him, her lingerie against his suit, her softness against his hardness, his head down on her shoulder. His balls ached for her, his hands shook, and his heart was pounding in anticipation of the things he would do to her.

But right now all he could do was hold her.

***

He held her flush against his body and she could feel things she desperately wanted to know about.

The embrace went on, and she slid her own hands around his broad back, curving up towards his shoulders. When he moved, raising his head, his eyes glittered with the sort of look she caught when he was bringing her to parosysm and she met his gaze.

He set his forehead to hers, a soft hum sounding from his throat, but she couldn't wait. Maybe it was him being fully dressed and her in undergarments, but she was wetter than she had ever been and she wanted more of his lips.

So she kissed him.

His tongue slid against hers and she sighed happily through her nostrils, surrendering to majestic glory. A kiss like this could shatter the whole world. It certainly shattered her. It claimed her with every nuzzling demand of his lips and every swirling tease of his tongue, breaking her apart and putting her back together again a woman who was addicted to this kiss.

Dorothea moaned and her hands slid from his back, groping for his elbows in case she swooned.

"Hands behind your back," he growled against her mouth. She swept them away instantly, desperate for the kiss to continue. Pleasure sparked as he gave another of those long hums through the kiss.

Her body was thumping with a heartbeat that was as fast as a cat's but as strong as an elephant's. She felt it in her heart, her throat, and between her legs.

Bom bom bom bom.

She shifted as he slid his hands into her hair and started removing and dropping pins, and she felt herself slide from the wetness and slick heat he was stirring at the apex of her thighs.

He bit her tongue, dragging his teeth over it, and she moaned again.

"While we are together like this," he peppered little busses over her lips, making her yearn for the deeper, intense kissing, "you call me Mr Halloway, or Sir. Do you understand, Dorothea?"

"Yes," she felt like she was blinking slowly, thinking slowly too, but her voice was almost a sob of want. Her body buzzed with his touch and her heart soared by his own very obvious want. She'd told him she liked it, but being ordered to felt incredible. "Yes, Mr Halloway."

"And Dorothea," he withdrew completely and her hands almost moved to stop him but she yanked them back.

"Yes, sir?" It felt so good to say it.

Like her body was fizzing.

She felt it down in her core, down in that hot, sticky wetness she had touched thinking of him. She felt the acquiescence settling peace into her. He would make sure she was doing what he wanted. And she would get pleasure from him. And maybe he could teach her to believe she deserved the pleasure he meted out.

Her eyes had dropped to his throat, and he tilted her head up with his thumbs under her jaw.

"If you ever want me to stop, or just not do the thing I am doing, you can tell me. Just say 'Doctor'. Can you promise me that? Because if you will not stop me when you are not enjoying yourself I-- I cannot do this with you."

There was a desperation there now, a fear, a regret. His mouth had hardened and his eyes were shadowed by his brows and something that had happened to him. A longing to once more touch his face overpowered her.

"I promise, Sir," she once more had to shove her hands back, and she was glad to see him grin at her efforts. "I... I am not going to stand mildly by, I am not biddable in anything else. I stand up for myself."

Truth billowed about her and she wanted so badly to be kissed by him once more. With him there was no shame in being herself.

"But with you I just want to kneel at your feet and beg you to touch me," she was already hot with desire but she felt her cheeks blaze with embarrassment.

He still held her jaw in place with his thumbs but she could not look in his eyes and so fixated on his brow, on the hair she had brushed back that was in place once more. "I feel I could walk naked through the street if you told me to because I know you would not let me come to harm."

"Oh God," Anthony's voice came on a whisper of surrender.

He kissed her again, groaning into her mouth with encouraging passion that jellied her knees and her mind as she surrendered to feeling desired and desirable. His hands slid from her face and he lifted her breasts free of her corset through the lace of the combinations. Her kiss was taken away and she whimpered in objection, but then his lips closed around the peak of one breast and she keened. Loud.

Desperate.

Her hands slid through his hair once more as he kissed and nibbled and bit until the delicious pain sparked another cry of delight. He pinched the other one and Dorothea, with no experience, merely luxuriated in the delicious hurting, feeling each twist or bite flick her core with sparking, electric pleasure.

"Do... you like... my combinations?" She suddenly asked, remembering the pretext for her note that had brought her such a prize and feeling a surge of mischief.

He laughed, straightening to her disappointed 'oh'. He took her hand and pushed it against his trouser flap. She felt it. His 'member'. It was far longer than her hand, and she had particularly long fingers. And it was hot and harder than it had felt through her skirts and she wanted it beyond capacity to fully comprehend what exactly he would do with it. She was breathing hard, and licked her lips.

"See how much I like them," he pinched her damp nipple harder than he had before and she hissed in a breath and then let it go with shuddering slowness. "Oh, Dorothea Chase. You are perfect, aren't you!"

She gave a puff of denial, but then squeaked as he yanked her forward by her poor nipple.

"But you took your hands from behind your back, didn't you, Miss Chase?"

She quivered, tension rippling through her pleasure-addled body. She was starting to see the difference between being Dorothea and being Miss Chase, and it added a layer of naughtiness to all their meetings before and those to come in public.

His eyes watched, restraint clear across his shoulders and along his bearded jaw.

"I'm sorry, Sir," she righted the situation, holding her wrists in a chain like manner at the small of her back.

"Sorry is not enough, Miss Chase, not for a direct order!" He tsked, and her stomach dropped.

She had disappointed him.

***

He watched her eyes, and realised instantly that he had misstepped. She did not know the wordplay involved. She was an inveterate pleaser of other people, denying herself into the melancholy that had brought her into his life. And she only thought that she had let him down, not that he had hoped to have an excuse for 'punishment'.

"I'm sorry," she said, all desire gone, her face losing the delicious pinkness of arousal. She shifted on her feet, and her shoulders tensed, and Anthony lifted his hands to her face, cradling her jaw and looking into her eyes while she tried to look away. "One instruction, you'd think--"

"It's fine," he said quickly, gentling his stern, school-master tone. "Dorothea? It's fine. All is well. That was my mistake." He found himself drawing her to his chest, his hands wandering over the laces on her back. He very nearly started to unfasten them, but he had to earn that back again, so he continued on to her wrists.

He hugged her, and then released her, taking her hands with some resistance. She was not sure if it was a trick. She did not trust him to be wholly honest with her. She needed things explaining. He should have done that first, had planned to, but seeing her and kissing her had swept his sense aside and for that it was him who deserved punishment, not her.

Drawing her to his most comfortable chair, he poured her a warmish cup of tea since the kettle had cooled, and pressed it into her hands. He knelt at her feet while she bled anxiety.

If nothing else, she was not ashamed of her state of dress. There was confusion in her eyes and the doubt was back, but she did not pull at the hems of the drawers portion of the combinations or the collar above her breasts, where dampened circles bared her nipples in translucence muslin. She might have no confidence in her own beauty, but she did not hate her own body. She was ready to be proud of it, her teasing in their last official appointment was sign of that, and he had to go slowly so she would achieve that pride and even well-deserved smugness.

"Firstly, I need you to know, Dorothea, that just as you love to call me Mr Halloway, I love to call you Miss Chase." How to explain this? "But as you delight in giving allegiance, so I enjoy receiving homage. And when you are mischievous or naughty or even unthinkingly disobedient, I get to correct your behaviour. And that makes me feel so, so good." He had to clear his throat as relief and understanding flooded her face.

Had she called him beautiful? She was a masterpiece. She was art. A sculpture only he was allowed to see.

Until the lecture.

"Allow me to join you in undress," he said as he left her there in the chair, stepping away and giving her space. "It is not fair for you me to be allowed to view such beauty and for you to be deprived!"

He grinned for her, and she gave him a rueful smile and a crooked brow to show just what she thought of his playful arrogance and flattery. Later that would be cause for a light spank, but he had to go slowly, he could not lose her because of his own clumsiness. When had he ever fumbled like that?

Focus...

He shrugged out of his jacket and started on the buttons of his waistcoat. She devoured him with her eyes and leaned forward, fingers tight around her cup. It got hard to breathe.

They really were beautiful combinations.

"When I make love, Dorothea," he watched her focus come straight back to him, momentary shyness overborn by curiosity and the need to know what she wanted, "there is a game to it. While I take you fully seriously, and sincerely, there are rules at play. Just as the leg-before-wicket rule in cricket is unfathomable to one who has never seen the game played, so my saying you had failed me was a cue for what was to come which you had no way of recognising."

He shrugged his shoulders out of the arms of his best waistcoat, the one that flattered his broad shoulders and body honed by early years riding and rowing and later by swimming and walking and boxing, and then by hard work lifting and carrying stone. It had become a little tighter than he had liked, but he would never wear another again if he could bottle the moment she saw him in shirtsleeves alone.

Dorothea's sexuality was his greatest treasure and journey combined, and this moment of awakening was utterly beautiful. One hand left her teacup, fingers stretching out and then curling back. Her lips parted and her jaw set with a hungry determination. The pinkness was back on her face and at her throat.

"You see, Dorothea, when I punish you for little transgressions, many of which I will make it impossible for you to resist making, you will adore it." He removed his belt, running the leather around his hands and luxuriating in the hissing smoothness. "Things you have always assumed to be awful will be almost the best reward. When you feel me bite you like it, don't you? I won't ever do something I am not sure you will enjoy. If I am wrong, I will never repeat it."

He unfastened the buttons on his trousers and lowered the braces off his shoulders, and then made to work on cravat and shirt. Her chest was rising faster.

"But at any time, if you truly want to stop, you can say that word and I will. Stop. And I am done. Some enjoy saying 'no', so that word will avail you nothing. But 'stop' or 'halt' will end anything. And Doctor, as I said, will slow me if you do not want to break the moment but do not like where something is going." He could not help but enjoy the focus of her, the determination and interest. She must have been an excellent pupil. "If you want me to slow down, you can always say so. If you are unsure, you can tell me so. I am not a monster or brute."

A chill went through him. For a moment he felt the shame and horror and guilt that words thrown at him had made him feel. The crashing end of his career as a doctor and becoming a pariah amid most of the community of elite doctors who had trained at Cambridge or Edinburgh.

Was monster one of the things he had been called? It must have been.

"What we do might not be the sort of thing a parson would recommend to just anyone," he worked to shake off the feeling and kept his eyes on his cufflinks, strangely struggling with a task he performed every day. "But it is not ugly. It is not wrong. It is merely a more complex form of--"

She got to her feet, and he hesitated to meet her eyes in case a goodbye was in them. Her fingers came into his vision along with the lower half of her body, her long legs and old fashioned gartered stockings. And she deftly unfastened his cufflinks on one wrist and then when he lifted the other silently that one too.

"I--" her voice was cluttered and she cleared her throat. "I have grown up in terror of being naughty. Of being bad. Breaking the rules or disappointing mother with poor reports from school when she spent so much to ensure I could be at least in part educated. I had a governess too for a while and she likely thought me the dullest thing."

She gave him the silver cufflinks that had belonged to his father, that he had almost sold before Bridger found him, and he set them down next to her abandoned tea. She turned with him, pivoting to face him when he straightened.

"I thought I had ruined my chance," she reached up, cupping his face as he had cupped hers. Unused to being cherished, Anthony stood dumbfounded, once again struck by how much her touch affected him. "That you were going to put my coat on me and see me out the door. That my one act of naughtiness had lost me the only person I have ever felt wholly myself with. That is what I fear, Anthony. Going back to my life of nothingness, of banality, just knowing enough to know I was going to regret moving my hands for the rest of my--"

He kissed her.

He hadn't meant to. He did not want her feeling that he was not listening. But her hands on his face, and the relief of what she was saying undid him. He was as tender as he had ever been, eyes closing and brow furroughing as he tried to order his thoughts. She was kissing him back, her lips deliciously soft and gaining confidence in their returned busses and moving temptation. He pulled off his shirt, let his trousers drop to the ground, walked off his socks, all while gently working her mouth pink.

She sighed and moaned and hummed into his kissing and even with her in his arms he yearned for her. He wanted more. He wanted all of her.

He needed to slow down.

"Tell me, Miss Chase," his voice came out as a whisper, the whisper of a man realising he was needed but who had forgotten how to breathe. "Would you like me to teach you to be naughty?"

And he knew his life was hanging in the balance. She was not going to be one of. She was going to be an only. He had not felt this nervous, this fearful of an outcome, since he lost his opportunity to be a doctor by bedding the wrong man's sister. Nothing like finding out the man who would grant your medical licence was the one who had caught you whipping his sister with a riding crop -- her riding crop. Her reaction... her pretense... had sealed his fate.

That was why he had had to be certain with Dorothea. He had had to be sure that when she said yes, she meant it, because there had always been that little piece of doubt that said: What if he really had pressured too much? What if he really had made the lying bitch feel like she could not stop him?

"No."

Antony's heart clenched and something akin to vertigo pulled him downward. He nearly staggered.

"I want you to teach me how to be wicked," she added, and he chuckled, relief swamping him, making him even dizzier. He backed up and slumped onto his couch, pulling her onward, by her hips, by her thighs, guiding her to straddle him and kissing her the whole time. Kissing her like he was dying of thirst, like she was his breath while his hands finally surrendered and unfastened the neat knot of her corset.

"That was a very wicked thing to do, Miss Chase," he bit her bottom lip, gently at first and then pinching harder to make her gasp. "That little pause. Phrasing it like that." He tutted gently and then devoured her mouth, his tongue fucking hers with languorous, powerful strokes.

"I'm sorry, Mr Halloway," she recited it like a schoolboy, flutingly. But her hands were exploring the wide, hairy expanse of his chest with trembling but fascinated fingers.

"Not good enough, Miss Chase," he sucked her tongue and she gave another of those sobbing moans, making his cock twitch back to attention so it pressed against her thigh through his own drawers. He pulled her corset over her head, revealing just how piecemeal the lace of the combinations was, just how much of her skin glowed through the design.

For a moment he merely breathed, staring.

"And my combinations do not win me any indulgence?" she asked, her voice shaking a little. He looked up at her face and met her gaze. Hot, naked want stared back at him, spiced with provocation. She didn't know what he would do, just that she would enjoy it.

"Not even slightly," he deliberately lowered his voice, firming it, and she rippled, inadvertently pressing against his cock and making his breath hitch. "And I still need to punish you for moving your hands. Tsk tsk, Miss Chase. It looks like--" he smoothed his hands down her back, under her long, loose hair, and gripped her buttocks. "I am going to test some theories on you."

"Oh," she whispered, her eyes half closed, her lips resting parted. She thought the lowered eyelids would hide the way she was staring at the hard bulk of his torso as though she wanted to eat him up.

"How does this feel, Miss Chase?" he whispered against her skin, and then he spanked her, a light tap to test the water. And his sweet, pain and pleasure loving darling ground down against him and moaned open throated. She kissed him hungrily, still grinding her body, riding his waist, leaning far back.

"Divine," she moaned. "Oh, sir, that felt--"

He spanked her again and she squeaked. He lifted one hand from her arse and pulled her so her neck was exposed to his mouth. Once again he soughed her skin and licked and kissed, waiting each time for the tension of anticipation to leave her body before he spanked her again. By the eighth, her breathing told him the pain was accumulating, and he used his tongue to push aside the collar of the combinations so the little lacy strap fell off her shoulder, and then he sucked, sucked hard.

For the first time, he got to leave a mark on her, and he fully intended to.

"Two more," he murmured, suckling her skin and tasting sweat and lavender.

She endured them beautifully, gasping and clinging to his head as he gave her her first love bite only just where her clothes would cover it. He hoped she had not had plans to wear any of the modern ball gowns.

"Good girl," he breathed, "well done."

"It was not as nice by the end," she admitted, not realising he could read her body.

"It was a punishment, Dorothea," he twitted her, licking his way back up her neck and flexing his jaw so his beard tickled her skin. "One of them."

"Oh dear," she sighed, arching her neck. He massaged the back of it with the hand that had been holding her in place.

"Oh dear," he agreed. She would both love and hate what he had planned. First, though, they had another hurdle to overcome. She had not yet seen him naked. He had had his fingers deep inside her, and now he had ravished her mouth to pinkness, but she might be nervous faced with all of him.

"Tell me, Miss Chase," God! The way she curled and unfurled when he said it. "What is your experience of vulgar language?"

Anticipation built as she tried to rally her thoughts. He could taste her scent now, tell how wet she was, wanted to tongue her senseless...

"I have heard it spoken?" She looked into his eyes for direction.

Anthony slid the other lace strap off her shoulder and pushed her combinations down to her waist, ever so slightly restraining her arms.

And he smiled as he breathed hot need, staring at the lovebite he had left on her shoulder. His breath came erratic, uneven.

"I esteem you," he began, swallowing and then going down to worship her beautiful bubbles of breasts. "I want you in ways I'll teach you to understand and am sure you will love. But I also want to fuck you."

He licked his way from one nipple to the other and with one arm around her, he slid the other down to part the split in the combinations and finally palm her sex.

She moaned, leaning back a little against his arm. And she ground herself into his hand with a needy rocking movement. He had two fingers inside her in seconds, his thumb below her budding clitoris, and it was different. Having her on his knee, his mark on her skin, her hands in his hair and on his neck.

No need to hold back the sheer storm of want he had. No restraint in keeping his mouth off her.

Anthony groaned against her skin.

"And I need you to know that in here, back at the office, even in a lecture hall of men who all want you," he bit a little harder on her nipple and she clenched around his fingers, "you're my goddess, and you're my whore. You're my queen, my good girl, my little slut."

"Oh Anthony," she wrapped her arms around his head, holding him in place, and he slowly fucked her with his fingers, his heart hammering.

His name, moaned aloud by her, by Dorothea Chase.

"And each word means the same," he curled his fingers, dragging his fingertips toward the front of her channel, towards where his thumb pressed from the otherside. "You're mine!"

And God bless her, she came, howling as she did, surrendering to pleasure, rigid and still cradling his head to her breasts.

And he was lightheaded. Breathless. He took a handful of her tumbled hair and pulled her head back, rubbing his beard against her throat and then claiming her mouth. He pumped his fingers slowly but with piston-like inexorability and matched the rhythm with his tongue.

And she wobbled, not as supported as she had been, and her hands shot down to grip the wrist buried up against her wetness, slick with her essence. Her hands held tight, her hips thrust against him, and Anthony kissed her like she could quench the thirst he had for her.

He'd spanked her, called her his slut, marked her skin, and she revelled in it. Her voice was a constant moan, even as they kissed she vocalised into his mouth. His cock twitched, a twisted gasp escaping him.

Easing back, he took in her touselled hair, reddened lips parted in a pant of want, and quickened the pace of his fingers.

"Oh please," she rose up on her knees, twisting from how sensitive she must be.

"Take the pleasure, Miss Chase," he put a little command into his voice and she creamed his fingers. "Like a good whore does."

He pulled her downward by her hair, a thick rope of silk in his hand, and she gripped his fingers again, coming apart in her pleasure.

She nearly went boneless, and he manoevred her carefully sideways, knees under her, so he could still toy with her cunt but so her jaw was on his thigh.

He wanted to fuck her mouth. He wanted to thrust her sweet mouth down the length of him, but he was so hard and he couldn't find his restraint.

Anthony breathed, bringing his restraint back, calming himself, reminding himself of ger trust in him.

Except then Dorothea rose on her elbows, pulled the string to his drawers, freed his cock, and his mind went blank.

Her hands felt so good.

Warm. Strong. Exploring.

So good.

For a few seconds he was only aware of his cock.

"I have been curious," her admission came from far away. She had him dizzy. "Things I have read about..."

Christ! Sweat beaded his skin and his chest felt seized.

She gripped him in both hands and then engulfed the head of his cock with the lips he'd kissed to plumpness.

He'd never made that noise before. Never heard himself sound so desperate, so open. His head fell back so fast his neck clicked.

"Yes," he managed, the only word he could fathom.

She swirled her tongue around the tight skin, licked across the top, sucked more of him into her mouth.

His hand convulsed, toying with her cunt, the squelching sound deeply satisfying alongside the sound and feeling of her groaning around his cock. He couldn't focus on rhythm or depth, not when his world had shrunk to the intensity of her hot mouth engulfing him inch by inch.

In the end his speech was back before he could think specific words. He didn't hear himself, just felt his throat move.

"Yes, fuck yes, oh good girl, good, so good, ungh, yes, like... just like that... oh Dorothea..." And it was her name that brought him a little more to his senses.

Except the sounds of her wetness and sucking, the scent of her filling the air, and the gorgeous sight of her head moving and bobbing...

"Come with me?" he begged, beginning to pump his hand faster, nearly whimpering as her teeth dragged against the underside of his cock. "I'll count us down... from five... Miss Chase."

He just wanted to come down her throat, on her face, her tits, deep inside her. Why had it been so long since he'd been with a woman? Because no one could compare to her.

***

"Five." His voice was commanding despite the shaking need of his oncoming parosysm.

The pleasure that was driving her demented began to focus on his palpating fingers.

"Four."

Dorothea moaned around his cock, sucking harder on pure reflex as she battled her need for release with her need to please him.

"Three." Her hands convulsed at the base of him, one of them squeezing his bollocks. His let out a series of short groans and thrust his hips upwards.

"T-- Two--" His shaking voice made her moan in return, encouraging, pleading, desperate.

"One."

Her ears rang and her heart pounded and she bobbed her head, needing him to come so she could. Needing him to be satisfied by her mouth.

"Now! Now!"

The way the clenching bliss filled her would not have been half as good without him shooting salty jism down her throat, groaning like a man in death throes, and stroking inside her while her body spasmed and clenched around his fingers. It was the best climax she had had, and she was suckling down the deliciousness with him stroking her hair before she came back into herself.

It had been the very opposite of numbness.

"That," he began before letting out a long, satisfied sigh, "That was incredible, Dorothea."

She loved the way his voice enveloped her name. Eventually she allowed him to lift her head and dab her mouth and throat with his handkerchief. She smiled through the ministration and went happily when he pulled her onto his lap, facing him with her knees either side of his legs.

Anthony dabbed his thumb across her lips. He looked like a Greek god in his smug contentment. All power and satisfaction. She had done that. She had drawn those wonderful groans from him and given him a parosysm for all the ones he had given her.

"You are magnificent," she murmured, relaxing against his chest, letting her plump tummy and hot, unbound breasts settle against him. Her hands smoothed against his flanks, damp chest hair tickling her palms until she tucked them around to his back and held him.

And he held her, stroking her hair, his forehead against hers. When it was time for her to go, it was him who dragged his feet, kissing her over and over. Holding her hand as she climbed into the hansom, he had never looked so desperately handsome.