A Lady of Rooksgrave Manor (Tempting Monsters Book 1) Read online

  “Would you come to the chaise?” he asked, gesturing to the long armless couch that sat in the center of the room. I walked to it and started to sit down before he interrupted me. “On your knees, hands on the back of the headrest.”

  I lost my breath at that, thinking of him towering behind me while I was unable to see what he might be planning. I knelt on the couch, which was wide enough for me to spread my legs apart, and this time, it was Dr. Underwood’s breath that caught, stuttering behind me.

  “Good, sir?” I asked, mostly to tease. I arched my back like a cat in heat, which wasn’t so far off from how I felt, really. There was an itchy, achy feeling running under my skin. I wanted to rub myself against the velvet of the couch, against Dr. Underwood’s tidy suit too.

  “Very good, Ms. Reed,” he said, the growl still rolling in the back of his voice. His shadow covered the wall in front of me, blocking out my own, and when his hand landed at the base of my back, very gently, I twitched in surprise. “Are you comfortable?”

  I thought I’d be more comfortable on my back with him between my legs, but I didn’t say so. “Yes, sir.”

  His hand slid over the swell of my bottom down to my thigh, and I dug my fingers into the soft velvet of the chaise. “You’re a very beautiful young woman,” he said.

  “I know, sir,” I said, grinning at the wall. It wasn’t just that men liked to say so. I had pretty, delicate features and nice glossy dark hair, and I was vain enough to fuss over how I looked. I’d always been scrawny growing up, but the Pickerings had been generous with their staff, and after a year there, I’d finally looked like a woman, which was good since I was past twenty already.

  My eyes widened as his hand dipped between my legs, grazing over my opening before circling forward to swirl over my little button that I liked to play with so much. “Oh!”

  My head fell forward, and I could see down the length of me, between my breasts to where his fingers were just peeking between my lower lips, rubbing and sliding. I wanted to tell him to stay there, the way men never seemed to do, not for long enough. I rolled my hips to grind against those fingers, determined to get as much from the touch as I could, but he drew away and I had to bite my lips to keep from complaining.

  “Keep your back arched, Ms. Reed,” he said.

  I sucked in a breath, having held it for the too-short time he’d touched me. I curled my back again and squeaked behind clenched teeth as something touched me, colder and smoother than his fingers. The instrument. He rubbed it against my clit and I stiffened, waiting for the buzz, wishing for it, wondering how it would feel.

  I squawked as it started up, my eyes growing wide and round. “Oh, sir!”

  The rattle was removed immediately, although I could hear it close by. “Unpleasant?” Dr. Underwood asked.

  “I-I—put it back,” I said, wiggling my bottom at him. Was it unpleasant? I wasn’t even sure. I’d barely gotten to feel it. I only knew that it was startling and hard and unlike anything I’d ever felt before.

  It appeared like a stinging tickle on my opening, and I almost pulled away. My lips parted and my breaths came too fast as he slid it forward, my body bracing. I squealed again, but this time, he didn’t pull away. My knuckles were white on the back of the chaise. It felt like lightning running through me, grinding through my bones, and white-hot on my so sensitive skin. Then a lick of that fire flickered up into my belly and through my chest, and my eyes fluttered shut at the heat.

  “Ohhhh, sir,” I said, barely audible over the buzzing. I couldn’t decide whether or not to lean in, press harder into the rhythm, or shy away. I would let him make the choice for me, I could barely think.

  “Yes,” Dr. Underwood said behind me, voice gentle, and he pressed harder with the instrument. “It takes a little getting used to.”

  I moaned long and loud, my body rocking without instruction. I couldn’t control myself, not the way I wanted to grind down onto the red bulb buzzing into my button, nor the rapid anxious sounds falling out of my open mouth. It seemed a shame God had not thought to give this gift to women earlier, to make it possible for a man to do such a thing if we asked him. My whole body shuddered, and I tipped forward, my arms folding on the back of the chair and my forehead resting there.

  Dr. Underwood carefully shifted my knees up the chaise, keeping me curved for his work and never once letting up with the instrument. I was turning senseless, head rolling back and forth on my arms, as I felt the rumble all throughout, a roiling warmth curling through my hips and belly. He pulled the bulb away from my skin, and I whimpered, certain I could feel it hovering just a bit away. When he relented again, he pushed it hard against my clit. My toes curled as light exploded behind my eyes and shivers ran through me. I came with a muffled scream, teeth clenching around the skin of my arm.

  “That was very good, Ms. Reed,” Dr. Underwood told me, petting down my back, gentling the touch of the machine between my legs. “You were exactly as I expected.”

  “Terribly wanton?” I asked, because I’d been told that before by the cook at the Pickerings, who’d caught me more than once.

  “Exquisitely so,” he said. There was a brush of wool against the back of my thighs, and the machine pulled away, still buzzing.

  “Oh, please don’t stop, sir,” I said, breath stuttering. “I’ve never had such a feeling. Please don’t stop.”

  “I hadn’t intended to,” he said, bending over my back, his clothes feeling coarse against my skin after all that pleasure. He kissed my back and then he licked up the length of my spine. He ran the bulb over the outside of my right thigh, pressing it over the crease of my hip and surprising me with how deeply I felt the touch.

  “There is more I want tonight,” Dr. Underwood said, barely sounding like himself, all the sweetness gone and replaced with a dark grit that made me pant.

  I wanted to tell him that I’d come up with a few suggestions myself, but before I got to the words, he was circling my cunt with a finger from behind, his touch dipping inside just a bit at first before pressing deep. He teased every inch of skin between my legs with the instrument except for my swollen little nub, all while I gasped and squirmed on his finger. Soon, sooner than I expected, there was a second finger, pumping fast enough to stop my lungs.

  “Yes, yes, please, sir!” I said, although I wasn’t certain what I was begging for next.

  Dr. Underwood made the decision for me, covering my clit with the fast buzz of the machine, holding it steady as he fucked me roughly with his fingers.

  “Your cock,” I said, realizing suddenly what I wanted so badly, even as I was flying to the edge. “Give me your cock, sir. Please. Please.”

  “You’ll have it soon,” he promised, almost snarled.

  And before I could plead again, he tilted his fingers down inside of me, pushing hard with the machine again. Light and heat and wonderful, violent sensation exploded inside of me. My knees crumpled beneath me, and Dr. Underwood dropped the toy, letting me land on top of it as he drew his fingers out. I whimpered and squirmed over the machine, too sensitive to take it again and too weak to lift myself.

  There was a rustle of fabric behind me. Hard, unsteady breaths and grunts fell from Dr. Underwood’s lips. I managed to push the instrument out from under me, and it landed on the floor, rattling and echoing in the room. But the doctor didn’t make to pick it up, to stop its clatter. Instead, his hands landed on my hips, lifting them up into the air even as my chest slid down to the cushion of the chaise, my body gone limp. He slid his cock inside of me with hardly any resistance. He wasn’t a big man, but I didn’t mind. I wanted to feel his hips snapping against my body, hear him fall apart, even if I couldn’t come again. I turned my head, twisting to try and see him, when a hand clamped down on the back of my neck.

  “No,” he grunted, “don’t watch.”

  My brow furrowed, lips parting to speak, just as he drew out and slammed in again, knocking the words out of me. I felt fuller, and he was throbbing inside o
f me. Maybe he wasn’t such a small man after all. His hand on the back of my neck shifted, and calluses I hadn’t thought a gentleman would have scraped over my skin. His other hand tightened on my hip, and the span of his fingers was wider than before.

  There was a low growl from behind, something more animal than man, and then he pulled almost entirely out of me again. He didn’t slam this time, he couldn’t. Suddenly, he barely fit. I made a small aching sound as his cock stretched me wide. I looked up from the cushion of the chaise, and against the wall, a shadow loomed, stretched so tall it reached the high ceiling and then bent around the corner. The shape was broader than before, shoulders hulking and hair sticking out wildly.

  Hot thighs hit the back of my legs and even still, I was being stretched inside, slow with pulses like a heartbeat. Dr. Underwood was grunting behind me, sounding near to pain.

  “Doc—Dr. Underwood?” I whispered.

  The shadow’s shoulders on the wall rolled, and the head shifted, tipping back and warping across the ceiling. A sigh rumbled behind me as the cock nudged gently, all but making my eyes cross with how stuffed I felt, how many places he touched inside me.

  “No doctor here, girl,” the voice growled behind me. “He calls me Mr. Tanner. You can call me Sir too.”

  I groaned as he drew out slowly and sank back in even more carefully, but my body was ready for him this time, and the tightness only burned enough to flicker heat through me.

  “Yes, Sir,” I said, studying the shape of the figure on the wall, wishing he would let me turn to see him.

  “Good girl,” Mr. Tanner said. “Now shout if you like to.”

  It took four heavy thrusts for me to find air in my lungs, but when I did, I shouted loud and long for him, praising him. I could not move, he held me fixed by my neck and hip, but he shifted me until my shouts turned high and thin, the fat head of his cock striking a spot that made my fists clench and my arms thrash against the cushions. There were no good words for how it felt, electric and heavy, my blood ringing like a church bell with every stroke of his length in my cunt.

  “That’s it, little girl,” he said. “Squeal for me.”

  I came, and my head was too full of light and sensation to hear what came out of my mouth, but it had him laughing against me. His thumb stroked over the nape of my neck as he held still inside me, the clasp of me too tight for movement. When I settled down, shivering wildly, he turned us fast on the chaise until I was seated on his lap, facing the fire. We both groaned as I sank down a little further on his lap. Well, he groaned and I whimpered.

  “Bounce,” he told me.

  My legs were trembling, but I could see a little more now, the great width and corded muscles of his thighs, the torn fabric of Dr. Underwood’s pants turned to scraps on the floor. The hair on his legs was a rust red, gleaming by firelight, with white scars scattered over his skin. I braced my hands in front of me and, ignoring the burn in my legs, bounced down onto his cock, massive and red inside of me, dark hair tickling my swollen flesh. He hummed behind me, and I resisted the urge to turn my head. He had not given me permission.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a giant’s hand swing down to the floor and then it was stretching out to me, the doctor’s machine buzzing in his grip.

  “Want you shivering around me once more, then I’ll fill you up,” Mr. Tanner instructed me.

  I took the tool out of his hand. It looked much larger in my small grip, and it shook wildly. I tightened my fingers and brought it eagerly between my legs, immediately moaning my gratitude as I pressed it to my clit. I could feel myself soaking his cock, making the ride slippery, and with the buzz of the machine I worked myself onto him with new fervor. My eyes slammed shut at the overwhelming stretch, the stinging heat stirring in my clit.

  A crack sounded in the room as a meaty hand landed playfully on my ass. The same bright burn between my legs echoed around my hips with his slap.

  “Yes, sir!” I said. I’d been spanked before, but not like this, not when I was so close to an edge. I clutched around him and heard his grunt.

  “Naughty girl,” he growled, but I thought I heard a smile. “You’ll fit right in at that house.”

  Then he slapped again, the other cheek, and I cried out, pressing harder with the bulb, my thighs burning with the effort of my movement. I thought my body might give out and I was right, but before it did, Mr. Tanner’s huge hands cupped my hips, his fingertips almost meeting, and he took the work over for me. He used me like a doll, his feet braced on the floor as he thrust up inside of me.

  My head fell back on my shoulders, and I made every gasping, pleading, whimpering noise there was, many I’d never made before. My hand turned numb around the handle, and then a star lit up in my core, my belly, and behind my breasts and eyes, bright bursts of pleasure flaring up and taking over until I was lost to them entirely, floating away on the feeling.

  When I returned to the world, there was a sticky wetness cooling on my thighs and a warm man’s body curled up behind my back. But it wasn’t the giant’s, Mr. Tanner.

  “Sir?” I asked, my voice hoarse from crying out. Had they heard me all through the neighborhood?

  “Yes, Ms. Reed?” Dr. Underwood said. His thin, gentle fingers ran over my side, sliding over my waist and up to cup a breast.

  “Are they all like you at the manor?” I asked, covering his hand with mine so he would know that I didn’t mind the idea.

  “Not like me,” he said after a moment. “Not exactly, but they are all… People would call them monsters.”

  “I wouldn’t call Mr. Tanner a monster,” I said quickly. “He was very sweet.”

  Dr. Underwood huffed a laugh, and I rolled onto my back so I could see his face. There was no hint of green in his eyes now, and I touched the dimple of his chin. Such a…a gentle man, holding such a lovely beast inside of him. I liked them equally.

  “Then I think perhaps you will not mind it there so much,” Dr. Underwood said, smiling at me, eyes drooping with heavy slow blinks. “If you don’t mind that kind of work.”

  I felt a little dizzy at the thought of it, but not in a bad way. My body was exhausted, but if Dr. Underwood had said we needed to go to the manor immediately, that there were more unusual gentlemen waiting for me, I would have agreed.

  “I think I’ll like it very much,” I said. “I’m certainly better suited to it than service.”

  Dr. Underwood snorted but hid it with a polite little cough. “Ah, yes. Were your parents in service? Is that how you started?”

  “My parents were…unfit to raise me,” I said, cuddling into the doctor’s chest. “That’s what my aunt said. She raised me and put me in service as soon as I was old enough. It was never a good fit. This will be better.” I grinned up at him, hoping to brush my parents out of the conversation. I wasn’t sure where they were or who they had been. And my aunt had more or less stopped sending her letters of chastisement, especially after I was dismissed from the Teagues, my previous position to the Pickerings. The manor might end up being my last chance, but what a chance it was.

  Dr. Underwood smiled, boyish and pleased, and I pulled his face to mine, pecking at his lips quick and often until his mouth slanted against mine, soothing the kiss into something long and deep and beautifully smooth.

  I would have a new position to move into after all. One I was sincerely looking forward to.

  Chapter Two

  Rooksgrave Manor

  Rooksgrave Manor was the finest house I had ever seen, with brick such a dark gray it was almost black and glossy bay windows shrouded in dark curtains. There were round turrets sprouting out of the roof, and it was deep and wide on the property, sprawling over the peat. A loch surrounded the back of the house, the sun setting yellow on the water.

  The carriage stopped at the front doors, twin behemoths of wood and iron, and I waited a long minute for us to continue on to the back of the house.

  “This is where I drop you off,” my driver said, looking
over his shoulder at me with a raised eyebrow.

  “Oh!” I stared at the doors again. I’d never gone in at the front of a house. Not a proper house. And this wasn’t even a house, it was a manor. “Couldn’t you take me round the back?” I asked. Maybe there was a nice small kitchen door that would feel more appropriate for me.

  “These were my instructions, and I’ve not got plans to stay longer than I have to,” said the driver as his horse gave a nervous huff and the carriage jerked forward a step.

  There was a loud groan and croak from the manor, and the doors began to swing in, pulled by an enormous man dressed in a butler’s uniform so black, he almost vanished into the shadow of the house behind him. The horses skipped forward again before the driver pulled tight on the reins. The man in the doorway straightened until his head nearly brushed the frame above him. He stepped out onto the drive, the yellow sunlight spilling over his eerily pale skin and heavy scowl. A blue-gray scar, almost like a vein, ran from one temple down to the opposite jaw, across the top of his nose.

  The butler lumbered out to the carriage, eyes fixed somewhere above my head, and he stepped with such force, I thought for sure he was coming to snatch me out of my seat. Instead, he went to the back where my small case was fixed, lifting it up as if it weighed nothing. To be fair, it weighed very little, and he was so large that the sleeves of his coat looked near to bursting open. He stopped on the gravel drive with his back to me, waiting.

  “Hop out or ride back to London with me, but I wasn’t paid to sit and wait,” my driver said.

  I huffed and opened the carriage door, jumping down and grumbling, “You’re a real prince.”

  The driver didn’t wait to answer or hear more. The horses were quick to rush around the circular drive and back out to the road.