The Rake's Disciplined Reluctant Bride

The moment I signed the papers binding Adelaide to me as my bride, I knew discipline would be the only way to maintain control over the estate and the ghosts that haunt its halls. Her curvaceous form and quiet yielding mask a fear of rejection that echoes my own, yet each time she submits to my stern hand the hunger grows sharper, threatening the claim I fought so hard to secure. In the shadowed study I position her over the desk, skirts lifted as my palm rests against flushed skin. The strike lingers in the air between command and surrender, and I wonder if she will see how much I dread the day she walks away from the intimacy this punishment reveals.