The Patriot Bride Read Online Free Page B

as neatly as possible over her back, and seconds later her dingy white petticoats joined it.
    Hannah wasn’t just sitting still for this treatment, any more than she had for his earlier pawing. She recognized this position, and knew that she certainly didn’t want to have this big oaf spanking her. His hands were the size of trenchers, and she knew they were unnaturally strong. She wasn’t about to let him bare her bottom, much less spank her!
    But none of her wiggling and straining and rolling from one side to the other, trying to slip out from under that dead weight of an arm of his, had any effect on him whatever . . . except that something of his was sticking up into her tummy more and more as she struggled. She wondered if he had a quill in his pocket, but that would have been pointier and much more yielding.
    Finally, Wolf could stand her teasing movements no longer and clamped that arm more tightly around her waist, efficiently quieting all of her movements.
    “Let me up this instant!” Hannah cried indignantly, once the realization of how truly trapped she was sank in. She hated to admit defeat, but now she wasn’t even able to struggle much against whatever it was that he’d taken into his mind to do to her. And she didn’t like where this was going at all!
    He didn’t make a conscious decision to take down her drawers, they just seemed to end up around the bends of her knees naturally, without any sort of conscious movement on his part. But they certainly inspired movement on hers, as soon as he reached beneath her to tug at the bow that tightened them around her hips she began another explosive volley of jerking and writhing, but she still ended up bare bottomed, with him just sitting there, staring down at her bottom.
    Once her bloomers hit the backs of her legs, though, she stilled, almost eerily, as shame washed over her as she realized that he was sitting there staring down at one of the most private parts of her. No one had seen her bare bottom in more than a decade, and she certainly hadn’t expected that some stranger would come in from the cold, announce he was her husband, and then proceed to flip her over his lap. But that seemed to be exactly what had happened, and, because she was weaker than he was, she didn’t seem to have much say in the matter.
    “If you don’t let me up this instant, I shall - ”
    “If you don’t stop whining this instant I shall rip your drawers off you and use them as a gag.”
    He couldn’t see it, but her eyes blew incredibly wide at that idea. Hannah’s jaw clicked shut so hard that her teeth hurt, although it went against her grain to just lie there and take such manhandling. This man was not her father, wasn’t her beau, and as far as she was concerned, wasn’t her husband, either, despite whatever documents he might have provided to the contrary. Even if he were her husband, she would never let any part of her anatomy become nude around him. It just wasn’t done.
    Wolf found himself staring down at her rounded rump, practically salivating at the sight. He took himself firmly in hand mentally, shaking his head, trying to clear it. Her skin was a creamy, healthy pink, and – like the breast he’d fondled minutes ago - those hillocks were wonderfully generous, despite the fact that the rest of her seemed woefully underfed. All he wanted to do at that moment was to gently massage those twin hemispheres, and drop his own cheek against hers.
    But that wasn’t what he needed to do. Like it or not – and he wasn’t sure where he was going to fall on that scale quite yet – she was his wife, and he didn’t intend that there would be any doubt as to who was in charge in their relationship. He would install her in his ancestral home, and she would give him the requisite heir and a spare, even if he had to change his way of life a bit in order to accomplish that goal. Although she would be materially pampered, and he would probably feel generous towards her,