Tempting Gemma 3 Read online

  Tempting Gemma

  Part Three

  Josie Litton

  Contents

  About this Book

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Appendix:

  Bonus Scene

  My Gift to You!

  Sneak Peeks

  About this Book

  In the aftermath of the Village Fair, Charles resolves to see to his young wife’s well-being. The fitness program he devises for her brings them closer together than ever before in Episode Three of this sizzling summer romance.

  Set in a version of the modern world very loosely inspired by Jane Austen, this is the story of what happens when a lovely young woman unexpectedly finds herself married to a gorgeous British lord possessed of inexhaustible virility

  In between encounters in every room of her husband’s sprawling ancestral manor house, not to mention the surrounding grounds, Gemma must cope with peculiar family members, a local village filled with secrets and her own overwhelming lust for the man she doesn’t dare to love.

  Will she succumb to temptation and fall in love with her uninhibited and unexpectedly charming husband? Will Charles come up for air long enough to confess to his enchanting wife that she is the woman of his dreams? Find out this summer in TEMPTING GEMMA.

  Don’t miss the free gift offer for you at the end of this book!

  Chapter One

  I’ve been thinking,” Charles said.

  It was the morning after the morning after. That is to say, two days after the Village Fair. The first day having passed in gentle repose and slumber, Gemma was feeling quite refreshed.

  Only the lingering mystery of what exactly had occurred at the fair shadowed her otherwise cheery disposition. Surely, the odd fragments of what she seemed to remember after the pie tasting and the pig judging were the result of too much honeyed wine combined with an excess of imagination. Surely…

  Studying him across the width of the breakfast table that they were--alas!--sharing with the Furies, she asked, “What about?”

  A good wife should always take an interest in her husband’s interests or so she had been taught at dear old Mary Magdalene.

  “You, as it happens.”

  Gemma’s heart sped up. Experience had taught her that when Charles’ attentions turned in her direction, she could shortly expect all sorts of indignities to be inflicted upon her person.

  The coddled egg she had been about to enjoy lost its appeal. She pushed it a little away and took a quick sip of tea against the sudden dryness of her throat.

  The cause was anxiety, of course, not eagerness. What woman of any sensibility would wish to be so used?

  “Me! Why ever for?”

  “Because it occurred to me that I’ve been remiss.”

  With a look of innocent anticipation that did not fool her for a moment, her devilishly handsome husband slid a long black velvet case across the breakfast table to her.

  At the sight of it, Sister Ismay reared back in shocked disbelief. “That’s not--” she hissed.

  Folded toad-like in her chair, Mother flushed so darkly that Gemma spared a hope for the imminent onset of apoplexy.

  Only Brother Harold appeared unaffected. Slicing into a sautéed kidney, he said, “Only right she should have them. After all, she is the Marchioness of Ardsley. Proved it the other night, if you ask me.”

  Ordinarily, his unexpected approval--not to mention near-civility--would have distracted Gemma but as it was, she scarcely heard him.

  The jewelry case--it could not be anything else--was quite large, being more than a foot long and half as much as wide. Whatever it contained was far more than a pretty bauble.

  Her hand shook a little as she eased the lid up. At the first sight of what lay within, she gasped and opened the case all the way.

  Pearls glowed against the lush darkness of the velvet. Perfectly round and smooth, they shone with a luster that appeared otherworldly. Coiled into a double strand to fit in the box, she saw at a glance that they were in fact a single joined rope that when placed around her neck would fall well below her waist. Matched in size and color, together the pearls could be taken for a king’s ransom. Or a queen’s.

  On the opposite side of the table, Sister Ismay struggled manfully to speak.

  “Incredibly rare,” she croaked. “Beyond price. Centuries to assemble them…some owned by Queen Elizabeth the First. Others…Empress Catherine the Great…Indian maharajas…”

  She broke off, her long face almost as white as the pearls themselves.

  The silence lasted scarcely a moment before Mother screeched, “And now they are hers?”

  Shaking with fury, the harridan half-rose from her place and pointed a clawed hand at her daughter-in-law. “That cunt’s! By god, I will not stand for it.”

  Gemma’s face flamed. She had been well aware that the dowager Lady Ardsley did not care for her but as she extended that disdain to the entire world, there hadn’t been anything personal about it. Until now. To be so vilely defamed… Truly, she did not know how she could bear it.

  With a sigh, Charles resorted to his customary solution where his mother was concerned. A raised finger was sufficient to summon a pair of footmen. Together, they bundled Mother into her invalid chair and carried her out of the room, screaming in outrage while hurtling obscenities that would have blistered the ears of a Maltese sailor.

  “I’m sorry about that,” Charles said when she was gone. He seemed calm enough if vaguely sad. “She’s always been a difficult person.”

  To Gemma’s way of thinking that was rather like saying that Everest had always been a tall mountain. But having had a mother who, by comparison, was a paragon of maternal devotion, she was inclined to be gentle with her husband.

  (It should be noted that Gemma’s mother was in fact a stranger to her. She could not recall spending more than a dutiful few minutes a week in that lady’s company. The precise details of those encounters eluded her, leading to the conclusion that they had involved very little in the way of conversation and nothing whatsoever of maternal affection).

  Her husband smiled gratefully. Tossing his napkin onto the table, he rose and held out his hand.

  “I’ve another surprise for you,” he said and led her from the breakfast room.

  Chapter Two

  Overcome by the prospect of not one but two thoughtful gifts from her husband, Gemma was at a loss what to make of it all. Not that he had precisely denied her in the past--he was quite generous about orgasms, not to mention her lovely paint set. But still--

  A stray thought flitted into her mind and paused to linger: Could such indications of his esteem have some connection to the murky events of two night before? Mulling that over, she followed him down a long hall until they reached the far end of the east wing.

  Charles opened a door and stood aside for her to enter. It must be said that in matters other than the connubial, he was a true gentleman.

  Accustomed as she was to the style of the rooms at Ardsley Manor--centuries of judicious looting combined with a fondness for chintz--Gemma was startled to find herself in a thoroughly modern gym.

  Floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over rolling lawns filled the space with morning light. Various black and chrome steel apparatuses were set up at intervals around the room. The wall opposite the windows was mirrored while the remaining two were painted an inoffensive beige. The floor was covered in black rubber tiles with several mats scattered about.

  Through an open door, she glimpsed a shower sufficient to accommodate a good-sized a capella group, who presumably would take the opportunity to burst into song.
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  “I had no idea this was here,” she said.

  Charles voice was muffled as he pulled his tee-shirt off over his head. “I had it put in a few years ago. Hate being stuck behind a desk in the City. This helps.”

  Eying him, Gemma couldn’t help thinking that the sculpted sweep of his broad shoulders, his chiseled biceps and the clearly defined V of muscles across his abdomen indicated the benefits of his need for constant, physical challenge.

  Tossing the shirt aside, he asked, “Did you do much sports at school?”

  Gemma had to think for a moment. There was no sports program as such at dear old Mary Magdalene but the girls certainly got plenty of exercise. She had very clear memories of the blisters that resulted from hoeing and planting in the garden to augment their meager diets, not to mention toting stones to keep the walls in good repair and scrubbing every inch of what were surely miles of tiled floors.

  And then there were the required cross country runs--urged on by the school hounds. She still shuddered at the thought of those.

  But no doubt that wasn’t what Charles had in mind.

  “We did have a fitness program,” she offered. “Pilates, yoga, swimming and such. The emphasis was on flexibility and agility.”

  Belatedly, it occurred to her that at least some of the positions they had practiced so faithfully were now familiar to her in a different context--namely her husband’s fondness for carnal acrobatics. She could only hope that he did not intend to make use of quite all of them.

  Dropping his shorts, he said, “Hmmm, yes, I have noticed you’re quite flexible. Still, what’s good can always be made better.”

  Gesturing at the filmy little dress she was wearing, he added, “You won’t need that. I like to work out in the buff. That way allows the skin to breathe.”

  Resigned, Gemma removed the dress along with her shoes and joined her husband. For the next few minutes, she did her best to keep up with his directions. Jumping jacks bare breasted were a bit uncomfortable but he certainly seemed to enjoy watching her perform them.

  Stretching on a mat in front of the mirrored wall was less onerous but she flushed to see her naughty bits so blatantly displayed with every squat, leg lift and back arch. The effect was not lost on Charles. Watching her, he kept one hand on his formidable erection, stroking it as the indulged appendage that it was.

  Despite the unmistakable gleam in his eye, he said, “Let’s see what you can do on the treadmill.”

  Gemma eyed the contraption dubiously. It looked like something that belonged on the bridge of a starship or some such. She was certain that the moment she set foot on it, she would be hurtled off.

  But it started slowly enough, at a mere walk. She was just beginning to think that she could manage it when Charles ramped up the speed and set the infernal thing to an incline. Almost at once, she was running flat out. Ten sweaty, increasingly unpleasant minutes later, she was panting and more than ready to stop.

  Heedless of her low tolerance for such exertions, her husband persisted in offering helpful suggestions such as “keep your head up” and “lift those knees more”. She did her best but the truth was that she had never liked running--the hounds again--and she certainly had no wish to take it up on a regular basis. Sadly, Charles had other ideas.

  Without warning, a stinging slap landed across her bare bottom. She yelped and turned to see her husband smiling innocently. His powerful muscles worked as he stretched a resistance band across his chest, the very same one he had just used to whack her ass.

  “Multi-purpose,” he said, indicating the hitherto innocuous piece of gym equipment.

  In between toning his already impressive pectorals, he continued encouraging her in like manner as though--Gemma thought resentfully--she was a reluctant horse in need of chivvying.

  Unfortunately, the technique worked. Each time the band snapped against her bottom, she ran harder. Sweat trickled between her bouncing breasts. Her breathing was labored and the muscles of her legs burned.

  But all that was eclipsed by her humiliating awareness of the trickle of moisture slipping down her inner thighs.

  At long last, Charles called a halt. The treadmill slowed and finally stopped. Panting, Gemma stepped off gingerly and rubbed her stinging bottom.

  “If I may be frank, my lord,” she said as best she could given her labored breathing, “your coaching style could use some refinement.”

  Another man, expecting due deference from his wife, might have taken offense. Charles merely laughed.

  He walked over to a nearby weight bench and stretched out on it. “Come here.”

  Trying hard not to stare at his cock jutting perpendicularly from the nest of curls at his groin, rather like an eager periscope, Gemma obeyed.

  When she was close enough, her husband patted the bench to each side of him, “Climb up, there’s a good girl. Plenty of room.”

  She managed to do so although her balance felt precarious. The whole situation did. A memory moved in the back of her mind--darkness, torches, Charles beneath her…

  She became aware of him watching her, his eyes hooded. Softly, he asked, “Did you think it was a dream?”

  Her face flamed. She felt again the wildness in her--violent, uncontrollable--heard the drums beating, the high wail of the flute and saw the writing mass of villagers, dancing, fucking, watching. A wail rose up in her. How could she possibly have done such a thing?

  In a very small voice, she said, “I don’t know what possessed me.”

  His nod was sympathetic. “There’s the rub…is it just us or something more?” He looked troubled for a moment but that passed in the next. Happily, among all the generations of Ardsleys, there had never been much of a tendency toward introspection.

  With a shrug, he said, “Probably best not to know.”

  Taking hold of her waist with both hands, he positioned her just so, the crest of his cock brushing against her most sensitive parts.

  “Hop on,” he instructed. “Then up and down until I tell you to stop.”

  Despite her embarrassment, Gemma made a brave effort. Settling herself onto his massive appendage took some doing but she finally managed it. Fortunately, Nature provided more than ample lubrication.

  Rising and falling slowly at first, she gained speed as she became more confident. Before very long, she was finding the experience quite riveting.

  Her head fell back, the braid of her hair brushing against the curve of her reddened bottom. She was panting again but scarcely noticed, focused as she was on the roaring rush of pleasure rising like a great wave inside her.

  “Faster,” Charles gasped. His chest rose and fell like a bellows. His hands had slipped down to grasp her hips.

  She flattened her palms along the hard ridges of his ribs and went at it. Up and down, up and down… She might have been riding in the steeplechase, soaring over fences, coming up so far as to almost let his cock slide from her but not quite, never that! And down again, her muscles clenching all along his length until at last gloriously…

  “Fuck!” her husband howled, his magnificent body jerking again and again with the force of his release.

  Swept by her own, she was nonetheless aware of him there with her, every moment, the two of them moving as one until at last with a final cry, she crumbled against him.

  Some time passed…moments, an hour, an eternity? Who can say? To give him credit, Charles rallied first.

  He was, after all, the man and as such responsible for seeing to the wife who had so pleasantly surprised him in the weeks since their marriage. Why had he been so nervous on the day?

  He had wanted her desperately since their first meeting in that grim room at Mary Magdalene yet he’d been half-convinced that he was making a dreadful mistake putting his head in the matrimonial noose. Look at his own mother and father. No, best not.

  Best to gather his strength until he could stand, Gemma nestled in his arms, and make his way with a minimum of stumbling into the hot, soothing embra
ce of a much needed shower.

  Chapter Three

  Lying awake in the wee hours of the night, Gemma had a little chat with herself.

  So much had happened since her first encounter with Charles: their whirlwind marriage and honeymoon, adjusting to conjugal life, her appalling new relations, not to mention the decidedly odd goings-on at Ardsley Manor.

  It was no wonder that her mind was ever in a whirl. But if she was to make the best of a situation not of her own choosing, she had to focus on what truly mattered.

  A well-satisfied, contented husband being vastly preferable to the other kind, she would do herself no good by opposing him at every turn. Hadn’t dear Tillie Fenster, the gardener’s wife, told her time and again to pick her battles as carefully as she would choose the perfect trowel, digger or pruning shear?