Read Online Claiming Her Innocence by Ava Sinclair - Free Book Online

paused. “She said you put your cock in her mouth. Is it true?”
    “I did.”
    She audibly gasped.
    “Go on,” he said.
    “And… please tell me this is not true, for surely such a thing is not possible. She said you put it in her… in her bottom.”
    “I did.”
    “She said… you took pleasure in inflicting pain.”
    “I do,” he said with a small smile.
    Penelope gave an anguished little cry. “It’s true then! You’re depraved!” She made to run past him, but he caught her.
    “Yes, my love, she spoke the truth of these things, but it is not true that they are depraved.”
    “She said she hated it!”
    “She lied,” he said through gritted teeth.
    “You’re so silly,” he said with a laugh that was not unkind. “You know nothing of what goes on between a man and a woman. There are so many more doorways to pleasure on your body, Penelope. You think sex is just between your legs, when it is really between your ears.” He tapped her gently on the forehead. “So much is in your mind. Once you free it from what you are told is wrong, nothing is forbidden between a man and woman who love each other.”
    “Did you love her?” Penelope’s tone was so fierce that Alton was taken aback. Gently he released her arm.
    “I thought I did,” he said. “Then one day in town I witnessed the cruelty she’d so carefully hidden from me. She dared laugh at a beggar woman. It incensed me. I was born into wealth, and so was she. When her husband died, she was left with more than enough to live on. She’s never known what it is to want. She never will. I cannot stand to see a man injured, nor a family hungry. I cannot abide the company of someone so dismissive of the plight of others, or someone who fails to appreciate their own fortune by comparison. I certainly would not want that person to bear my children. I told her I would not see her again.”
    “So you sent her away?”
    “I did. And at first she made light of it. Then she sent letters, often, begging me to reconsider. I would not answer them.”
    Penelope walked over to a chair and sat down. “She painted a different picture, one of a woman under duress, seduced, used, degraded, and then thrown away. She said you whipped her bloody, ravished her.”
    “The bitter words of a bitter woman, my dear. As for the bedsport we shared, I did spank her. But nothing I did to her was ever under duress. Lady Whitfield is a woman of unusual appetites and extreme passion. In that way we were matched; but it takes more than that, which is why I chose you.”
    “But you still don’t understand,” Penelope said. “I may share your compassionate heart, but how can a virgin match you in appetite? The things you admit to doing with her make me ill. I cannot do them!”
    “Oh, but you are wrong on both counts.” Alton walked over to her. Even with her tear-tracked face looking up at him and her gown wrinkled from kneeling, she was still beautiful. “I suspect your passion is more than a match for mine. As for those things you find so scandalous, you will not only do them, but you will love them.”
    “No.” She stood and backed away. “Those are things bad girls do. I’m a good girl.”
    “Are you?” He walked toward her, forcing her to retreat backwards until she was against the wall. “You believed a soulless, bitter woman over the man who loves you. You condemn the pleasures I offer before you even taste them. I think you are a very bad girl.” He took hold of her. “Well, my dear, as I warned you, I am quite stern with bad girls. You will be forgiven, but first you must be corrected.”
    Already she was struggling. “I will not be your whore, Alton Westcott!” she cried as he sat down and pulled her over his lap.
    He restrained her easily across his broad thighs as he flipped up her skirt, exposing her lacy pantalets. “No,” he said. “You will not be. But you will be my willing wife.”
    He pulled down her pantalets, revealing the twin globes of