III.
There was a long pause, and neither of them moved. Mary realized she had been holding her breath waiting for a reaction, though none was immediately forthcoming – perhaps she was wrong, and those were not the words Richard secretly wanted to hear. She had been so sure that he had wanted to elicit her audacious side, the side he found irresistible and as a consequence she knew assured her power in their particular dynamic.
But this hesitation was unforeseen – she had expected him to reward her boldness by succumbing to his desire for her, egged on by her impudent words.
"What did you say?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
Never one to abandon a plan mid-execution, she answered with assurance. "I said hit me again, you bastard."
His hand on her back prevented her from turning fully to see his expression, but she heard him inhale a ragged breath. She pursed her lips to stifle a smile – how silly she had been to question her own judgment.
Or maybe how silly she had been to even attempt this little coup, she amended as his hand connected with the back of her thighs in a stinging blow twice as bad as any of the others. No dramatics this time; she could not suppress a very real shriek, and she imagined the evidence of it would be with her for a few days at least. What had she instigated? Mary was starting to wonder, when she felt Richard's hand leave the small of the back and heard the sound of him undoing his belt and trousers.
She was free to move now, free to turn around and help him undress or to take off her blouse or undo her hair, but after that last slap she was not inclined to help him do anything. She stayed put, content to leave him to his own devices and wait for him to satisfy the need that had been growing in her since his earlier caresses. If he wanted to be in control, she thought with a silent laugh, then he could very well do all the work.
She only had to wait a few moments before he gripped her hips and buried himself inside her. This time her cry was a moan of pleasure, and she hoped he did not take special notice of just how dripping wet she was for him from their previous activity. Mary tried to dismiss the thought herself, imaging it was their competition and not her own helplessness that she had found so heady. If she had examined it a little closer, she probably would have admitted it was really a combination of the two, but she was unable to examine much of anything as he set a hasty pace that brought her quickly to the edge of desire.
He continued the same unrelenting rhythm as she flew apart, the immediacy of it catching her by surprise, and she heard Richard groan her name as her walls fluttered around him in her first peak. She quivered and keened as he drove into her, her left hand grasping the edge of the desk for a touch of reality. But it did not help very much, and soon enough she felt the same feeling building again, the first having come and gone so quickly that she was rapidly ready for the next.
His breathing grew faster along with his thrusts as he reached for her hand, threading his fingers through hers as his other arm wound underneath her hips to keep her from colliding too forcefully with the sharp edge of the desk. Mary pushed back against him, meeting his every move with her own until they both fell apart together, engulfed in the explosion.
"You have no idea how long I've wanted to do that," Richard murmured as he kissed the top of her head. After they had both recovered he had lured her to the leather chesterfield sofa with the prospect of a strong martini, and she had managed to pull her underwear and skirt on without too much protest from her aching bottom as he made the promised drinks with aplomb. They lounged on the low sofa, watching the light reflected on the wood paneling and back through the window turn a bright orange as the sun set over Westminster, and Mary resolved that she would need both another martini and a couple of aspirin by the time the night was over.
"Just waiting for the perfect excuse?" Mary asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Ever since your attempt to throw me over at Christmas," he continued his train of thought, "remember?"
"You can't blame a girl for trying," she joked. All had worked out well for them, in the end, as it turned out Richard was harder to get out of her heart than she had imagined. And their reconciliation had been such a delicious affair that she had hoped all was forgotten, or at least that the sting of their particularly unpleasant parting had faded away.
Then she had a flash of memory back to the morning he had left Downton after their fight. "'I assume this is a plea to stay my hand from punishment…'" she quoted aloud, suddenly remembering their exchange so clearly. Remembering the unseemly shiver those words had sent down her spine.
Mary had always been attracted to power – if only because she liked to think she exuded a power of her own that so few people were equal to – and at the time, those brash words had spoken to her that Richard Carlisle was a man who would not be cowed, even in defeat. Now she realized a whole new level to what he said, a more literal meaning that explained the glint she had noticed in his eye and the slight smirk on his lips as he delivered the insolent comment.
Richard kissed her hair again in concurrence. "Do you know how long a drive it is from Downton to London, in the winter, with ice on the bridges and snow blocking the roads?" he asked. "What a miserable trip that was, thinking I would never see you again?" Mary tilted her head up to place a kiss to his jaw before returning to rest her cheek on his shoulder – she had not thought about it before. They never discussed it, and after they made up at Haxby so soon after, she had tried not to think back to that day of their goodbye. "Or how furious I was with you?"
"That, I can imagine," she said, taking issue with his last statement, "because I was equally furious with you."
"Understandably so," he acknowledged. They were well past that particular conflict, sharing the blame for the precipitous condition their relationship had been in at that moment in time. "That didn't stop me from spending most of the drive home picturing you over my knee, kicking and screaming as I meted out a punishment you wouldn't forget."
And there was that unseemly shiver again. "As if I would kick or scream," she said indignantly, nevertheless taking a steadying sip of the martini to quell her involuntarily strong response to the image.
Richard chuckled at this remark, stroking her hair as he replied, "My darling, you have no idea what I'm capable of."
It may have sounded like a threat, but she knew in their marriage that a threat from either of them was just a challenge waiting to be met.
"And you have no idea what I'm capable of," Mary countered, already dreaming up her next move in their erotic rivalry, certain she could outdo him even in this shocking turn of events.
"I look forward to finding out," he said assuredly, daring her to try.
They were both right.
The End.