Free Bianca by Bertrice Small Page B

laughed, quite pleased with herself for having engineered this scenario with Rovere while poor Bianca lay helpless and semiconscious.
    “Kill me!” Bianca said to her husband. “I should rather be dead than suffer this abuse from you and your whore.”
    “Ahh,
cara mia
, does Nudara distress you that much? Then she shall go,” her husband said in a kindly voice. “Get out, wench. I can see you have been having too much fun, which does not please me.” He pushed the slave from the bed.
    Scrambling to her feet, Nudara protested. “But, my lord, I sought only to please you. We have all drunk the spiced wine now, and I am eager for your love!”
    “Find my son, and let him satisfy your itch,” Sebastiano Rovere said caustically. “Did you think I did not know, Nudara? You are like an alley cat. Now leave me with my beautiful bride.” He laughed cruelly as the girl skulked from his bedchamber. Then he turned back to Bianca. “I would never kill you,
cara mia
,” he said, bending to kiss her cold lips. “The spices will help your blood to warm for me. In my eagerness, I have treated you roughly. I realize now you are a creature that needs to be cosseted.”
    Bianca lay silent. She could think of nothing to say at this moment. She did not resist when he began to stroke her body. To her shame, the wine was beginning to have the desired effect, but she kept her lips pressed tightly together, making no sound whatsoever. She would not give him the satisfaction of knowing. If he believed the wine with its special mix of spices had not aroused her, he would, she prayed, not use them again on her.
    It was difficult, however, to maintain her attitude of detachment. Her body was suddenly burning with a need she neither understood nor desired. She could feel the secret place first growing moist, and then distinctly wet with that odd need. He seemed to be kissing, stroking, and caressing every inch of her body. She bit the inside of her lip to prevent a scream from escaping her when he mounted her and pushed into her tight sheath.
    “Ah,
cara mia
,” he groaned, “how perfect you are!” Then he fucked her until his lusts exploded. Afterwards he remarked, “Your juices were copious,
cara mia.
Now you see how pleasurable such activity can be when you are eager for your husband.”
    With each passing day, she grew to hate him more. Her mother did not come, and she learned from Agata, who had learned it from Antonio, that Orianna Pietro d’Angelo had been forbidden entry to Sebastiano Rovere’s palazzo each time she had come to see her daughter. Bianca was furious, but she knew her anger meant nothing to her husband.
    He had a right to do whatever he pleased, and he knew the law well. Her rights were few.
    Bianca knew she needed to please her husband in some special way so he would grant her approval to see her mother. And she knew exactly what would please him more than anything else.
    He made a point of reminding her daily that she belonged to him, that it was he who controlled her fate. But the one thing he had never been able to gain from her in their six months of marriage was her cries of pleasure. Bianca knew her husband well by now. If she gave him that, he was certain to reward her, and she would ask to see her mother. It was the only thing she had with which to bargain.
    That night when he called her to his bed, she went to him, her long dark hair and her body perfumed with the scent of the exotic moonflower. She dropped the pale pink silk robe she wore and slipped into his bed without protest. He was surprised, raising an eyebrow questioningly. Bianca shrugged casually. “Suddenly something is different for me, Sebastiano,” she said softly, and took the goblet of spiced wine from his hand, sipping it slowly until she felt the aphrodisiacs beginning to surge through her body.
    He grinned knowingly. “You want something of me,” he said candidly.
    “I do,” she admitted truthfully.
    “What?” he asked