Wicked, My Love by Susanna Ives

you!?” An image of taking her against the trunk filled his imagination—and he possessed a very vivid and detailed imagination. What he conjured wasn’t so terrible. At least, his throbbing cock certainly didn’t think so. In his mind, he imagined her soft lips parted with pleasure, her bound breasts freed and bouncing with his thrusts. He wondered what her nipples looked like. Were they pert, pink—
    Get ahold of yourself.
    â€œI’m your brother. That’s just disgusting in so many aspects.” He wagged his finger under her nose. “No, no, dear Sister. You’ve been playing Who’s Papa’s Naughty Pussycat with Mr. Powers, and now you’ve got a little kitten in the oven. At least, that’s what I’m telling Mr. Busby.”
    â€œI’m pregnant with Mr. Powers’s child,” she repeated, as if Randall had just proposed the most asinine thing in the world. “That’s your plan?”
    â€œBrilliant, isn’t it?”
    â€œThat’s it!” She flung up her arms, causing her dress to fall, revealing the tops of her breasts—those lovely, ample things—over her corset. She must have seen him looking—ogling like a moonling might be a better description—because she blushed, yanking up her gown. “I’m doing this by myself. You’re cracked.”
    She stomped away, wobbling on her blistered feet.
    He hurried to catch up. “Think about it. He has nine children. When I tell him that my beloved sister Izzy May was impregnated and abandoned by Powers, it’s bound to sway him. It gets right to the heart. No beating around the bush, or should I say arteries, lungs, or belly, not to mix metaphors. We get the information we need and catch the next train leaving the station.”
    Her spectacles amplified her glower as she considered. Finally she said, “I swear I will repay you for this ludicrousness.” She turned, letting him complete his “impregnation.” “And trust me, it’s going to be painful and humiliating and will traumatize you for the remainder of your life.”
    â€œDon’t get me excited with anticipation,” he quipped wryly. However, his jolly Mr. Headsmith, still reeling from the tree fantasy, didn’t perceive any irony in his words, and grew hard at the prospect of Isabella-inflicted trauma. He tried to keep his mind on her plain cotton corset, and not the curve of her neck and waist, or the heat of her body warming his fingers.
    When he was done, she clutched her dress to her chest, stomped back to the tree, reached over the fence, and grabbed a handful of hay from the horse’s trough.
    â€œWhat are you—” He stopped when she jammed the hay down her corset. “I didn’t think of using hay.” He had just intended to loosen her gown a bit. “You’re going to itch and cry, but you’re brilliant.”
    ***
    Randall used the door knocker. “Are you sure you’re ready?” he asked Isabella, who sniffed, her eyes watering as she furiously scratched the space just below her breasts and above the round hay-baby in her corset. Something about the straw bump filled him with masculine pride, as if it were a real baby and one he’d put in her.
    What the hell is wrong with you? Your career, your reputation is in the chamber pot, and all you can think about is making babies with Isabella.
    Meanwhile, his Mr. Long Johnson just heard the “make babies” part of his inner lecture and came to attention like a soldier called to duty.
    â€œI feel like I want to scratch my skin off,” she whimpered, her face resembling a swollen, w et tomato.
    â€œI’ll get us out of here as quickly as possible. You just stand there being pregnant and miserable while I do the talking. Remember, Powers likes witless women.”
    â€œWhat is that supposed to mean about me—”
    The door opened. Inside stood a naked