Treasured (Masters and Mercenaries #22.5) - Lexi Blake Page 0,52

than willing. But then she’d called a lot of tops Master this or that. She’d never called one Professor and never would in the future. Even if she never touched him again, David would always be her professor.

“You called me professor as a joke before. Tonight the word is going to have a different meaning.” David once more touched her chin, but this time he slid his curled fingers back, grazing the sensitive skin below her ear. Then his hand slid under her hair, around the back of her neck, sending a shiver of anticipation down her spine.

“But before we go any further, there’s something we need to do,” David said.

They should talk about limits, safe words. If they weren’t simply going to go at it hard, they should—

“Something I’ve needed to do since the first night I met you,” he murmured.

David closed the distance between them and sealed his lips over hers. Tessa’s eyes widened before fluttering closed. His kiss was sure and strong but not forceful. When his tongue touched the seam of her lips, it was a request not a command, and she yielded to him, opening her mouth to let his tongue sweep inside. She tasted him as he tasted her, and the arousal he’d kindled to life in her both flared hotter and burned deeper, touching parts of her soul that a simple kiss shouldn’t be able to reach.

The first time they’d kissed, she’d made the move. It had been good, but this was something more. This felt like a beginning.

David broke the kiss, leaning his forehead against hers for a moment. His breath washed over her face as he sighed.

“That…that was just for us,” he said as he straightened.

She met his eyes and realized this was going to be everything she’d feared. She wasn’t going to get what she wanted—a quick and easy getaway from feelings she didn’t want. She was going to fall for this man, and her heart would break when she forced herself to leave him.

But she couldn’t stop. She would take the pleasure and she would take the heartache.

His hand on the back of her neck had turned soft, his fingers sliding into her hair in a massaging caress while he kissed her. But now they clamped down once again, a firm, controlling hold that brought her right back to the kink moment that amazing kiss had interrupted.

“You’re to call me Professor. And from now on, any time you hear anyone call me professor, you’re going to remember everything I’m about to do to you.” His fingers tightened, and he jerked her forward.

She fell into him, his chest hard against her breasts, their faces so close that he could have easily kissed her again. He didn’t. Instead, she felt the puff of air from his next word.

His next order.

“Strip.”

Tessa looked up into David’s eyes. What she saw there made her want to submit. What she saw there made her want to forget her gloomy-fucking-Gus philosophy of life and try with this man. Made her want to hope that maybe this time it would be right. This time it would be forever.

She dropped her gaze to his chin and reached for the waistband of her PJ pants. He kept ahold of her, that unequivocally dominant grip on the back of her neck as she wiggled out of her pants.

She hadn’t bothered with underwear. She’d hadn’t seen the point since some part of her had known exactly how this would end—with her naked and in his arms.

Still holding her close, David dropped his free hand to her hip, fingers tracing a slow, circular pattern up her waist until they slipped under her fitted cotton T-shirt.

“I’m going to release you and then you’re going to finish taking off your clothes. Once you’re naked, go stand by the post at the corner of the bed. Do you have any issues with being tied up? Any restrictions you want me to honor?”

“No, Professor.”

“Very good.”

David released her and took a step back. Tessa quickly stripped off her shirt but hesitated when she reached around behind her back for the fastening of her bra.

“Hesitating in hopes of earning a punishment?” he asked with that same disappointed and commanding teacher voice.

Why did she find that so hot? Oh, because she was kinky as fuck and David was her Professor Hottie.

Professor. Damn it. That word did things to her and they’d barely even started.

“If you need to be bent over my desk and have a ruler taken to your