“But is this about what you want or about what I want?”
“I don’t know.” She sounded fierce and furious. “Something about boundaries and discipline and whether or not I’ll respect you. I feel like I respect you enough already.”
“You’re attracted to me,” he agreed. “Drawn to me, even. But respect? I don’t think so.”
“But—”
“Enough talking.” He traced his way down the dark furrow of her ass and beneath, the hungry wet clench of her pussy. “You feel wet and needy to me, Rory. Are you still yellow?”
He felt her fight, and then submit. He felt the shudder go through her and then she relaxed against him, and he thought he had never wanted another woman more.
“I’m green, Sir,” she whispered.
Conrad rewarded her by tracing his finger through her wetness, circling around her desperate clit. Then he returned to the task at hand.
“I’m going to spank you five times.” He kept his voice appropriately stern and authoritative. “Because you’re brand-new, I’m going easy on you with this low, paltry number. You may thank me.”
“Thank you,” she gritted out, not sounding remotely thankful.
He bit back a grin. If there was anything on this earth better than a grumpy submissive trying to prepare herself for a punishment she both wanted and hated, he didn’t know what it was.
He gripped her ass, hard. “Pardon? Thank you, who?”
“Sir,” she wheezed.
He began to rub her, then, roughly, covering both ass cheeks as he got her blood moving.
“I want you to count, Rory. If you lose count, I’ll start over. After each blow, you will say ‘one, thank you, Sir. Two, thank you, Sir.’ And so on. Do you understand?”
She was wriggling, slightly. He could see her shiver, then flush. And her ass was already reddening beneath the rough treatment he was giving it, which made him imagine how lovely it would look with a few handprints.
He could feel his own elevated pulse in his cock, but that was part of the fun.
“Yes, Sir,” Rory whispered.
“You can make all the noise you want,” he assured her. “That, too, is a gift. No matter how much it hurts, or how much you scream, you will still count. Is that understood?”
“Y...yes, S—”
And before she could really finish that sentence, he spanked her.
Hard.
CHAPTER EIGHT
HE ACTUALLY HIT HER.
Spanked her.
And it hurt like hell.
Rory jerked in his hold, though it was pointless. He was holding her bound hands against her back, pressing her down into his knee. And his leg was over her feet, so she couldn’t kick.
Pain exploded through her like a bright, sharp wave.
And when she jerked, those horrible clamps bit hard into her nipples, so she was strung out somewhere between the pain in her breasts and the sharper, hotter pain in her butt.
For a narrow, impossible length of time that could easily have been forever, everything was pain. Everything was that endless, encompassing wave, washing through her, over her—
This was awful. What was she doing? Why the hell had she not only gone out of her way to make this happen, but had enthusiastically participated—
“Was that a free one?” came his cool, maddening voice from above. “Just practice? Or are you counting?”
Rory wanted to kill him. Her eyes were blurry with pain and fury, and she opened her mouth to tell him exactly what she thought of him. But his hand was on her ass. Right where he’d spanked her, and it hurt, but then again, there was something else threaded in there beneath the pressure of his palm.
She took a breath instead of swearing at him, and when she did, she could feel all the same things she already did. That bright, painful place where he’d spanked her. The teeth of those clamps making her nipples feel hot and glaring, but also...him.
That big hand, hot against her ass. His strong thighs beneath her, and the leg holding her in place. The fact of his clothing against her nakedness, adding to it all, making her skin feel even more sensitive.
And that was different, somehow, to think about him. To feel him, and that impossibly gorgeous body of his, so hard and toned. It didn’t change the pain, or make it better, but it made it bearable.
“One, thank you, Sir,” she managed to get out, though her voice was choked.
“Next time louder, please,” he said, as if he was a professor somewhere, asking for a different font size on a boring paper.
That struck her as ridiculous. Though really, no more ridiculous than the fact she was naked and trussed