‘Good. But you need a way to let me know if what I’m doing isn’t okay for you.’
‘I won’t need—’
‘You will. Because telling me no won’t be enough.’ I’d never had to think about this before because I’d never wanted to do the things I wanted to do to Poppy to anyone else before. But I did now. And she had to know that I took what she’d given me very seriously. That I respected it. That I would never do anything she didn’t want.
‘Okay. So what do I say instead?’
I thought for a moment. ‘Say seven. Repeat it to me.’
‘S-Seven,’ she whispered, breathing fast.
I loved that hitch in her voice, the husky, breathless timbre of it. As if just talking about all of this was getting her off.
‘That’s it.’ I tightened my fist in her hair, pulling her head back even further, exposing her lovely throat. ‘But you still came here when you shouldn’t and you know what that means, don’t you?’
She stared right up at me, her eyes darkening. ‘Wh-What does it mean?’
‘That I’ll have to punish you.’
Her mouth opened, a quiver going through her. ‘I...want that.’
‘What you want doesn’t matter.’ I lifted my other hand, let my fingers trail along her throat, feeling her soft silky skin. ‘Only what I want. You’re my fuck toy, remember? Say it.’
‘I... I’m your f-fuck toy.’
She was so responsive. So obedient. My cock was hard already, the blood pumping in my veins.
Mine. She was mine.
The sense of possessiveness I’d felt earlier stretched out inside me, relaxing me. I was hard yet there was no feeling of urgency. It was a strong feeling, powerful. I’d never experienced it before. Yes, I liked to take charge in the bedroom, but this was different. This was someone willingly giving up control of their body—to me.
There was a gift in that. And a sacrifice.
Jesus, she had courage. It was humbling.
I would make sure she never regretted it.
I let go of her hair and took her hand, leading her down the short hallway from the front door and out into the lounge.
The windows that gave the magnificent view of the Opera House were right in front of us, the slatted shutters that allowed me to shield my apartment from the sun or from the lights outside at night were open.
Neon and starlight filled the room, dark bars of shadow crossing the pale wooden floor.
Right in front of me was a sectional sofa covered in pale linen and I pulled Poppy over to it. Then I sat and tugged her down with me, arranging her so that her rounded ass was over my knees.
‘What’s—?’ she began.
I put my hand on the back of her neck, pressing down lightly. ‘Keep still. I told you I was going to punish you.’
Her breathing was loud in the sudden silence of the room. ‘How?’
I didn’t answer. I wanted her to keep guessing, keep wondering. ‘You’ll find out. Remember your word?’
‘Yes.’
Keeping one hand on her neck, I slid the other underneath her and found the button of her jeans. I flicked it open and pulled down the zip. Then I grabbed the waistband at the small of her back and jerked the denim down, taking her knickers with it, uncovering the golden-bronze skin of her bare butt.
She shuddered and made a soft sound, muffled by the linen of the sofa cushions, but it wasn’t her word so I didn’t stop.
My heart was beating hard in my chest, my cock aching, and yet I’d never felt so in control or so completely calm.
Yes, she was mine. And I was going to punish her. For coming here when she shouldn’t. For demanding what she shouldn’t want. For tempting me. For making me want her so fucking badly.
I trailed my fingertips over her ass then opened my palm, gathering her soft flesh into it and squeezing gently. She shivered. Her flesh was warm and when I squeezed I could feel her muscles tense. Soft. So fucking soft. I wanted to take a bite out of her. Maybe I would. Later.
Right now there was something else I wanted to do.
I lifted my hand and then brought it down on one butt cheek.
Hard.
She gasped aloud, her whole body jerking.
I rubbed my thumb gently against the side of her neck, while with the other hand I stroked the butt cheek I’d just spanked. ‘Do you know why I’m doing this?’
‘Because... I’m bad.’ She was shaking in my lap, her whole body tense. And yet I didn’t think it was from the pain.
‘That’s right.’ I lifted my hand again. ‘I’m going to give you five strokes and you’ll count each one. If you want me to stop, you know what to say.’
Before I brought my hand down I waited a second, listening for her word. But she didn’t say it so I let my palm fall, the sound against her soft flesh making a cracking sound in the room. She gasped again, jerking, but her voice, though breathless, was steady.
‘One.’
I did it again and again, making her count the strokes, her skin getting hot beneath my palm, the sight of it reddening making my cock ache. And with each stroke her voice got more ragged, her gasps more like moans.
This was wrong, of course, turning my stepsister over my knee and spanking her bare ass like there was no tomorrow.
But she didn’t say her word and the moans she made weren’t of pain. At the fourth stroke she began to squirm restlessly, trying to rub herself against my thigh, and I had to squeeze the back of her neck tightly to keep her still.
No matter how wrong this was, we were both enjoying the hell out of it. I felt in control and powerful, having her writhing in my lap, at my mercy. And knowing how much she was getting off on this was one hell of an aphrodisiac.
I spanked her one last time and she groaned, her voice ragged as she murmured the count.
Then I looked down, her bronzed skin a dusky red from my hand. Fuck, it was hot, looking at her fully dressed with her jeans and knickers pulled down. The sight made me harder than rock, my pulse going like a jackhammer in my head.
I squeezed her, making her shudder, her hips lifting as if wanting more. ‘That’s my good girl,’ I murmured, allowing my fingers to trail over her butt and down, pushing between her butt cheeks, finding the taut ring of muscle there. ‘You took that well. If you’re lucky you might get a little something for yourself.’
She groaned and I felt her muscles clench instinctively. I pushed my thumb a little harder against her, moving it in small circles, wanting to see how far she’d let me go, but she didn’t say her word. Instead she panted, squirming restlessly as I pushed.
A primal kind of satisfaction gripped me hard and I toyed with her a little more before letting my fingers wander lower, between her thighs. Her pussy was slick and slippery, and when I began to explore her wet folds she gave a long, low moan, her body shaking.
‘You liked that, didn’t you?’ I eased one finger slowly inside her. ‘My bad girl liked getting spanked, hmm?’
‘Yes...’ She lifted her hips against my hand. ‘I did l-like it.’
‘And now this little pussy is all wet.’ I pushed in another finger, the slick, hot feel of her flesh tightening around it making my breath catch and my pulse hammer relentlessly. ‘What do you think I should do about that?’
She moaned and twisted, trembling. Her hands clutched onto the cushions on either side of her head, her face turned against the pale linen. It was flushed, a sheen of perspiration on her forehead and top lip.
I watched that lovely face as I eased my thumb between her butt cheeks, pressing against her ass once again.
She groaned again, panting, her knuckles turning white.
‘I asked you a question,’ I reminded her quietly, pressing harder, watching her.
‘I think... God... I th-think you should m-make me come.’
‘Is that right?’ I pushed my thumb gently inside her, keeping my fingers buried deep in her pussy, watching her face and gauging her reactions to see what gave her the most pleasure. ‘Do you deserve it, I wonder?’
She gave a soft cry, her features twisting in what looked like agony. But I knew it wasn’t agony. She was close to coming, so close now. The air was full of the delicate scent of her arousal, sweetened with jasmine, making me even harder.
But I wanted to prolong the moment, to draw it out as long as possible, torture her with ecstasy as long as I could. Because right here, right now, between us there was nothing but honesty.
No lies and no anger. None of the murky, complicated emotional undercurrents that had been part of our relationship for so many years.
There was a purity in it. A rightness.
I was in complete command of her and she wanted me to be.
We were both getting exactly what we wanted and it was powerful. More powerful even than numbers.
Her hips twisted as if she was trying to work herself against my hand, my fingers in her pussy, my thumb in her ass.
‘I don’t deserve it,’ she said thickly. ‘I d-don’t... But I... Oh, God, Xander...please...’
I frowned a little. ‘What makes you think that?’
‘Because I... I’m a bad person. And I shouldn’t like what you’re doing to me.’ In the dim light, something gleamed on her cheek. A tear. ‘B-But I do like it.’
My chest tightened. A bad person? What the hell had made her think that? Who had made her think that?
A dark anger filled me, the protectiveness that had come over me earlier deepening. I wanted to push, ask her more questions, get to the bottom of why she should feel she was a bad person, because she wasn’t, not in any way. But now wasn’t the time.
She’d been so good for me. Time to give her what she wanted.
‘You’re not a bad person,’ I said with all the certainty I could, so there could be no argument. ‘You took your punishment like the brave, beautiful girl you are, and now you can have your reward.’ Letting go of the back of her neck, I fisted my free hand in her hair then began to work my fingers and thumb inside her, slowly, gently. ‘When you come I want you to scream,’ I ordered. ‘I want you to scream so loudly they can hear you outside.’
It didn’t take long. She was so wet and so ready.
And when the time came she screamed my house down.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Poppy
MY BUTT WAS on fire, my throat felt hoarse and my eyes were gritty with tears.
My orgasm was still pulsing through me, the echoes of my screams reverberating off the glass of the windows and the white walls of Xander’s apartment.
I’d never felt so good in my whole damn life.
He’d taken me apart so completely I’d kind of lost myself. In the burning pain as he’d spanked me and the pleasure that had come with it. I didn’t know why it had turned me on so much, but it had. And the words he’d used, calling me his fuck toy and his bad girl, had turned me on even more.
I’d been wet before he’d even started spanking me and then, when he’d touched my pussy and pushed his thumb in my butt... God...
I couldn’t stop shaking.
Lying across his lap like this, with my jeans and underwear pulled down, felt exposing and yet at the same time so unbelievably erotic. He’d been watching me the whole time he’d touched me, making me the complete focus of his attention, as if my pleasure was important to him.
As if I was important to him.
God, if I wasn’t careful I was going to be desperate for him again and I hadn’t even come down from the last orgasm.
Xander removed his hand from between my thighs and gave me a light stroke that made me shiver from my head all the way down to my toes.
‘Kneel on the floor,’ he ordered, his voice containing that stern note that I loved so much. ‘And don’t move until I get back.’
I wanted to ask him where he was going, but he was already urging me from his lap and down onto the floor, and my brain wasn’t working well enough for me to get the question out.
Then he was gone, leaving me to kneel in the silence.
My legs were still quaking and I could smell my own arousal. My inner thighs were slick with it. It was embarrassing.
After a minute or two I shifted to pull my undies and jeans back up again, but he came back just as I was doing so.
‘No,’ he said curtly. ‘Don’t cover yourself.’
He strode past me to the sofa, tossing some condom packets down on the cushions as he sat down.
I stilled, my heart racing, wondering what he was going to ask of me next and half afraid, half excited about it.
He leaned back on the sofa, his thighs spread. He was tall, dark, powerful. His black gaze was so compelling and so full of fierce heat that I could hardly breathe.
‘Take your clothes off,’ he said in a voice full of steel.
Okay, so he wanted me to strip. In front of him.
I swallowed and got to my feet, awkward and afraid and yet somehow even more turned on than I had been before.
The me of a few days ago would have found this demeaning, stripping for a man while he watched. It would have made me feel too like my mother for comfort.
But the way Xander stared at me, intense and watchful, his sharp, predatory features full of hunger... No, it didn’t feel demeaning at all.
There was a power in doing this for him, in following his orders.
Because it was obvious from the look on his face that it made him as desperate as it made me.
My hands shook a little as I shrugged out of my denim jacket, dropping it on the floor. I pulled off my T-shirt and discarded it before bending to unlace my sneakers. My fingers felt thick and unwieldy, and I kept fumbling with the laces until eventually Xander said, ‘Stop.’
I froze. ‘I... I’m sorry. I can...’
But, before I could get any more words out, he pushed himself off the sofa and knelt at my feet, his long fingers deftly undoing my laces for me.
It shocked me into silence.
He didn’t say a word and I could only watch as he finished undoing them. Then he gently urged me to lift up my foot and, before I knew what he was doing, he’d slipped the sneaker off then my sock too.
His fingertips on my bare skin were so hot that I began to tremble again. My chest felt tight at the care with which he touched me, easing my foot back down onto the floor before urging up the other one.
When he finished, I thought he’d go back to sitting again, but he didn’t. He stayed on his knees but straightened up, reaching for the waistband of my jeans and pushing the denim down my legs, taking my underwear with it.
‘I thought you wanted me to take my clothes off,’ I said huskily.
‘I changed my mind.’ He urged me to lift one foot then the other again, helping me step out of my jeans. ‘Besides, you’re mine to do with as I see fit so don’t question me.’
The dark, rough words whispered over my skin, making me catch my breath. And then I was naked in front of him and shaking with the force of my desire.
He looked slowly up my body as if he was committing every part of me to memory, and the hot possessiveness in his black gaze eased the fear inside me, made me even more aware of the way I affected him. And how in this moment I was just as powerful as he was.
I could deny him at any time. I could say my word and he would have to stop, and he would stop. Xander King had always been a man of his word.
Power glowed inside me as his hands dropped to my ankles, but I didn’t say seven. And I knew I wouldn’t say it.
Because there was nothing he could do to me that I wouldn’t want.
Slowly he ran his fingers up the backs of my legs, his palms hot against my calves and then the backs of my knee
s, and up to my thighs.
The look on his dark, handsome face became one of intense male satisfaction.
‘Beautiful,’ he murmured. ‘You’re beautiful.’
I’d always hated my beauty. Hated how it made me a target, how it made men always want a piece of me. But right now, standing in front of Xander with him looking at me, desire like a fire in his eyes, for the first time I didn’t hate it. I was glad of it. I was glad he found me beautiful and that it pleased him.
You’ve really lowered yourself to this? Pleasing a man?
But I ignored that thought and then it exploded into stars as Xander’s fingers tightened on the backs of my thighs and he leaned forward, brushing a light kiss over my stomach.
Goosebumps erupted all over me, the breath hissing in my throat. And then stopped altogether as he moved lower, burying his face between my thighs.
Pleasure twisted like a knife as his tongue pushed roughly inside me and I groaned aloud, my back arching.
Oh, my God. I was nearly ready to come apart. Again.
His hands slid higher, cupping my butt and squeezing. It hurt, but the pain was sweet somehow, giving an edge to the pleasure that was cascading through me.
He held me tightly, pressing his tongue deeper, holding me still.
I gasped, my hands reaching down and threading through his thick, silky black hair. Standing was difficult, my knees weak and shaky.
I wanted to lie down, spread my legs wide, give him greater access, but he held me tight and I couldn’t. And somehow that made it even hotter, the lash of his tongue even wickeder.
Oh, holy shit. He was going to make me come again.
But, just before the release hit me, he pulled away, dark eyes burning.
I moaned in protest, swaying on my feet as he let me go.
He licked his lips, one corner of his mouth curling in a smile that made me go hot all over. ‘Not yet, bad girl. It’s my turn now.’
He moved back to the sofa and sat down, spreading his thighs once again. ‘Kneel. Your mouth needs to be around my cock in five seconds or I’ll turn you over my knee again.’
I was helpless to do anything but obey him—not that I wanted to disobey. The thought of getting to taste him was making my mouth water.
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