She searched his steady green eyes, and just like that, the storm inside her quieted. He hadn’t asked her to cast away every doubt or answer every question. He’d simply asked her to cast her lot with his, to take his hand and figure shit out together.
She might not trust the future, she might not even trust herself, but did she trust him? From the first day, that answer had been as easy as breathing. Mind, body, and soul…
“Yes,” she told him.
The smile that spread across Lucas’s face was brighter than the Caribbean sun and made her heart stutter in her chest. She felt the knots of worry around her chest loosen.
“All right, then,” he said. He bent and pressed his lips to hers, as warm and solid as a promise. “I’m taking you back to our cabin. We’re done with this shit.” He wrapped one muscled arm around her waist and started to lead her away from the area where Becky had gone.
Gretchen’s mind came back online and she dug in her heels. “Wait, Lucas!” She spun to face him, one hand against his rock-hard stomach.
He shook his head once, vehemently. “One of these days, I will spank you, baby,” he told her, his voice a deep rumble that made her nipples bead beneath her damp bathing suit. “But when I do, it won’t be in front of an audience, and it won’t be for a career boost. It’ll happen because you’ve agreed to it, and because you want it, or need it, or both.”
Want it, or need it, or both? What did that mean? Her mind stumbled down several paths that made her pulse skip a beat.
Focus, Gretchen!
“I want to do it,” she blurted.
“You want me to spank you?” His voice was a growl that belonged in the dark of night, in the quiet privacy of their cabin and not on the bustling deck of the ship. Despite the heat of the sun, she shivered.
“I… yes. I do. And, besides, taking on the investigation was never about getting a career boost,” she explained, her gaze fastened on the blue t-shirt that stretched across the defined muscles of his torso. “It was about keeping my job. Manny Rieshach made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. Figure out what happened to Zelma and get promoted, or decline and likely find myself out of a job the next time they need to cut costs.”
“Fuck Mr. Rieshach,” he told her impatiently. “There are more important things than this investigation. We’re getting nowhere and keeping up this pretense won’t help. If you lose this job, we’ll find you another.”
A brief flash of annoyance had her pursing her lips, even as the we in his statement made her belly flutter. “I told you, it’s not just about the investigation, you idiot! I-I want it. I want to, you know, try it.” She darted a brief glance to his impassive face before confessing her most secret desire. “The spanking and… maybe… submission.”
She watched his chest rise as he sucked in a deep breath and held it, and her mind whirled with anxiety… and not a small amount of anticipation.
“What did you call me?” he asked, his voice silky with warning.
Gretchen’s heartbeat thrummed in her ears. Yes, yes, yes. This is what I want.
“I…” She licked her lips nervously and sucked in a breath before admitting, “I called you… an idiot.”
“And is that a polite or respectful way to speak to someone who’s only looking out for your best interests?”
Was this a game? Was he teasing? She lifted her eyes to find him staring down at her, his jaw firm and his eyes deadly earnest. Oh, thank God.
“No,” she whispered.
“You really want this? You want to submit to me?” he demanded, his voice quiet but rough.
She nodded wordlessly, and his eyes flared with something primal and possessive.
“Then tell me, who makes the rules, Gretchen?”
“You do, Lucas.”
“And who follows them?”
“I do,” she said, feeling the tightness in her chest loosen even more.
It was a simple admission—the tiniest, silliest drop of a conversation in an ocean of important discussions they would have on this topic—but it felt like a sea change. Everything before five minutes ago was the past, and this? This was the future…
“So, if I tell you we are going back to the cabin right now, little girl, what are we going to do?”
Oh. Oh, damn. Just that fast, the happy bubble she’d felt buoying her popped. The conversations around her became louder, the sun burned hotter on her face. This was the stuff that Elena blogged about. This was where the rubber met the road. Giving over control meant not only trusting him to take her where she wanted to go but trusting him to know where she needed to go, even when it wasn’t what she wanted at all.
She closed her eyes. She could demand that he take her to do the spanking, and the odds were high that he would… he was being paid to be her protector, after all. But she dismissed that thought almost as quickly as it crossed her mind. There were more important things than the investigation, and one of them was staring at her right now.
“We’re going back to the cabin,” she sighed. She gave him a small smile. “We’ll find another way.”
His eyes burned into hers, his hand lifted to trace her cheekbone like she was infinitely precious, and suddenly, she didn’t care that she’d lost this battle. She and Lucas would go back to the cabin, and when they made port, she’d tell Manny where he could shove his stupid ultimatums…
“Follow me,” Lucas told her, leading her towards the front of the ship—towards the spanking demonstration—with one hand on the curve of her lower back.
“L-Lucas?” she asked, infusing that single word with all her disbelief and uncertainty.
He met her eyes and smiled wide. “You said that you wanted to go ahead with the spanking. I asked some follow-up questions to make sure you were in the right frame of mind to do it.” He shrugged. “So, we’ll proceed. And there will be no doubt in your mind about what happens when you call me names.”
She shivered again at the warning in his voice, but before she had time to churn over this latest bit of information, a shaded platform near the bow of the ship came into view. Beneath the canopy, there was a leather spanking bench set up parallel to the platform, giving the crowd of sun-drunk vacationers who clustered around a sideways view of the bench… and anything that happened on it.
Her heart stuttered with a different kind of fear. Trusting Lucas, falling in love, submitting to him… that was all well and good, but she realized she hadn’t given a single thought to the mechanics of this demonstration. If Elena’s blog posts—and the various snippets of conversation she’d heard from Elena’s friends—were true, this was going to hurt.
Possibly a lot.
She pulled on Lucas’s hand, tugging him backwards. “I’m not sure if I can…” she whispered, her eyes on the scene in front of her. “Is it going to hurt?”
His smile was gentle and reassuring. “Do you trust me?”
Once again, it was clear that trusting in theory was a whole hell of a lot easier than trusting in practice, when her ass was very literally on the line. But her answer held true.
“Yes,” she agreed. “Of course I do.”
He bent down to brush a soft kiss over her lips. “Let’s give them a fucking demonstration. You with me?”
She smiled and nodded, feeling the connection between them—the one she’d tried to sever, to ignore, to hide all these years—flare to brilliant life. “I’m with you,” she said, and she took the hand he offered and followed him through the crowd.
When they got closer to the small platform, they found Becky standing off to one side, her ever-present clipboard at hand. She directed them to a nearby tent, where they met the other demonstrators—a professional Domme and her submissive, a married Dom and sub who ran a lifestyle blog, and the professional dominant who would be “tutoring” Lucas, who introduced himself as Max.
Max and Lucas shook hands first, and despite her nerves, Gretchen almost found it amusing to watch them sizing one another up.
“You’re n
ot a newbie,” Max finally said, raising an eyebrow at Lucas.
“Not quite, no,” Lucas agreed. “But Gina here is.” He placed a steady hand on Gretchen’s shoulder and she smiled nervously.
Max nodded. “Don’t worry, honey,” he told her. “Nerves are normal. Your man will take good care of you. Now let’s go get you settled.”
Gretchen swallowed hard as she took Lucas’s hand and let him lead her to the spanking bench. She knew what Max said was true. No part of her worried that Lucas wouldn’t take care of her or that he’d try to take her too far. Instead, she was surprised to find herself worried about pleasing him, about making him proud.
Lucas guided her to the bench and her heart sped at the number of people milling around, all of them watching her. God, it was mortifying. But she allowed Lucas to put her in position, stretching her arms out in front of her when he indicated.
Max addressed the crowd, explaining that she and Lucas were a beginner couple and advising them about what would be covered during the demonstration, but Gretchen could hardly concentrate on the words. Her body was nearly twitching with nerves now, and she couldn’t find a single trace of the calm certainty she’d felt just moments ago. What if she embarrassed Lucas? What if she cried? What if she found that she simply couldn’t handle this?
Lucas knelt by her shoulder, laying one broad palm on the exposed part of her upper back, and said her name sternly, forcing her to meet his eyes.
“Listen to me, baby,” he told her in a low voice that only she could hear. “Forget them. Forget this.” He waved his hand to indicate the ship, the crowd, the bench, the spectacle. “Forget Gina Arnault and Zelma Pickler. Forget your job and your asshole boss. None of that matters here. In a few minutes, I’m going to spank you. Me, Gretchen. My hand on your ass, me reminding you that our relationship will only work if there’s respect between us, me teaching you what happens to little girls who don’t watch their mouths. That’s all that matters. And do you know why?”
Her breathing was shallow, and her vision was completely centered on the gorgeous green of his eyes. She could see the truth shining in them, but she needed to hear it. “Why?” she pleaded.
“Because I love you. Because you want this from me, and I want to give it to you. I will always give you what you need.” He ran his hand over her head, running the strands of her hair through his fingers, and the look he gave her heated her blood.
“We’ll talk about safewords more thoroughly later, but for now, if you really need me to stop, say red. Are you ready?”
She nodded, trying to swallow around a lump of uncertainty, but he wasn’t fooled.
He sighed, but with a patience she wouldn’t have thought him capable of, he stayed exactly where he was and ran his hand over her hair again. “What’s your job right now, Gretchen? What did I tell you to do?”
“T-to ignore the crowd? To remember that it’s you spanking me?”
“Yes. And why?”
“Because our… our relationship will only work if we respect each other,” she whispered, loving the way his eyes kindled when she spoke the words our relationship.
He nodded once. “Now you’re ready,” he told her.
She put her cheek down on the bench, keeping her eyes firmly closed. She felt Lucas raise the hem of her dress to her waist, exposing the bottom of her bathing suit, but he had taken a position behind her and to the side, mostly blocking her from the crowd’s view. She knew this wasn’t unintentional and was just another way that her man—her Lucas—was protecting her. She heard Max finish up his introduction and was vaguely aware of him taking a position by her head as an expectant hush fell over the crowd.
The first loud crack of Lucas’s broad palm on her ass shocked her from her daze. The place where he’d struck fairly sizzled with electricity. The pain wasn’t intolerable, but—
Crack, crack, crack. His hand struck, again and again, a dozen or more times in quick succession. Each time, he struck a slightly different spot, but the pain multiplied as her flesh got warmer and warmer. She was squirming now, tensing against the sting and the accompanying ache. It was harder to tune out the gasps and murmurs from the crowd, and she felt her cheeks burning with shame.
But the next time his hand touched her skin, it wasn’t another open-handed smack, but a caress, a soothing rub over the tender aches. He brought his mouth down close to her face, and his breath tickled her ear as he spoke, “Are you focusing, baby? Do you remember what I told you?”
She hadn’t been. She’d allowed herself to be distracted by the pain. “I will,” she whimpered, as his hand stroked down her suit-covered ass and her bare thighs.
“So good, my baby. You’re taking this so well for me, good girl. I’m going to reward you,” he promised, and she had to bite her lip against a different kind of squirming now. He stood back up, and in a slightly louder voice he told her, “Ten more, baby.”
She could hear Max talking again and the rustle of the crowd, but she was able to tune it out now. She didn’t have to think about them, because they simply didn’t matter. Lucas’s broad palm gave her one final deep caress and then lifted to continue the spanking, but the connection she felt with him lingered.
The last ten strokes were more spread out, more deliberate, but she was able to breathe through them, to focus on the fact that it was Lucas and that she was his good girl. She felt tears spring to her eyes at how important that had become to her in such a tiny space of time. He was proud of her, and for him, she could handle just about anything.
Before she had time to process that it was ending, it was over. Her ass was fiery hot and felt stretched taut as Lucas helped her off the bench and carefully lowered her dress into place. Tucking her face into his chest, he ushered her off the stage and then swept her up in his arms.
Chapter 6
Lucas carefully carried Gretchen through the cabin door then kicked it closed behind him. He crossed the small room in two quick strides, toed off his shoes, and settled himself on the narrow bed with Gretchen on his lap, her head beneath his chin. The spanking itself hadn’t been too painful—he’d made sure of that, but he knew it had been emotionally overwhelming, especially given all that had changed between them in such a short time. He held her in silence for a few moments, stroking her back in a rhythmic motion, until her breathing grew quiet and he could feel the tension leaving her body.
“I’m so proud of you, baby,” he said quietly into her hair, loving the way she clung to him. Everything about Gretchen was strong, and he was proud that she’d chosen him as the one to see her vulnerable side.
“It’s different than I thought it would be,” she said, burrowing into him. “The spanking. The… submitting.”
He felt his mouth quirk in a smile. She’d been submitting for all of an hour and been spanked precisely once. He wondered how much she could have learned in such a short time, but her explanation, when it came, floored him.
“I’d expected it to be demeaning, having you spank me, letting you tell me what to do. I thought it would make me feel like I was less important. But it wasn’t like that at all. I felt more important, more connected. And you make all the what-ifs in my brain shut off.”
“The what-ifs?” he repeated, tugging firmly on her hair until she sat back and he could see her eyes.
“What if this happens? What if that happens? I feel like I’m always running all the options, trying to figure out the right plan. It’s exhausting. But you take me out of that place. Somehow, you manage to short-circuit my brain.”
She smiled tentatively, her eyes huge and shining with trust as she looked up at him, and he felt a deep pulse of arousal in his gut. She was his now. His to punish, his to protect, his to worship. And he didn’t want to waste another second in proving to her exactly how thoroughly he would possess her, mind, soul, and body.
“Stand up,” he said gruffly, watching the way she swallowed hard before nimbly jumping off the bed and standing in front of him. Her hair was dishevele
d, her cheeks were flushed, and he loved how rumpled and turned on she looked. He’d make sure she stayed that way for the rest of the cruise.
“When I give you an instruction, baby, I want you to answer me. You tell me, ‘Yes, Sir.’“
She seemed to hold her breath, staring at him for a heartbeat, before obediently whispering, “Yes, Sir.”
“Take your dress off for me.” He deliberately let his voice go deep and raspy, and her eyes widened even further.
She hesitated only a moment, just long enough for him to see the flare of excitement in her eyes before she complied.
“Yes, Sir,” she repeated, shimmying until the dress pooled at her feet and she could kick it aside, along with her sandals.
She stood before him in nothing but a bikini. Her skin glowed pale gold in the sunlight streaming through the balcony door, and his eyes tracked languid pathways up and down her exposed skin. He saw her shiver, watched her nipples harden beneath his gaze, and felt his cock thicken against his thigh.
Christ, she was perfect. She was petite but elegantly proportioned, from the smooth silk of her legs, up over the gentle curve of her belly and her small, high breasts. He needed to touch her, to run his hands over every inch of her body, but first…
“Turn around,” he told her, and when she’d done that, he continued, “Then pull down your bathing suit. Slowly.”
“Like this… Sir?” She hooked her thumbs into the sides of the bikini bottoms then glanced over her shoulder and held his gaze as she bent slightly and tugged them down.
His eyes were immediately drawn to the deep, rosy pink of the skin displayed before him, of the marks he had put on her, and his cock pushed insistently against the zipper of his shorts. Had he ever been so fucking excited by the sight of a reddened ass? He had spanked many, many women over the years, far more thoroughly than this, but none of those had meant a goddamn thing. These marks were a claim, a symbol of his ownership, a symbol of her choice to submit. Some instinctive part of his brain shouted, “Mine.”
Hero Undercover: 25 Breathtaking Bad Boys Page 120
