"Ah, here's my good girl now. Right on time. What do you think, sweetheart? See anything you particularly like?"
"Any of them will do, I suppose," she said in what she hoped was a reasonable tone of voice.
"Well, no. Not just any one. For instance, this one with the ridged back would not be appropriate at all, I don't imagine, and I can't believe you would think so either if you considered the possibilities."
She did just that, and knew she was blushing furiously. He spared her a response.
"I actually had in mind something made from ash, preferably with an oval shape and no wider than my palm. I'm not that particular about the bristles."
The clerk's eyebrows rose and she aimed a tight smile in Andee's direction. "Is this brush for you or your—young lady—then?"
"Well, that's difficult to say, really. Actually, we'll both benefit from having it, I think."
She prayed he would not elaborate on his answer as he reached out and pulled her close to him, his hand coming to rest casually on her left bottom cheek.
When the clerk produced another model from a display rack behind her, he moved that hand to palm the new brush and determine if it matched his specifications. Then he held it out to Andee.
"What's your opinion?" he asked calmly.
She wanted to tell him precisely what her opinion was and only narrowly avoided doing so when she noticed he had begun to tap the solid back of the implement against his hand again.
"I think it will do nicely," she managed to say, feeling the blood rush to her cheeks. This was a disciplinary refinement he should make use of in his next book, she thought bitterly. The tension was literally raising goose bumps on her bottom and her heart was pounding. She might never forgive him for this one.
Fifteen minutes later they were pulling in to his favorite parking space again, just outside her front door. Neither of them had said a word since he accepted his credit card back from the clerk and indicated that his purchase should be given to Andee to carry out of the store.
She was certain the woman knew exactly why and had bitten her lip in mortification and exited the area as quickly as possible, telling herself she would never set foot in the store again.
"That was so unfair," she hissed as he turned off the engine. "It was cruel and, and, just awful. I can't believe you did it."
She still held the shopping bag in her hand—a watermarked olive green sack with a pair of twine handles. The brush was nestled in a bed of tan tissue whose pointed peaks contrasted nicely where they rose above the confines of the dark-toned package.
"It was cruel of me to embarrass you at Macy's? Is that what you mean?" He was fitting the key in her door and giving the knob the slight right-hand turn it required to have the pieces all fall into place for gaining access. "Yes, I can see why you would react to it emotionally that way. But I'm sure when you have time to think about it, you'll realize it was entirely necessary to create that link in your mind between what happens when you deliberately behave in a way that should embarrass you but somehow fails to, and what happens when someone who does not want to see you do that again chooses to bring the lesson home. You didn't enjoy it, I gather."
"Of course not. That scarecrow behind the counter could tell what you were buying that stupid brush for. I knew it from the way she looked at me. Think of the stories she'll be telling on her lunch break." She swept in ahead of him as soon as the door swung open and tossed the bag toward the armchair, as bent on escaping contact as though it had been a rattlesnake. "I'll never go in there to shop again."
"I see your point. That's rather the way I feel about the bar at the Hilton since last night."
She rounded on him, all her humility from the morning's work on her writing assignment forgotten.
"So this is tit for tat? I embarrassed you last night, so you'll embarrass me today?"
"No, sweetheart. You embarrassed yourself last night, but I'm not confident you remember much about it. However, I think you will remember, every time you see it, buying the hairbrush and what I'm going to do with it. Long after you've forgotten just how much it is going to sting your pretty little bottom, you'll recall how much it stung your pride. And maybe it will make you think before you lower yourself to that kind of behavior again."
She was forming the perfect cutting comeback when she noticed he was carefully rolling up the right-hand sleeve of his yellow and blue-checked sports shirt. The thought died in her brain and the words stuck in her throat. How many times had she envisioned such a scene in the last fifteen years or so? Envisioned it with a shiver that was laced with sexual overtones, even before she understood what those feelings were or could imagine the face of the man she yearned to see do just such a thing. But her body's reactions now had nothing to do with titillation and everything to do with dread.
He took his time; four calm, unhurried twists of the fabric until the sleeve was anchored above his elbow. She knew he was watching her, could feel his eyes on her, even though she could not look at anything else but the job he was doing. Her heart was pounding and her hands were cupping the seat of her jeans.
He moved to the chair and reached into the pretty little sack, extracting the hairbrush and pointing toward her with it. "I want to see this on your night stand every time I am in this apartment from now on. Do you understand me?"
She nodded and grimaced.
"I didn't hear you."
"Yes." She stamped her foot. "Of course, I understand you. I'm not stupid, you know."
"But you are stubborn and foolish. Still. Though maybe not quite as much as a few months ago. It seems we're making progress, missy. At least you have moments where you can admit what you need and deserve."
She closed her eyes briefly, wondering just how much he understood of what she really needed. Then she stiffened her spine, put back her shoulders, and walked toward him, unsnapping her jeans as she came.
"I'm ready," she said and shoved the denim to her knees as the two of them reached the futon at the same time. He pulled her down with him and she collapsed across his lap, as smoothly as though invisible strings controlled her every movement. No sooner was she there, though, than she began to have second thoughts about her readiness. The situation suddenly seemed far more serious when she could feel his hard thighs beneath her tummy and the weight of his arm across her back.
"Give me your hand," he said. She tried to stop the little moan of dread rising in her throat, but it escaped anyway as she bent her right arm and reached toward the small of her back. He took her fingers in his warm palm and kissed her hand gently. "Hold on, baby. You can do this. I want to keep your little fingers safe, though, so they don't need to be fluttering around back here."
Even his warm-up on the seat of her panties seemed harder than she remembered. She pressed her left fist against her mouth and turned her face into the futon's mattress, trying very hard to accept what she had asked for on paper just a few hours before. But it was hard, so very hard, to feel anything but an increasingly fiery build-up of pain and the need to escape it.
She was both relieved and horrified that he had a firm grip on her hand, but it didn't stop her trying to disengage so she could protect herself from the fierce sting.
Then it was over. She exhaled deeply and then sucked in another huge breath, congratulating herself on having survived the experience.
"Now we're going to get down to business," Nick said with a steely edge to his voice as he stripped her panties halfway down her thighs. There was nothing she could do to stop him, of course, once it dawned on her that the real punishment was just beginning. He still had a tight hold on her hand and she couldn't maneuver the other arm past his body to protect herself, but she did begin to wriggle forward, obeying some primitive fight or flight instinct that turned out to be worse than useless.
"Are you going to accept the punishment you earned and asked for, or are you going to fight me?" he demanded.
She stiffened and tried her best to hold still, but all s
he could think of was escape.
"Please, d-don't—," she quavered, twisting around to plead with him.
She saw him shake his head and then bend away from her and knew he was reaching for the hairbrush. Tears pooled in her eyes.
He tapped the shiny new oval against her right cheek almost gently and watched her squeeze every muscle until the dark crevice separating the two spheres of her perfect heart-shaped bottom was as narrow as her anatomy would allow it to be.
"It's supposed to hurt even more if you clench, little girl. I'm not sure if there's a physiological reason for that, but I can tell you that in your case it is definitely going to be worse for you, because unless I see your bottom jiggle like a bowl of Jell-O, it's not going to count."
Her response was a wailed "Nooo!" that rang out loud and clear.
"Something tells me you're not going to be able to accept this as gracefully as we had both hoped." She felt him twist his body slightly to the left and push her a little further over his left leg, sliding the right out from under her and then placing it over her calves, just below her knees. At the same time, he pushed her jeans and panties off her legs. Now she was truly as vulnerable as being bare and immobilized could make her, and there was nothing she could do but appeal for mercy.
That she did with heartfelt whimpers and moans and sobs that gradually built into pleading shrieks and long howls of desperation as Nick made the contact between the brush and her backside as painful and unforgettable as possible.
He stopped four times, and each time she allowed herself to believe it might be over, but it was simply to remind her to relax and to stop fighting him. She tried, valiantly, but the fiery kiss of the implement bit so deep and in so many areas with so little opportunity for defensive anticipation or preparation that she felt totally helpless to do anything but sob out her sorrow and pain and pray he would stop soon.
When he finally did, she did not wait for him to gather her into his arms. She began to turn toward him immediately, desperately needing the shelter of his body, even if it meant the stiff fabric of his jeans further abraded her already well and truly blistered cheeks. She sobbed in his arms for what seemed like hours and then fell asleep between one gulp and the next, completely exhausted by her ordeal.
He managed to ease them both the length of the futon and pulled a soft knit throw over their bodies. When Andee rolled limply from her side to her tummy, he eased his open hand over her still hot bottom beneath the cover and stroked her gently until he, too, fell asleep.
*****
The first thing she was aware of as she came out of her deep rest was his fingers splayed across her flesh. The next was the tenderness of that surface and the deeper ache in the muscle and tissue beneath. Even with her head turned away, she could tell he lay on his side, turned toward her, and she knew he was napping, as well. It was a position too good to ignore; an opportunity too perfect to waste.
Doing her best to mimic the movements of a still drowsing body, she eased to her side and molded her body into the curve of his, snuggling her tender bottom into his groin. His hand slid over her bare hip and came to rest against her tummy in the maneuver, just close enough to start that tantalizing awareness of his presence in the area below his fingers. She slept again, but not nearly so deeply, and she came wide awake when she felt the unmistakable evidence of his interest pressing against her bottom.
She wondered if Nick was awake and gave an exploratory little wriggle against him.
He groaned and pulled her tighter to him, his breath warm against her neck where her hair had parted.
His lips pressed soft kisses into the flesh he could reach easily and his hand slipped up, maneuvering beneath her T-shirt, to find the swell of her breasts above her bra. A moment later, he had found the front catch and pushed the cups aside, exploring each soft firm-tipped globe with the warmth of his palm and the feather-light touch of his fingers.
Andee's moan, this time, was filled with bliss and desire. She managed to turn to her back, offering him full access to her body and praying he would take full advantage.
When he came up on one elbow, it was to claim her lips with his and slide his hand down to the soft, springy curls between her legs. She parted them, just enough to allow him entrance, but not enough, she hoped, to appear too desperate. Even though she was.
She stroked his face with her fingers and reached to confirm his interest with her palm, managing to grasp an impressive handful of maleness through his clothing. His fingers stilled their slow, tantalizing glide between her lips and his thumb halted the soft little taps and whisks across the little pearl that was yearning for his attention, while his breath grew more shallow. She increased her interest in his mouth, playing mercilessly with his hot tongue and dedicating both hands to the task of finding his zipper.
She had managed to open his pants and free him from the confines of his jockeys and had just experienced her first more than satisfying touch of his hot, velvety flesh, weeping between her fingers as she moved the tight column formed by her palm and fingers down his rigid full length, when he abandoned her mouth and slid away from her, bringing his lips and tongue into tantalizing play at the apex of her womanhood.
She would have mourned the loss of his flesh in her fist had he not driven all rational thought from her mind with his attention. When his hand applied gentle pressure to the inside of her thigh, she forgot all her ladylike pretensions and gave him full, hot, wet access.
Neither of them could have plotted the moves it required, yet somehow their bodies followed each other seamlessly as he eased off their shared bed and knelt on the floor, turning her with him just enough and bringing her legs to rest on his wide shoulders. Andee's anxious fingers slid to her womanhood and she used them to part her lips fully and open the proudly-standing mass of erotic nerves to his complete attention. He eased his left hand beneath her still warm buttocks and she stiffened and moaned but also smiled broadly and sighed with unrestrained lust.
"Yes, yes—do it, Please, Nick. Now."
Two fingers of his right hand began teasing strokes farther down and she yearned toward him, her heels digging into his back. He obliged her by slipping them deep inside, exploring her hot, wet folds and grazing the small rosette, nestled between her cheeks, with his thumb while he continued to lap at the honeyed warmth flowing from deep within her.
When his fingers and his mouth, working in perfect unison, brought her to that place she had been longing for for years and had never quite attained, at least not to the measure of satisfaction she was enjoying now for long, heart-stopping moments, she shuddered violently and cried out her pleasure.
Only when her body finally stilled its tremors, sometime after the initial explosion of pure sexual tension had been released, did he free himself from the confines of her legs, which had gradually slipped off his shoulders in her post-orgasmic lethargy. He moved to lie beside her again, nipping at the still tight, crinkled nipples of her breasts and ending by giving her a taste of herself when he plunged his tongue into her mouth once more.
It was the sweetest, most satisfying, most arousing, most self-disciplined sexual experience of his life.
Her kisses were still passionate and her hands were still busy, reaching for the proof of his manhood between them. It required more strength of will than he would have said he possessed not to give in to the desire to know her completely. But he controlled himself.
"Finish it," she whispered against his lips.
"When the time is right for you, sweetheart," he said.
Her eyes flew open and protest rose to her slick, swollen red lips. He quieted her with another kiss and reached between her legs again, cupping her sex with his sticky, warm palm. "You are more to me than this part of you, but that doesn't mean I am not longing to claim every beautiful, hot, wet bit of you for myself. Just not until I can offer you more than a few minutes of physical pleasure. I want to give you so much, Andee. Be patient and you'll have it all."
"B
ut I want to—to make you feel good, too," she protested, biting back that word that she was desperate both to say and to hear. "Let me touch you and make you feel the way I'm feeling."
"There's way too much evidence for me to try to pretend I don't want that, angel. I need your hands, your mouth, too, if you want it, but only if you want it."
She looked deep into his eyes for a long time, torn between the bliss he had afforded her, her desire to give him the same gift, and her frustration that he was still refusing to commit fully to her, verbally or physically. Eventually, as he stroked her lips with his tongue and her breasts with his fingers in the sweet post-orgasmic glow, she came to a decision. She had to have this maddening, puzzling man—whatever sexually puritanical terms and potentially embarrassing and painful disciplinary options he offered her. There was no other choice if she wanted any happiness in her life. She needed Nick Benjamin and everything that was part of him. It seemed she always had, and she was certain she always would.
"I want to be the best bad girl you've ever run into," she said finally and managed to maneuver him into a supine position this time, while she slid to the floor, taking his clothing with her and laying him bare to her gaze for the first time in their relationship.
She worshiped every exposed inch of his flesh with her lips and tongue and busy fingers, with the exception of the proud, hard shaft that refused to rest calmly against his belly and tended to bob and weave as she teased him. Finally she took pity and gave into her own need, as well, rising between his bent knees at the edge of the futon and sliding her cheek up his thigh until she could rest the side of her face against the warmth of his belly, inches away from the focus of both their fevered thoughts and desires.
She trailed her fingertips at the base of the shaft, delighting in the moans that, this time, came from his throat, and finally cupping the heavy sack between his legs in her palm. When his penis responded with a move toward her, she was ready, tongue out just enough to make contact with the glistening slit and then slide down the wonderfully hot, fat cap of him to the sweetly rolled edge. It bobbed away, as though overcome by the sensation, but this time she captured a portion of its length with the pressure of her open mouth and alternately sucked and tongue-grazed from just below the cap until her nose nestled in his own wiry thatch.
Leading Her Home (Lessons From Nick's Firm Hand Book 2) Page 8
