Tonight, though, he’d wanted it out of the way. He ran his hand up and down her bare back, and she shivered. Her body was tense, and while he could feel her sliding into subspace, she was holding herself back, her mind unfocused. He would have to bring her full attention back to the task at hand.
“Did you hold on to that orgasm for me?”
“Yes, Sir. All day.”
“That’s my girl. And did you enjoy what I told you I was going to do to you tonight?”
Her abdomen clenched against his leg. “Yes, Sir.”
“Good,” he said, drawing out the word.
He rubbed his hand around and around her ass cheeks, then fingered her entrance. “Wet for me already, you little minx.” He wrapped her braid around his other hand so he could tug it whenever he wanted.
“Still, Sir. I believe I’m still wet for you, from this morning’s session.”
Smirking, he brought his hand down with a loud smack. She tensed, crying out. “That’s what you get for correcting me. The rest will be our just-because spanking.”
“Yes, Sir,” she said.
He rubbed away the sting and set to working on each cheek. “Count the strokes, sweetheart.” Listening to her voice as she counted would tell him when they were finished.
His palm connected with her other cheek, this time with a soft thwack.
“One,” she said, gasping.
Oh, he had her full attention now.
He alternated between one spot and another. He rubbed between each stroke, soothing away most of the pain before giving her another sting. With each gasp or moan from her, his cock hardened more, pressing painfully against his jeans.
“Five,” she moaned.
His palm landed again, and she yelped, then inhaled sharply. “Six.” She was already panting. He rubbed and smoothed her skin. It was reddening beneath his touch.
“Such a pretty shade of pink,” he praised.
“Thank you, Sir.”
“Hmmm, let’s see how we’re doing, shall we?” He let his fingers travel down the crease of her ass to her entrance. He dipped one finger in her wetness. “Oh, I see we very much enjoyed that, didn’t we?”
Her sheath clamped down on his finger. “Yes, Sir,” she whispered, groaning.
He moved his finger in and out, swirling it around until her back bowed. “Uh-uh. Hold still.”
She froze, whimpering.
“Good girl.” He wiggled his finger until she begged.
“Please, Sir. I— Ughn…” Her voice broke off when he slipped a second finger inside her. He kept pumping them in and out, stretching.
“Open your mouth,” he commanded, using her braid to turn her head to the side. Her lips parted. “Wider.”
She complied, her sheath pulsing around his fingers. A different kind of tension coiled her body tight. Gone were the rigid lines and the invisible wall she’d erected around herself. He released her hair, but she kept her head still. He reached for a small silver ball and placed it inside her mouth. “Lick it. Swirl it around in your mouth. Get it nice and moist.” He watched as her mouth moved the ball inside, her cheeks and throat working.
He almost came then, with his fingers deep inside her and his gaze fixated on that mouth. “Open,” he commanded. She opened her mouth, and the ball dropped with a wet slide into his hand. “Do you know where I’m going to put this now?”
“Yes, Sir.” Her words were thick with desire, her face relaxed, her eyes unfocused.
He smiled again and moved his fingers from her sheath. He spread her folds with one hand and pushed the ball inside. She screamed, her thighs clenching and her spine arching. He smacked her ass again. Hard. She cried out, her eyelids fluttering and her body shaking. He paused a moment, let her catch her breath and adjust to the feel of the ball inside her.
He got another one. “Open your mouth, Elizabeth.”
Her eyes grew wide. “I—”
He tilted his head, raised his eyebrows, and waited to see if she would disobey him. She closed her mouth, swallowed, then whispered, “Yes, Sir.” And opened her mouth. He placed the ball inside, and she closed her lips over it, rolling it around. He knew what being in that hot cavern of her mouth felt like. His balls tightened.
He held out his hand, and she opened, letting the ball fall into his palm. “Control your breathing,” he ordered.
She nodded, taking in a gulp of air and holding it for a few seconds before letting it out slowly through her mouth.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
“Yes, Sir.”
He slid the second ball into her channel. She bit her lip and whimpered. “Breathe,” he ordered. She took a gasping breath. “Good girl.” He rubbed her ass and then continued the spanking. “Count,” he ordered when her only response was a strangled moan.
“Seven,” she keened.
He alternated from one cheek to the other over and over again. She flexed her hips and cried out as the balls shifted inside her with every stroke. When she reached ten, he stilled. Her voice was high-pitched now. Her breathing ragged. He soothed her rear with gentle fingers.
He swallowed hard, his throat parched, his body thrumming with desire. He wanted her. He wanted to take out the balls and bury himself in her sheath. But he would not back down from his word. “Stand up,” he commanded. She lifted her head from her arms and placed her palms on the cushion of the footstool. She began pressing her body upright and hissed.
“Oh, and Elizabeth?”
“Yes, Sir?” she said through clenched teeth as she paused halfway to standing.
“Hold those balls tightly, because if one falls out, I’ll insert two more.”
She whined, nodding. He waited, watching her determined acceptance of his challenge. So stubborn, his sweet girl. After another deep breath, she stood, teetering. She steadied herself with a hand on the back of the chair.
“Good girl.” He groaned when he got to his feet, his throbbing cock rubbing hard against the rough denim.
He took the blindfold off the table and stalked behind her. She stood motionless as he settled the cover over her eyes. He cupped her ass in both hands and kneaded it until she panted and moaned. “Walk,” he commanded. She took one slow step forward, and he released her cheeks. “Faster.” She took another step, then another, her legs shaking. She kept walking, though, wobbling and pausing every few feet to catch her breath. She moaned and whimpered the whole time.
“Stop,” he said. She stopped. “Turn to your right.” It was the most erotic thing in the world to watch her. She trusted his judgment completely as she moved through the room, having faith that he would steer her around the equipment and stop her when he needed to.
She walked with those halting movements as he directed for several more minutes, and then her breath hitched and she reached out. He was there in a second, grabbing her hand. She dug her nails deep into his palm, and he groaned. Her breath was coming too fast now, and she swayed on her feet. “Okay, baby. All right.” She’d stopped in front of the cross, which was where he’d wanted her anyway. He led her to it. “Can you step up?”
“Y-yes, Sir.” Her voice quavered as much as her body. He was pushing her past her limits again, and she showed no sign of giving in. He helped her up and turned her body, then secured her wrists and ankles to the cross. She cried out when he moved her legs into position.
He rubbed her thigh, and she hissed at his touch. “Almost there, baby.”
She nodded.
“Crop or feather?”
“Crop, Sir. Please.”
He grabbed his favorite riding crop and slid it up and down her abdomen, tickling her mercilessly. She squirmed and screamed, her face tight with concentration. She was holding the orgasm at bay by the sheer force of her will. He smiled and thwacked her nipple with the leather crop. She jerked against the restraints.
“Did you like that?”
“God, yes, Sir.”
He did it again to the other nipple, and she screeched.
> “More?”
“Yes, please, Sir.”
He alternated between her nipples, flicking them with the crop until she was writhing, keening.
“Please, please. Oh, God, please let me come, Sir. Please,” she begged, the words ripped from her throat as he tickled and smacked with the crop. He rubbed it along the top of her crotch and thwacked her with it. Her knees buckled. If not for the restraints on her wrists, she would have fallen to the floor.
“Can you take another one?”
“I— Ughn. I think so, Sir.”
“Good girl.” Pleasure uncoiled within him, along with pride for her trust in him. And her ability to control herself.
He slammed the crop against her clit, and she screamed. “I… Oh, fuck, oh, fuck, please, please let me come. Sir!” The last was a yell that echoed through the room.
“Let go, baby. Go ahead. Come for me. Let me hear you scream,” he commanded, dipping the edges of his fingers into her sheath until he felt the curve of a ball. He pressed against it, rolling it around, and she shrieked, spasming, bathing his whole hand in her honey as she came again and again.
Chapter Twenty
I can’t do this. Liz stared across the table at Chase. The past two days had been agonizing. It was killing her to keep secrets from him. God, she wanted to tell him everything, but the thought of disappointing him if her plan didn’t work made her stomach bottom out.
“Liz? Hello? Are you listening to a word I’m saying?”
She blinked, trying to clear her head. Trying to pretend, like she had been, that nothing was wrong. That she wasn’t terrified of ruining what little time they had left with her betrayal. She knew that was how Chase would view her secrets—as a personal betrayal. But what else was she supposed to do? Stand by and watch while he lost everything he’d worked for his entire life? She would have done everything in her power to help him no matter what, but the fact that her own father was the one trying to destroy him made the situation even worse.
“I’m sorry, no. What did you say?”
“What’s going on with you lately, sweetheart?” he asked. The waiter had disappeared after bringing them an expensive bottle of wine that she’d protested ordering. She had protested the whole evening plan, in fact. Not that it had done her any good.
“Nothing. I’m fine. What were you saying?” she prompted again, hoping to distract him. She’d tried to seduce him into not noticing her deceit every chance she got over the past forty-eight hours, but it only worked so well. She’d had to leave him for the bulk of today so she could meet with Senator Bragdon. She’d convinced the senator to help her block the new zoning laws when they came up on the docket, so the trip had been a success. As long as Bragdon was as good as her word. In politics, that was never a guarantee.
“I asked what you would like to have for dinner.” Chase’s dark eyebrows lowered, shrouding his eyes in shadow. He didn’t believe her lies, and she couldn’t blame him.
Trust me, she silently begged, praying she could hold it together for a couple more days. That would be all the time she needed to help him save his club. He never accepted her help for anything. He hadn’t even told her he was having troubles.
She glanced at the menu. She didn’t want to order anything. You can’t afford it, she’d wanted to shout when he said he wanted to take her out to dinner to celebrate her finishing the book. But she couldn’t be that cruel. Unable to come up with a justifiable reason he didn’t shoot down, she’d had no other choice but to accept his invitation. She’d tried to pick a cheaper restaurant, but he wouldn’t hear of it. God, sometimes he was infuriating!
“The Caesar salad sounds great.” Actually, it didn’t. Nothing sounded great. She’d had zero appetite for days. But not eating would draw attention, and she couldn’t afford that. She almost wished she had another book she could use as an excuse to hide behind. Their last week was turning into a disaster, and it was all her fault.
Get your head in the game, Clark.
She put on a bright smile. “How about you? What are you going to have?”
“A salad isn’t very celebratory,” he said sulkily.
The waiter reappeared. “And have we decided?” he asked.
Without looking away from her, Chase said, “I’ll have the chicken marsala, and she’ll have the filet mignon, medium, with green beans and a side Caesar.”
“I’ll have the salad,” she corrected hotly.
The waiter looked hesitantly between her and Chase.
“Bring the steak,” Chase said through clenched teeth, his eyes sparking with fury.
“Of course,” the waiter said quickly and dashed away.
Do not pick a fight, do not pick a fight. But her mouth didn’t listen. “I don’t want a fucking steak. If he brings it out here, you can eat it yourself.” Oh, shit.
He reached across the table for her hand, and she barely stopped herself from yanking away from him. He looked ready to lift her dress and spank her bare ass right there in the middle of the restaurant. She’d been deliberately provoking him, and she knew it. Had she wanted to be punished?
Yes, her guilty conscience whispered.
His thumb feathered along her pulse, and she quivered. His touch was gentle, but she could feel the steel of his grip beneath the illusion of softness, daring her to try to break his grasp. She swallowed hard. Why had she pushed him?
“I don’t know what the hell is going on with you, Elizabeth, but if you continue to push me in this manner, I will make you regret it,” he promised, his voice deadly quiet.
She shivered. He hadn’t said he would punish her. Only that she would regret it. Oh, God. What had she done? She almost burst into to tears and told him everything. But his being angry with her was better than him hating her. And she was so sure he would hate her when he realized what she’d done. She couldn’t tell him. The words wouldn’t come out. Losing him was going to kill her.
Agony clenched her chest tight, fear clogging her throat, but finally she managed to say, “I had a big lunch. That’s why I didn’t want to go out to dinner. And why I ordered a salad. That’s all. I’m sorry.”
“Right, the lunch with the mysterious friend you won’t tell me anything about.” Jealousy mixed with the rage in his voice. “You know, for a fiction writer, you’re a terrible liar.”
When the waiter returned with her steak, she ate every damned piece of it, though it tasted like ash on her tongue. Her entire world was falling apart, and the one person she wanted to turn to was the one she had to keep in the dark. Even if by some miracle Chase didn’t hate her at the end of all this, she was pretty sure she was going to hate herself.
CHASE FOUGHT THE urge to scream. “You will do no such thing, Elizabeth. Don’t be ridiculous. You are not paying for the celebratory dinner you didn’t want to eat in the restaurant you didn’t want to come to.”
She tried to reach across the table and snatch the bill from his hand, and he almost lost his mind. They’d finished dinner in absolute silence, and not the comfortable kind either. She’d completely shut down, locking him out. For two days he’d been doing everything he could to breach her defenses, and she wouldn’t let him in. Christ. This was worse than their three days of total separation. At least then he’d had the hope that she would break and scream at him, get it out of her system, forgive him, ask for his forgiveness in return, and they would be able to move on. Now he didn’t have a clue how to fix whatever had broken between them since Sunday. He hated it.
He tried to soften his voice and prompted, “Sweetheart, please.”
“You can’t pay for everything all the time,” she complained. “You know you’re really bordering on hard-limit territory tonight. Can’t I do anything for myself anymore?”
Her words were like a punch in the gut. Instantly, he backed off. Was that what had caused her to shove him away so forcefully? She seemed to be picking a fight with him at every turn. Maybe he’d pushed too hard? But he’d thought they were communicating w
ell. That she was enjoying her times of submission outside the strict confines of a scene. He was pretty sure she was reveling in his attentions. Right up until three days ago.
She lowered her eyes as the waiter reappeared. The poor man looked as if he’d rather be anywhere but here. Not that he could blame the man. When the waiter disappeared with the check, Chase placed his hand palm up on the table between them, a silent offering. He held his breath, waiting for Liz to decide what she wanted. After what felt like an eternity, she slid her hand into his.
“Is that what’s been bothering you so much?”
She bit her lip. “I think so,” she whispered, raising her gaze to meet his. Her eyes pleaded with him. But he didn’t know if he could believe her. Something was going on that she didn’t want him to know about, and he didn’t like it. Not one bit.
The waiter returned, and without releasing Liz’s hand, Chase stood. He tugged her along with him. She followed silently, and they garnered several concerned looks. Thank God no one intervened, though he probably looked like a pissed-off abusive spouse. He refused to have the rest of this conversation with her in public, but as soon as they were safely ensconced in his car, he turned and leveled an even stare at her.
“Okay. We’ve obviously fucked everything up again. So…spill.”
She pressed her lips together. Unshed tears glimmered in her eyes, and his heart broke. He was failing her, damn it. And that was unacceptable. He reached across the console and wrapped his arms around her. Without further prompting, she climbed into his lap. She nuzzled close to his neck, and the splash of tears fell onto his shirt collar.
“Shh. Sweetheart, it’s okay. Everything is going to be all right.”
She shook against him, her body consumed with sobs. Between sniffles and hiccups, she kept repeating one word: sorry. He soothed her for a few minutes until she exhausted herself. This was some serious subdrop. But they’d barely scened yesterday. Or the day before. Friday had been their last full scene.
She slumped against him, sniffed, and sighed. “I-I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me,” she said, her voice a low whine.
To Sir Page 26
