by Chloe Cole
The thought sent a wave of heat through me, strong enough to overtake the icy fear gripping my heart.
I drew my shoulders back and lifted my chin as I tugged the knot from the towel around me and let it slide to the floor with a rustle.
"We have one night alone here, Lucian. Why should we fight?"
If I'd been a sexier, more confident woman, like the baker earlier today, I might have been able to get through that little speech without my voice warbling. I was me, though, and I knew I wasn't the only one who could practically hear the chatter of my teeth.
"You mistake me, little one. We're not fighting," he corrected with a snick of his tongue, barely even glancing at my naked body. "You're about to be punished because you've been a bad girl. So right now, as much as I appreciate your invitation, I'm going to go sit on that big chair over there, drape you across my lap, and then I'm going to spank you like the child you've been behaving like."
I gawked at him, my mouth swinging open on its hinges. "Don't be ridiculous. I'm not a child, Lucian," I said, crossing my arms over my waist, suddenly very aware of the chill in the room. "And besides, why am I being punished when you spent half the night in the arms of some trollop who couldn't stop drooling all over you right in front of me?"
His eyes blazed with something I couldn't name as he stepped back and made his way to the chair. He made himself comfortable before shooting me an expectant glance.
"Come now. Let's get it over with.”
I eyed the door, knowing I’d never make it, and that whatever awaited me on the other side while dressed in only a towel would be far worse, but I was still tempted.
“The longer you wait, the worse it will be, woman,” he murmured.
I let out a sigh and took a tentative step toward him.
“Fine. But don’t think this is going to be a thing now,” I said, trying to brazen it out.
He didn’t even blink as I moved closer.
“I don’t even know how to position myself to—”
I let out a squeal as his hands shot out like lightning. He yanked me by the waist until I was laying over his lap, the crisp air tickling the back of my thighs as the towel rose up to skim my bottom.
He gave me a sharp slap that was muffled by the cloth that still covered my nether-cheeks.
“Stay still,” he commanded sharply through clenched teeth.
I stilled at the contact, cheeks heating.
“Look, I apologize. I think we can work this out and—”
But then the cool air washed over me and I knew that the game was afoot. My ass was out in the open, and there would be no stopping him until he was done.
An elicit thrill sizzled through me and I wriggled, suddenly feeling warm and restless. He was motionless, every muscle tense, and I knew he was looking at me. Could sense it as his breathing went harsh.
I felt the movement of his arm a second before his hand came screaming down. The stinging slap he delivered stole the air from my lungs and the crack reverberated through the room.
I wanted to shrink from him…or rather, I should want to. Instead, I found my hips arching forward of their own accord, seeking the heat of his thick erection even as my bottom stung with a strange, sweet ache.
His hand rested there for a long moment before raising again.
Crack.
I flinched, but I didn’t try to move. I was too curious…too enamored of the sensation that came a moment after each blow.
“Do you know you were a bad girl, Anaya?” he asked, his voice all grit and growl.
His cock was so hard against my belly that I could barely string a sentence together for thinking about it, and my bottom burned.
“Y-yes.”
Another blow, this time hard enough to make me cry out. But then his fingers were there, tracing over the place that he’d stricken, soothing…and enflaming with a whole new type of fire.
“And do you promise to stop purposely trying to rile me?” he demanded, kneading the soft globes in his hands now, increasing that pain and pleasure all at once.
“Yes.” I turned to look up at him and slowly, deliberately, ground myself against him. And again, he slapped my bottom, his eyes like chips of onyx now. I moaned low in my throat, squeezed my legs together, and pumped my hips against him faster, chasing the cure for this ache I knew only he could soothe.
He grunted as his cock surged against me. His pelvis moved in counterpoint to mine, almost as if of its own volition. Brazenly, I reached between us, my hand clutching at his cock, but he slapped me on the ass sharply.
I groaned as his palm connected and a rush of heat warmed my bottom as something dark and needing curled low in my belly. Unable to stop myself, I rubbed more insistently against his cock, straining to get closer. He swore and then slapped me again, a little harder.
“Again,” I pleaded, feeling it. That new, pleasure/pain climax, just out of reach.
“Is this what you want, Anaya?” he asked darkly. “Is it?” he asked, alternating sharp slaps with hard squeezes, kneading my firm ass cheeks while grinding me against his ever-thickening length.
I should be afraid, I thought dimly. What was the matter with me? But suddenly, I didn’t care. Something wonderful, something hot and dark and different than any of the orgasms I’d experienced before teased at me. So close that I was helpless to stop it.
As we rocked against one another, I began to beg, “Please, Lucian. Please. Love me… Please…”
But it only made him slow down as he fought to control himself. If we were going to do this, he would say when. He was the master of my pleasure.
He stopped abruptly, resting his hand lightly on my behind as he took a steadying breath. He ran his palm gently over the slope of one cheek and the other, then reached underneath me to lightly pinch my exposed nipple. I shuddered on top of him and ground my hips against him even more urgently. Then, he bent low to bite one, full cheek.
He pulled back, touching the tip of his finger to the crevice of my bottom…up and down, nudging my legs open and finally sliding his finger smoothly all the way down, deep into the hot wetness that waited for him.
“I can feel how close you are, little one. Hear it in the sharp intake of your breath…feel it by the tension in your limbs, the absolute stillness of your body. One move, and you’ll come tumbling over.”
He stayed perfectly still as I shook, my body taut as I strained toward release.
He leaned close, muttered softly into the shell of my ear, “Do you want it?”
“Yes! Yes, yes!”
“Tell me,” he urged as he slid his fingers in and out of my unbearably tight core. “Tell me exactly what you want from me, Anaya.”
I swallowed hard and struggled to speak, but he was relentless. His fingers were teasing, entering in more shallow thrusts, slipping and sliding over my bud before plunging in again.
“I want you inside me.”
The sound of me saying such a thing had him moving faster and groaning so I continued boldly.
“I want you to slap my ass while you fuck me until this ache goes away. And you know you want it, too,” I taunted as I lifted my hips, reaching between us and squeezing his rock-hard shaft through his pants.
He slid his fingers from my tight sheath and tore at the fastening of his pants, grabbing himself in his fist and releasing his swollen member from its prison.
Once freed from the confines of his pants, his pulsing cock jutted upward between my thighs. He bent my knees and tilted his hips forward, thrusting into my wet heat, hard. He gave no quarter, and despite the initial resistance of my body, I quickly opened for him like a flower.
I let out a yelp then a long moan. I was still for a moment then began to bounce my hips up and down before he took control of my movement, his cock pounding in and out.
He slid a finger, still slick from my center, back up between cleft of my cheeks. Gently, he slid the tip of his wet finger into my ass. I began to pump my hips even more frantically, murmuring his name over
and over as I did.
“Is this what you want?” he muttered, his voice hoarse. “Take it, little one. Take what you want. That’s it,” he encouraged, “ride it hard.” Then he thrust up with his cock, seating himself in me fully, until he could go no further. I panted as he pumped in and out of my, his finger tight in my ass. I rode him faster, faster until I froze in place, scarcely breathing as I came. It rippled through my body, and I bucked against him as I screamed his name.
The blood rushed in my ears and the world fell away as wave after wave rolled over me.
He soothed me, rubbing my back and petting my hair, as I trembled in his lap and finally quieted.
“We aren’t done yet, brat,” he whispered.
He flipped me off his lap and rose, pressing my back against the chair, sliding my hips forward and falling to his knees before me. He held my stunned gaze as he spread my legs. He slid his hand up my thigh and pressed two long fingers deep into me as he suckled my nipple. Thrusting them into me, once, twice, his eyes stayed locked on mine. My body arched like a bow, and I came hard against his hand, head tossing to and fro.
My vision blurred as my whole body broke out into goosebumps in the aftermath. He pulled away, staring down at me with hot, dark eyes, his hand drifting to his shaft.
“Fuck, I want to wait, but my cock is so hard, I’m going spurt in the air if I don’t—” he broke off with a strangled groan and then fell onto me, plunging the steely heat of his member into me deep…as deep as he could go.
My pussy clenched tight and I began to come again, my body pulling at his, sucking at him like a hungry mouth. He let out a long groan, his cock throbbing and jerking as he exploded in a rush.
It wasn’t until hours later, wrapped in his arms, tracing the whorls of hair on his belly that I finally stopped trembling from the intensity of it all.
If this was my punishment, I would forever be Lucian’s brat.
Chapter 6
I slept like the dead, and, when I awoke, it was to find Lucian already dressed and sitting on the bed beside me.
“It’s late,” he murmured. “We should get breakfast and head out.”
His gaze was shuttered again and I could see the tension in his shoulders. The sudden loss of the closeness we’d forged the night before made my heart ache.
“I thought we planned to do some more poking around this morning before we left?”
He shook his head as he scrubbed at his bearded jaw. “I think I’ve gotten what we came for.”
I considered asking him what he meant, but after last night, it seemed prudent to let him brood instead of pressing. As good as it had been—and, Lord, had it been good—I couldn’t deny that the thought of being spanked again, and in broad daylight, no less, had me feeling almost too vulnerable.
I knew he cared. In fact, I’d never felt it more strongly than last night, but when he was closed off like this, it scared me. If only what I felt for him could be turned on and off so easily. Instead, I felt just as overwhelmed and in awe of his presence as I always did. One of us was going to have to adjust to the other, and I’d already made his life difficult enough, so for now, it would be me.
I nodded slowly and swallowed a sigh. “All right, I’ll get dressed.”
A short while later, we left the inn, stopping off to drop the key with the barkeep along with a copper to fix the door. On our way out of town, Lucian led us a wide berth around the baker’s stand and went to another on the outskirts of the village to pick up a pair of hand pies.
Mine was filled with egg and fat little sausages, his with braised beef, and, for a time, we walked in companionable silence. But as I finished eating and brushed the crumbs from my fingers, I found I could hold my tongue no longer.
“Are you going to tell me what you found out from the baker, then? Or why you didn’t want her to see us this morning?”
He shot me a look that I held unwaveringly as we cut a path into the forest.
“You made your point last night, Lucian. And from now on, I’ll do my best not to be such a brat. I can see that, in my desire to get a rise out of you, I can be difficult. For that, I apologize,” I said, slipping a hand into my pants pocket to keep from fidgeting nervously as I awaited his reply.
But none came.
I scrunched my nose up at him and frowned. “Now this is where you tell me that you are sorry too,” I pointed out helpfully.
His solemn expression wavered as his lips twitched but he didn’t crack a smile. “And what exactly am I apologizing for, again, little one?”
I slowed to a stop and popped a hand on one hip. “Well, for starters, because you spent ninety minutes with another woman—a beautiful one, at that—and wouldn’t tell me what you did while you were there. Tell me, Lucian, if that were me and I wasn’t with one of your brothers—”
“Not the same.” His eyes blazed as he stopped beside me and glared at me. “I was there to get information that would help us all.”
“But you purposely misled me because you think it’s funny to toy with my emotions. And that’s unkind,” I murmured, both irritated with myself and humiliated that my voice was choked with tears. “I lo—care for you very deeply, and sometimes I feel like you care for me too, but then other times…”
I dropped my head miserably and swallowed hard.
“Forget it. It was wrong of me to bring it up. I don’t have any right to—”
“You have every right, Anaya,” he murmured, reaching out and dragging me close until we were nose to nose. “And I am sorry. I can be a bastard sometimes. I need you to listen in situations where I might know best, but in this situation, it’s you who has it right. I’m not too proud to admit that matters of the heart are difficult for me. But if I’ve done anything to make you think I don’t want you, care for you and love you with all my heart, then I apologize. I, too, vow to do better.”
I blinked at him, his words running through me like a shockwave.
He loved me.
Lucian Saint John had just said he loved me.
I grinned so hard it hurt my face and then I mashed my lips against his, launching myself high to wrap my legs around his waist.
He let out a stunned laugh, catching my hips in his strong hands as he held me close.
“I did good, then?” he asked against my mouth, a low chuckle vibrating in his throat.
I nodded, blinking back happy tears.
“You did. And I love you too, Lucian. I truly do.”
We stayed like that for a long moment, trapped in each other’s arms, before he pulled away with a growl of regret.
“Unfortunately, we are still too close to civilization to commemorate this occasion and my brothers will be waiting on our return.”
He released me and sent me sliding down the front of his body over his thick erection and I groaned in return.
“You’ve made a wonton of me.”
His responding grin was lethal and I couldn’t tell which pleased him more, that or my declaration of love.
Men, I thought with a chuckle.
I shifted my bag on my shoulder and took a step back as Lucian’s face grew serious.
“Nothing happened with that woman. At least, nothing sexual,” he added. “But I did get some important information from her that I’ve been waiting to share until we were all together. I’m still not certain how I feel about it, and I’d like to let it simmer for a while longer while we walk.”
My brain buzzed to life with curiosity but I tamped it down and nodded.
This was part of loving someone. Accepting their differences and compromising. He’d done it for me and now it was my turn.
“All right. Let’s get a move on then, so we aren’t late.”
I left Lucian to his thoughts and delved deeply into my own, conjuring theories of what he might have learned and why he seemed so conflicted about it.
By the time we reached the top of the hill that looked down on the valley where the villages were nestled, Connor, Gatlin and
Michael were already there waiting for us.
Lucian stopped short and glanced around. Heart pounding, I wondered if he'd heard the sound of someone following us, but instead, he turned on his heel and moved toward the tree line, bidding us to follow him with a wave of his hand.
He stopped a few minutes later and dropped to a squat beside a large, flat rock.
"We need to talk for a minute and this looks like as good a place as any." He gestured for us to sit, and we did, gathering around the rock as if we were knights of the round table.
“How was Wilkenshire?” Gatlin asked, a frown pulling at his brow as he glanced at me and then Lucian.
“Interesting,” Lucian said with a grim smile, “but more on that in a moment. Anything on your visit?”
Michael signed quickly, but I only caught a piece of it.
Something about the king and something else about anger or fury.
I winced.
Okay, so not excellent, then.
Connor quickly translated. “They’re not fans of his royal highness, but word is that the king is very angry and has claimed he will stop at nothing to retrieve you.” He shot a glance at his brothers and shook his head slowly. “We really should get out of here and head for the densest forest we can find. We can get her somewhere safe and then figure out what to do from there.”
"Maybe," Lucian said, then he pulled a scroll from his thick rucksack and tapped it against his hand. The wax of the seal was already broken, and he glanced at each of us in turn. "We're going to have to talk about this first, though. I was meeting someone to get some information last night, and as I was on my way back, this was dropped at my feet by an eagle shifter. If the content is to be believed, it’s a missive from the herbalist who sold Gatlin and Michael the hair dye for Anaya that second day on the road," Lucian said, his voice deep and even.
“Well, what does she want?" Connor asked.
"Basically?" Lucian let out a long, slow breath. "She wants us to go back to Pinebrook to speak with her."
"No way," Gatlin choked. “Only a day’s ride from the kingdom itself. Way too close.”
I swallowed hard, craning my neck to see what the neat, elegant lettering said as he splayed it on the stone between us.
