by Maren Smith
“Where is it, precisely, you think you are going, pet?” he purred, with the smallest indication of seductiveness.
“I’m the aggrieved party in this…”
“The aggrieved party? Hardly,” he snorted. “What you are is one naughty little girl who needs to get her bottom spanked so she understands she is not going to engage in foolish, dangerous behavior.”
“Excuse me?” she drawled out.
The large panther-like male took a deep breath and sighed. “It’s high time you were given a set of rules by someone who will hold you accountable.”
“Rules?” she squeaked.
Why couldn’t he stop stalking her? Why did he have to get so close? Couldn’t he see she was having trouble breathing? And how had she become comfortable with something stuck up her ass so that the all she felt when it moved was pure pleasure and surging arousal?
“You’d best hope I think it’s only fair you know what the rules are before I punish you when you break them. Given your rebellious nature, I am sure you will. I suppose I should tell you Daddy doesn’t like it when his little girl breaks the rules, but the idea of spanking that pretty bottom of yours is quite arousing.”
“D… Daddy?”
Rules? Daddy? Sage felt her sheath quiver in exaggerated anticipation. Her nipples beaded to the point of pain and her clit pulsed… hard. Her entire body shuddered in premonition of an orgasm. Was he crazy? Was she dead? Was this her version of heaven or hell?
He nodded. “I prefer that you refer to me as Sir or Daddy, especially when you are being chastised. I’m not very happy with your behavior earlier this evening. For one, it was stupid. For two, Daddy doesn’t share his little girl… not unless she’s been very naughty, and Daddy feels she needs a more intensive lesson in submission.”
“What kind of whack job are you?”
“First rule—you will speak to Daddy respectfully and truthfully. Any deviation from compliance will result in a soaped mouth and a spanked bottom. Rule two—you will not put yourself in danger. Rule three—you will mind Daddy at all times. I think the rules are pretty simple and straight forward. Do you need me to write them down?”
“No, I don’t need you to write them down. I don’t know who you think you are or why you think I’m going to do what you say.”
“I think I am who you created me to be.”
“What the fuck do you mean by that?”
“And that little girl is a bridge too far.”
He was on her in the blink of an eye. The stranger fisted her hair and marched her into the large bath off the sitting room. She clawed at his hand but couldn’t shake it loose. She recognized the toiletries from the Savoy. Before she could process where she was, he turned on the faucet, adjusted the temperature and soaped up his hand. He pressed her against the vanity, exposing her dark passage with the butt plug lodged inside. The stranger grasped the handle and pulled it free, twisting it as he did so. Forcing her jaws open, he quickly and efficiently soaped the inside of her mouth, covering her cheeks, tongue and teeth. When he was finished, he handed her a small glass of water, barely enough to rinse her mouth.
Turning off the tap, he dragged her back out into the sitting room and sat down on the sofa, pulling her across his hard lap—the outline of a large, bulging, throbbing cock clearly showing. She hardly had time to notice it before finding herself face down over his knee.
His hand descended in the first of many hard strikes to her bottom. Sage wailed in pain and outrage. The stranger didn’t seem to notice. He merely began a strong, steady tempo of harsh blows with his open-faced palm applied to her naked backside.
Although Sage had become known for a hero who routinely spanked the women he was intimate with, she had personally never experienced a spanking. It was arousing, intoxicating, insane, and painful. She had never felt the heat and agony spread across her bottom. Most interesting to her was the sense of peace and contentment that came with it, like she was being enveloped in a soft, fuzzy blanket, but that was between strikes. Every time his hand landed on her bottom, all she felt was pain.
“Shit, you bastard that hurts,” she wailed.
“So, my pet needs her mouth washed out with soap again so soon? I suppose I was too generous letting you rinse. I won’t make that mistake again,” he calmly declared, still tattooing his displeasure all over her buttocks.
Sage gritted her teeth, then bit her lip—anything to keep him from knowing he was getting the better of her. She couldn’t believe the level of discomfort she felt. The heroines in her books always stoically endured being spanked until the hero used his belt or a strap. Her backside wasn’t the only thing that hurt. Her nipples were so stiff they begged for his attention, preferably not gentle. Her pussy literally ached to feel him inside her, thrusting in and out, stretching her inner walls and riding her until she couldn’t walk. It felt like electricity played across her skin, seeping into her pores to race through her entire system.
The spanking stopped, but before she could process what happened, the stranger pried apart her legs and used two fingers to penetrate her, roughly fingering her until she came, screaming and writhing on his lap. Oh my God, please tell me I didn’t just climax from this guy’s treatment of me! Wishing was no use. She sure as hell had.
Sage allowed the stranger to help her stand, and he steadied her when her legs threatened to give way. She wished to God she wasn’t stripped naked—with nipples beaded, skin flushed, and pussy still reverberating from the power of her orgasm. He acted like he hadn’t just beat her ass then caused to climax from rough fingering.
“Now, little girl, go put your nose in the corner by the fireplace,” he said calmly.
“I won’t,” she managed to say.
“You will or you’ll get your first taste of leather. Does Daddy need to add a set of stripes to your very red derriere?”
Daddy? She didn’t write Daddy Dom books. She wrote straight up erotic romantic suspense with a heavy dose of action and adventure. How did this clown get off calling her little girl and insisting she call him Daddy? That was so not happening, but it was, leaving in its aftermath a surge of arousal that pulsed and quivered throughout her entire being.
Sage couldn’t quell the trembling that originated in her nether region, ran up her spine, and branched off along her nervous system. Her toes curled and her body tensed in anticipation. She wanted and needed him in a way she didn’t comprehend. She wanted to feel his hands exploring and touching her body, not with tender caresses, but with tugging and pinching. More than that, she wanted to feel the sizeable bulge trapped in his pants. It pushed and strained hard against his fly. She wanted to see it set free so he could part her thighs with his own and ram it to the end of her sheath. As bad as the realization was that she craved his less than gentle touch, she feared this first spanking was much like one’s first taste of cocaine—it ignited a need for more that would be hard to resist.
She tried to remind herself she was the victim. William, if that was his name, had tried to garrote her. Why? What happened when she blacked out? Who was this guy, and why did he think he had a right to spank her? Why did it feel so right that he had?
Sage had taken care of herself for a long time. She never backed down, ever, and she wasn’t about to start now. Why, then, couldn’t she hold his steely gaze? Her emotional and physical responses were all over the place. One minute her stomach was so tied up in knots she thought she might throw up. The next it danced all over the place in a kind of glee and relief that at last someone had figured her out, seen through her façade. Sage knew that to hold his gaze was to offer him the proverbial window to her soul. He would be able to read all her thoughts and emotions, all her needs and secrets.
She watched him reach to unbuckle his belt. The pulse between her legs increased. It beat so hard she was surprised he couldn’t hear it.
“Now, Sage, or your first kiss won’t be from Daddy’s lips but from his belt.”
He took her by the shoulde
rs and turned her toward the corner, gently nudging her in the direction of the fireplace. When she hesitated, he patted her backside gently, but the unvoiced threat was palpable. She winced but went where he directed her.
“Who are you?” she whispered, more to herself than anyone.
Chapter Three
Roark
Who was he? Now, that was a good question, but more to the point, how had he gotten here?
Roark was used to watching Sage’s train wreck of a life play out before him as she wrote her novels. He only had glimpses of the events that influenced her life, but he got to see all of the effects and aftermaths. He had pushed and pushed to get her to let him start dealing with the heroines of her novels, which were really only shills for herself, in a way that would keep them safe and allow them to flourish and grow. Instead, she made each one a self-contained story.
In each novel, Roark came in, spanked and fucked the heroine—who always fell in love with him. Then, somehow, she escaped his watchful eye, and he’d have to save her before spanking and fucking her again. Then, instead of letting the relationship expand, Sage would have him merely drop her off with her father, fiancé, or dreary little life before he returned to his suite in the Savoy. Nice touch that.
What Sage failed to realize was there was so much more to him… there could be so much more between them. Sage needed a loving dominant, someone who could see to all her needs—structure and support for boundaries and consequences, and for pleasure and pain. Not for pain’s sake, but to allow her to know there was someone who cared enough about her to hold her accountable and see that she behaved in the best ways possible to achieve her goals and dreams. And pleasure… he smiled, his cock growing hard. There was a deep well of pleasure in Sage that no one had even guessed existed. He meant to explore her hedonistic need for erotic and sensual stimulation and satisfaction. His little girl was a proverbial alley cat when it came to sex. She’d almost let her assassin fuck her before he killed her. Roark might be her tom cat, and he might well fuck her under a bridge some time, but by Christ it would mean something to her, and she would stay safe.
It was difficult to see only the parts of her life visible from the pages of her manuscript—either on the printed page or from her laptop screen. In the past, all he’d been able to observe was what was directly in front of the open computer monitor. He could often hear other things going on, but until last night he’d been unable to reach out, to escape his prison on the written page.
But last night had been different…
As usual, Roark was imprisoned in Sage’s laptop. He felt uneasy when she hadn’t returned before dark. He’d begun casting about—sifting through emails, linking up with the Savoy’s vast computer network… anything that might reveal her whereabouts.
He’d all but given up when he felt her presence, stronger than he ever had in the past. He looked up, expecting to see only darkness. She had closed the computer before she’d taken a shower. Pity that… he did enjoy seeing her naked. She had voluptuous curves, beautiful nutmeg colored hair, and eyes the color of a soft, summer sea. Instead he saw Sage’s room. That meant someone had been in her room and opened her laptop.
Someone had tried to access the system but failed. All he could see was the room and he could hear nothing. He started to turn away when the room began fading into a shimmering soft focus, and he wondered if the battery was dying. Roark tried looking through what appeared to be gathering fog.
Suddenly two figures came into sharp relief—Sage with her leggings and panties pulled down past her knees, pressed up against the wall of a bridge support, and some guy fondling her. Who was this guy and why was Sage allowing him to have what should have always been his? What was he getting from his jacket pocket? If Roark had her half naked and willing, he’d damn sure not have been fumbling in his pocket. What the bloody hell! The man had a garrote!
“Sage! Pay attention! That wanker is going to kill you!”
She didn’t hear his warning. The would-be assassin now had a handle in each hand and was pulling the noose tight.
She brought her hands up to try and ward off her own strangulation but appeared to be too late. Roark could feel her life beginning to ebb away, and then he heard her desperate plea for a hero of her own. Who better than the one she had created?
No sooner had the words formed in his mind than he felt first a lightness then a sense of self he had never known before. He pounded against the screen as he had so many times before. But unlike in the past, the screen gave way and Roark charged through. Roark was transported to the walkway not far from Sage and her assailant. He rushed toward the dueling couple, reaching into his pocket and finding his favorite Glock 17 with its suppressor already attached. Roark took aim and fired twice, hitting the man once in the temple, and once between the eyes since the force of the first bullet spun him away from Sage to face Roark. Only by putting on an extra burst of speed and sliding under her like an American ball player at third base was he able to keep her from hitting the ground.
Roark brought her back to the Savoy, surprised to find that he had the keycard to his fictional suite. He took her inside, ostensibly to ensure she hadn’t been hurt, but even Sage wouldn’t have written such a silly scene. It was a setup to a sex and punishment scene if ever there had been one.
Not knowing how he’d managed to escape the laptop, Roark had no intention of passing up the opportunity to get his hands on her naked flesh. God’s teeth she felt good. Her skin was smooth and delicate to the touch. He caressed her beautiful derriere and thought again how good it would look stained with his handprints. But to give her the spanking she needed, he had to wait until she was awake.
Then he remembered a scene she’d added to the third Roark Samuels novels. Roark liked anal sex, especially with arrogant women who needed a comeuppance. Roark kept a set of graduated butt plugs in his nightstand. He chuckled when he opened the drawer to find them and two kinds of lubricant—one just a straight lube, the other with peppermint extract that could give a little girl’s bottom hole something extra to think about if he chose to punish her that way. He opted for the first and very gently worked the smallest of the plugs past the ring of muscle guarding her dark entrance.
And now here they were, with her nose pressed to the corner and her question hanging in the air between them.
“Who am I?” he asked. “As I said previously, naughty little girls are not the ones who ask the questions. And you, pet, have yet to answer mine. The two most pressing ones are: one, what were you thinking getting drunk and wandering the streets of London with someone you didn’t know? And two, who would want to kill you?”
Sage turned around to face him.
“Who the hell do you think you are?”
Roark closed on her, wrapping his hand around her neck and pressing her back into the corner. His fingers wrapped around the nape while his thumb caressed her throat.
“Such a willfully, wild kitten. Do you have any idea how much Daddy is going to enjoy taking you and teaching you to purr just for him? Mine will be the only cream you lick from your lips.”
He watched her struggle to remain standing, much less find her voice to answer in her normally cheeky manner. Her breathing became shallow and erratic. He glanced down between them—her nipples were as hard as diamonds, their pebbled texture begging to be suckled. Then there was the bulge in the front of his jeans that wasn’t getting any smaller. He’d wanted her from the time he became sentient. There was no way of knowing if or when he’d be put back in her box.
Roark whirled her around so once again she was facing the corner. He wrapped one arm around her waist, trailing his fingers from her belly button to the small bundle of nerves at the apex of her thighs, stopping when he found her engorged clit. He inhaled sharply and caught the sweet fragrance of her arousal. His fingers danced through the soft, silky, damp curls surrounding the tender bud, rolling it between finger and thumb. Sage moaned and braced herself against the fireplace. He’d n
ever heard a more seductive sound, even when she was pleasuring herself. It called to the deepest part of him, the place where desire met libido and collided until all that was left was pure lust. Thank God she hadn’t written him as some pasty-faced pantywaist who was all about political correctness and getting a permission form signed in triplicate before proceeding to the next stage of intimacy.
He'd never wanted any woman the way he wanted Sage. Everything about her called to him. Couldn’t she see she needed him? She didn’t need some one-night stand that had no prayer of going anywhere. What she needed was what he wanted to be to her—protector, cheerleader, confidant, mentor, anchor, disciplinarian, and lover—in short, a Daddy Dom. She had written him with a strong and healthy sexy drive and an overly endowed package to see to her needs. He had watched her pleasure herself often, and longed to have her naked either on her knees or her belly. There would be nothing but submissive sexual positions for his little kitten. She needed to know who was in charge in all things—sexual and other. His cock had been straining against his fly since he’d picked her up off the ground by the Thames. None of the women she’d written him with had been anything other than a quick, hard fuck, but Sage was something altogether different. He wanted her in a way he had wanted no other. His cock throbbed all along his length, sending pulses down to his rock-hard balls—balls he meant to empty into her wet heat.
Sage
Wildfire followed his fingers trailing down her body through the neat patch covering her mons. The instant he touched her clit, she felt as though intense endorphins and lights were released; she could feel their heat and see the colors dancing before her eyes. He circled her clit like he was teasing but brought his hand back to give it a hard pinch. She gasped, not sure if she felt pleasure or pain.
