Trust in Me (Hawkeye Book 2)

by Sierra Cartwright

  Remembering his requirements, she placed her hands behind her back and spread her legs.

  “Very, very well done.”

  “I… Thank you? Am I supposed to say that?”

  He grinned. “You can say whatever you like. Tell me why you’re here.”

  Really? He was going to make her say it? “Uhm, for a spanking.”

  “Nervous?”

  “In college, I’d ask if I could take tests early.”

  “Masochistic tendencies. I like that.” He stood, picked up his chair, then moved it into the living room before taking a seat. “Come here and lower yourself across my lap.”

  “Is it possible to take it easy? I mean, virgin spankee and all that.”

  “Ah.” He laughed. “No.”

  “It was worth a try.” Behind her back, she twisted her fingers together.

  Each step toward him was like trudging through quicksand. This was nothing like her fantasies. There, she was fearless, welcoming everything her Dom threw at her.

  The reality was so different.

  Her heart raced, and her brain cells had scattered.

  Trace extended his hand. She slid her palm against his, but he didn’t squeeze it reassuringly. Aimee had never suspected that she’d turn to him for comfort, even though he intended to deliver pain. The realization bent her thoughts in a dozen directions.

  “To be clear…”

  Since he was sitting and she was standing, they were eye to eye. His gaze was all-seeing. “Yes?”

  “You may not come.”

  She almost laughed. “You’re forbidding me from orgasming from a spanking?”

  He grinned, and for a moment, she almost forgot to be nervous. “If you do come, we’ll have to start the spanking over.”

  No chance.

  “Ready?”

  She nodded.

  He exerted a small amount of force on her wrist to bring her toward him.

  He tipped her over, and her stomach landed on his powerful thighs. She was terribly aware of how much smaller she was than him. Of his strength and power.

  She reached for the hardwood floor for stability, but couldn’t quite touch it.

  “Spread your legs.”

  A tendril of panic crawled through her, and the word krypton pinged around in her mind. Krypton, krypton, krypton. If her brain could have completed a circuit and gotten the word from her subconscious and out of her mouth, she might have used it.

  As it was, in this position, even gravity worked against her, and her hair fell forward, framing her face, a few strands getting in her eyes. She used her abdominal muscles to lift herself, but he pressed her back down.

  This was terrifying. Exhilarating.

  “You okay?”

  She thought she nodded, but he prompted, “Aimee? I need you to answer me.”

  Was she okay? She was terrified. Excited. Anxious. “Yes,” she managed.

  He rubbed her rear, and she liked the feel of his hand on her. When he dipped a couple of fingers between her legs, she was stunned to feel dampness there.

  “You were made for this, Aimee.”

  She forgot to be self-conscious. If he’d just touch her there…

  “Now point your feet inward.”

  She fought against her natural inclination to refuse, to protect herself as much as possible.

  “Point your feet inward,” he repeated with as much patience as he’d made the original command. “Good girl,” he said when she did as instructed.

  She hadn’t been aware of following his order, but there was something hypnotic about him that compelled her response.

  He rubbed her skin, making her relax, with what she guessed was a false sense of security. He moved on to more vigorous strokes, increasing her anxiety a couple of notches.

  “How many for your first experience?”

  She wanted to be brave. “Eight.”

  “Not nearly enough. Ten.”

  Why had he even asked?

  “Count them for me.”

  Before she was fully prepared, the first one landed hard on her buttocks. She yelped. Good God, it hurt. She started to squirm. Some people actually liked this? Were they out of their minds? This was not what she’d expected.

  But then he was there, soothing the hurt with his palm.

  “Count,” he reminded her.

  “One,” she whispered. Then, a second spank landed. “Damn!”

  “Damn is not a number,” he said, and she was sure she heard amusement in his voice, which meant at least one of them was enjoying this. “I can repeat it, if you wish.”

  “No! It was two.” She wiggled. He placed a hand on the small of her back, effectively imprisoning her.

  He spanked her again.

  “Three!”

  He rubbed over the sore spots, and she was surprised how soothing that was.

  The moment she exhaled, he delivered another swat.

  She moaned, but didn’t cry. “Four.”

  “Much better. Relax into it.”

  “Relax into it?”

  “If you fight it, your muscles will be tense. And you’ll enjoy it less.”

  “Enjoy it. Right.” Since she was still imprisoned, hanging upside down, she couldn’t draw a full breath, and her words were muffled.

  “I hope you do,” he said. “I want you to.”

  He stroked between her legs, unerringly finding her clit. She moaned and shifted, trying to encourage him to put more pressure there.

  “Naughty girl,” he said.

  He took away his hand, and she whimpered in protest.

  He placed the next spank at that tender spot on her right side, on her thigh, right below her buttock.

  She gasped but somehow managed the word “five.”

  He delivered the next one to her left thigh.

  “Six.” She whimpered. Tears swam in her eyes. She was barely over the halfway mark. Forty percent more to go.

  “You’re fighting.” With extreme gentleness, he rubbed her tender areas. “Remember to breathe.” He slid a hand between her legs again.

  No way could this be arousing her.

  “You look so beautiful,” he told her.

  His words did something to her, just like what happened when she read. She had never had a man’s words so turn her on before. But the appreciative tone in his voice almost made it all worthwhile.

  He spanked her three times in quick succession. The pain was so fast, so stinging, she couldn’t even count.

  “Seven, eight, and nine,” he said.

  Somehow, though, the pain receded quickly, leaving her warm. The overhead fan turned slowly, cooling the droplets of sweat that dotted her back.

  Trace—her Dom—masturbated her. She was wetter than she ever remembered being. Her hips began to jerk, from the combination of his touch and the heat in her buttocks and thighs. Her toes dug into the floor as she struggled for control.

  “I wish you could see what you look like,” he said. “How desirable. Feel how hard my cock is from looking at your red ass.”

  “Trace!” Despite his earlier warning, the beginnings of an orgasm began to unfold. It didn’t matter how much she told herself it was impossible. It was real. “Stop,” she begged. “Please. Spank me. Spank me!”

  “You’d rather I do that than stroke your swollen clit?”

  “Yes!” The word was somewhere between a demand and a plea.

  He drew some of her dampness over the nub. His finger slipped effortlessly, and she was going to go out of her mind.

  “To be clear, you’d prefer me to stop doing this?”

  Her body became rigid as she forced away thoughts of her impending orgasm. Silently she started through the elements of the periodic table again. Actinium. Aluminum. Americium. Antimony. Argon…

  But it wasn’t working.

  The man was diabolical. Diabolical and good. He knew exactly what he was doing, just how to touch her to make her shatter. He could keep her on the edge as long as he wanted. But jus
t as frightening, maybe more frightening, she knew he could force her past it at any moment.

  Arsenic.

  Now there was a good element

  Arsenic, arsenic, arsenic.

  “Please…” She wasn’t thinking about krypton.

  “You’re not going to come, are you?”

  He slid a finger inside her, and she bucked against him. He fucked her with it for long, torturous minutes before pulling it out again.

  She was no longer certain what she was begging for. For him to keep it up until she climaxed, or for him to stop so she wouldn’t have to start the punishment again.

  “Tell me what you want.”

  “Spank…spank me!”

  He still had one hand pressed against the small of her back. The other, he rested across the fleshiest part of her butt cheeks. Even though he wasn’t touching her intimately, her pussy was throbbing. She was still ready for him.

  “Ask me again, nicely, for the last one.”

  Something had changed inside her. She was turning herself, her reactions, over to him. A moment ago, she didn’t think she could survive to the end.

  Recalling what he’d told her, she focused on the last one, exhaling and spreading her legs again, without being told.

  “You are a quick study, Miss Inamorata.”

  Nothing she did would change his pace, so she patiently waited on him.

  “Last one. You will feel this, and you will remember it.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Oh, Aimee…”

  He spanked her exposed vulva.

  She screamed, her body going rigid as the pain ripped at her.

  Instantly she was in his arms, but instead of holding her as she expected, he carried her to the couch and placed her on the edge. He knelt on the floor and placed her legs over his shoulders.

  No. He wouldn’t. She couldn’t… “Trace…”

  With his strong hands, ones that had just relentlessly spanked her, delivering unimaginable pain, he kept her thighs spread wide apart. He kissed her tortured pussy, then licked her with long, slow strokes.

  She tried to escape, but she was helpless.

  He took away the pain and simultaneously made it worse. “I—”

  “Come for me,” he said. He entered her with two fingers, stretching her, seeking and finding her G-spot.

  An orgasm, all the more intense from the physical assault on her private parts and mental assault on her thought process, swamped her.

  She was dragged under, gasping and panting.

  And when she recovered, he was holding her, trying to tame her messy hair. She blinked, unsure what to think, how to feel.

  “How was your first spanking?”

  It wasn’t just the spanking, though. It was her first submissive experience, and it was the first time a man had ever gone down on her. Any of the three would have been enough, but to combine them into a single encounter altered her.

  Aimee sought the right words to let him know what she was feeling. Nothing came to her. It was difficult to believe she’d won a spelling bee in elementary school, when right now she wasn’t sure she could spell her own name—her first one, not her surname. She settled for “Unimaginable.”

  “Go on.”

  She should have known he wouldn’t let her get away without elaborating. “A little confusing, maybe.”

  He waited without question.

  “When you had me over your knee…”

  “Were you tempted to use your safe word?”

  “I was, at the beginning. For a few seconds, I thought I might panic when I realized how vulnerable I was. If my mouth would have worked—well, for anything other than gasping—I might have used it. But then you kept talking to me.”

  “I’ve never seen anything quite as spectacular as the sight of you across my lap. When you turned your toes inward, spreading your cheeks, parting your labia to expose all of your pussy, believe me, spanking you was about the last thing on my mind. I’ve never been with anyone like you, Aimee, and I want you to know that.”

  She met his gaze. No other man had ever had this kind of talk with her. “You seemed to know that I needed your touch. Then I knew you were watching me, it was… Disconcerting at first. And now, with you demanding to know what I was thinking, for me to describe my experience…” She shrugged. “It’s as if I can’t hide or keep secrets from you.”

  “When BDSM is part of a relationship, honesty is even more important.”

  “I see that.” She nodded. “I guess the unexpected thing is how liberating I found the whole thing.”

  “Liberating?”

  “I was able to give myself over to the experience totally. I stopped being self-conscious. And I think it’s a bit odd that I did get off from the pain.”

  “Erotic pain,” he corrected. “Deliberately inflicted, placed, and timed. I watched you every step of the way. I saw the way you responded, and I played on that. If something hadn’t been working for you, I would have changed it up. I doubt you’d get off from random pain.”

  “I’m puzzled, though, about… I was naked but you weren’t.”

  “Deliberate as well. I wanted your introduction to be all about the act of your submission, not as a prelude to sex.”

  “I thought it was all connected.” She frowned. “I mean… You don’t want—”

  “Are you asking if I want to be buried inside you, Aimee?”

  She pulled her lower lip between her teeth. “I’m afraid of rejection. But yes. I want you, Trace.”

  Chapter 6

  Trace needed her with a desperation that unsettled him, and the tremor of vulnerability in Aimee’s voice nearly undid him. The combination was potentially lethal, and having sex with her would be emotionally risky. He might start thinking about a future with her, and the past had taught him the stupidity of that. “I would never reject you, my sweet Aimee.”

  They’d already crossed one line that they shouldn’t have. He dared not cross the biggest. “You need to go to bed.”

  “But—”

  “Aimee, we aren’t going to conflate BDSM and sex.” He meant that, and it was an excellent excuse, one that didn’t involve him baring himself, admitting how much he desired her and how fucking enticing she was.

  He slid her off his lap, ignoring the incessant throbbing in his dick. “I’m putting you to bed.”

  “I’m fine.” She stiffened her spine.

  Fuck. Hurting her emotionally hadn’t been part of the plan. Trace scooped her up, despite her small kicks of protest. “I’m your bodyguard.” He needed the reminder as much as she did.

  “I can walk.”

  Striding down the hallway holding on to the wiggling, angry, beautiful woman was more difficult than he would have believed. “Keep still before I sling you over my shoulder.” Where he could slap her ass for real. His sacrifice was for both of them.

  In the bedroom, he placed her on the edge of the mattress, and she stood the moment he stepped back.

  “That will be all, Agent Romero. Thank you.”

  He plowed his hand into his hair. “Aimee…”

  “I’ve had enough of bossy, dictatorial men who think they know what’s best for me and want me to conform to their wishes. I appreciate the reminder. Good night.”

  Goddamn it. “It doesn’t need to be this way.”

  “Out.” Naked, hair mussed, nipples erect, ass red, and seductively smelling of sex, she pointed at the door.

  He sighed. If he’d made a different choice, she would be wrapped around him, the softness of her sighs filling the air.

  Instead, he was banished. And she was hurt.

  She thought he was a jerk, but that was better than the alternative.

  He left the room, closing the door behind him with a click.

  In the dining room, Eureka glared for a moment before turning his back.

  Restless, Trace grabbed a flashlight from the countertop and headed into the backyard. The neighbor’s dog growled softly, but it didn’
t bark like crazy. After completing a sweep, he went back inside, locked the door, then headed out the front to check in with the team.

  Riley slid down the driver’s window of the SUV parked up the block. “What’s up, Romero?”

  “Double-checking.”

  “Howdy,” Bree Mallory said, putting down her energy drink. “We’ve been talking about it. We’re willing to split the money with you.”

  Trace frowned. “What money?”

  “If you help us figure out Ms. Inamorata’s first name.”

  “Generous of you.” Because he knew how grueling the hours of surveillance could be, he grinned.

  “Well, we know for a fact it’s not Donna, Ruth, Julie, or Louise, right? She seems more like a Prudence or Catherine or Christine. Something more formal, you know?” Mallory guessed.

  “But her sister is Aimee. Informal,” Riley countered. “So maybe it’s a top-ten name, like Jennifer or Jessica. Maybe Emily.”

  “But look how Aimee is spelled—it’s not traditional.”

  “Maybe it’s like E-m-i-le-e.”

  “No one would do that.” Riley looked at Trace. “I mean, right?”

  How many times had the duo had the same argument? He started to move away, then turned and came back. “Don’t let anything happen to her.”

  “No chance,” Mallory promised, leaning over Riley. “I’m more frightened of Inamorata than I am of Hawkeye himself.”

  “See, you keep proving that Mensa IQ,” Riley said.

  “Night,” Mallory called out.

  Riley smothered a yawn.

  “You’re off at eleven, right?”

  “Then for two long, glorious days. Laurents and Barstow will be filling in.”

  “Enjoy your weekend.”

  “I’m thinking of taking in a Rockies game, with too damn many beers.”

  “After sitting on your rear for five days?” Mallory scoffed.

  “Well, what’re you doing?”

  “Getting my nails done. Being pampered.”

  They bickered more than any married couple. Trace rapped his knuckles on the roof, then left the two of them alone. After lifting a hand to the other team, Trace went back inside the house. Eureka looked at him without squawking, and everything was silent from Aimee’s bedroom.