The Architect (Nashville Neighborhood Book 3)

by Nikki Sloane

  “You want to be punished.” It was a statement, but it was clear he was waiting for confirmation from me, so my head bobbed in a nod. “Good,” he said. “I hope you’re not fragile.”

  His hand came down quickly, and although the smack of his palm against my ass sounded loud, his blow fell painlessly across my skin. A stunned smile buzzed my lips. I’d never really been spanked before, and this was what I’d hoped for. Part of me was disappointed I wasn’t bound to the beautiful cross he’d built, but the rest of me was pleased. I’d yearned to sexually explore, and it didn’t matter that much where or how it happened.

  I was grateful he was willing to partner with me.

  Clay spanked my ass again, and this one had more of a kick to it, but I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from giggling. Was that supposed to hurt? Because it didn’t, not by a longshot. I understood, though, how he was testing me. Better to start soft and build up to it, rather than do too much, have to back down, and potentially scare me off.

  His palm cracked against me once more, and this one was serious enough to make my body jolt—but it was simply from the force of it and not in pain. My breath came and went in quick bursts, but otherwise I didn’t make a sound. Could he tell my short breath was caused by anticipation and not discomfort?

  He sounded begrudgingly impressed. “You’re awfully quiet.”

  “Guess I’m not fragile.” For added effect, I wiggled my hips.

  He let out a short laugh, and it sounded very much like, “We’ll see about that.”

  The wood floor beneath his feet creaked as he adjusted his stance. Then the sharp smack of skin meeting skin punched through the quiet of the room, quickly followed by another slap.

  And another.

  He alternated between sides, spreading the blows around, varying tempo and placement.

  I gasped at the rhythm he created, the warmth that bloomed over my skin, and a muscle deep in my belly clenched in pleasure. When a moan slipped from my lips, he hesitated, making it possible for me to hear he’d become as out of breath as I was.

  “It feels good,” I said quietly.

  He sounded surprised. “It doesn’t hurt?”

  I turned over my shoulder to glance at him and subtly shook my head. Fucking hell, he looked so incredibly sexy as he stood behind me, desire hazing his eyes.

  A moment stretched heavy between us before he asked it. “Do you want it to?”

  His posture was rigid, announcing everything hinged on my answer, and a dark voice inside me spoke up, encouraging me to try something new.

  I’d always had a high threshold for pain—at least that’s what I’d been told. I didn’t mind a blister or a shoe strap cutting across the top of my foot. I dealt with the discomfort because I loved my heels and enjoyed both the ache and the release of slipping off my shoes at the end of the night.

  Would it be the same now? Would the pain he gave me, followed by the absence of it, be pleasurable? I was eager to find out. He’d asked me if I wanted him to make it hurt, and it was startling how confidently my answer came.

  “Yes.”

  He exhaled loudly, and with deep satisfaction, and the sound gave me a delicious shiver. I licked my dry lips as his focus swung to his desk, and then on to the drafting table. Whatever he’d been searching for, he found it there.

  He strolled to the table, picked up a long, silver ruler, and seemed to evaluate its weight in his hand. It wasn’t a flat, normal ruler—it was one of those triangular drafting things with three sides, each ending in a point.

  If I had any doubt about what he planned to do with it, it vanished as he smacked one end of the ruler against the palm of his other hand. He hadn’t done it as a threat. In fact, he wasn’t even looking at me. He studied the ruler and his open palm, evaluating it. Satisfied, he turned toward me.

  Oh, my God.

  Blood rushed loudly in my ears, dulling the sound of Clay’s footsteps as he came close. My gaze was fixated on what was clenched in his hand, and goosebumps burst across my arms and legs.

  While I was focused on the ruler, his gaze burned into me. “You understand what I intend to do with this scale?”

  Was that what the ruler was called? “Yes,” I said, squeezing it out between my short breaths. “I do.”

  “You’ll show me you’re okay with trying this,” he said, “when you cross your wrists behind your back.”

  The feeling coursing through me was the same one as stepping onto a rollercoaster and pulling the bar down to lock me in place. I knew what was about to happen. It would probably feel scary but exhilarating, and I went to it willingly. Eagerly, even.

  I leaned forward, resting the flat of my chest on the top of the chair back, and put my hands behind me, stacking one wrist on top of the other. My long brown hair draped down over my face and toward the floor, and I shut my eyes, mentally preparing myself for what would come next. Not that I had any idea what that triangular-shaped ruler was going to feel like when it—

  The cold metal kissed my skin, and I flinched reflexively. Both of my hands resting on the hollow of my back curled into fists.

  He hadn’t actually spanked me.

  All he’d done was set the scale against my ass, creating two chilly lines on my bare skin, and my overreaction to it caused a chuckle to roll out of Clay’s throat. But then his voice turned serious. “Have you ever done something like this before?”

  My eyes popped open and my hair shimmered as I shook my head.

  The cotton of his t-shirt and the heat of his body was abruptly warm on my back as he leaned over, bringing his mouth right beside the shell of my ear. “I’m glad I get to be the first.”

  I swallowed a breath as he straightened, and a split second later, the ruler slapped against me in a sharp, quick strike.

  It stung. The sensation of it forced me to suck in a breath through tight teeth.

  But apparently this wasn’t the reaction he’d been hoping for, because Clay repeated the action, and this time the crack of the ruler brought fire. Pain throbbed and lingered in the aftermath of the metal biting into my skin.

  “Fuck,” I swore.

  His tone was sinister. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

  My head spun at this version of him. Up until yesterday, he’d been my shy and quiet next-door neighbor. I’d never expected him to be assertive. Or so . . . dominating.

  And, shit, I hadn’t expected to like it so much.

  I wished I had known sooner, because I would have come over asking to borrow a cup of sugar. Except I would have been hoping for something other than sweetness.

  He struck my ass again, hard and unapologetic and right across my cheeks, and the pain from the contact seared through me. As it radiated down my limbs, I whined and squirmed, trying to make the feeling dissipate faster.

  “Does it hurt?”

  “Yes,” I groaned.

  It was like his dark voice was inside my head. “Do you want me to stop?”

  “No,” I said softly. My emotions were fractured, all over the place. But I felt strangely more aware and present in the moment than I ever had before. I didn’t want him to stop, but my voice was barely a whisper. “Is that weird?”

  His answer was resounding and excited. “No.”

  I turned as best I could to see him and marveled at the way his lips were parted so he could drag heavy air in and out of his lungs. The ruler was clenched in a white-knuckled fist at his side, and an impressive bulge pushed at the zipper of his jeans, tenting the front of them.

  “You like the pain?” he asked, studying me. “Does it turn you on?”

  Yes? Well, more like maybe. I didn’t know the answer with certainty, so I stuck with the truth. “I like the way you look right now.”

  That was what was turning me on. How he was in complete control of what we were doing. The way he gripped the ruler at the ready and stared at me with excited urgency, willing to do what had to be done to his nau
ghty neighbor. He was prepared to get me back in line.

  I shouldn’t like what he was doing. He was hitting me hard enough to leave marks, and I was aware I was in way over my head with him. And yet, why wasn’t I nervous? Why did I feel . . . safe?

  Perhaps it was because he hadn’t done anything I hadn’t agreed to or asked for. The unforgiving ruler was exactly what I’d been craving.

  I had to strain over my shoulder to see him as he grabbed a handful of my skin where the raised red lines crisscrossed each other, and he squeezed until I clenched my teeth. His grip intensified the lingering ache in my sensitive, welted skin, but it was oddly pleasurable. The connection of his touch only turned me on more.

  He grunted a sound of approval as he grasped my tender flesh. “I like the way you look right now, too.”

  When he released his hold, I sighed in contentment, only for him to bring the ruler crashing down with a brutal slap. I cried out, canting my hips to run from the pain, and dug my nails into my palms.

  But just like the way he stared at me, the hurt and the longing for him to do it again was inescapable. I was adrift and fell further under his spell as he used his free hand to undo the button of his jeans and drop his zipper.

  It was clear that, just as I did—he ached.

  A look of desire twisted on his face as he dug his hand inside his undone pants. I gasped at how hot it was, both the visual and the idea that he was getting off on what we were doing.

  A yelp ripped from my mouth as I took another hit, and I lifted a foot, all the way until the back of my stiletto heel touched my burning skin. It offered me some protection and a reprieve, and Clay stroked himself. He twisted his grip and pumped his fist, and the edges of his jeans and underwear worked down over his hips until his dick was exposed.

  While he wasn’t exactly naked, he was where it counted, and it was satisfying he was nearly as vulnerable as I was. He fucked his fist with vicious need, like a man who had no other choice. I watched the head of his thick cock turn white as he thrust through his tight fingers, stoking the fire raging inside me. The throb pulsating in my flesh shifted, sliding down to the center of my legs.

  And with it, the atmosphere in the room changed, like the sun outside had suddenly been blotted out by the clouds. Everything closed in around us. I sensed the reckless hunger building inside Clay, and I quivered in anticipation, my heart thundering along at breakneck speed.

  The whoosh of the ruler cutting through the air announced how fast it was traveling, and I heard the smack of it before the pain registered. Agony stormed through my body, white-hot and cruel, and there was no time to consider how to react. I groaned and recoiled from his merciless ruler, using one hand to brace myself and grip the chair’s armrest, and my other hand to shield me from another blow.

  There was no need to tell him to stop or utter the word no. When I’d uncrossed my wrists, it had announced that for me. Clay’s tool of punishment clattered to the floor, and as I struggled to heave air into my body, he dropped to his knees behind me.

  “Oh, fuck,” I gasped.

  Because he flattened his palms to my hot, irritated skin, peeled me apart, and pressed his mouth right between my legs, where I was soaking wet.

  And desperate with desire.

  The tip of his tongue coursed through my pussy, found my clit, and focused in, fluttered over it. I jolted from the shocking, acute pleasure. I loved it when a guy went down on me, but this? It was insanity, and it’d never felt like this before. Each lush stroke of his tongue caused static in my body. It was so good, it short-circuited my brain, and my body didn’t know how to handle the overload.

  I clenched my hand on the armrest, my fingers straining. It felt like I needed to hold on to something while I endured this new type of lashing, where instead of a cold, metal ruler, the instrument of torment he used was the velvety-soft flat of his tongue.

  My legs quivered, and when he increased the pressure of his strokes, moans seeped from my mouth. His lips closed around my clit and sucked gently, feeding my building pleasure until the only thought pounding in my mind was my approaching orgasm.

  I was primed to explode, and I detonated when Clay’s fingers curled inward. He raked the sharp edge of his fingernails over the swollen lines his ruler had caused on my skin, and the pain mixed with my pleasure, setting me off.

  My orgasm was an electric shock as it traveled up my spine and burst out through my limbs. It was icy cold and scorching hot, and my cry of ecstasy filled the room. I reached my hand back to him—either to touch him or push him away from my overly-sensitive body—I wasn’t sure. The climax swept through me violently, draining and weakening and taking until it felt like I had nothing left.

  But I wasn’t allowed to touch him, or perhaps he wanted me to stay exactly as I was, because his hand closed around my wrist and pinned it to my back in the same spot it’d been when he’d used the ruler. And he climbed quickly to his feet, moving with efficiency.

  His one hand on me wasn’t much of a restraint, especially since my other was free. The thing keeping me in place was the powerful sensation he’d given me, which was still making me shudder with bliss. As it began to diminish and my breathing slowed, his ramped up. He had his fingers wrapped around my wrist, but his other hand worked himself over at a frantic tempo.

  Holy fuck, it was hot.

  Intense concentration etched his handsome face as he stared down at his furious hand, watching himself jerk off right over my bare ass—the one he’d marked with both his ruler and his fingernails. His chest rose and fell dramatically as he pumped his fist, the tip of his cock brushing against my knuckles of the hand he held down.

  When he came, Clay exhaled an enormous breath, groaned loudly, and his fist slowed to a measured tempo. Hot, thick liquid splattered onto my back in spurts, and dripped onto my fingers. His grip on me had tightened nearly to the point of pain, but tension went out of him as he recovered from his orgasm, and I wondered if his hold on me was more about connection than anything else now.

  The cadence of his breathing gradually returned to its unhurried pace, and as that happened, awareness rolled through me. I’d come to his house and gotten naked in hopes of seducing him. And yeah, he’d gone down on me, but . . . we hadn’t had sex. I hadn’t touched him. In fact, he’d barely touched me in a way I was used to.

  And we hadn’t kissed.

  Instead of his mouth pressed to mine, he’d given me red, angry welts on my ass and his cum splashed on my skin. I wasn’t upset about what we’d done. Just disappointed we hadn’t done . . . more.

  “Stay still,” he said softly when I attempted to move.

  My muscles were taxed from being in the same position for so long, not to mention the amount of tension I’d had while maintaining my posture, but I did as he asked. His fingers slid away from my wrist, and I left my hand where it was, resting awkwardly on my back.

  There was a box of tissues on his desk, and Clay went to it, pulling several out, and then returned to me, gently cleaning up the mess on my back and fingers.

  His voice wavered, less confident than before. “How are you feeling?”

  I wasn’t sure how he meant.

  Physically? Emotionally?

  The truth was I didn’t know. The welts on my body were still smarting, but I kind of liked it. It was an aching reminder of what he’d done, and mentally, my head was foggy. Not exactly dreamy, but sort of . . . floaty.

  It was nice and made me bold.

  “I’m feeling,” I said, “like I wish we had kissed before we . . .”

  He let out a tight breath. “I can fix that.”

  Then his hands were on my shoulders, easing me back off the chair. For the first time in ages, I tottered on my heels like they were brand new. Like I wasn’t comfortable standing or walking in them, even though I wore high heels every chance I could since I’d turned twenty.

  Shit, this floaty state was distracting.

 
I shuffled in place, turning beneath his guiding hands to face him. Clay studied my lips with the same focused look he’d given me earlier, and it didn’t allow my racing pulse a moment to slow down. This time when he touched me, he used both hands. He slid them into my hair so he could cup my face and hold me still, then lowered his mouth to mine.

  Like everything else had been, his kiss was not what I expected. It wasn’t controlled or restrained, but it wasn’t deep or passionate either. It felt . . . calculated. It gave me a strange thought that he’d drafted how he’d approach kissing me, even down to the specific angle he’d use. Had he designed it to the exact degree? If I went poking around in his papers, would I find it sketched out somewhere?

  His kiss felt planned.

  It wasn’t a bad thing, though—just different. It still had heat and intimacy, enough to make me feel lightheaded. There was just a hint of tongue, and as soon as I tried to reciprocate, it was gone.

  The kiss was over.

  He drew back, keeping my face cradled in his hands, and an emotion I couldn’t place drifted through his eyes. Regret? I hoped not.

  “I had planned,” he said, “to have a conversation with you before we went any further, but—”

  “I disrupted your plans.”

  He nodded, his expression serious. “We still need to have it, but before we do, you didn’t actually answer me. Are you hurting? Do you want ice or a pain reliever?”

  I wasn’t hurting, mostly just uncomfortable, and I was too curious about what he wanted to talk about to care much about the dull heat banding across my skin. “I’m all right.”

  His discerning look said he didn’t believe me. His hands slid away, did up his jeans, and collected my stack of clothes off the desk. “Come with me.”

  I wasn’t given a choice, but I didn’t need one. I was just like the cat slinking around his house—too curious for my own good.

  He led me into his bedroom, not bothering to turn on the lights. The evening sun was setting on the far side of the house, making the room dark and moody and sexy. He deposited my clothes on the top of his dresser and motioned to the unmade bed. “Lie down on your stomach.”