and air. He made her shake, and he hadn’t done anything yet. She’d done it to herself.
She got it then, in a way she never had when she’d been playing with party favor floggers before. He made her want to do this to herself. He made her want the roller coaster of sensation and emotion.
It was like an adult magic trick. And she was still shaking.
“Very nice,” he said from across the room, and his approval made her flush, then feel as if she was blooming, somehow. “Obedience looks good on you.”
She thought he was goading her, but she was determined that he wouldn’t succeed. She glared at the floor and ordered herself to keep her hands out of telltale fists.
“Let me be clear about what is going to happen now,” Dorian said, almost conversationally. If she ignored that kick of command and heat wrapped up in his words and the way he delivered them. “I’m going to spank you. Your behavior tonight has been disgraceful. Keep those eyes down, please. And I would strongly caution you not to say whatever it is you’re about to say.”
Erika jerked her head back down, her heart pounding hard in her chest. She felt outraged. Insulted. How dare he call her disgraceful?
Her mind veered away from the spanking part.
“I want you to listen to me, Erika,” he continued, pitiless and relentless, and in exactly the same calm tone. And the steadier he sounded, the more wildly out of control she felt. Her eyes were blurry, and she told herself that was why it seemed as if her hands were shaking. “Ignore the noise in your head. Ignore all those lies you like to tell yourself and everyone else. Focus on me. Only me. Here, now, and until I say otherwise, the only thing you have to worry about is doing exactly what I tell you to do. Do you understand me?”
She sucked in a shaky breath. “Yes, but—”
“Yes is a complete sentence, kitten.”
She had to bite her own tongue, actually bite it, to keep from snapping back at him. He was maddening. How could he sound so blasé when he was saying something so…
But she was the one who was still kneeling. She was the one who kept doing as he said. She was the one he’d threatened to spank and here she was, still kneeling here like she had no choice. When she had every choice. When this was her choice.
“We will use the same safe-word structure as before. I want you to tell me what that is, now. With no editorializing.”
“Green light means everything is good, fine. Yellow light means I’m not sure about something. Or I want to pause. And red light means stop.”
“Very good.”
He moved then, and she could track the sound of him, but she didn’t dare look up. It was more than that—it felt as if his hand was on the back of her neck again, holding her head down, when he wasn’t even near her.
It was only when she heard the sound of his big body against leather cushions that she realized he’d sat himself down on the wide couch that faced her.
“Come here,” Dorian commanded. “And I want you to crawl.”
Was she really going to do this? Erika slid her hands off her thighs, not surprised to discover they were damp. She leaned forward, putting her palms on the ground, and then she froze.
“Now, Erika,” Dorian said in that same implacable way. “And I already told you how I’d like it to look. I want to see that ass bared. There’s no one here but me, but go ahead and imagine you’re back in the club. The only thing you should be focused on, there or here, is me.”
She told herself he was a narcissist. A lunatic. An asshole of the highest degree.
But she was the one who slid her hands forward, then dragged her knees along behind. Once. Again. And then, without even meaning to, really, she was crawling across the floor.
She couldn’t say she remembered the last time she’d crawled anywhere. She felt foolish. Exposed again, and it didn’t matter that they were alone here. Her skirt slid to her waist, and she couldn’t seem to keep herself from imagining the picture she made: a wanton little slut, crawling across the floor to obey him.
The thought nearly made her come again.
She made it over to him, and found herself at his feet.
“Look at me.”
His voice was gentle enough, but with that steel beneath that made her feel as if she was on some kind of leash. She lifted her head.
And the look in his eyes took her breath away.
Dorian reached over and brushed his fingers over one cheek, then slid his palm to hold her there. Once again, the touch of his hand got beneath her skin. It made her want to squirm. Or worse, beg.
“Thank you for doing as I asked,” he said, and again, the approval in his voice made her heart skip a beat.
His palm was warm, but the gleam in his dark eyes was hot. And she felt stretched between the two, flushed and obvious and so needy it hurt.
“I expect you to take your punishment exactly like this,” he told her, as if he could read her mind. Or her greedy pussy. “I’m going to spank you. It’s going to hurt. This is not for your pleasure, though I expect pleasure might be one of the things you feel. You don’t understand boundaries, and I’m going to teach them to you. Thank me.”
She had to fight the wave of dizziness. Of shame and fury and still, that horrible curiosity that she was afraid was the truth of her.
“Thank you,” she gritted out, somehow.
His gaze was cool. One brow rose. “Thank you, who?”
At least she knew this one. “Sir. Thank you, sir.”
“I find that grudging tone disrespectful.” But his thumb moved over her cheek almost tenderly. “Such a pretty face, and yet, so deeply insolent. You told me you were a grown woman, did you not? Now is your chance to prove it.”
She opened her mouth, but something in the way his eyes gleamed stopped her.
“You have said a great many things tonight.” Dorian’s voice was even quieter, like thunder that rumbled so deep inside her only she knew what a catastrophe it was. And she couldn’t tear her eyes away from him. She couldn’t seem to do anything but breathe too hard, too fast, and burn. “But that’s what you do, isn’t it? You’ve spent your whole life writing checks with that mouth that your body can’t cash. Tonight, we’re going to settle your accounts.”
He dropped his hand, then sat back. “You may stand.”
Suddenly, crazily, Erika didn’t want to stand. She wanted to stay where she was, there on her knees at his feet, where it was safe.
When she knew full well there was nothing safe about kneeling in front of this man.
Dorian watched her intently. With that armored, intense patience that made her want nothing more than to do what he wanted. However he wanted it.
Something spooled out inside her, then, that had nothing to do with the way her mind raced. It felt long held. Secret and certain.
And the more it unwound itself within her, the less jittery she felt, even when she knew he wasn’t kidding around. Dorian had every intention of hurting her. Deliberately. Spanking her like a child, because he thought that would teach her something—
No, that thing inside her corrected her. Not like a child.
Because this was about sex and this was about submission, and ultimately it was about her choice to combine those things and let him pick the path they took. She could use her safe word at any time. She could be up and walking away from him right now.
The issue wasn’t that Dorian wanted to spank her. It was that deep