Page 21 of After Hours
Because somehow she knew that the kind of punishment Zachary had in mind wasn’t anything like the extended punishment her marriage had turned into.
She could see it all over him. He didn’t want to hurt her—though as she thought that she knew that wasn’t right, not really.She suspected hemighthurt her, but that it would be like that pinch to her clit that had set her alight.
A dash of pain to make the pleasure that much brighter.
Romily felt as if her body had been waiting all these long years of her life to understand that this, at last, was what it needed.
This was what she’d needed all along.
“Bend over the bed,” Zachary told her with a certain pitilessness that made her softer and slicker between her legs. “I’m going to spank you, Romily. Your job is to count out the number of strikes I give you. If you miss a number, we’ll start over. If you try to block me from landing a strike, or roll away, we’ll start over. If I feel like starting over, we’ll start over. You understand?”
She almost answered him with words, but then remembered. He hadn’t told her the previous rules were lifted and she suspected he would be direct about such things.
So she only nodded instead. His blue eyes gleamed. “Good girl.”
It amazed her how much she liked it when he said that.
He nodded toward the bed. She been too busy keeping her attention on him to look around the room, but as he gestured behind her she looked and saw that his bed was big an imposing. A lot like him. It had four steel posters and they were connected on the top tube, like a steel canopy in the shape of an X.
When she moved closer, she could see that there were steel contraptions in various places along the headboard. On the posts.
She didn’t have to know what they were for to know that the sight of them made her legs feel weak.
“I want you to bend yourself over the bed,” Zachary told her, and she was aware that he’d told her that once before. She doubted he liked to repeat himself—but maybe this was himtaking it easy on the new girl. That made her shiver too. And he was still telling her what he wanted her to do. “Ass in the air, feet on the ground. I want your hands in the small of your back. They can touch if you like. What they cannot do is move from the small of your back. Under no circumstances should you attempt to cover your ass. Do you understand?”
Again, she nodded. His brow rose and she hurried the rest of the way over to the bed and realized that it was higher than she’d anticipated. When she bent herself over it, she had to stand high on her tip toes to keep her ass on the edge as directed.
“Beautiful,” he said.
And she couldn’t see him now. So even though Romily knew that he was most likely behind her, it seemed to her that his voice came from everywhere. She found her own fingers behind her back and held them there. She let her cheek rest against the coverlet on his bed and closed her eyes. That only made his voice more of a lifeline. A light in the dark.
“Normally,” he said, almost conversationally, “I would use a paddle. A crop. Maybe even a whip. All do the same thing, more or less, but with intriguingly different sensations. But tonight, what you and I are doing is old school, Romily.”
He was closer now. She knew that for certain when his hand was on her, his huge, callused palms smoothing over her ass cheeks. One, then the other, as if he was learning their shapes. “You may speak. You may say,thank you, sir.”
She shuddered everywhere and it seemed to be coming from inside of her and emanating outward. “Thank you, sir,” she whispered.
And the funniest part was that she meant it.
He smoothed his hands this way and that, stirring up heat as he went. Then he dipped his way below to get his fingers all over the slippery folds of her pussy.
She didn’t know how this felt even more intimate and even dirtier than what they’d already done tonight. But it did. Maybe because he was simply… taking what he liked.
Yet somehow, histakingmade her feel powerful. Precious.
He sank one thick finger deep inside her, thrust a few times—until she moaned—and then use two fingers instead. Then he reintroduced her to that intense, unendingly patient rhythm he had used on her before.
“This is how I want you to count,” he told her, when she started to arch into his hand. “You will say,one, thank you sir.Two, thank you sir. And so on. Do you understand?”
When she nodded, she heard him laugh—a new fire to make her burn. All the while his fingers kept up that insistent pump inside of her. Spearing in deep and then moving out, the rest of his hand almost but not quite pressing against her greedy little clit.
God, when had she gottengreedy?
“I want to hear you say it,” he told her.
“Yes sir,” she whispered obediently. Immediately. “I understand.”
The first blow came instantly.
