thorns have scraped your skin. Then you reach the summit, and a new feeling takes over. You experience this incredible exhilaration to have made it to the top, and you can hardly believe the sheer beauty and power of the vista spreading before you. And the difficult journey to that point makes the achievement all the sweeter and more meaningful. That’s what a successful BDSM scene is like, not just for the receiver, but for the giver as well.”
He struck her ass lightly with his open palm, the slapping sound of skin on skin echoing in the air. Zoë stiffened and jerked beneath his touch. “Ouch!” she squealed, though he knew he hadn’t hurt her, only startled her.
“Relax,” he urged, striking her again, just a little harder. “Let yourself begin the journey. Feel the sensations without judgment. Accept the pain.” He struck her once more. “Embrace it.” He kept his other hand on her lower back, both to steady her and to provide the comfort of touch.
At first she continued to squirm and tense. She was breathing rapidly, her breath ragged and shallow. “Breathe,” he urged. “Stop resisting, Zoë. It’s much easier to take when you open yourself to receive. Take this first step with me.” He began to smack her in a steady rain of rapid strokes, alternating cheeks until the skin began to darken to a pretty pink.
After a while, he was very pleased to note her squirming had stopped, though her hands were clenched into tight fists at her sides. “Relax your hands,” he said. “Uncurl your fingers and try to slow your breathing.”
He wasn’t sure she had heard him, but after several long beats, her fingers unfurled. She drew in a long, shuddering breath and let it out.
Encouraged, Dylan drew back his arm, cupped his palm, and gave her the first real smack, smashing down so her groin ground against his. Over and over he struck her with force, giving her the kind of spanking that would send a trained sub flying within minutes.
She tensed again beneath the onslaught, squirming and whimpering, and crying out, “Ouch! It hurts! Stop, oh stop!”
He didn’t stop.
She didn’t say her safeword.
He spoke in a low, calming voice near her ear. “You’re doing great, Zoë. You can do this. You’re almost there.” He continued the spanking, watching her skin darken from pink to red, careful to keep up the intensity without taking it too far, too fast.
And then it happened.
All at once the resistance went out of her. Someone not familiar with the masochistic sensibility might have thought she’d merely given up, but Dylan knew otherwise. Her breathing had slowed, her hands rested easily by her sides, her toes no longer curled, her muscles no longer tensed. He continued the spanking, slowly but steadily easing the intensity until he was merely stroking the heated flesh of those perfect globes.
Zoë didn’t move or react in any way. She lay limp and heavy over his lap and it occurred to him she might actually be asleep, a not uncommon result at the end of an intense session that culminates in full release.
I knew it, he thought exultantly.
He leaned over her, his mouth brushing the curve of her small, delicate ear. “You were born for this,” he whispered.
She answered with a small, sweet sigh.
Chapter 4
Dylan’s hands felt so good moving over her flesh. His fingers slid down along her ass to stroke the sensitive skin of her inner thighs. An extraordinary sense of peace and well-being suffused her, and she couldn’t remember feeling this relaxed since she was a child. “Mmm,” she heard herself murmur, a sound of pure satisfaction pulled from somewhere deep inside her. “Mmm.”
She realized with a small shock that she couldn’t move. Her bones had dissolved, and her muscles had turned to jelly. Finally she stopped thinking altogether and simply surrendered to the peace that enveloped her.
Strong arms suddenly lifted her into the air and set her down on the carpet. “On your
Learning to Kill: Stories