between correction and punishment again.”
He should’ve known better, that in my present state of mind I’d take that as a challenge. Instead of holding the position, I planted the ball of one foot square in the middle of his chest and pushed him away.
“Brat,” he growled and closed his hand around my ankle like a vice. With his other hand grasping me behind my knee, Adrian flicked and rotated my body almost as though he would a whip, putting me on my stomach with my face buried in the downy comforter. He dragged me backward onto my knees, my ass perched high in the air in offering. I grunted out my distress. “Safe word?”
“Fuck you,” was my muffled response.
“I didn’t think so. Let’s go over this again.” With his large hands planted on the curve of my bare butt, kneading the full cheeks, Adrian ran his wicked tongue the length of my excited slit. He wriggled it into me. He dipped inside and licked deep. He made circles and flicked and teased. After the first minute, maybe two, I stopped swallowing back my moans. Adrian let the promise of a hard orgasm creep up so close, just beyond reach—before he drew back and let it die. Once, twice, three times… He left me quivering and embarrassingly wet, both from my own juices and his saliva.
“That would be correction, Miss Bloom.” He required and awaited no response before he snatched up a thin, rigid riding crop from the chest. There was no warm-up, not as far as I was concerned. He striped my ass firmly, in a constant rhythm that started and ended as a vigorous flurry, a demanding physical metronome beat. He played me to an angry crescendo, until my body twitched and I flinched away from the hot lashes that drew the flow of blood up in a pulsing surge under the surface of my skin.
When I was ready to cry out, when I was ready to beg, he relented. One more hard stroke against the top of my thighs to make me squeal, and he tossed the crop aside. “And that’s punishment.” He ran the smooth palms of his hands and the rough cheeks of his face along my abraded skin. Over-sensitized, my flesh stung at the touch. “Do we understand the difference now, Miss Bloom?”
Panting into the bed linens, I nodded.
“Good. So you’ll know which one you’ll get if you push me away again. Use the safe word or obey me, Chloe.” He flipped me over onto my back and smothered my cry of surprise with a deep, probing, open-mouthed kiss. I recognized the taste of very old, very good whiskey, so dry and earthy and smoky that it took my breath away. The urge to drink it from his mouth, lick it from his skin, left me salivating.
My eyes wouldn’t focus right at first when Adrian finished kissing me and retreated into the haze of desire frosting my vision. I blinked repeatedly, wishing I could rub my eyes. My gaze cleared just as he started binding my calves and thighs with more of the shiny metal, fur-lined bands. More platinum locks fastened the restraint at each calf to the restraint on the corresponding thigh, so that I could not straighten my legs. And finally, he strung a short chain from each thigh to the collar. That position he had ordered me to hold, knees bent to my chest with legs spread, was no longer a matter of choice.
Knight stood at the side of the king-sized bed, one hand slowly working up and down the length of his impressive erection, so smooth and thick and lightly ruddy over full, heavy balls that attested to his virility. I looked down the trembling planes and curves of my helpless body as he lined his cock up with my eager entrance. His free hand rubbing my hip and the gentle curve of my stomach sent ripples of tension through my torso and my bent limbs, until I lost my balance and sort of teetered, sort of squirmed, almost rocking to and fro on the bed.
“Spread wide open,” he groaned low from the back of his throat, gazing down at me from the shadowy well beneath his brow, from under the waves of sable hair curling in a loose wave over