Held for the Stud

by Vonna Harper

  Be honest. “I told him some things about me, about my childhood. The things that were done to me.”

  “That’s about as personal as it gets.”

  How much you understand. “It is. I wanted him to understand who I am.”

  He looked puzzled—or was it respect? “You didn’t have to do that.”

  “I believe I did.”

  He came closer. The hairs on her arms stood up. Damn him for turning her on.

  “You know how I feel about that.”

  That was Banner all right, a man determined to get her to dance to his tune. She remembered what had taken place when she’d tried to defy him before, the dark thrill beneath the pain of a spanking. The unexpected sexual reward. Did she want that again?

  Yes.

  “Talk to Dade,” she said. “Maybe he’s ready to reveal what he’s going through.”

  “And if he isn’t?”

  Dade’s confession echoed in her. “Then you’ll have to wait for the right time. He’s depressed.”

  “No shit.”

  “Deeply.”

  “Is he suicidal?”

  The question took her back to the time she’d spent with the young man. They’d both pretended to be fascinated by the stud, but Koko had only served as something to look at. At first Dade had sounded a thousand years old, but bit by bit he’d opened up. She’d done what she could to help by matching him truth for truth. By the end of the conversation she’d been emotionally raw but somehow better. An easing to his stance made her believe he felt the same way.

  “Do you think he’s capable of taking his life?” Banner pressed.

  “I can’t answer that. I don’t think he knows, but I’m going to stay in contact with him. Hopefully he understands how much he means to me.”

  “Thank you. Still, he’s my responsibility.”

  You feel the same way about me. “Keep reaching out. Maybe between the two of us—”

  “I couldn’t agree more, but right now I’m talking to you.”

  Along with a sense of relief from sharing her concerns about Dade, a wave of excitement shook her. She knew better than to let the prospect of punishment and reward overtake her thoughts but knowing and doing didn’t live in the same world.

  “If I reveal everything Dade told me, I’ll have to include what I said to him. That’s a fine line for me to walk—and not your business.”

  “Yes it is. Asha, the way I see it I have no choice but to loosen your tongue.”

  She had no doubt he wanted to. He’d like nothing better than to exact his idea of justice on her ass. Trembling, she held out her hands as if expecting to be cuffed.

  “Not funny.” His tone was deceptively calm. “Jeans down.”

  Not interested in pretending she didn’t want this, she yanked her jeans past her knees. He jabbed a finger at the desk. “Lean over it, now.”

  “What about—”

  “Now!”

  Her heart thudding so loud she thought he had to hear, she obeyed. She folded her hands one over the other to have something to rest her cheek on and turned her head so she could see part of him. He grabbed her briefs and pulled, exposing her ass.

  “Spread your legs as far as you can.”

  If he wanted an unobstructed view, he should have ordered her to strip all the way. Still, she did the best she could. Chilled air settled on her ass and thighs. She felt goosebumps. Lovely. Perfect for getting a man in the mood for sex.

  Only they weren’t going to fuck.

  “I’m done talking,” he said. “And whatever you decide to tell me will wait until I’m finished.”

  Yes, Master.

  She was still pondering why the title come so easily when the first blow landed. She heard the sound before she felt anything. He struck her a second time with the flat of his hand, holding back nothing.

  “Count. Loud enough for anyone in the vicinity to hear.”

  Yes, Master.

  Her fingers kept clenching, which made putting her head’s weight on them uncomfortable, so she extended her arms and gripped the desk’s edges. “Three,” she practically yelped. “Four. Five!”

  He was angry, had to be. And fast. The blows descended one after the other, testing her ability to keep up. Her legs danced and shuddered. Her head came up and stayed like that. She couldn’t say what she was staring at. Nothing existed beyond her ass.

  “Six. Seven. Eight, oh—eight!”

  “That was nine.”

  He punctuated his correction with a blow so sharp her belly ground into the side of the desk. Before she could push herself back, he came at her again, even faster, if that were possible. She lost track of how many times he struck her.

  “You’re getting red,” he announced. “Such a lovely color.”

  “Take a damn picture.” The words broke her concentration. Not giving a damn where she was in the counting, she lowered her head and closed her eyes.

  He was tireless, masterful at all things discipline. She supposed she should be thankful because he’d slowed down. He was also using less force, maybe letting his arm regroup in preparation for a grand finish.

  Was that what he had in mind? He’d grown bored? Was ready to move onto other things?

  Tears and drool coated the desk’s surface. She wanted to swipe at the tears, but doing so might distract her from the direction her body had taken.

  It didn’t belong to her. Some wild force had seized it. She didn’t dare touch herself because she might climax.

  Was that a bad thing?

  Want crouched where she stood no chance of getting it under control. Hot and cold fused, different sensations that somehow worked. Her ass burned, hurt, was crying out for—something. Need had her in a relentless grip. Not knowing whether her intention was to force it away or fully absorb it, she tightened her pussy muscles.

  “What’s this?” He pressed her ass with the pads of his fingers. “You’re pretty tense there.”

  She didn’t try to answer. Maybe couldn’t.

  “What if I gave you permission to get off the table?”

  She still didn’t respond.

  He stopped applying pressure. Now his fingers trailed over her throbbing flesh. “What if I told you to head for the shower? What if I said I’d leave you alone if you did?”

  So he wanted honesty, did he? Fine. It wasn’t as if she could give him anything else. “I don’t want that.”

  “What if I made it a command?”

  “Go to hell.” She sounded like she was choking.

  He kept stroking the part of her that couldn’t take much more. “We’ve already had this conversation.”

  “I—don’t care.” She had to stop sounding like she was crying. Had to find her strength.

  “Come to think of it, neither do I.”

  There was a finality to his tone, an unspoken announcement tied up in the voice of a man who was dealing with emotions he didn’t often have to.

  She became aware of how uncomfortable her position was. Her breasts were being flattened and her back ached. Her thighs trembled and burned, as did her arms.

  Burn?

  Hell no, that didn’t come close to describing how she felt.

  He moved to the side where she couldn’t see him and spread a broad hand over both ass cheeks, holding her in place. He tried to claim her clit, but his fingers kept slipping off the slick nub. Chuckling, he swiped and placed his fingers under her nose. She smelled raw woman.

  “I could be wrong,” he said, “but this doesn’t seem like a reaction you’d have if you hated what just happened.”

  She tried to jerk her head away.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I have no business making fun of you. It wasn’t my intention.”

  She couldn’t think of anything to say, not even when he patted her cheek, leaving a certain proof on her face. There wasn’t much left of her, just a hot, shaking body and endless need.

  He returned to her pussy, his well-experienced fingers stroking her labia and t
easing her clit. Whimpering, she surrendered. Belonging to him became everything.

  “If you could have one thing in life,” he asked as a finger spread her pussy lips and went in, “what would it be?”

  A series of jolts had her bouncing on the table. She couldn’t think how to breathe. Groaning, she brought her legs together.

  “Damn you.” He made a half-hearted attempt to free himself.

  What have I done, and you must know I can’t help myself.

  “Damn you.” He lightly scratched her butt.

  Mewling like a lost cat, she shuddered. Her back threatened to cramp. The sensations came quicker, distracting her from acknowledging that she’d again collapsed on the table. Every part of her was coated in sweat.

  “You’re a devil,” he said with his mouth near her ear. “Making me crazy.”

  “You? Crazy? What about—”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  Good. One of them needed to have a mind. It wasn’t her.

  Taking his time, he pulled out of her flooded channel. He raked her ass again, lighter than before, tickling her. Then his hands were gone. If not for his heat on her legs and his breathing meshing with hers, she might think he’d abandoned her. She heard a sound. It didn’t penetrate the fog she’d sunk into.

  “We’re going to fuck,” he said. “I won’t bother asking if it’s what you want because I don’t need to.”

  “All—right.” Had she ever sounded more stupid?

  He pushed her legs apart, slipped a hand under her belly and lifted her ass. Breathing through her open mouth, she let her legs fall apart. Her beaten ass burned. She waited.

  There. Banner’s cock. Pushing into her pussy—sliding in, really. He came at her as if his intention was to ream her out. Her head lifted of its own accord, this time staying there. An image of Koko entering a mare briefly distracted her. Then Banner withdrew a little, followed by pushing hard and deep, and the picture of horses fucking died.

  He wasn’t civilized, not anywhere close. This wasn’t a man who concerned himself with his sex partner, but she didn’t give a damn. She was in heat, desperate for sex. Offering her ass to her partner. Looking like a slut and reveling in it.

  She tossed her head and dug her nails into the desk. Groaned, cursed, cried.

  Banner found his rhythm, a double-time beat that kept her body in motion. No matter how hard she tried to give him something to work against, the desk was too slippery. Another time she might laugh.

  Another time?

  There was just now. Banner fucking her, repeatedly slapping her ass, throwing her into madness.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “I should have known it,” Banner said as he watched her gently wash her backside.

  “Known what?” As clearly as she could see him through the shower door, his view of her had to be as good if not better.

  “How things were going to turn out.” He sounded irritated, but whether at himself or her she couldn’t tell.

  “You’re talking about us having sex, right?”

  “What else? Don’t rush. We have all night.”

  For what? she was tempted to ask, but silence was better. After she’d managed the Herculean task of getting her clothes on, he’d announced they were going to his bedroom. For all she’d known, his intention had been to revisit the issue that had led to him spanking her. Instead, he’d told her she could have the first shower. She’d been so shaky that it was a wonder she’d made it into the small space without falling. The water was on the cool side of comfortable, but that was all her buttocks could handle. Hopefully the longer she spent in here the higher chance she’d find what was left of her brain.

  She wanted to leave. She needed to stay.

  Banner was sitting on the closed toilet seat. He’d stripped after closing his bedroom door. She wasn’t sure where he left off and she started. Although she’d already washed her hair, she put more shampoo in her hand and lathered up again. Eventually she’d have to get out.

  Speak.

  “I suppose I should say I don’t like having to discipline you.” His tone was flat as if he were deliberately keeping his thoughts under wraps. “But we know different.”

  “I appreciate your honesty.”

  “Ah, honesty.” Despite the stern words she thought he smiled. “Are you sure that’s the word you want to use?”

  She’d hoped he’d wait before bringing up what stood between them, but should have known he wasn’t wired that way. Openness wasn’t just something he aspired to. He considered it essential.

  At least up to a point. Then there was him and what made him tick.

  Stalling, she made a show of rinsing her hair. Finally she had no choice but to turn off the water. She pushed back the shower door, reached for the towel and stepped onto a mat. Not bothering to dry her hair, she wrapped the towel around herself. The terrycloth felt like sandpaper on her ass.

  “What happens now?” she asked.

  “In regards to what?”

  “Everything. Us.”

  “How about we start with me getting cleaned up.”

  When he stepped into the steamy enclosure, she tried to remember if she’d ever watched a man take a shower. There was something deeply intimate about the act. For too long she’d avoided that brand of intimacy, but he’d changed her in ways she was still trying to grasp.

  Needing something to do while waiting for her brain to wake up, she dried off. He’d taken a T-shirt out of a drawer and placed it on the bathroom counter. She pulled it over her head. The garment barely covered her butt.

  Things had changed between them. It had started to shift the first time he’d spanked her, but today felt permanent. He was waiting for her honesty and she was waiting for his. Maybe it didn’t go any deeper than this, but maybe it did.

  His cock had been inside her. He’d left his cum behind, had heard her cry out as she climaxed. She’d been intimately involved with his release.

  “You asked a question,” she said after he’d turned off the shower. “About Dade and suicide.”

  Looking as if that was the last thing he’d expected her to say, he started to dry his hair. He hadn’t turned his back on her but neither had he gone to any lengths to hide his scar.

  “Go on,” he said.

  “First I need you to promise you won’t betray my confidence. I’m sure Dade wouldn’t have told me what he had if he’d thought I’d tell anyone. Particularly you.”

  “I’ll try.”

  As much as she needed reassurance, she knew he’d done the best he could. He was a man, with muscled lines and military stance. He was comfortable carrying a weapon and was willing to sacrifice his life for his country. Broad-shouldered with a flat belly, his body taunted her to ignore it. She couldn’t. Would never want to.

  “I don’t remember exactly which of us said what when.” Knowing this might take a while, she tried to lean against the bathroom counter. Her ass protested. “I’m going into the bedroom, your bedroom.”

  Expressionless, he nodded.

  She eased onto the side of the bed, saying nothing as he pulled on shorts and walked over to the window. “I was sure Dade wanted to tell me something personal. I had a pretty good idea what it was because I’ve been there.”

  His expression eased a little. She tried to look past it for the real him.

  “I asked Dade what worries him the most about his future. He said he tries not to think about it because he never imagined his life would turn out like it has, that his body isn’t what he believed it would be.” Reconstructing the conversation while looking at Banner was nearly impossible so she stared at her hands over her crotch.

  “That’s when I did something I never thought I would.”

  “What was it?”

  “I told him there was a time when I hated my body. I didn’t want to be a woman, hated knowing I’d develop breasts.”

  “How old were you when you felt that way?”

  His attention still fixed on her hands,
she inhaled courage. “I was nine or ten. I—hell—it’s time to just say it. Get it out.” She surged to her feet. “I was raped,” she ground out. “My body given in exchange for the drugs my mother was certain she couldn’t live without.”

  He rocked back as if punched. “Your mother? You told me her boyfriend tried—”

  “This was before. The boyfriend— I got away from him, but things were bad when I was too little to stand up for myself. I couldn’t run. Where would I go?” Her throat felt raw, her heart wounded. “Plus, it was my mother. Mothers aren’t supposed to do things like that.”

  “God damn her.”

  “Curse her all you want. She’s dead.”

  “Yes,” he muttered and turned his hands into fists. “She is. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  She laughed, a harsh burst of sound that came from her gut. “Because it was too damn hard. The boyfriend was bad enough, but to revisit those nights when I tried to hide under the bed only to have the person responsible for me being alive… Think back to when you were nine. Did you have nightmares?”

  “If I did I don’t remember. Those didn’t start until much later.” He reached behind him.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “This isn’t about me.”

  Isn’t it? You have your own story. “I didn’t spell out every detail to Dade,” she said. “But I think it was enough. Dade and I connected. He told me I could cry. I told him the same thing.”

  “That’s what you were doing? Both of you crying?”

  Because it was too late to safeguard Dade’s secrets, she nodded. “We’re human with human emotions. He damned my mother the same as you just did. We made fun of his lousy driving skills. I wouldn’t have if he hadn’t started. When he blamed himself, I asked if doing that would change anything. I reminded him that I couldn’t change my mother. It took a long time but I’ve managed to put that helpless little girl behind me. I want him to do the same. It won’t happen all at once, but I believe he’ll get there.”

  “Because you did what I told you not to. You got close to him.”

  “Yes. Banner, I’m not going to apologize. If what I told Dade helps him, it’s worth getting spanked.”

  Fists still clenched, he faced the window. Maybe she should say something, give him more details about her childhood. She had no doubt he wanted to know more, but for reasons known only to himself, he wasn’t pushing.