by Lilia Moon
It’s the last one she’s going to take for a while.
I turn to walk down the hall, my hand still on her neck. She falls in beside me, never losing contact. Already, she’s homing in on her safe place.
I walk her into my bedroom fast enough that she doesn’t get much chance to look around. It’s already all prepared, lights and music on low, pillows piled on a corner of my enormous bed.
My bed’s higher than normal, and there are good reasons for that. I lead her over to the corner and line up a couple of pillows. “Bend over, face down, ass in the air, legs spread as wide as your hips.” The last isn’t strictly necessary for a spanking, but it will make watching her for signs of arousal easier—and a hell of a lot more fun for me.
It would also make it easier to finger fuck her until she screams, but if there’s one thing I’m trying to remember right now, it’s that I don’t get to do that.
Not for twenty-four hours.
Hour twenty-five is going to kill both of us.
Chapter Twenty
Emily
I’m standing naked in a virtual stranger’s bedroom, my own arousal dripping down my inner thighs—and he’s asking me to assume the kind of position that will leave me wide open and vulnerable to him in every way possible.
My mouth is as dry as dust. He’s not asking.
I’m here because I said I would do what he tells me to do.
My legs are wobbly as I try to position myself closer to the pillows. I can hear my brain chattering in the background, full of inane questions about why his bed is so high and where he orders his blue silk bed sheets. Full of less inane questions about why I’m naked and whether someone might stumble in his open front door.
None of it matters. All that matters is the hand on the back of my neck and the pillows brushing against my quivering thighs.
I’m not supposed to talk. I draw in a breath.
He leans over and puts his mouth next to my ear. “Do you need to use your safeword?”
I shake my head mutely.
“Talk, Emily. You answer me when I ask you a question.”
The parts of my brain that make speech don’t even feel connected anymore. “Green.”
His hand slides from the nape of my neck to the small of my back. “Then bend over. Now.”
Clarity. That voice is absolute clarity. It wipes out the confusion, the uncertainty, the jitters of being naked with someone and contemplating where it will head.
I only need to do exactly what he tells me.
I bend over.
I can feel him settling pillows under my hips, under my face. Adjusting me. We’re at the corner of the bed and he’s stepping into my side. I want to curl up around him.
The hand on the small of my back presses down. “Be still.”
I didn’t know I was moving. I settle my feet into the rich carpet under my naked toes. I have no idea where my shoes went. Silk brushes up against my shins, dancing in some breeze I can’t feel anywhere else.
The pillows are surprisingly firm under my hips. It occurs to me that maybe they aren’t designed for sleeping, and I feel my cheeks heat.
His other hand joins the first one on the small of my back, and I don’t realize I’ve been missing it until it lands. It starts traveling in circles over my left butt cheek. Steady, stroking touches. I have no idea why he’s doing this, but it feels amazing.
He switches to the other side and I want to purr. Cream and cookies and luscious sunlit daydreams.
I can feel the heat between my legs intensifying. Aching.
His stroking circles get bigger. A little further and his fingers will be exactly where I want them. I shift, just a little.
He growls. “Be still.”
I’m supposed to just lie here? Even when I know exactly what I want? I can feel the defiance rising up inside me.
And then I remember that knowing what I want hasn’t exactly gotten me very far. Fifteen years of leaning and reaching and trying to tell my partner what I need with all my small body signals has left me vaguely pleasured and wondering what all the fuss is about.
I remember the women in the dungeon. Nothing was vague about their pleasure.
I didn’t come here do this my way. I came here to try something different. I take a deep breath and try to relax, but I can feel my own body fighting me. I’m so wide open, so far out of anything that I understand and know. It’s scaring me.
And it’s making me want things I can’t even comprehend.
Chapter Twenty-One
Damon
She’s thinking way too hard. It’s time to put her out of her misery. I firm up the hand on the small of her back and give her right ass cheek a good, swift smack, hard enough so she’ll feel it, gentle enough for warming up a newbie.
Emily is surprisingly still under my hand. I give her long enough to find her words if she wants to use them, and then I swat her left cheek.
I hear her exhale softly, and the boost to my Dom ego is huge. She wants this—and she’s beginning to figure that out. I apply my hand to her delectable ass again. She’s the perfect mix of firm and soft in all the right places, and I already know I could do this for hours. I set up an easy rhythm, predictable enough for a beginner and fast enough to keep her attention glued to her ass.
It’s hard to think when you’re a human drum.
I can feel my heart rate settling, the calm that comes over me when I’m most fully my Dom self. I’m hard, aroused, aching with it, but all that slides into the background. All that matters is the sub under my hands and where she needs to go.
All that matters is Emily.
She’s starting to make sounds, little mewling ones like a contented kitten. I underestimated her—she’s reaching for this like she knows exactly what to do. I pick up the rhythm a bit, land my hands a little harder. I want that edge where pleasure gets sharp and the kitten isn’t quite so contented anymore.
I shift a little. Time to stop watching her rosy ass, as utterly gorgeous as it is. For this part I need her face. Seeking edges with a new sub is precarious business, and she’s got my full attention. I know where I want to take her and I don’t intend to let her fall.
Her head is turned toward me on the bed, hair mashed, eyes open and unseeing. Her mouth is partway open, panting with every strike of my hand. She’s building toward orgasm from this alone—I can see it. Smell it. God, she’s beautiful.
I pause to give her a short break—and to knock her out of the groove she’s riding, stunning though it is. That’s not why we’re here. Not yet. I could make her come with just the beat of my hand on her ass, but that’s not the way. She needs to know more of who she is before I steamroll her into her own pleasure.
She trusts me to do that for her, so I will, even if all I want to do right now is bury myself deep in her dripping pussy and fuck her until we both totally lose it.
I’ve been rubbing her ass for long enough. I get my Dom voice back online and press into the small of her back with my left hand. “I’m going to start up again. Remember. You don’t come until I say you can come.”
Her whimper of protest is the sweetest sound I’ve heard in a really long time.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Emily
I am so desperate for his hand to hit my ass again that I can’t stand it.
He growls, and this time I don’t need the words. I hold myself still and wait for him to give me what I need.
It doesn’t take long.
His hands are sharper now, faster. It hurts, and it doesn’t. I can’t decide, and I don’t really care. My entire world is waiting for the next contact, absorbing it, feeling it radiate through my entire body.
My clit is on fire, and my nipples aren’t far behind.
I know I’m making noises, but I can’t stop them. Don’t want to stop them.
His fingers are landing closer to my wetness now. It’s all I can do not to move so that they do. I can feel the orgasm storming at the gates, and I want to
let it through.
I want him to let it through. All it will take is a single touch.
His hand lands harder.
There is pain now, and blinding clarity. Focus. I stop thinking. There is nothing more than the waves of feeling flooding through me, drowning everything in their way. I can feel something just beyond my reach. Something better than pleasure, better than orgasm. It’s where the women in the dungeon were going, and I want to be there more than I’ve ever wanted anything.
But I’m pretty sure the only way there is to let the enormous volcano building between my legs go, and I’m not supposed to do that.
I’m so ready to break the rules.
I need to go to this place I can feel, I can see, I can practically taste. I let myself totally relax. The only way in is utter surrender.
Damon stops.
No words, no sounds, no movement. Just stillness—and a message. I don’t get to go there yet.
I want to weep for something I’ve never felt and can’t even name.
His hand slides between my legs, and it’s everything I can do not to lean into his fingers and let the boiling chaos inside me go.
I’m not supposed to come.
I start to laugh. I can feel it rising up inside me, wicked and hot and violently amused.
His hands shift to turn me over, to pick me up, to settle me into his chest in the way that I already know he will always do when he wants to take care of me. I can’t stop laughing and he doesn’t ask me to.
I wonder if I’m hysterical.
I don’t know the answer to that, but I know I want him touching me more than I want anything else in the universe.
My wild laughter is quieting. A release of sorts, but not the one I want. Not the one I would beg for in an instant if I thought it would make the slightest difference.
I already know Damon Black keeps his promises.
I lean into his chest. My entire pelvis and my bottom are throbbing in time to his heartbeat.
He runs a gentle hand over my right ass cheek. “How are you feeling?”
I have no idea if I’m capable of speaking, but I try. “I’m throbbing.”
I can feel his smile against the top of my head. “Yeah. Spanking’s good for increasing blood flow to an area.”
I have blood pounding in places he barely touched. Places I need him to touch. “Why did you stop?”
“Ssh.” His voice in my hair is quiet, almost soothing. I never would have guessed that this man knows how to soothe. “We’ll talk in a bit. For now, just feel.”
I want to argue, but I can feel the maelstrom inside me subsiding, and in its place comes flooding exhaustion.
I barely feel myself fall asleep.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Damon
She’s so damn peaceful when she sleeps.
I rub oil into Emily’s gorgeous, rosy ass, mostly to keep my hands from doing what they really want. I have no business stroking her hair when she’s not awake to tell me yes or no. Tenderness isn’t part of what we negotiated.
I wince as I watch the color under my hands slowly receding. That was no beginner spanking and I know it. She’s okay, and I know that too, but we both got carried away on the wave of her responsiveness. She almost landed in subspace, bent over the pillows of a Dom she barely knows.
The danger of that scares me. The trust of it humbles me.
And all I really want is for her wake up so we can do it all over again.
I grin ruefully. I might have to pick something different than spanking for the next go round. She’s going to be sore for a while. The oil will help, but it only works minor miracles—and if I’m honest, I want her to have that lasting reminder of my hands.
She’s mine, at least for the next twenty-two hours. I glance at the clock on the bedside table and wonder how many of them she’s planning on sleeping through. Then I remember she’s my sub and I get to decide that.
I lean forward and whisper in her ear as I run my hand gently up and down her spine. “Emily, wake up.”
All I get in response is a muffled grunt.
Her face is pushed into one of my pillows, her hair matted over her face where arousal and sweat have mingled together and dried, and I think she’s been drooling in her sleep. She’s adorable, and appealing in a way that should be scaring my cock soft.
Apparently my cock is not that smart.
I give in and let my hands do what they’ve wanted to do for the last hour. Her hair is butter smooth, long and straight and blonde and pretty much the opposite of anything that lives in my world. I tuck the stray bits gently behind her ear.
She’s waking up now, and I move my hands away from her hair. Any more of that and we’re going to be heading back into places where she just gets all sweaty again. That needs not to happen. Not until we talk. Debriefs are a big part of how I work and play with a sub, and I have a feeling that Emily’s going to need more words than most.
“Damon?” Her voice is slurred, still drunk with sleep, and her forehead is wrinkling up.
I lie down beside her and tuck her into my shoulder. I’m going to need her eyes soon, but I need this first.
She snuggles in, and then starts to laugh. I can feel it vibrating all up and down her body.
I grin into the top of her head, even though I don’t know what’s set her off. “What’s so funny?”
She rises up on an elbow and grins at me. “You’re awfully cuddly for a tough guy.”
Yeah, we’re going to need words. Lots of them. I reorganize us a little so that our legs are still wrapped together, but our heads are far enough apart that I can see her eyes. I let my hands touch her shoulders, stroke her back. “Comfortable?”
“Yes.” She’s watching me with a lot more alertness in her eyes now.
My fingers touch her chin, stroke her cheek. “Now we talk. Part of keeping this safe and good for everyone is lots of words.” I want to give her all the permission she needs to find hers.
I hope she doesn’t ask for mine. I’ve debriefed thousands of scenes—those words are easy. It’s the rest of what’s going on here that has me starting to sweat. Sex, domination, even cuddles—I roll just fine with all of those.
Tenderness? Picking the pillow with her drool on it for under my own head?
Yeah. I don’t want to talk about any of that.
She’s still watching me. I kick my Dom self into gear so that I can give my sub what she needs. I run my hand down her back to her ass and squeeze gently. “How are you feeling?”
She squirms under my touch, but it’s not an unhappy wiggle. “A little sore.”
I’m good at what I do. “That was a lot for your first time. We’ll take it easy on your ass for the rest of the day, but you need to let me know if anything gets uncomfortable.”
Her breathing is already quickening. Imagining what might be coming next.
I slide a hand between her legs. Stroking the remnants of wetness—and the new arousal starting to flow. She’s so responsive it’s ridiculous. I move my fingers around a little for my own selfish reasons. “And here?”
“Aching.” She bites her lower lip. “Unfinished.”
I make a mental note to have a chat about topping from the bottom. Soon. “Are you saying your Dom hasn’t taken proper care of you?”
Her eyes snap wide at the tone in my voice. “No. Sir.”
If she understood just how much control she has over my cock with those two words, we’d be in big trouble. “Good. You come when I say you can come.” I quicken my fingers, pushing on her a little. “If I want you wet and panting for this entire day, that’s my right.”
Her eyes just get bigger as my fingers keep working the folds around her clit. I’m not being gentle anymore. She needs to know just how hard I can make this for her.
“Um, Sir?” Her voice squeaks.
I take my hand away abruptly. “Tell me how this morning was for you. Arriving, following orders, being spanked. I want to know how you felt,
what made you uncomfortable, what surprised you, what you want more of.”
My voice is harsher than I mean it to be.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Emily
Nobody should get to talk to me that way.
Even as I think it, I can feel my desire to answer his questions. To tell him everything. I have no idea how he has that effect on me.
My brain can hardly think. It’s begging too loudly to have his fingers back in my wetness. “I, um, I like when you touch me like you just did.” I can tell this is going to get hopelessly embarrassing really fast.
His fingers are under my chin again. “Start at the beginning. What was it like arriving at my door?”
Just thinking about it makes me quiver. “If I’d known you were going to make me strip in your doorway, I’d never have gotten out of your elevator.”
His eyes aren’t letting me squirm away, even a little. “Is that true?”
I thought it was when I said it. I keep looking at him and remember what it was like to slide the dress off my shoulders as he consumed me with his gaze. “I don’t know.” I can feel my throat squeezing. “I might not have been brave enough to show up. But I think I would have wanted to.”
Something in his eyes is praising me. Soothing me. Honoring the clunky, honest, embarrassing words I’m managing to find. “When you put your hand between my legs right after I undressed—I liked that. Usually I hate it when guys skip all the foreplay stuff.” He hadn’t skipped anything. “It’s different when I’m supposed to let you do whatever you want.”
He’s grinning at me now.
I reach up my hand and then stop. I don’t know what the rules are. “Am I allowed to touch you?”
He strokes my fingers with his. “Yes. We’re not in a scene right now, so this is just two people having a conversation who can touch and cuddle and each do what they want.”