After what he considered to be a generous amount of time – with her just sitting there looking at him with a stunned expression on her face – he said calmly, "I'm not going to repeat myself, Miranda. I suggest you answer my question quickly, or you're going to find yourself in trouble, and I can promise you that that is not where you want to be with me."
He raised his eyes to hers and she looked almost beseechingly back at him, and that veil of almost fear was much more prominent than he would have preferred. But the sooner she learned that he was nothing like whatever asshole had hurt her in the past, the better.
She opened her mouth and he could see tears glittering in her eyes as she said in a monotone, "You said that you want me to take five more bites of my steak."
"Thank you, yes. And I expect you to do it, too."
"Why would you think that I was going to obey you? Is it because you're the great Mace Kennedy, King of All He Surveys? Because I'm a little person and you're a big fat cat? Because I'm a woman and you're a—" She should have quit while she was ahead. She knew she didn't want to finish those words.
All of a sudden she was standing, and she wasn't even sure how she'd gotten there, but he was faster than she was by far and she soon found herself sitting on his lap while he sat in her chair, holding her fast.
"You're rail thin. Have you had anything else to eat today, Miranda?" he asked, reaching to brush her hair back from her eyes, noticing how she flinched away, then forced herself to be still while he touched her. "Answer me, or I'll give you a spanking, Miranda, and I can promise you that it won't be pleasant."
As she clenched her mouth closed stubbornly against obeying him, he slowly moved her so that she was lying over his lap rather than atop it. How he got her jeans unbuttoned and unzipped she would never know. She figured it had something to do with the exact reason she found herself like this over his lap – that all of her clothes were pretty loose on her. All of a sudden, she knew with absolute horror that, as her tummy connected with his thighs, she could feel much more of him than she should have been able to if she were properly covered, and then she realized that her pants and panties were wrapped neatly around her knees.
"You had better fucking let me up!" she threatened, doing her damndest to get away from him, but finding her escape routes constantly – and with depressing ease – blocked, although he was scrupulously careful not to hurt her in any way, which certainly was a difference from Zach. Miranda was beginning to realize that he might be a big guy like Zach, but that Zach didn't have a stripe on Mace. Mace was a man, not a boy trying to be a man. Mace didn't have anything to prove to anyone. He was already a success. He could probably have any woman he wanted. He didn't have to find one to denigrate and keep down so that he would feel bigger and better than her.
Still, she couldn't seem to stop fighting him until he had worn her completely down and there was no fight left in her. "Nothing," she said, trying to keep the defeat out of her tone. "I haven't had anything to eat today."
Mace reached over and cut a piece of her steak, offering it to her so that she had the opportunity to do as he'd asked and probably avoid a spanking – although he reserved the right to deliver some sort of one, just so she knew he meant business. But she clenched her jaw and closed her lips, turning her face away.
Resolutely, he put the fork down at the same time he brought his hand down, hard and crisp, on her backside, eliciting a choked cry that she scrambled to stifle and didn't quite make it.
And he didn't just smack her a few times then offer her an out, either. Miranda wasn't sure how many powerful, deliberate swats he applied to her cringing derriere, but it was in the teens or early twenties. She never stopped trying to get away from him, but he subdued her so easily that it was absolutely ridiculous, so that her efforts were nothing more than as mosquitoes buzzing around him that he could easily swat – and he did – with gusto.
She was such a stubborn ass, though, that even when he finally offered her the opportunity to take a bite again, she did the same thing as she had done the first time – clenching her jaw and turning her head away.
He didn't get mad – as Zach most certainly would have, resorting to his fists to force her to knuckle under in a way she had promised herself she never, ever in this lifetime ever would to any man. Instead, she heard him put the fork down and, without another word, he began to spank her again.
She held off crying as long as was possible for her, but early on during this second round, when everywhere that massive palm landed had already been well covered before, she broke down, crying out and sobbing plaintively with each sharp smack. She felt as if he was setting her skin on fire everywhere their flesh had connected, and yet he showed absolutely no signs of stopping, despite how miserable she knew she sounded.
This time she figured he'd delivered at least twice the amount of spanks he'd given her originally before his hand remained on her behind – almost as a warning – and then he offered her the same piece of steak again, saying softly, but with no judgment at all, "I can do this all night, Miranda. The question is, can you?"
She sighed and opened her mouth and took the tender piece of meat off the end of the fork, chewing resignedly.
"Just a friendly warning – if you spit it out, I'll make the spanking I just gave you look like love pats."
She growled at him, but the food stayed in her mouth and she swallowed it.
He fed her the second piece immediately afterwards, until she'd eaten the five pieces he'd told her he required, and then, when she wanted to get up, he held her in place for a moment longer.
Her jeans and panties had long since ended up on the floor along with her shoes, so she was naked from the waist down, and feeling – all of a sudden, surprisingly – very vulnerable, especially when the hand that had been covering her singed bottom began to wander a bit, until it covered that area where her thighs became butt. He lowered the leg that was supporting her, so that she tipped a bit downwards, as if she was going to fall off his lap, forcing her legs to scramble for purchase on the floor of the brick patio, until his own leg came neatly back up between both of hers, splitting her wide open and leaving her completely vulnerable to him while perching her mound on the edge of his knee.
She continued to try to escape him, but was just as easily subdued as before. Her wrists were captured and held to the small of her back, and there was little else she could do to get away from him.
And that big possessive hand immediately began to drift slowly over the backs of her thighs, fingertips barely trailing over her skin until he found where her bottom was split wide open and rested them there. "I just want to see if I'm right about something. I'll let you up in a minute, I promise," he whispered softly.
"No! Now – let me up now!" she wailed.
"Miranda," he warned. "I said I'd let you up soon, and I will."
She whimpered and moaned but instinctively didn't offer any further words, as if she was already submitting her will to his instinctively as those fingers delved into her moist grotto from behind, finding exactly what they were seeking – evidence of her body's desire, even through a very thorough spanking. Mace – who had been hard all evening – practically blew out his zipper from the sure knowledge – the proof that was drenching his fingers – that she had become aroused by being spanked – and spanked hard.
That spurred those fingers on to delve even further down, not laying a claim to her yet but rather searching for the spot he was looking for – that mythological place that some men just couldn't seem to find, but that he knew almost as well as he knew his own equipment.
And then it was right there, right where he'd known it would be, and grown to proportions that were truly epic. As his broad fingertips explored her, Miranda did her best to stifle the moans that were building in her throat, but they bled out through her lips until she couldn't even begin to control them any more.
What was he doing to her down there? No one had ever touched her so surely, as if he kn
ew exactly how she wanted to be stroked. And somehow he seemed to almost be... vibrating or shaking his fingers against her, which added an entirely new dimension of sensation, such that she found herself almost immediately at the brink – where she desperately didn't want to be. It made her feel altogether too vulnerable for her own comfort.
She renewed her efforts to get free, but as if he had anticipated that she might get to this point – where he was pleasuring her and she wasn't sure whether that was okay with her or whether she wanted him to or not – and try to escape again, he squashed her attempts with truly ridiculous ease. "I know we're very new, Miranda. I would have liked to have waited to get to this point with you, but I want to feel you cum so badly that I can't help myself. I'm going to press my thumb up inside you now, and I'm going to flick this gorgeously swollen clit of yours with my fingers and I'm going to bring you off. I'm not asking for your permission to do it; I just want you to know what it is that I intend to do to you."
This wasn't the first time she'd gotten lost in his voice, and she had a feeling it wouldn't be the last. But she couldn’t just let him do that to her, could she? "No, Mace, please!"
He considered what she said and how she said it – on an agonized groan of pent up sexuality – and rolled the dice, essentially gambling everything he now owned. Taking a chance that he was wrong and she meant it, rather than what he strongly felt it was – that she thought she should protest, or, even better, that she liked protesting what was happening to her and wanted him to push her past that, to force her to her orgasm.
So he did exactly what he told her he was going to do to her – carefully, deliberately pressing that big thick thumb up inside her and covering her clit with his fingertips, so that every morsel of it was being stimulated at the same time as he dragged all four of them languidly, up and over her, as if they had all the time in the world. And they did, as far as he was concerned.
She began to try to move her legs, as if she was drumming them against his mattress. He realized that he liked that idea very much and would try to make it come true later this evening, when he had her in his bed. But the position she was currently in didn't allow for much movement, and Mace felt that that would make it even better for her, considering what he was learning about her and what she liked.
As his fingers tortured her slowly, and that thumb fucked her hard, he noticed that she was holding herself taut as a bow string for some reason. He let go of her wrists in favor of rubbing her lower back very gently, hoping to get her to relax into her orgasm rather than approaching it from such a nervous, almost fearful place.
Unbeknownst to him, the small of her back was an erogenous zone for Randa, and his massaging had a twofold effect on her. It did relax her, which slowed her responses and prolonged that period between the point of no return and that first almost painful contraction that heralded her orgasm. But it also added to her stimulation, as if he was also stroking her clit but from behind, and she thought she was going to faint before she actually got the point of cumming – but she didn't.
She did, however, emit a shriek when it began, before she could throw a hand over her mouth to clamp it shut, although he then reached down and pried her hand away from her mouth, saying, "There's no one around here to be scandalized by you, Miranda, and I want to hear every single syllable of your pleasure."
And he got to, because thanks to him, it went on for quite some time. He didn't just bring her off once and figure that should be more than enough for anyone and that she should be damned happy that he'd bothered to grant her that. He listened to her and learned what she liked, gently refusing to let her get down and coaxing three more loud, devastating culminations from her that left her lying, completely wasted, over his lap, well past the point of caring who might have seen or heard her. She was just too far gone to worry about that kind of thing now.
For his part, Mace wanted to stand up and beat his chest and roar. He'd never felt like more of a man than he did with her, right now. He was experiencing joy at having been able to reduce her to hanging limply over him, while his hands stroked down her body from shoulder blades to the backs of her thighs, feeling something akin to button bursting pride of ownership, although he knew she'd probably slap him silly to hear him say something like that. But, in a few short minutes the dictates of his body overrode that joy.
Suddenly she was airborne, being carried through his house to a room she would come to recognize by the hunter green accents as his bedroom. He leaned down to pull back the bedclothes, then lay her down next to rather than on a pillow, following immediately after her to find his place between those slim thighs, wondering at the disparity in their sizes and whether or not she'd be able to take him. He didn't think he'd been with a woman who was quite as small as she was.
He meant to be careful of her, to take his time with her, to ease himself into her, but he found that he simply couldn't. He wanted all of her, every single millimeter that he could claim, right now. So he thrust himself up inside her all at once, trying belatedly to be attentive, trying to watch her for any signs of discomfort and he truly didn't see any, although he was so far out of his mind with lust that he wasn't at all sure that he could be trusted to judge that.
But then he remembered that she had welcomed him, even in his wild, animalistic daze, she had opened both her legs and her arms to him, holding him as best she could while he fucked her – because that was exactly what he had done. No part of it was for her at all; it was the most selfishly one-sided sex he'd had since he was a callow teenager, and he was ashamed of himself for not having more – or better – self-control.
And it was all over embarrassingly soon for him, also. He collapsed over her after relatively few pounding strokes, barely able to see, not able to breathe, heaving his hot breath into her ear and weighing her down in the mattress fit to crush her beneath him.
He was horrified at how he had acted, intending to extricate himself from her immediately and begin apologizing profusely, but then he realized that she was trying to comfort him. Her legs were still clamped around him, as if she'd keep him right where he was, and her small hands – one of them was stroking his sweat soaked hair; the other was running gentle fingertips up and down his back. He let himself relax completely, right then and there.
Somehow he had found himself the perfect woman. Now he had only the problem of keeping her, which he found over the next few months and years, was damned close to a full time job, considering just how stubborn and ornery she could be. She had a definite tendency to back away from him, which only served to trigger his prey drive, to say nothing of his possessive and protective instincts.
It had been nothing if not an interesting five years.
Chapter Ten
Although her conversation with Mr. Pace, the contractor, the next morning had been excruciating, especially since Mace had, of course, insisted on listening to her side of the conversation, she had to admit that the man did quality work. Of course she hadn't been able to sit down for several days after having taken matters into her own hands. But she'd recovered, and now, after a few months in her own spacious, naturally lit studio, she had to admit – to herself, anyway – that he'd been right. She felt that the quality of her painting was actually better because of the skylights – not that she'd ever, ever let him know that.
There had been more bumps in their road – which translated to swats to her behind – than just that while they had been settling in. She still refused to let him buy her anything at all, especially now that she was living with him.
One of the things they had found that they both enjoyed doing was going to flea markets. There were a few really good, well-organized, large ones that they took to haunting together on the odd Saturday, when neither of them had anything else going on. The first time they'd gone together, she'd stayed relatively close to him. She oohed and ahhed over the things she liked. Items ranged from an unusually small, cute wooden Hoosier that was in wonderful shape, but was three hundred a
nd fifty dollars, which really was a great price for a piece like that, but which she couldn't really afford – to an eight dollar set of two tiny bisque colored Lenox porcelain baby elephants that had their trunks up, which was a sign of good luck and had small pink ribbons around their neck. But she did not actually pick anything up to buy.
Mace noticed this – that she seemed to really like a lot of things, but was reluctant to actually buy them for some reason he couldn't fathom. So he left her early on to return to the front of the store and speak to the proprietor, who offered him a hand basket and agreed to put a sold sign on the Hoosier for him.
Randa didn't come to flea markets expecting to get anything. She really enjoyed the looking. She didn't have any need for anything beyond painting supplies, and he had already set up a charge account for her at a place in New York City where she could order whatever she wanted online.
Still, she was careful to keep her charges under a hundred dollars a month, which seemed more than reasonable to her, especially considering that the amount was about four times what she'd spent every month when she was living alone. But one day she accidentally sighed dejectedly about not having what she needed to complete a painting she was working on until the next month. She didn't realize what she'd said – in front of him – until it was already all the way out of her mouth and couldn't be recalled or even really recovered from.
Of course he picked up on it immediately, folding the sports section of the Sunday paper that they were lazily reading in bed and looking at her over his reading glasses, which she found to be amazingly cute on him. "What do you mean? Does the store not have what you need?"
They had exactly what she needed. But it was a pricey amount of materials and she intended to wait until next month, so that she didn't go over her self-imposed budget. "Uh, yeah, I think they do," she said as vaguely as she dared. As much as she wanted to, as much as the impulse was there, she had enough of a sense of self-preservation that she knew she didn't want to get caught lying to him. She pretended to be super interested in the Sears ad she had in her hand, even though she'd never shopped there in her life.
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