Chapter 6
My entire body feels like it’s rooted in concrete.
I can’t fucking move.
My brain’s stuck buffering, trying to process a sentence I’m sure I heard but can’t quite believe.
“Face the headboard.”
I poured gasoline on everything I’ve touched tonight and that singular sentence should’ve been the match that burned the whole illusion down. Instead, there is something lodged in my chest, while the rest of me goes cold.
“If you want this,” Knox says, “then move. Especially if you want it the way you should’ve gotten it this summer.”
My legs finally respond, carrying me toward the bed. I climb on and kneel at the edge, pulse hammering in my throat. The mattress dips beneath me, creaking like it’s nervous too.
“This is a mistake,” he says, quiet. “You know that, right?”
I nod like I’m being good, then dip low and present myself like a fucking offering.
Face buried, hips up, waiting.
“You need a safe word.”
“I don’t.”
I do. God, I do.
“I urge you to pick one,” he says.
He’s right. I know he’s right. I should be responsible and listen. It’s what every book and blog and friend with common sense would recommend.
The problem is I don’t want out. I don’t want limits. I don’t want safety nets or parachutes or plans for what happens if this goes too far.
I want to go too far.
Don’t I deserve to be stripped bare by someone who won’t apologize for the damage? It’s reckless, but it’s also the first thing in a long time that feels real.
“I promise there’s nothing you could do to me that I wouldn’t beg for again.”
He unleashes a puff of air through his nose like an animal trying not to pounce. It’s not the sound of a man in control.
In that moment, it’s not me who unravels. It’s him.
“Delicate things shouldn’t tempt me the way you do.”
“I’m not delicate,” I mumble, face pressed into the bed
“I know that now,” he murmurs. “You made it easy to hold back.”
His palm lands on my ass kneading through the thin fabric of my gym shorts.
“You’re not that boy,” he says as his fingers drift lower, teasing the curve of my thigh. “Never were, were you?”
I move without thinking, knees dragging across the sheets as I turn to face him.
“Don’t,” he snaps, voice like a whip. “Face forward.”
My body snaps back into place remembering exactly where he wanted me.
“You don’t turn around.”
I’m ready to talk shit, to prove I can take as hard as I give, but the second he grips my hips the words dissolve like sugar on my tongue.
The way his hands roam my body is firm and possessive, leaving no doubt that he’s cataloging every reaction I can’t hide. My skin burns where he touches, branded without fire.
“This what you’ve been chasing?” he rasps. “Me, breaking the rules for you?”
“Yes,” I whisper. “Tell me you still want it.”
“I never stopped.”
His hands find the waistband of my shorts and with one hard tug, he tears them down the middle, leaving scraps of fabric clutched in his fists. He tosses them aside, then runs his palms over the curve of my ass, framed perfectly by the stretch of my jock strap.
“You think I like seeing you walk around like this,” he asks, voice like gravel. “Testing my restraint and begging for my attention.”
“I don’t need to beg.”
His touch falls away, and my skin misses the heat instantly.
“No?”
“No, Sir.”
“Why’s that?”
I know I should let it go. I know mouthing off might bring hell down on me, but that spark his voice ignites is begging me to light the match, because I have to see what happens when this man finally comes off his leash.
“You bred me once and never let go,” I say, low into the mattress. “The outfit’s to rile you up enough to stop being a pussy and finally do it again.”
The chuckle that rumbles out of him has my fingers curling into the sheets. He drags me back until my spine arches and I’m fully on display. His hands skate up my ribs, heat trailing in their wake, until the weight of his body presses flush against mine.
“Well,” he murmurs, voice thick with hunger, lips brushing the shell of my ear, “Looks like your plan worked.”
He leans off me, fingers hooking into the band of my jockstrap, stretching it to the edge of its limit before letting it snap back against my skin with a sharp, satisfying sting.
I arch into it, breath ragged.
My cock aches, leaking through the thin fabric of my jock until the pouch’s damp and clinging.
There’s a soft, involuntary grind of my hips toward the mattress, chasing friction like it might save me even as I clench down on nothing, desperate and empty and needing him to fill the space he’s carved out inside me.
“You Finley boys are all the same,” he says, “Always think you’re in control.”
I chuckle. “Still am.”
“Let’s try that again.”
He yanks the elastic again, harder this time. The sting snaps through me and I gasp as it blooms into something sickly sweet just under my skin.
“Do you think you’re in control?” he repeats, voice like a noose tightening.
I exhale, trying my best to appear unbothered. “Yes.”
The heat of him disappears, and the absence is brutal. I stay where I am. Face buried in my arms, knees spread, ass arched and waiting. There’s a pause and then the unmistakable sound of him rummaging across the room.
My heart kicks when I realize what he’s reaching for.
“I’m gonna give you one more try,” he says, eerily calm. “Do you think you’re in control?”
Before I can answer I feel cool wood dragging down the curve of my ass. A big brother paddle plucked from his wall and etched with his name in raised block letters, edges smoothed from years of tradition, weighty with history.
An involuntary moans erupts from me at the first touch, like my body’s been waiting for this longer than I have.
“No…”
He lays the paddle flat against me.
“No what?”
I swallow hard. “No, Sir.”
He presses in close until I can feel his heat ghosting over my skin without a single point of contact.
“Good boy,” he breathes, and somehow, it lands deeper than the sting ever could.
The teasing has me light-headed, like I might pass out from holding my breath and waiting for the pain I know is coming.
“Breathe for me,” he says, fingertips dragging featherlight down my spine. Goosebumps follow in their wake.
“Do you want a safe word?”
It’s an out. An escape. A lifeline.
But I think of every person who’s ever handled me like glass. Every time I’ve been padded, softened, protected from myself. And I realize that maybe I should say yes. Realistically, I probably should. But I know Knox won’t break me, and I want to see who I am when all the pieces are stripped away.
“No,” I say, steady.
“You sure?” he ask. “Because the version of me you’re begging for doesn’t hold back.”
His tone is clipped and unyielding. Carved from the same steel he’s been using to keep me at arm’s length all semester, but I can tell something’s shifted. There’s a crack in his restraint now, visible and splintering. He’s done pretending too.
“Yes, Sir. I’m sure,” I breathe, “Make it hurt so I know I’m not pretending anymore.”
“You want to be ruined?”
“Yes,” I gasp.
There’s a beat.
“You picked the right man.”
The paddle lifts and drops.
The first strike lands with a crack. Wood meeting skin in a perfect, punishing kiss.
I jolt forward, breath ripped from my lungs in a sound that’s somewhere between a gasp and a moan.
The sting is immediate, blooming across me like fire, but it’s the aftershock that curls my toes.
Heat radiates from the spot, spreading like a fever.
I swear I can feel the grain of the paddle seared into my skin.
My body arches in offering.
Another strike. Then another.
By the fourth, I’m gone.
Tears prick the corners of my eyes, but it’s not from pain. It’s from the release. The clarity. The way he’s stripping me down to my rawest parts and still choosing me.
The wood drags along my skin again, slower this time, a means to underline and admire his own work. I’m trembling. Cock heavy, leaking, straining for contact and still, I don’t move. I don’t speak as I nervously await what comes next.
His thumb presses gently along the edge of one welt, grazing upward until it lands on the raised letters of his name.
“The letters left a mark,” he murmurs. His voice is different now, tinged with something possessive and unspoken. “I like it. Seeing you branded with my name.”
I moan, guttural and unashamed. “Then do it again.”
“You want them to know who you belong to?”
“I want you to know.”
Another crack fills the room.
And this time, I break.
The orgasm hits like a punch to the gut and I convulse through it, arms straining to keep me upright as I spill into the tight pouch of my jock. It soaks the fabric, leaks through it, drips onto Knox’s sheets in slick trails that feel more like confession than climax.
Months of tension, denial, and wanting all poured out in one devastating release.
Behind me, Knox hums a low, satisfied sound, then his hand wraps around the fabric of my pouch. I can’t help but twitch from oversensitivity as he strokes through the mess I’ve made. The gentle caress of his finger tips is indulgent as he savors it.
He steps around the bed and I remain frozen still panting and high off my orgasm.
Positioned in front of me he slowly comes into focus until he’s the only thing I can see standing just at the end of the bed.
“Eyes on me,” he says.
I obey, stilling my trembling body as I lift my gaze to his.
He raises this hand that stroked me through that unholy mess and brings two fingers to his mouth. They drag across his lips before he sucks them clean, eyes locked on mine the entire time.
Like he’s tasting victory.
Despite my release, I swear I’ve never been harder.
Knox fists a handful of my hair, yanking my head back until I’m looking up at him with my mouth parted on instinct.
With his free hand, he undoes his belt with sharp, practiced motions. The buckle clinks, the zipper follows, and then his pants drop to free his uncut cock. Thick, flushed, already glistening at the tip.