Chapter 7
I’ve been thinking about it for days.
We’re on the couch in our usual spot after dinner. Leo’s hand is on my thigh, the fire’s crackling, but I can’t relax. My heart’s beating too fast.
“Something on your mind, lass?” His thumb circles my knee. “You’ve gone quiet.”
I breathe in. Out. I’ve been carrying this question around for days, and it gets harder to ignore every time he touches me. Asking is harder than obeying ever was, but I want this too much to stay silent.
“I’ve been thinking about what we did. In the kitchen. On the table.” My cheeks flush just referencing it. “The edging.”
His hand stills. “Aye?”
“I want more.” The words tumble out before I can second-guess them.
“Longer. I want to know what it’s like to be kept on the brink all day.
Until I can’t think anymore. Until there’s nothing left but…
” I trail off, not sure how to describe what I’m craving.
The kind of gone where my brain finally shuts the fuck up.
Leo is quiet for a long moment. When I risk a glance at his face, his expression has changed. The warmth in his eyes is gone, replaced by hunger. My heart pounds harder.
“You’re asking me to break you, lass.” His voice is serious. “To push you past everything you think you can handle. That’s not something I take lightly.”
“I know. I want it anyway.”
He studies me, and I hold his gaze even though part of me wants to look away. Finally, a slow curve transforms his lips.
“There’s something else I think you’ve been curious about.” His hand travels higher on my thigh, fingertips brushing the hem of his long shirt I’m wearing. “Something you’ve been wondering about but haven’t asked for yet.”
My body buzzes. How does he always know?
“I’ve seen the way you react when I’m rough with you.
” His voice drops so low I feel it in my chest. “The way your breath hitches when I hold you hard. The way you wiggle your ass when you’re on your hands and knees.
” He leans closer, lips brushing my ear.
“I think my sweet lass wants to be spanked. And I think she’s been too shy to ask. ”
Heat floods me so fast I feel dizzy. He’s right. I’ve thought about it more than I want to admit. I’ve wondered what it would feel like to be bent over his knee. The image has kept me awake more than one night.
His experience shows in moments like this. He has decades of knowing exactly what he’s doing, what I need before I know it myself.
“Yes.” The word escapes on a breath. “I want that too.”
“Then that’s what you’ll get.” He tips my chin up, forcing me to meet his eyes. “But understand this, Alice. Once we start, I’m not stopping until I decide you’ve had enough. You’ll use your safewords if you need them. Red to stop, yellow to slow down. Repeat them.”
“Red to stop. Yellow to slow down.”
“Good girl.” Two words and I’m liquid. I melt against him like my bones have given up. “Now. We start in the morning. Go to sleep, pet. You’re going to need your rest.”
His hands wake me.
It’s not sexual. His palm travels down my spine as I blink awake. The touch is casual, like he’s petting a cat. But every nerve ending lights up in anticipation.
“Morning, lass.” His voice is rough from sleep. “Ready for today?”
Words feel too difficult, so I just nod.
He doesn’t pounce. That’s what surprises me most. We get up, and he makes eggs and bacon for breakfast while I pad around the kitchen naked because he commanded it. He’s relaxed and singing under his breath. Brushing against me when he reaches for the salt.
Each contact is brief, almost accidental. His hip against mine at the counter. Fingers grazing my lower back as he passes. A kiss dropped on my shoulder while I pour coffee. None of it is overtly sexual, but I’m hyperaware of every touch, every moment where he could reach for me and doesn’t.
By the time we finish eating, I’m wound tight, and he hasn’t really done anything.
“Help me with the laundry, pet.”
Following him to the laundry room, confusion flickers. This isn’t what I expected. But I fold towels while he loads the dryer, and every few minutes he checks on me. Not with words. With his hand between my thighs, pressing against my pussy for just a moment before pulling away.
“Already wet.” His voice is mild, like he’s commenting on the weather. “And I’ve barely touched you.”
A whimper escapes me, hips chasing his retreating hand. “Leo, please…”
“Please what?” He goes back to loading the dryer like nothing happened. “We have all day, lass. I’m in no hurry.”
That’s when I realize what he’s doing. The anticipation is the torture. Making me desperate before he’s even really started. By the time he actually touches me properly, I’ll already be half out of my mind.
Holy hell. This is going to wreck me.
By early afternoon, I’m a trembling mess, and he still hasn’t given me anything substantial.
We’re in the bedroom now. He’s positioned me on the bed.
I’m on my back, legs spread, completely exposed to his gaze.
The sheets are cool against my overheated skin, and I clutch at them like they’re the only thing keeping me tethered to earth.
On the nightstand, a small velvet bag I don’t recognize—something he’s set there deliberately.
“Remember,” he says, his hand warm on my thigh, “if you can’t speak, tap me three times. Or tap the bed. I’ll stop immediately. Understand?”
I nod, barely able to focus on his words when all I want is his touch.
“Say it,” he commands gently.
“Three taps if I can’t speak,” I manage. “You’ll stop.”
“Good girl.” His voice is reverent as he settles between my thighs. “Look at you, so desperate already. So ready for me.”
Then his mouth is on me, and I cry out at the sudden intensity. His tongue drags through my folds, circling my clit. The pleasure spikes so fast it steals my breath. I’m going to come. After hours of teasing, it’s only going to take seconds. I’m already right there.
He pulls back.
“No!” The protest rips out before I can stop it. My hips buck up, chasing his mouth, but he’s already moved out of reach. “Sir, please, I was so close.”
“I know exactly how close you were.” He presses a kiss to my inner thigh, maddeningly gentle. “That’s the point, lass.”
He does it again. And again. Each time he brings me to the brink with his tongue, his fingers, working me until I’m shaking and desperate, and then stops just before I crest. I’m going to lose my mind. Actual tears prick at my eyes, and I hate how desperate I am. Except I don’t. I love it.
All I can do is lie here and take whatever he decides to give me, and that helplessness is doing something to my brain I can’t explain.
“Please,” I sob. “Please, I can’t—”
“You can.” His voice is firm but kind. “You can take so much more than you think. And I’m going to prove it to you.” He sits back, studying me. “Over my knee, Alice.”
My heart slams against my ribs. This is it.
He settles against the headboard and pats his thigh.
Crawling toward him on shaky limbs, I position myself across his lap.
The position is vulnerable in a way that makes my stomach flip.
My ass is in the air, while my face is pressed into the mattress, completely at his mercy.
The comforter is soft beneath my cheek and smells faintly of his orange body wash, grounding me even as my pulse races.
His hand rests on my ass, warm and heavy. “Color?”
“Green.” My voice is muffled against the sheets.
“Have you ever been spanked before, lass? Properly, I mean. Not a playful swat.”
My head shakes against the comforter. “No, Sir.”
“Then we start slow.” His palm strokes over my skin, soothing and possessive at once. “I’ll build the intensity. If it’s too much, you tell me. Yellow to slow down, red to stop. Understood?”
“Yes, Sir.” My voice comes out breathless, anticipation coiling tight in my belly.
“Good girl.”
The first slap is almost gentle. A warm-up. But even that light contact makes me gasp. My skin is so sensitized from hours of teasing that everything registers more intensely.
The second is harder. A sharp crack that echoes through the room, followed by a bloom of heat spreading across my skin. I jerk in his lap, a sound escaping me that’s half pain, half something else entirely.
“There it is.” Satisfaction roughens his voice. “That’s the sound I wanted.”
He continues, finding a rhythm. Each impact stings, then blooms into warmth, then fades just as the next one lands. The pain is sharp but fleeting, and what follows it—the rush of heat, the way my pussy tightens with each strike—surprises me with its intensity.
I really like this.
The knowledge settles into my bones as my hips push back for more. Not just the sting, though that sends heat flooding through me. It’s the crack of his palm announcing his control over my flesh. It’s the way each impact says ‘you’re mine’ without words.
“Color?” he asks again, hand pausing on my heated skin.
“Green.” The word comes out desperate. “Don’t stop.”
His laugh is low and dark. “My sweet little slut likes being spanked. I knew you would.”
He rewards me with harder strikes, and something shifts in my head.
The pain sharpens my focus when I start drifting, grounds me in my flesh when the pleasure threatens to scatter me.
But it also pushes me somewhere floaty and suspended, like the space between awake and dreaming except every nerve is on fire.
When he stops and works his fingers between my legs, I moan at how wet I am. He teases my entrance, circles my clit, and the combination of the residual sting on my ass and the pleasure building in my core is overwhelming.
“Please,” I whimper. “Please let me come.”
“Not yet, pet.” He withdraws his fingers, and I almost scream from the loss. “I haven’t decided if you’re coming today or not.”
Oh, God.
Time stops making sense.