Chapter Thirteen #2
Was that who she’d become? A whiny, begging woman? Another pitiable example of her gender—the sort of girl she’d always rolled her eyes at in the past.
Where was the determined graduate who’d fought for her place at university and come top of her undergraduate class?
Shame washed over her as she accepted that she was both the fiery student and the unraveling woman clutching the blanket.
A few hours bound to a bed and with the risk of Kronos’ penalty hanging over her, she’d been reduced to a pleading woman.
Her hands balled into fists at the infuriating reality.
He hadn’t had to raise a hand to achieve the feat. He hadn’t even raised his voice.
“I told you to come to me, and you refused.” His voice remained impossibly low. Deep, gravelly, and powerful, she sensed the bass vibrating over her goosing form. “You made your choice, Kristina.”
“But, please…” She was standing right before his chair, his unfeasible command over her body bringing her around to his right side. With the cover only shrouding the front of her body, her backside was left unnervingly exposed to the air. “I don’t want this!”
Her eyes closed fleetingly at the half-truth. At that moment, Kris couldn’t have said what she wanted, except maybe to have woken up in her bed and discovered that the torrid and testing ordeal was nothing but a bad dream.
Turning to meet her eyes, his lips tugged. “It would not be much of a punishment if you did want it.”
“But I don’t deserve it, Master,” she tried again, barely even registering his answer before she spoke.
All she could think about was finding a way to stop him, to prevent this awful fate from playing out.
Perhaps a facet of her did want to feel the brunt of his palm against her backside, to play out some perverted fantasy, but the louder, rational part of her brain knew better.
“I didn’t know anything about your rules when I ignored your messages. ”
“True.” He reached for her nearest hand, his warm fingers enveloping hers, and rather than pulling away, she was surprised to find she welcomed the touch, as though the man who’d once so successfully played her savior could come to her rescue again.
“And I will bear that in mind when I give you what you require.”
“What I require?” she snapped, her gaze taking in the hard, muscular surface of his thighs that he presumably expected to turn her over.
Inner conflict was running wild within her, swimming through her system like the adrenaline that warned her she was in trouble.
Kronos was huge and instinctively terrifying. He’d appeared out of thin air. He didn’t have to present an overt threat to incite surrender, yet there was something else going on, too; that question within her about what it would be like to be taken in hand by someone as powerful as him.
Staring into his eyes, she felt absurdly vulnerable.
There was nowhere for her to flee, no one who was going to save her from discovering whether she could handle the penalty he’d promised.
It no longer mattered that she didn’t deserve the treatment.
The growing electricity in the room amplified, shining a light on what was really important.
Relenting to his will.
Letting go.
Yet still, the insolent child in her resisted, illustrating the battle raging within. It wasn’t right that he’d taken her and was touching her that way. She’d never asked for any of it.
Intending to tug her fingers from his, she yanked her arm backward, but releasing her digits, Kronos met her response with a swat to her vulnerable ass.
“Oww!”
She twisted to see the impact, inadvertently releasing her grip on the cover still protecting what remained of her modesty. Pulling it free from her fingers, Kronos flung the blanket to the bed, his gaze hungry as it devoured the look of her breasts.
There was a storm crashing in his hazel eyes, a dark and dangerous tempest that spoke of ravenous lust as well as other repercussions. She thought she wanted Shaun, but he was nothing compared to the ferocity, intensity, and resolve of Kronos.
If he demanded more than a spanking from her, what would she do?
She wanted him, didn’t she? She’d had no qualms about yearning to get her hands on his body, but staring into his swirling gaze, those waters were muddied, as though she sensed viscerally that engaging with Kronos would be more than only a quick fuck.
He’d told her that she was his, that she belonged to him…
Would he expect her to offer her sexuality as well as her backside?
“I do not give you permission to do this,” she squeaked.
Frantic to regain some semblance of control over her situation, her hands rose to cover her nipples, but a part of her had already accepted that her resistance was futile.
Someone as powerful as Kronos—for how could she any longer call him a mere man—who could command her to his side, would do whatever he craved, and there was little she could do to stop him.
“Enough!”
The reverberation of his command pulsed through her body, temporarily taking her breath away. Wide-eyed, she stared at him, unsure how even someone that big had created such a roaring sound.
“Kristina.” His voice was gentler then, and she got the distinct impression that he was working hard to recover his composure.
She might have been smugger about his loss of control had she not been naked and forced to submit, and had her wellbeing not rested solely on his large and apparently capable hands.
“Give in, little one, or you know I will make you.”
Sniffing back her confused tears, she locked gazes with the giant who seemed intent on bringing her to heel.
Briefly, on the daunting, cold road, she thought he’d saved her.
For a short-lived moment, he had, but standing there, she was all too aware that all he’d done by scaring away the street thugs was to take her for himself.
For the first time in her life, she realized that she had no say whatsoever in what was about to happen.
The brooding hulk who called himself her master would have his way.
Whatever her opinion.