"Rumors get exaggerated." His eyes danced, but then they lost all humor, his mouth firming. "But as tempting as your favors might be, your behavior requires punishment. You won't manipulate me, Miss Fine."
Rising from the chair, he took her arm, accentuating the difference in height and weight with that one shift. He drew her over to something that looked like a wooden pup tent. The six-inch-wide padded spine was flanked and supported by polished planks. Buckled cuffs were mounted on tracks, spaced horizontally along the planks.
The potential of such a piece filled her mind as he turned her to face him. Yet when she glimpsed his face, she realized he'd turned her back to the equipment to make it clear she had only one focus in this room. Him. Her Master.
Before she expected or could brace herself against the act, he'd laid hold of the neckline of her shirt and jerked. One strong movement ripped it open down the front, sending buttons scattering. She choked on a gasp but he didn't even pause, smoothly pulling it off her shoulders and down to her elbows, so her arms were caught against her body.
He could become intimidating in such a breathtaking way, so quickly. His gaze coursed over the lace bra, the way her breasts were displayed in the cups. When he caressed them, a plea hummed in her throat, but he wasn't done undressing her. He stripped away the skirt and thong beneath so she was standing before him, her lower half naked. With him fully dressed, it only highlighted the power difference. She'd had a sense of that in the Catholic schoolgirl uniform on movie night, him in his sports coat and jeans, but after everything else tonight, the feeling was even more pronounced.
He lifted her, making her straddle the beam. The slick vinyl cover pressed against wet, swollen tissues. Rows of golden tacks held down the vinyl, their rounded heads providing bumps of friction against her pussy, her clit.
Capturing her throat with one strong hand, he held her immobile for a demanding, heated invasion of her mouth with his. When she automatically reached for him, trying to clutch his arms for balance, he broke the kiss.
"Hands behind your back. You haven't earned the right to touch me."
She did it, arms trembling as her fingers clung to one another. He resumed the kiss, taking his time with it, but there was nothing leisurely about it. He lashed at her tongue, demanded she open even wider with the pressure of his lips. If she'd been standing, her knees would have buckled. He put his other palm against her back, and he'd placed her close enough to the end of the sawhorse her breasts were against his chest. Her legs weren't long enough to reach to the bottom of the tent piece, so they dangled, her calves brushing the empty cuffs.
As he kissed her, he found the back fastener of her bra under the torn shirt and released it. Then he pushed the shirt off her shoulders, took the bra away, all without breaking that hot, wet connection. He lifted her again, his arm a line of heat against her bare skin as he slid her back on the beam, pressing her down on her stomach. Her body lay along its length, her cheek resting against the six-inch expanse of vinyl. He reached beneath her, making her wetter as he gripped her breasts and adjusted them so her cleavage was widened, the inside curves of her breasts against the planks on either side.
He cuffed her ankles and just above each of her calves so her legs were drawn up into a bent angle against the surface of the planks. Pulling her hips to the back edge of the beam put her pussy in a highly exposed--and accessible--position. He adjusted her wrists and elbows like he had her knees and ankles, only in the opposite direction, so her upper arms were clear of her breasts, giving him clear access to them. She realized she looked somewhat like a jockey riding a racehorse running full out. Her heart was racing like one.
Being vulnerable and helpless to Logan shot her arousal up to a level that eclipsed even the most intense climax she'd had before she'd met him. When he took advantage of her helpless position, bending over her to take a solid grip of her breasts on either side, she gasped and moaned as he fondled her nipples, squeezed the curves. He pushed himself against her exposed cunt, rubbing his steel cock beneath his jeans over the moist lips, making her twitch and squirm, trying to rub back. He drew back before she could get any measure of pleasure out of that.
"Already hot and slick. I think it's a good thing I recognized you as a discipline problem, Miss Fine. Your shameless teasing corrupts innocent, hormonal boys like Troy."
Because she couldn't resist the impudent eye roll, she won a firm, sharp slap that made her buttocks wobble and her hands ball in the cuffs. "Every time I strike," he said, "I expect you to say 'I'm a bad girl, sir.' If I don't feel certain you mean it, I'm going to use something that hurts more."
He struck again, harder, and she yelped. "I'm a bad girl, sir."
And again. "I'm a bad girl, sir."
And again.
"You're just not repentant enough, Miss Fine." He moved to his workbench, rummaged through it, came forth with a wooden dowel. "This should help."
"Please . . ."
"Not one of the words we discussed." He brought the dowel against her hindquarters again, and fuck, it definitely hurt more. She wondered if the ruler she'd used on Troy's flesh was comparable to this. Then Logan hit her again and she realized she hadn't obeyed his command.
"I'm a bad girl, sir!"
He kept doing it, and she kept saying it. It was supposed to be a game, right? So why was it, every time she said it, every time he made it more painful, more emphatic, a lump grew thicker in her throat? And she didn't want him to stop, even though it hurt like hell. There was a moment of Oh, fuck, please stop, followed by No, don't stop. Don't stop . . . Then the really crazy one: Make it hurt more. Until she was begging for mercy.
Somewhere along the way, she wasn't saying she was a bad girl. Not exactly.
"I'm a bad . . . I'm bad . . . bad . . ."
Things started to unfold in her mind. Alice dying. Leroy leaving. Every time a man had walked away because she'd failed him. Actually not so much him at all. Herself. She'd failed herself. Over and over and over again. Because she couldn't figure out how to get it right.
I'm so bad . . . I failed . . . I was wrong . . . I'm sorry. Sorry . . .
She was saying the words whether he was striking her or not. When he switched from the dowel back to his hand, every impact resounded through her like the bell of a church. It vibrated through her feet, her chest, a call to salvation, to redemption, to damnation, regret and unforgivable sin.
"I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry . . ."
She remembered holding her sister's thin hand as life slipped from her, and now Madison was crying, her fingers clutched into fists in the cuffs. Her heart clenched up the same way. And yet, as he punished her, her sex was as wet as her eyes. If he were a magician and had sawed her in half, she couldn't be more divided.
She was lifting into his strikes, because she craved his hand more than the dowel, his heated palm smarting against her flesh. He paused, and she heard his belt being unbuckled. Was he going to hit her with his belt? Given the power and strength he had in his hand, the idea made her quake . . . and yearn. She could use her safe word. She could, even if saying Alice's name right now might literally tear her heart open to bleed out inside the rest of her body. But she wanted this, wanted all the punishment he could dish out. She wanted to immerse herself in the pain of redemption and paying for her sins, for the hope that on the other side of it she could come out clean. Deserving of love.