He sounded begrudgingly impressed. “You’re awfully quiet.”
“Guess I’m not fragile.” For added effect, I wiggled my hips.
He let out a short laugh, and it sounded very much like, “We’ll see about that.”
The wood floor beneath his feet creaked as he adjusted his stance. Then the sharp smack of skin meeting skin punched through the quiet of the room, quickly followed by another slap.
And another.
He alternated between sides, spreading the blows around, varying tempo and placement.
I gasped at the rhythm he created, the warmth that bloomed over my skin, and a muscle deep in my belly clenched in pleasure. When a moan slipped from my lips, he hesitated, making it possible for me to hear he’d become as out of breath as I was.
“It feels good,” I said quietly.
He sounded surprised. “It doesn’t hurt?”
I turned over my shoulder to glance at him and subtly shook my head. Fucking hell, he looked so incredibly sexy as he stood behind me, desire hazing his eyes.
A moment stretched heavy between us before he asked it. “Do you want it to?”
His posture was rigid, announcing everything hinged on my answer, and a dark voice inside me spoke up, encouraging me to try something new.
I’d always had a high threshold for pain—at least that’s what I’d been told. I didn’t mind a blister or a shoe strap cutting across the top of my foot. I dealt with the discomfort because I loved my heels and enjoyed both the ache and the release of slipping off my shoes at the end of the night.
Would it be the same now? Would the pain he gave me, followed by the absence of it, be pleasurable? I was eager to find out. He’d asked me if I wanted him to make it hurt, and it was startling how confidently my answer came.
“Yes.”
He exhaled loudly, and with deep satisfaction, and the sound gave me a delicious shiver. I licked my dry lips as his focus swung to his desk, and then on to the drafting table. Whatever he’d been searching for, he found it there.
He strolled to the table, picked up a long, silver ruler, and seemed to evaluate its weight in his hand. It wasn’t a flat, normal ruler—it was one of those triangular drafting things with three sides, each ending in a point.
If I had any doubt about what he planned to do with it, it vanished as he smacked one end of the ruler against the palm of his other hand. He hadn’t done it as a threat. In fact, he wasn’t even looking at me. He studied the ruler and his open palm, evaluating it. Satisfied, he turned toward me.
Oh, my God.
Blood rushed loudly in my ears, dulling the sound of Clay’s footsteps as he came close. My gaze was fixated on what was clenched in his hand, and goosebumps burst across my arms and legs.
While I was focused on the ruler, his gaze burned into me. “You understand what I intend to do with this scale?”
Was that what the ruler was called? “Yes,” I said, squeezing it out between my short breaths. “I do.”
“You’ll show me you’re okay with trying this,” he said, “when you cross your wrists behind your back.”
The feeling coursing through me was the same one as stepping onto a rollercoaster and pulling the bar down to lock me in place. I knew what was about to happen. It would probably feel scary but exhilarating, and I went to it willingly. Eagerly, even.
I leaned forward, resting the flat of my chest on the top of the chair back, and put my hands behind me, stacking one wrist on top of the other. My long brown hair draped down over my face and toward the floor, and I shut my eyes, mentally preparing myself for what would come next. Not that I had any idea what that triangular-shaped ruler was going to feel like when it—
The cold metal kissed my skin, and I flinched reflexively. Both of my hands resting on the hollow of my back curled into fists.
He hadn’t actually spanked me.
All he’d done was set the scale against my ass, creating two chilly lines on my bare skin, and my overreaction to it caused a chuckle to roll out of Clay’s throat. But then his voice turned serious. “Have you ever done something like this before?”
My eyes popped open and my hair shimmered as I shook my head.
The cotton of his t-shirt and the heat of his body was abruptly warm on my back as he leaned over, bringing his mouth right beside the shell of my ear. “I’m glad I get to be the first.”
I swallowed a breath as he straightened, and a split second later, the ruler slapped against me in a sharp, quick strike.
It stung. The sensation of it forced me to suck in a breath through tight teeth.