“Am I going to hear any more attitude out of you, young lady?”
“No, sir,” she said quickly.
He didn't know if she meant it, but she obviously wanted to get out of her current predicament, and would say whatever she had to say in order for that to happen. What she actually did when all this was over was anybody’s guess. If she reported him to Ellen, that would make fun reading.
“Do you understand why I spanked you this evening?”
“I…” she stopped. “Yes, sir.”
He was sure she had a lot to say on the subject, but she was keeping her thoughts to herself. Pity, really. As much as he wanted to rein her in, the prospect of continuing the punishment in order to satisfy his need to discipline made his cock throb.
“Tell me why.”
“Because I was stupid enough to come to your attention, and I didn’t listen when you warned me to behave, and I didn’t just go home at five like I should have, and now nobody is ever going to believe that I came here late at night and let you spank me.”
He laid the ruler down over the top of her cheeks, reminding her that it could always return with a rough slap.
“Tell me why, Sophie. And drop the attitude.”
“I guess I was…” she whimpered. “I don’t know.”
“I spanked you because you are getting in over your head. I will be talking to Carlyle about keeping you where you belong. You do not need to be in C-level meetings.”
“Maybe I’ll talk to Carlyle about you spanking me.”
“Are you threatening me?”
He picked up the ruler and whacked it across her ass as hard as he could. Hard enough to make a crack appear in it. A second slap made the ruler disintegrate completely.
“Ow! Ohmygod! Owwwie!” She cursed and wriggled, but it didn’t make any difference. He didn’t need the ruler. His hand would do just as well.
He kept whipping her, using his hand instead of the ruler, feeling the curve of her ass squirming beneath his palm. God, she felt good. She was the perfect mix of cute, sassy, and innocent. She had no idea how she was pushing his buttons, triggering his darkest and most sexual impulses.
But she wasn't here to be fucked. She was here to learn a long, hot, painful lesson that might just save her life.
Alex wasn't doing this just to satisfy his sadistic urges to punish the sassy. This girl was on the verge of getting caught up in matters she didn't understand and never would. His world would destroy a girl like this. She was sweet beneath the sass, an earnest, hard worker who was afraid of disappointing her superiors. She didn’t understand how the world really worked, how corruption was absolutely everywhere, and how getting ahead was a myth carefully fabricated and cultivated by those in power to appear reachable.
There was so much she didn't know, a chasm of silence between them even as she filled it with her whimpers and cries.
So why did he want to tell her? Why did he suddenly care? Usually the fact that he was one of a handful of people who understood the real mechanics of the world made him feel superior. With Sophie over his desk, it just made him feel lonely.
She was a temptation he had to resist. Alex sensed danger in this girl. He barely knew her, and she was drawing him in anyway. Making him want to do very inappropriate things to her, and worse, making him want to share secrets.
It didn’t make sense. He barely knew her. This was madness. This was…
If it was anybody else, he’d have told them they were falling in love. But Alex didn’t fall in love. He discharged lust, got it out of the way so it didn’t distract him from the relentless pursuit of power.
He couldn't be a schoolboy falling head over heels for a pretty blonde. But this wasn’t the usual attack of lust. Apex was full of attractive women. It was that spark of connection, that mutual compatibility of broken parts which he had the feeling they could both sense.
It would be so easy to pull her skirt up…
It would be so easy to sink deep inside her…
It would be so easy to lose himself and forget everything he knew.
It would be easy to redeem himself in the eyes of an innocent for an hour close to midnight.
He slapped her ass one last time, hard enough to make her screech. He let her go so she could jump up from the desk, her hands going back to cup her ass, her eyes wide with shock and her cheeks fucking adorably pink with embarrassment.
“I don’t want to have to address these issues with you again,” he told her as sternly as he could, keeping his features composed and serious. He didn’t want a glimmer of the softness he was fighting to show through.