“Would you fuck me against the wall, professor?” She presses her pert ass into my erection.
“Little brat.” I give her a swat on the hip.
She giggles. “Do it again.”
Any other time, I would handcuff her to the bed and pound into her until she cried for mercy. I grab the hand snaking toward my crotch and fold it around her waist. That will have to wait until she’s sober.
“Come on,” she whines. “I need to be punished.”
“How would you like to spend the rest of the night in the spare room?”
She stops grinding into my cock, leaving me aching.
“I’ll be good,” she says.
“You’d better.” I smooth down her hair and inhale her coffee-and-vanilla scent.
“You’re so strict,” she says with a yawn. “But I like it.”
“Good night, Miss Stahl.”
“‘Night, Professor.”
As Phoenix curls into a ball, I loosen my grip around her body.
“You’re my perfect little match,” I press a kiss on her bare shoulder. “And I’ll never let you go.”
Every woman I’ve been with to date has either been a paid professional or too vanilla to hold my attention. I’ve tried online dating, fetish clubs, and even meeting women in stores like the Red Room, but their interests in BDSM have either been superficial or contrary to my tastes.
Phoenix is the only submissive who didn’t come to me with a list of hard limits. She wants to explore everything, if only once.
She never needs to worry about being discarded.
Phoenix is everything I want in a woman and more. It’s rare to find a submissive whose desires mesh with mine, even rarer to find one from a similar background.
We both grew up with unavailable mothers and fathers we despised. My mother was too enthralled by Crius to be fully present and Phoenix’s was absent. Gordon Gofannon may not have been the kind of monster Crius was, but he didn’t hesitate to abandon Phoenix with unpaid bills.
I wind my fingers through her hair, letting the silken strands caress my skin. If Phoenix doesn’t shun me for my past murders, I will protect her with my life.
Perhaps taking care of her will be my redemption for failing to protect Mother.
ChapterTwenty-Nine
PHOENIX
My head hurts.
Scratch that.
My head feels like every vessel running through it is filled with acid that pulses to the sound of a drum. The kind that they used to beat in galley ships, to synchronize the rowers’ movements.
Even though my eyes are closed, sunlight hits my retinas like a crack of a whip. I turn around in my bed and groan.
Why would anyone ever drink more than once if hangovers feel so shitty? The room is spinning in the opposite direction to my insides, and my throat gags.
“Don’t tell me you’re going to vomit again,” says a deep, smooth voice that glides over my skin like arnica jelly.
“Huh?” I crack open an eye, only for it to be flooded with light.