“Are you wet for me?” he asks.
“Not from kissing your feet,” I say.
When Professor Segul doesn’t answer, I sit back on my heels, raise my head and meet his smiling eyes.
My stomach drops. “You don’t believe me?”
“If I were to check your knickers, what would I find?”
Heat rushes to my cheeks. I sputter before saying, “That’s different.”
“Come here.”
“But I said—”
“Phoenix,” he says, his voice hardened with steel. “You will not speak without permission. Is that understood?”
I nod.
He beckons me up with his fingers. “Don’t make me ask you twice.”
I scramble to my feet and position myself between the professor’s spread thighs. Even though he’s the one seated and I’m standing, I still manage to feel small, especially under that hard gaze.
His eyes are dark in the red light. Dilated pupils ringed with an indigo that might as well be black. The shadows make his features sharper, more angular, crueler, and I feel like a bird caught in the gaze of a hungry cat.
Professor Segul reaches out, his fingers skimming my arm. It’s just a ghost of a touch but I swear I feel electricity crackling in the air between our skin.
Silence stretches between us until the atmosphere becomes taut. My breaths are ragged, and I tremble in anticipation for him to do something, anything, to break the unbearable anticipation.
“Turn around.” He leans forward on this throne.
My muscles stiffen. What’s he going to do? Spank me? Slip his fingers into the lace of my underwear and prove me a liar? On legs that won’t stop trembling, I shuffle to the side, keeping my thighs together, so he can’t see any trace of my arousal.
Professor Segul pulls me onto his spread legs, making me squeak. I end up lying on my stomach facing the floor with my ass in the air and my palms balancing on the wooden floorboards.
I wriggle on his lap, but he places his forearm over my back to hold me in place.
“Oh…”
I moan because speaking out of turn will only add to my punishment, and he’s about to discover that I’m aroused when I told him I wasn’t.
He strokes slow circles over my ass with a large, warm hand as though getting it ready to receive a blow. Each touch makes me shiver, and I bite down on my bottom lip to suppress a moan.
“Now, my naughty girl, you’re about to learn how to better choose your targets to blackmail.”
I suck in a breath and brace myself for the first slap, but it doesn’t arrive. Instead, he parts my thighs and slides his fingers toward my knickers.
“No,” I whisper.
He pauses. “What was that?”
I don’t want this to stop, but I also don’t want to spend all my time kissing a man’s feet because he thinks it turns me on.
“Nothing,” I say from between clenched teeth. “Sir.”
His fingers slip beneath the lace of my knickers and I cringe—not at his touch—my body welcomes it, but he’s about to catch me in a lie. He moves tortuously slowly as though drawing out the moment for maximum suspense.
My skin tingles with anticipation. The muscles of my core clamp and spasm, desperate to be filled. I clench my teeth, wishing my body would understand he’s about to add to our punishment.