Creighton tightens his hold on my nape. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
“No,” I murmur.
“Then what is it?”
I remain silent for a beat and his hand comes down on my ass, hard. I yelp as the sting spreads across my whole body and settles between my legs.
“For every second you stay silent, your arse is mine to punish.”
Slap.
I get on my tiptoes, my heart hammering in an unnatural rhythm. I can feel the stiffness of his chest against my back, I can sense how much he’s repressing and how far he wants to go with this particular punishment.
If it were up to him, he’d probably crush my limits and leave me with nothing.
Hell, maybe he’ll leave me and I’ll have nothing.
I’ve been trying so hard to understand him that I didn’t stop and think to help him understand me, too. Mum said relationships can only be formed when there’s a middle ground, and in order to find that, I have to communicate what I feel.
“I was upset,” I admit in a low tone, hating how vulnerable I sound.
His hand squeezes my ass, but he doesn’t spank me, even as his voice remains clipped. “About?”
“It’s my birthday tomorrow and I was looking forward to this one in particular because I’m turning eighteen. So this morning, when I asked if you had plans tomorrow and you said yes, I was upset that you have other plans on my birthday. But it’s not fair to be upset when you probably don’t remember my birthday since I told you about it a few weeks ago. I realized I was being immature and I chose to vent that energy at the club.”
I can feel the in-and-out of his breaths against my back. How it’s slowed after quickening, matching the rhythm of his strokes against my ass.
Silence stretches between us, but I don’t try to fill it. I wait for him to mull over his words before he speaks them.
“You should’ve told me that.”
“Have you missed the part where I said I thought I was being immature? I’m embarrassed to even talk about it now, so can we drop it?”
“No.”
“Creighton—”
“The plans I had were with you.”
I pause the self-shaming display at the low tenor of his words. I heard that correctly, right? He had plans forme?
Every single one of our dates has been in one way or another planned by me and he’s just come along for the ride. This is the first time he’s planned something.
I attempt to look at him, but he still won’t allow it, so I stare at the wall, relishing his authoritative touch. “What…what did you plan?”
“You have no right to know when you pissed me off.”
“But I didn’t mean to.”
“Yes, you did. You were being a brat on purpose because you missed your punishments. You’ve been a bad girl, Annika, and do you know what happens to bad girls?”
My body presses back against his as that familiar tension builds in my core. He has a way of waking my most demented desires with a mere change of his inflection.
The moment his voice lowers, I know I’m in deep trouble.
“They get eaten out.”
Slap.