“Hands gripping the far edge,” I remind her. “And keep them there. Believe me, you don’t want to discover what a belt across a palm feels like.”
At least she’s smart. Once my mind is set on something, there is no changing it. Whether she can see it in my expression or chiseled into my jawline, she stops pleading and trying to talk her way out of the inevitable. She reaches her arms out, curling her fingers around the table’s edge. The distance requires her to stretch, the position causing her bottom to lift.
“Keep your ass cheeks loose. I’m going to give you six strokes to begin. Can you tell me how many I should give you?”
When she doesn’t immediately answer, I snap the belt against my thigh. She startles but answers. “Hell if I know!”
“You asked for it. You saw that woman being flogged and hungered for the bite of pain. I saw it in your eyes. You wanted a Dom tonight? Well, you’re about to fully get one. Understand?”
She stiffens, and finally manages a nod, but I’m not having that.
“I can’t hear you.”
“Yes,” she says.
“Lyriope…”
“What do you want me to say?” she asks, looking over her shoulder at me with mischief in her eyes.
“I expect to hear ‘sir.’”
“What? Are you kidding me?”
I give a look I know I’ve mastered. A look that announces I’m a man to take seriously even when I have a smile on my face—especially then. If I smile… run. I know I have a look that would have any one of my enemies cowering. Even a stubborn woman who doesn’t know better or understand the true extent of how much she should fear me.
“Yes, sir,” she finally says as if she has just swallowed a lemon. I don’t know what it is about addressing me respectfully that is so hard for her, but she answered. For now, that’s enough.
“All right,” I say, stepping to the side. “Let each of these remind you that you better be careful of what you wish for.”
Lecture over, I swing my arm back and bring the belt down against the very center of her ass. She screeches, releasing the table, standing, and dancing from foot to foot, her hands furiously rubbing her ass.
“Position,” I say.
“It fucking hurts!”
“Yes, and keep cussing and I’ll start over. Get up again, release the table, rub your ass, and I’ll start over.”
“You’re enjoying this!” she accuses.
“I am,” I admit, running the leather through my hand. “Now, back over and stick your ass out or—”
“You’ll start over,” she snarls, glaring at me but obeying, her knuckles whitening with her death grip on the table edge.
Poor thing, she’ll learn that the more she relaxes, the more she submits to the discipline, the less it will hurt. Until then, well, I have a lesson to teach.
Again and again, the belt rises and falls, each stroke cracking against her skin, each one a fraction of an inch below the previous one. She squeals and wiggles around, her feet dancing, her head tossing back and forth, and yet she doesn’t attempt to cover her ass or to stand up.
With her punishment delivered, I say, “For the extra stroke, I want you up on your tiptoes, ass pushed high.”
It takes a moment, but she obeys, the muscles in her thighs trembling, her no-longer-pale ass pointing directly to the ceiling. Six red lines decorate her flesh, but that isn’t where I’ll be placing the last. Reaching out, I run my fingertip along the area where her ass merges with her thighs, the skin now stretched taut with her position.
I can feel her quiver beneath my touch, can hear her gasp, but what has my gaze riveted to her form is the glistening I can see between her thighs. Drops of her fresh arousal cling to her bare mound. I have no doubt she’s felt the punishment. I heard her cries and pleas for me to stop, but while Lyriope’s mind was saying one thing, her body was definitely saying another.
Pressing my palm to the small of her back, I lift my arm. The whoosh of the belt sounds a moment before the crack of leather against her sensitive sit spot splits the air.
“Oh God!” she screams, attempting to rise, but my hand keeps her in place. Not because she has another stroke coming, but because the cry has been accompanied by another rush of wetness… wetness I want to explore.
“Relax, your spanking is done,” I declare.