Reaching for his glass, he sips again, making me wait. “Now raise your skirt and turn around, very slowly.”
Desire surges through me in a high wave, but I manage to obey. His eyes flick briefly to my crotch, but as I begin my slow revolution, they lock with mine just before I turn away. I still seem to see them in the polished, oak-paneled wall.
“Why did you steal the magazine?” His voice is deceptively mild.
“I don’t know…” I’m a liar. I did it to bring myself to this place and this moment.
“You took my property, Emma, and now you owe me something.”
I can’t speak. I can barely breathe.
“Are you going to be a good girl for me, Emma?” I hear him rise from his chair and cross to the desk.
I still can’t utter a word. I feel like a shaken bottle of champagne, ready to pop.
“Emma?” He’s close to now me. Very close.
“Yes!”
“Yes what?”
“Yes, I’ll be good. I’m sorry, really, I’m sorry.” Another lie.
“I’m glad to hear it.” I heard a whistling swish, something cleaving the air experimentally at high speed. Is it a crop or a ruler? I didn’t get a good look at the desk. “And you know this is for your own good.”
Hell, yes!
“Now, Emma, I want you to lean forward, elbows on your chair, face on your elbows, and then push your bottom up and towards me.”
Quivering, I obey him, loving the blatant presentation. When he nudges my feet apart with the toe of his shoe, my knees wobble, but I brace up, imagining him studying my pussy.
“This will hurt.”
As the blow falls, all notions of being good fly out the window. A white slice of pain slashes one bottom cheek, and my stiff legs almost buckle from its ferocity.
How can it hurt so much? It only feels like a ruler…
The sensation explodes anew; the same, stunning streak, bisecting my other cheek, balancing the stinging and the hotness.
“Oh, please,” I whimper, reaching around behind me even though it’s a cardinal sin.
“Emma!”
Snatching back my fingers, I berate myself for a poor performance. Just two smart strikes and I’m a cringing, sniveling mess. I’m letting my beautiful Nick down, just when I wanted to impress him. Summoning my pitiful fortitude, I bury my head, dish my back, and once again offer up my bottom to his mercies.
The blows resume with a rigorous regularity, each one finding a new area of my bare flesh with the bright burn of heat. I feel the lines forming in serried rows, an arcane branded grid. My bottom must be turning pink upon pink, stripes of crimson crisscrossing over rose.
Tears drip from my eyes and run into my hair, but I contain my blubbering. I won’t disappoint my handsome god again.
Three swift whacks fall on each cheek. Six strikes, each landed with perfect precision. At the end of my tether, I silently beg for it to stop, but simultaneously pray for it to carry on. Nick fills my mind and my heart, a prince of chilly elegance, yet incandescent with the splendid fire of discipline.
“Just a little more…” His voice whispers in my ear while his fingertips whisper, too, tracing my stripes, delicate yet infinitely painful.
“You’ve got to help me now.” The words seem almost to be inside me. “Reach around, Emma. Pull apart your cheeks with your fingers. I want to smack you there.”
Oh God, can I bear it?
Grimly I hitch forward on the chair, resting on my chest and shoulder to free my hands to the task.
“Be careful, Emma. Keep your fingers still,” he warns as my hands tremble on my own fiery flesh.
Again comes the awe-inspiring whistle of the ruler, and I steel myself. But it’s only a sighting swish.
Let it be over and let it be soon.
Finally they come—three fast cuts, exquisite and shocking, and delivered at a sly oblique angle across the vent of my behind.
I howl and collapse, tumbling to my knees in a heap. At last it’s over.
I hear footsteps, the clink of a bottle against a glass, the creak of leather upholstery. My prince is taking his refreshment after his labors.
“Come here.”
Sobbing, I attempt to straighten up—only to crumple again and then half crawl toward the wing chair.
“There, there,” he croons as I reach the blessed haven between his long outstretched thighs and kneel on the carpet before him.
My bottom is a swollen blazing mass, and I have to lean against his body…and against something hard that bulges beneath the denim of his jeans.
I don’t deserve it, and I might not get it, but he knows what I’m thinking.
“Maybe in a little while…” His voice is husky as he raises my chin and then puts his glass of delicious wine to my lips. “But first we have other things to attend to.”
His smile is sweet as I look up at him, his adoring slave.
“Well, sweetheart, I promised you’d come at six, didn’t I?” His gray eyes twinkle like stars. Clasping my hand, he urges to my feet. “If you can bear to sit on my knee, I’ll get you off.”
Oh, I can bear it. I can bear anything for you.
I come again at seven. I come at eight. And I come at nine, too.
Plus One
By Nikki Magennis
“I’m so sorry,” Izzy said, frowning at the computer screen. “This shouldn’t happen.”
“No,” the man replied. “But I’m kind of glad it did.”
She looked up to find his jade-green eyes fixed on her. Izzy tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
“I think,” she said, “I haven’t had enough caffeine this morning.”
He cleared his throat. “Well, why not kill two birds with one stone?”
“Excuse me?”
“You get a break, don’t you?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“When?”
Izzy glanced at the clock. “Half an hour ago. But—”
