Sculpt-Paige_Michaels-Becca_Jameson (7 page)

He laughed. “No. You do not.”

She grinned. “Well, they’ve gotten me this far.”

He swatted her backside, and she winced but then gave him a wide smile. “No sass, brat. Go teach your class and wait for my call.”

“What if I don’t want to wait?”

He shook his head and then leaned forward to whisper, “The more you push me, the longer you’ll have to wait for my cock. Now, be a good girl and teach your class.”

She pulled him tighter and kissed him again, and because he knew she’d like it, he bit her bottom lip hard enough to draw a spot of blood. When he stepped away from her, she touched her lip and examined her finger to see the blood. His brat was very kinky, and he wasn’t certain he could keep up with her lack of limits.

Before she could draw him in further, he slipped back into his SUV and headed to the office.

He had a million fires to put out the minute he walked in and wasn’t able to step away from his phone or computer until lunch. He headed down to the first floor of his office building to grab sushi with his friend, Ray. Ray was a cop who’d grown up in the same neighborhood as Theo, and the two of them had a long history of getting into one too many scrapes together. When they were fifteen, everyone expected them to end up in juvie, but Ray got straightened out by an Off The Street Club program and Theo had found Aikido.

“Hey man,” Ray said when Theo got to their table. “How’s it going?”

Theo nodded. “Busy. Slammed really. But glad to see you, brother.”

“You could’ve cancelled. I get that you got a lot of shit on your plate now that you’re a top dog broker.”

Theo waved him off. “No way, man. Only way I’d cancel lunch with you is if my jaw was wired shut.”

Ray laughed. “Or you were too distracted by pussy to check the time.”

Theo chuckled. His reputation with the ladies had been a big part of the scrapes he got into as a teenager. Girls with boyfriends or older brothers who didn’t appreciate the way Theo worked his way through women like they were dominoes. “Well, yeah, that too.”

The two of them decided on what they wanted to order and called the waitress over. After they were done, Ray folded his hands on the table, his cop shirt straining across his massive chest. “So how are things going?”

Theo smiled. “Good. Still at the dojo a few times a week. Work is still work.” He shrugged.

“And the ladies?”

Ray had been married for almost ten years. Engaged at twenty-two, the day he got out of the academy. He had been smitten with his high school sweetheart the moment he saw her his junior year. Yeah, the Off The Street Club had helped him, but Jane was the real reason Ray had cleaned himself up. He would do anything for her. Theo almost envied their relationship, but he knew it wasn’t for him. It was too vanilla, too basic, too friendly. Theo had never wanted any of that. Aikido helped him focus the extreme highs and lows of his personality, but BDSM helped him insert them into his sex life.

“It’s going pretty well. I met someone I’m interested in. We’ll see. It might not last, but she’s got potential.”

Ray’s eyebrows rose. “That’s new. I haven’t heard you say you were interested in anyone in years.”

“That’s not true. I was together with Kirsten for a while.”

Ray smiled. “Yeah, but you weren’t interested in her.”

“How do you know?”

“When she broke up with you at our reunion, you shrugged and went home with someone else. I’d hardly call that interest.”

Kirsten was a princess and not in a good way. She had too many limits about playing, and every time he was with her, he got the sense she was tolerating what he wanted. She didn’t mind being spanked or bound, but only because the end game was him eating her pussy or making her come. She never cared whether he got off or not. That’s part of why he was so taken with Lucinda and her demands to see, touch, taste, feel his cock. She claimed all submissives got off on pleasing their Doms, but Kirsten certainly hadn’t. Maybe he was just a hard Dom to please.

“Hey, Earth to Theo. What’s going on?”

Theo blinked. “Sorry. Just thinking.”

“About your new girl.”

“Maybe.”

Ray grinned. “What’s she like?”

“She’s a brat.”

A full belly laugh erupted from Ray, and the waitress looked up from where she was talking to the sushi chef at the counter. “That is so perfect for you.”

“How can you say that? Kirsten was a brat.”

Ray shook his head. “No, Kirsten was boring and self-absorbed. And too polite and too plain. No fire there. No challenge for you.”

Theo’s mouth cocked up. “And you’re sure I need a brat?”

Ray shrugged. “I’m sure you need a challenge, and if a brat you’re interested in provides that, then I’m glad for you.”

The waitress brought their sushi and asked if they wanted anything else. Both men shook their heads, and when she walked away, Theo looked down and said in a low voice, “My girl likes things rough.”

Ray knew about the BDSM stuff. He couldn’t not. And he’d stayed friends with Theo even though he didn’t completely understand it. “How rough?”

“Really rough.”

Ray paused with a piece of maki almost to his mouth. “You think you can handle that and not hurt her? I mean, more than she’s asking for.”

Theo took a sip of the green tea the waitress had poured. “She’s asking for a lot. I don’t want to be that guy.”

“What guy?”

“The guy who thinks he’s found the perfect girl, someone totally in sync with his tastes, only later to have her screaming abuse.”

Ray ate his maki and stared thoughtfully at Theo. “Can you hold back?”

“I don’t want to, and neither does she.”

“Sure about that? She’s not just saying that because she knows it’s what you’re into?”

Theo paused. Was she? He didn’t think so. He hadn’t even told her what he wanted before bringing her to orgasm with just a spanking that first night. “Yep. Pretty sure.”

Ray dipped another piece of maki into soy sauce. “Then make sure your negotiations are very clear. Safe, sane, and consensual, right? Don’t put her in the hospital.”

Theo nodded and finished his tea. He’d train her, give her what she needed, show her how to ask for what she wanted, and then he’d cut her loose before they took things too far. If only he could guarantee they’d both come out of this unscathed.

»»•««

Theo said he’d call her, but he didn’t say anything about her not texting him. Halfway through her first class, she pulled her phone out and sent him a quick message.

Lucinda: Thanks for last night.

She didn’t hear from him, so she waited an hour and texted him again.

Lucinda: My ass hurts every time I sit down.

Nothing. Twenty minutes later, she texted again.

Lucinda: I probably should’ve worn yoga pants, denim chafes against welts.

Two hours later, he’d still not responded to any of her texts. She was fuming. If he was going to run hot and cold like this, she didn’t want anything to do with him. Okay. That wasn’t totally true, but why wasn’t he answering her back?

She didn’t feel like staying around to work on her own pots, so she grabbed her backpack and caught a bus to downtown Minneapolis. It was four forty-five by the time she got to her stop. She looked up at the large building and took a deep breath, clutching the straps of her backpack. Head high, she walked up to the security guard at the front.

“Theo Matthews, please.”

The guard smiled and then looked through his book. “He’s on eighteen.”

She nodded and walked to the bank of elevators, her stomach a ball of nerves, but determined. When she got off at eighteen, she knew immediately she wasn’t dressed for a place like this. People were walking around in suits. The air buzzed with ambition and reeked of money. She considered turning around and returning home, but decided against it. He’d promised. Said anytime, anywhere. She asked the young guy at the reception desk where Theo’s office was. He paused for a second, spending more than ample time gazing at her full breasts, before pointing her to a corner office in the back. A very big corner office.

“Ma’am,” a young woman in a beige suit said. Her cubicle banked Theo’s office, so presumably she was his assistant.

Lucinda turned on her and was about to tell the woman that she had an appointment when the office door opened and a startled Theo stared at her. His expression quickly dropped to neutral, and he addressed the woman in beige. “Camille, I forgot to tell you I’m leaving a few minutes early to go to a meeting.”

“A meeting? Really?”

Lucinda looked at Camille and hated that she was jealous of her. Hated that she wanted to tell Camille that Theo was taken. Gah. It was like Theo brought out the worst in her. “Are you questioning your boss?”

“She wouldn’t be the first woman to do that,” Theo mumbled from behind her.

Camille gaped, but before she could respond, Theo grabbed Lucinda’s elbow and dragged her into his office, shutting the door behind them.

“You didn’t answer my texts,” she sputtered.

His eyes were cold fury, and both fear and longing gripped her.
Push, Lucy. Just a little more.

He pulled her forward and dropped his hands to the button of her jeans, fumbling to undo it and tug her jeans off. She whimpered, but he didn’t do anything but plop her into the leather chair across from his desk.

She glanced around the room, noticing not only the gorgeous view from his office, but the floor-to-ceiling windows that made her shudder. She was naked from the waist down in his office. Not that anyone could realistically see anything inside an office on the eighteenth floor of his high-rise, but the idea being exposed made her fist her hands in her lap.

“I’m working, brat. You’re not to say a word. Not one word for the next hour. You cannot touch yourself. You cannot move. You sit there and stay still. If you manage to accomplish this for an hour, I’ll consider having a conversation with you.”

Her head dropped, and liquid pooled between her legs. She was humiliated and desperate, and she didn’t know why it felt so good to be bared for him like this, to have him angry at her enough to leave her in this position, but it did. Her clit pulsed, and juice dripped out of her and slipped down toward the crack in her ass. Her breathing shifted, and her heart rate sped. She tried to stay quiet, but the longer she suffered, the more she needed to whimper.

“Hold it in, sweetheart. Not one word,” he said, typing on his computer as if he were talking to his beige-clothed assistant.

Lucinda sat as straight as possible, her nails digging into her bare thighs. Theo’s phone rang, and he had a brief conversation, presumably with Camille, explaining he didn’t need her anymore for the day and she could go. Finally, finally, he looked up.

“Stand,” he said, his voice low and raspy.

Lucinda got up on shaking legs.

“Hands behind your back.”

She moved her hands, and he came around his desk and dropped to his knees before her. His fingers traced over the crescent-shaped marks her nails had dug into her thighs. She watched his face and shuddered at the hungry look in his eyes.

“You’re not to hurt yourself in any way, brat. This is my skin to mark, understand?”

She nodded, so desperate for whatever he was going to do she trembled.

“You’re at my workplace. We didn’t arrange for this. I assume this is an emergency. What do you need?”

Her hands shook as she picked up her backpack and pulled out the whip. “You said anywhere, anytime.”

∙•∙

Jesus Christ, she was maddening and so fucking delicious. He didn’t think she’d go this far with the whip. Not on the first day. Yes, it was a promise, but he didn’t realize the extent to which she needed that from him. The safety of knowing she could use it with no questions asked. He was glad she hadn’t held it out first thing. He needed her to have the hour to ready herself for him.

He grabbed the whip and turned her to face the desk, kicking her legs out and leaning her over so her elbows landed on the hard wood. Her ass was covered in slashes of red and bruises, and there was no way he could go at her again without really hurting her.

He remembered Ray’s words.
Don’t put her in the hospital
. But he also remembered his promise. She needed to know he would do as he said; she needed to trust him so he could take her further. There was only one solution.

He slipped his fingers into her softness and was flooded by moisture. She moaned as he speared her with two digits.

“No, sweetheart. I can’t have you being loud. The entire office doesn’t need to know what we’re up to in here.”

He pulled his tie off and quickly placed it in her mouth, gagging her. Her eyes glazed, and the desperation in her expression grew.

“I’m not taking away your safe word. I’m changing it. You pound on that desk twice if you need to safe out. Clear?”

She nodded, but he wasn’t sure he could trust it.

“Show me, Lucinda.”

She slapped the desk two times and then looked between him and the whip with desire and greed.

“Okay. Okay.” He was too shaky, seeing her face like that. Too desperate to give her what she wanted. He needed to pull back control. He inhaled deeply several times, like his Aikido sensei showed him. Focus. Presence of mind.

He stepped back and traced the marks on her ass. She pushed into his hand, but he stilled her with a pinch to her hip. He gripped the whip and moved between her legs. With the handle, he started pushing through her wetness, circling her clit and teasing at her entrance. She mewled softly through the tie gag.

He moved the handle above her channel and drove it in. A quick thrust, not too deep, and she widened her legs even more at the same time as she pushed back.

“No, brat. My show. My pace. My decision when you come.”

She glanced back at him and nodded. Sweat sheened over her forehead, and he never thought he’d seen her look so beautiful. He brought the whip handle deeper with each thrust, and within minutes he’d taken her right to the brink. He could see how much she was straining to hold back her release. His cock was hard and his balls were full, and if he wasn’t careful, he’d come in his four-hundred-dollar suit. He rode her higher, and she began to whimper behind the gag in earnest.