“Sorry.”
“Sorry isn’t going to cut it anymore. I’m tired of repeating myself.”
Uh oh.
“Put your hands on the desk.” There was no mincing of words or hesitation, and my body obeyed him before my mind had a chance to catch up. The old burnished wood was smooth under my palms as though I was hardly the first person to stand in exactly this position. How many times had it been Zero? I knew Vandal punished him for not meeting his word count, but maybe it happened far more often than I’d thought.
“Is it that time of the month?” he asked as though he had every right to know.
I shot a look at Zero, who apparently didn’t find his work as absorbing as the sight of me leaning over Vandal’s desk. The jerk didn’t look remotely sympathetic.
“No, sir. I probably won’t get my period again until the birth control shot wears off.”
Vandal grabbed the back of my neck and pressed downward until my forehead was on the desk. “Fucking stay.”
I could hear him fiddling with something, then the desk shook as if he’d closed a drawer. A moment later his feet came into view, and I tracked them with my gaze while he walked around behind me.
He’d told me to stay, but was I allowed to fidget? I felt off balance with my feet so close together.
Then again, I hadn’t agreed to submit to him voluntarily, had I? He wasn’t my dominant any more than Zero was—maybe even less so. I’d agreed to play rough sex games with them, not be a docile little submissive.
He yanked up the back of my skirt and tugged down my panties so fast I didn’t have time to do anything but gasp. Without the benefit of my butt to hold them up, the stupid scrap of blue lace became a knot of fabric around my ankles.
One of his big paws came down on the small of my back, and my body automatically arched it for him, presenting my ass.
“Someone trained you well, little monster,” he muttered in approval.
My face burned, but before I could get up or think of a suitable retort, something hard and impersonal caressed my ass.
A ruler?
I rolled my eyes. Talk about starting at the shallow end of punishing a girl. Maybe he had a school-girl fetish.
The first few smacks made me want to giggle, but I managed not to make a sound. This was all the big bad Vandal Stokes had to offer? He’d spanked me harder than this with his hand. Would it be rude for me to take a nap? My ass was barely tingling.
“She thinks you’re a joke,” Zero commented.
As focused as I’d been on Vandal, I hadn’t realized Zero could see my expression. I found him where he was seated on the floor, and sure enough our gazes met.
“Is there a rush?” he asked dispassionately, as though this was doing as much for him as taking out the garbage would. “Some submissives have an inflated sense of what they can handle, so I tend to test the waters first.”
“I’m not your submissive.”
“Did I give you permission to speak?” His hand connected with the spot just below my ass. I yelped and went up on my toes.
As I settled back on my feet, not sure if I was allowed to answer, I realized my pussy, which was still hot from upstairs, was now slick too. Zero had to have an almost unobstructed view of me from that angle, and when I looked at him again, he was definitely noticing. Of course.
“She’s already wet,” he said helpfully.
“I’m aware. I can smell her from here.”
God, this was so humiliating.
The ruler came down again, and then again, increasing in velocity with every smack. None of the blows were excessive, but he was a dedicated man and kept at it until my whole ass felt like it was on fire, and every smack was making me whimper. Zero was watching with lazy attention, casually gripping his cock through his jeans.
“Are you going to waste my time with stupid errors whenever I check your work or are you going to be more careful?”
“It wasn’t ready to show you yet. I still had to read it over. I’m sure I would have caught the mistakes and fixed them if you hadn’t surprised me.”
The ruler clattered to the desk beside my hand, the edge of it grazing my pinky finger.
“I expect you to catch those mistakes before they even leave your head. You know better. Do better.”
“Why are you being such a hardass?”
“Writing is about perfection,” he shouted. “You’re not going to put out second-rate crap while you live under this roof. If you’re not aiming for perfection, you’re just rotting people’s brains.”
I blinked back tears, determined not to let him see how much the words hurt.
“Vandal, chill the fuck out,” Zero grumbled.
“No one has ever gotten good by chilling the fuck out. She’s got talent, and she’s got the time to work hard. She’s smart. There’s no reason why she can’t do better.” Vandal spat. “Maybe if she learns how hard this is, she won’t try to steal someone’s work again.”
“Now that you know her, do you really believe she was here to steal your work? And as for the mistakes, she’s new!”
I thought it was over, but then his hand slid over the hot ache he had made of my ass, chafing it a few times, grabbing a handful, then letting go.
Was that it?
A crack resounded, echoing in the room almost before I felt the corresponding pain. I cried out, surprised and already so sore. My foot came up instinctively the way it did sometimes, maybe in a misguided effort to block the next blow, but my underwear stopped it from going far. When my foot came back down, one leg of my underwear fell off entirely, leaving me with a loop of lace around one ankle.
“Nice,” Zero murmured.
Nice? What the hell was nice?
Another smack made me rise on my toes, but he pressed me back down with the hand on my lower back. A flurry of harder and lighter smacks followed, interspersed with hard grabs and soft caresses, leaving me completely bewildered and off kilter, never sure which was coming next. I screeched and whined and whimpered, jigging around without meaning to, his hand feeling even bigger than it actually was.
This punishment didn’t fit the crime, did it? Everyone made mistakes. That’s what editors were for.
Maybe this wasn’t about my mistakes at all—maybe this was about Vandal channeling his father, or maybe he was still angry about being stuck with me for so long.
I could have safeworded, but I didn’t. I kept wondering why I was allowing this. He wasn’t my dominant—he wasn’t even my boyfriend. He was my…mentor? My captor? It was all so muddied and confusing.
I wasn’t sure when he stopped, but my entire body buzzed with adrenaline, burning with the feel of a hundred handprints on my ass and thighs, my nipples puckered and throbbing, my pussy wanting.
Stupid body.
I didn’t realize how a wide stance I’d ended up in until Vandal smacked me square on the pussy, making a horrible, damning wet sound, and making my whole body tingle with even more heightened sexual desperation.
“Poor little masochist is dripping on my floor,” Vandal said, making a sound of disapproval. “So hard to punish a needy little cunt who craves punishment.”
I hid my face in the crook of my arm, trying to stuff down the tears of humiliation that threatened to spill over.