I turn around and nearly stomp at him, my hands on my hips, daring him. “Or what? You’ll spank me again?”
His eyes narrow. “You bloody well know it. I’ll take you over my knee every damn day until I’ve tamed you if I have to.”
“Taming? Is that what you’ve been telling yourself? That’s what you think I need? Is this what I should expect, Lachlan? Hmm? A life of being trailed by you when I have to pee, asking your permission for damn near everything, and then you punishing me if I disobey you?”
He crosses the room to me but doesn’t touch me. He stands apart, his own hands anchored on his hips. “When your life is on the line? Absolutely.”
I open my mouth to talk back, to throw his words back at him, when he kisses me. I try to pull away, try to shove him off, but his hands wrap around the back of my head and he holds me to him fiercely. He walks me backward until he pushes me against the wall, and his hand comes to my throat. He flexes his fingers. A warning.
Even though I’m angry, a little trill of something like excitement roils through me. He’s been holding himself back from me. I can feel it. I can see it. And I want to unplug his reserve and let him come at me, full throttle. I don’t want reserved Lachlan. I want all of him.
He pulls his mouth off mine, and the words he grates out are hoarse and affected. His trousers are tented, his pupils dilated. “I won’t let them touch you. I won’t let them breathe the same air you do, and if anyone tries, it will be the last breath they take.”
“I love you, you merciless bastard,” I say, my own voice hoarse with arousal and need. His won’t be a gentle wooing and never could be. Mine won’t be a spineless submission and never could be either.
“And I love you, you little brat.”
He kisses me again. I’ve never been kissed with a hand around my throat, but he does it so well.
When he stops kissing me, he’s panting.
“You know you need me to punish you,” he says, his fingers still curled around my throat in warning. “You fucking know you do.” He puts his mouth to my ear and growls. “Admit it. You’ll climax to the thought of being over my lap.”
I moan and my core convulses.
“You could come at the thought of a proper belting.”
“Stop,” I whisper, my eyes closing. He’s turning me on, and I’m trying to fight him.
“Tell me, Fiona,” he says in my ear. “Tell me what you really want.”
“All of you,” I say without censor. “I want you to stop holding yourself back from me.”
He freezes, his hand still on my throat. I go on.
“I bloody well know you aren’t giving me all of you. And how’s that fair, Lachlan? Hmm?”
“Is that why you defy me so?”
I don’t know, so I don’t answer.
He shakes his head. “I have to hold myself back from you.”
I shove at him angrily. “Why?”
His fist pounds the wall next to my head, and I jump. “Because if I don’t, I’ll fucking hurt you!”
I shove him again. “Then hurt me. I can take it. You hold yourself back because you don’t trust yourself. And yet you want me to trust you! How can I trust you if you don’t trust yourself?”
“You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Don’t you bloody give me that! No! You know exactly what I mean!”
He’s back in my space, caging me in, his hand on my throat firmer now. “That’s what you want, Fiona? All of me? You don’t want me holding back all the things I want to do to you?”
The carnal craving in his eyes makes me nearly whimper with need.
He spreads my knees apart with his, and his hand clamps between my thighs. I whimper when his touch sends electric vibes of need coursing through me.
“Tell me,” I beg. Maybe having him voice what he wants will help. “Tell me everything you want to do to me.”
He groans. His muscles are taut, his body vibrating with heat. I don’t know if he’s angry or aroused or both.
“I’d tie you to the bedpost,” he says in a harsh whisper. “Strip you. And lay you bare with a strap until your body was striped pink.”
My pulse spikes. I swallow hard. “Go on.”
“I’d clamp your nipples until they ached and plug a dildo in your pussy, and when you were right on the edge of climax, I’d suck your clit until you came.”
My belly dips low and a thrum of need makes me whimper. He cups my pussy and I throb.
“I’d lube your tight hole and take you there, fuck your arse from behind until you lose your fucking mind. I’d make you come and scream my name until you lost your voice and fell asleep with my come leaking from you.”
“Oh my God.” How can someone be simultaneously terrified and frantic with arousal?
He isn’t finished. “I’d blindfold you and shove you to your knees,” he grates, pressing his body to mine so I feel the length of his erection against me. “Tie your hands behind your back and make you suck me until I came. I’d hold your head back and make you swallow Every. Fucking. Drop.”
I’m heady with arousal when I whisper, “Then do it.”
“Do what?” he asks, as if he misunderstood me.
“Fucking all of it.”
It seems I don’t need to ask him twice. He releases me, only so he can lift me straight up in the air as if I weigh nothing at all. I wrap my legs around his body and he holds me to him, walking me toward the bed.
“Don’t tempt me, lass.”
“I’m not tempting you. I want all of you, Lachlan. I love all of you, not just the sensitized version. I love the filthy one. The angry one. I love every facet of you even when you make me furious.”
He lays me on the bed and bends to kiss my cheek. “And I love all of you, even when you make me furious.” His gaze narrows on me. “Even though I don’t like your cheek.”
I give him a look that dares him to punish me. To my surprise, he lifts the hem of his shirt and yanks it up over his head. He twists it into a rope and ties it around my head. My world goes dark.
“Stay right there.”
I nod but don’t speak. I underestimated being blindfolded. Deprived of the ability to see, my other senses are heightened. I hear him walking around the room. Drawers open, the squeak of a closet, his heavier breathing. He’s aroused by the prospect of his plans. I feel his heat as he draws near, his footsteps muted by the thick carpet. Something cool graces my wrists, before they’re secured above my head. I open my mouth to speak when something rough drags across my lips. He ties it behind my head. I try to speak but my voice is muffled.
His masculine scent invades my senses, his rough hands run the length of my body as he strips me. I’m already ratcheting closer to the edge of needing to climax when he palms my pussy.
“So wet for me already, lass?” he asks in a husky voice. “Are you my good girl who needs to come?”
He parts my legs and gently touches me. My hips convulse at the gentlest touch, and I whimper against the makeshift gag.
“You make me crazy, Fiona,” he says in a low whisper. “I can’t get you out of my mind.” He drags his knuckles across my breasts. My nipples harden in response. “You’re so utterly fucking perfect.”