His lips brush my neck. “You’ll need the fuck after the first spanking. Next time, you’ll want it but you won’t need it.”
I’ll need it? I repeat in my mind, not sure what that means but I don’t have time to overthink. He squeezes my backside and then gives me a little smack. I yelp and his hands are on my neck, his cheek by my cheek. “That’s just a tease.”
His hand falls away and he steps back from me. I don’t move. And I don’t move because he’s ordered me not to move. Despite my revelation of liking his control, I’m amazed and confused at how aroused I am by his commands, by the threat of his palm, by this game. But then, this is Kace. He’s a contradiction. A man who is tender, gracious, funny. A man who knows when to give orders and when to ask questions.
I can feel his absence behind me, but the heat of his stare on my naked body is downright feverish. There’s a shuffle of clothing. Thank you, Lord, he’s undressing. I want to turn, I want to see him. I do, but I play the game. I live in the moment with Kace, wanting to know where he will take me. Wanting to know more about him and this is not a part of him that he created for me. It’s a way he copes, he escapes. It’s about his need for control that somehow works for me because I’ve never been as aroused as I am now ever in my life.
Seconds tick by and feel like an eternity.
I listen for his movements.
I await his return.
I can’t take it anymore.
I try to turn and suddenly his hands are on my hips. “I said don’t move.”
“I tried.”
“I know, baby. I know. Hands and knees on the cushion. And remember. Four times. Then we fuck. Now, Aria.”
I have no idea why him saying my name right now jolts me, but it does. Perhaps because it’s me owning me instead of him owning me. Only, I’m pretty sure right now he owns me. He owns me when pain and fear and panic owned me when Gio left. He is taking me to a place where nothing else exists. Where I can just stop thinking.
He leans in close, his lips at my ear, breath a warm fan on my hypersensitive skin. “We don’t have to do this.”
I wet my dry lips. “I want to do this,” I say, and my knees go down on the cushion.
My hands follow, planting in the cushion as well, and adrenaline surges. And Kace lifts my backside, his hand on my belly, caressing my cheek, touching me, warming my skin. I’m a rage of sensation and emotions, jittery with nerves, but his hands on my body seduce, tease. His fingers slide between my legs and I’m hot and wet, a soft moan escaping my lips. But now his hand is back on my backside and my heart is racing, anticipation burning through me. He begins to pat my backside, and I know he’s getting me used to his hand. I’m all but squirming with his touch, ready to beg him to just to do it when he says, “Now.”
His palm comes down on my cheek, a sting radiating through me, sharp enough that I arch my back and gasp, but already the next blow is there, and so is the next. I am reeling when I realize it’s over and Kace is pressing inside me, his thick erection thrusting deep. And then he’s doing just what he promised, fucking me, pumping hard, over and over. I can’t explain it but every sense I have is more alive. This is why he didn’t want me to come before the spanking. I feel each thrust with an explosion of sensations and I push into him, against him, wanting more, needing more. I lose all sense of anything but the wild need for more and more until I’m moaning and I pant with the release, my sex spasming around him. Sensation after sensation spirals through me and with low guttural sounds, Kace is shuddering. I don’t even know how much time passes before the room returns to me, snow before my eyes, the man who just owned me at my rear.
He rolls with me, taking us to our sides, my back to his front, our bodies intimately tucked together, his cock still buried inside me. He nuzzles my neck, his scent earthy and male, his touch possessive and yet tender and protective. I feel safe—vulnerable yet still safe. I feel the intensity of our intimacy, our trust, our bond, but unbidden, there is a weird pinch in my chest and then my eyes prickle. My hand goes to my face and I will them away. “Oh God, I’m about to cry and it’s not the spanking. I swear it’s not the spanking. I liked it, I did, I just—” Appalled, I burst into tears, horrible, gut-wrenching tears.
Kace curls tighter around me, stroking my hair. “It’s the adrenaline baby. Ride it out.”
And I do because it’s not like I can stop the emotion that all but bleeds from me. It’s intense, quaking, but it’s fast and hard and gone. Somehow Kace has tissue, and he hands it to me, helping me clean up. I sit up and he wraps a blanket around me. “Better?” he asks going down on a knee in front of me, still naked and so beautifully male. He spanked me. I liked it. There is an intimacy to such a thing that I can’t explain.
“I can’t believe that just happened. It wasn’t the spanking,” I repeat, needing him to know. “I was, I—it was—”
He strokes a thumb under my eye, wiping away a wayward tear. “Yes,” he says softly. “It was. The whole idea of the spanking is to center you. The pleasure is intense. The release is intense.”
“And then I cried,” I say, still unnerved by how completely out of my control I was when those tears overtook me, and they did overtake me.
“Sometimes when you have a lot of emotion pent up, and you experience an adrenaline rush, it triggers an emotional release as well. That’s not a bad thing. It’s a release you needed.” He strokes hair behind my ear. “It might not ever happen again.”
“And if it does?”
His lips curve. “We have tissues.”
“How do you know this, Kace? How is this so familiar to you?”
“When I was eighteen, I had a fling with an older woman who had a taste for the BDSM world. It wasn’t for me and neither was she, but like everyone that crosses our paths, I believe there is a reason. She taught me a lot about control.”
“How old was she?”
“Thirty-five.”
I’m stunned about this new revelation. “How long did you see her?”
“A year in which I became a man.” He leans in and kisses my hands. “We’d better get dressed before Blake gets here.” He stands up, offering me a delicious view of his backside, and I’m struck by how raw and real he has become with me. Except for one thing: he won’t tell me how he’s dealing with Alexander. He doesn’t believe I can handle it, and therefore, he doesn’t believe I can handle every part of him.
He still thinks I’ll run.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
My conversation with Kace post-spanking lingers in my mind as I change into jeans, a pink sweater, and knee-high boots. I’m presently standing at the bathroom sink, repairing my make-up, when a particular statement he’d made punches at my mind: She taught me a lot about control. He’d said it so nonchalantly, but this not an insignificant relationship. I want to know more about this woman who has obviously done much to shape the boy who became a man. But then so did his ex, Maggie, in life and death. It’s a chilling thought, and I realize now that I really haven’t asked much about Kace’s love life outside of Maggie. Mine is simple outside of him. There wasn’t one. Ever. Who was this woman who pulled him into the world of BDSM? And just how into it was he? Surely not too intensely as he’s a public figure.