Two words. Simple. Devastating.
Heat flooded through me despite the fear. Because of the fear. The command sent fire racing through my veins, pooling low in my belly where anticipation had been coiling all afternoon. I'd negotiated this. Agreed to it. Signed my name in blood beside his and accepted that discipline would be part of our dynamic.
But negotiating something and living it were different animals entirely.
My hands found the hem of my shift. They were shaking—I watched them tremble as if they belonged to someone else, some other woman who was about to bare herself for punishment. The fabric gathered in my fingers, soft and inadequate, the only barrier between my body and his eyes.
I lifted.
Cool air kissed my thighs as the shift rose. Higher. Past my hips. I gathered it at my waist the way he'd instructed, bunching the fabric in both hands, and felt the exposure hit me like a wave.
I wasn't wearing anything underneath.
I'd dressed without thinking that morning, pulling on the shift from the nursery the way I'd done every day since arriving. There had been no reason to wear more—no one to see, no modesty required in this place that had become more home than anywhere I'd lived. I hadn't thought about what that would mean here. Now.
His sharp intake of breath cut through the silence.
I felt it like a touch. Felt his desire surge through the bond, hot and immediate, the wanting he'd been controlling for days suddenly straining against its leash. He could see everything now. Every inch of me exposed, vulnerable, on display for whatever he chose to do.
"Beautiful."
The word was rough. Reverent. Not what I'd expected in this moment, not praise when punishment was coming, but it landed in my chest anyway and made my eyes sting.
"Over my knee."
He'd settled onto the bench while I stood frozen. I turned to see him there—seated, waiting, his thighs spread slightly to make room for me. The starlight in his eyes burned brighter than I'd ever seen it, fed by my submission, growing stronger with every moment I gave him.
I walked to him on legs that barely held me.
The position felt impossible at first. I'd never done this—never draped myself across anyone's lap, never made myself this vulnerable, this small, this completely at someone's mercy. But his hands guided me down, steady and sure, and my body folded over his thighs like it had been waiting for this shape all along.
The hard muscle beneath my stomach made me gasp.
His thighs were solid, warm through the fabric of his clothes. I felt every line of him—the strength that remained despite his diminished state, the predator's build hidden beneath scholar's robes. My hips settled against him, and I felt something else.
His arousal pressed against my hip.
Hard. Undeniable. Even now, even in discipline, he wanted me—and the knowledge made my core clench with answering need. I could feel my own wetness gathering, could feel myself growing slick between my thighs despite the position, despite the fear, because of the fear.
Because this was exactly what I needed.
His hand came to rest on the small of my back.
Warm. Steady. An anchor holding me in place while the world tilted around us. I pressed my face against the bench's dark fabric and breathed, and his other hand began to trace.
Down my spine. Over the dip of my waist. Across the curve of my bottom, mapping the terrain he was about to punish. His fingers learned my shape with devastating attention—every line, every curve, every inch of exposed skin that had never been touched this way.
Never been claimed this way.
"Twenty," he said.
His voice had dropped to that register that made my spine turn liquid. Command wrapped in velvet. Authority that expected nothing less than absolute obedience.
"You will count each one. You will thank me for each one." His hand stilled on my flesh, warm and possessive. "And you will tell me why my rules exist."
I couldn't speak. Could barely breathe. My whole body had become a single point of awareness—his hand on my skin, his arousal against my hip, the aching emptiness between my thighs.
"Do you understand?"