N is for... (Checklist Book 14) by L DuBois (latest novels to read TXT) 📗

When she didn’t reply he dropped one hand to her leg and squeezed her thigh, hard enough for it to be a reprimand.

“Answer me.”

“Yes, Sir.” As the last syllable left her lips so did the final remnants of her resistance. Being here with him, like this—in the club, naked on his lap except for the thong—would have pushed her deep into her own subspace long ago, if her attraction to him and the way he made her feel hadn’t set off internal alarms.

She’d told him her secret shame, and he hadn’t called her a hypocrite. Hadn’t walked away from her the way she had from him.

“Ah, there you are,” Daniel murmured, the hand on her thigh rising to her cheek. She rested her head in his palm, and he stroked his thumb along her cheekbone.

“On your knees at my feet, please.”

Chapter 9

Autumn obeyed without letting herself stop and think.

Despite the ‘please’, that had been an order, and the pleasantry somehow underscored his dominance. This was a man who was so in control that he tacked good manners on to his orders and they didn’t diminish the unequivocal command in his words.

She knelt on the blanket that she’d had on her lap, close enough to him that her knees were between his toes. Daniel sat forward, brushing her hair back from her face before carefully gathering it into a tail.

She was ready when he abruptly tightened his hold, her scalp lighting up with little prickles of pain. She kept her gaze down as he jerked her head back, only looking up when he ordered her to.

“Something specific happened before. Something changed for you. What was it? Be specific.”

His blue-gray eyes bore into hers.

“It was calling me a…a slut.” She pressed her nails into her palms. “Not just the word, but your tone of voice, Sir.”

“And what was my tone?”

“You sounded…disdainful. Almost degrading. You called me a slut like it was an insult, and it was like…like the man who I had dinner with, who I’d had a good conversation with, disappeared the instant I was on my knees to be spanked.” The words came out in a hot rush.

He tucked her hair behind her ear again, his fingers gentle and caring.

“I felt so…embarrassed and stupid. Small and like…like you were going to hit me, hurt me, not just because it was BDSM, but because you saw me as the kind of woman it was okay to hit.”

His fingers stilled in her hair. “Never, Autumn. I would never hit you, anyone, in anger or to punish. That is…that is abhorrent to me.”

There was something in his voice that told her there was a story there.

After a moment he relaxed with a nearly visible effort. “Someone really did a number on you.” He cupped her cheek and she closed her eyes, leaning into his hand once more.

“I told you I was broken,” she whispered.

“And I told you that you were not broken.” There was steel in his words and voice. “You will not contradict me again.”

She bit the tip of her tongue and nodded quickly. “I’m sorry, Sir.”

“Oh you will be.” Heat suffused his voice.

“Have I earned a punishment?”

“Several.”

“Oh.” She didn’t know if she was worried or turned on. Wait, she was a submissive. She could multitask and be both. Worrying about a punishment was a turn on in and of itself.

“First you’re going to be punished for running away from your last punishment. Then you will be punished for using degrading language and being cruel to my submissive.”

“Your submissive?” She looked up as he rose. Daniel was towering over her, his crotch inches from her face as he stood astride her knees.

“You, Autumn. You are my submissive and you were cruel to yourself, weren’t you?”

“And the other submissives.” Why had she said that?

“Ah, but you weren’t. You displaced your fear and anger for, and with, yourself.” His gaze was intense. “No more of that. Open your mouth.”

Autumn dropped her jaw open, stomach tight with anticipation. Her hands were coming up, ready to unfasten his slacks so he could slide his hard cock into her mouth.

They’d never gotten around to finishing their conversation about intimate touch. Before she’d stalked off, he’d been carefully asking if she was okay with his bare hands on her ass. That was quite a jump from butt-touching to face-fucking, but she wanted it. On her knees with a cock in her mouth was in her sub comfort zone, though she rarely engaged in overtly sexual activities during her scenes.

Daniel’s hand tightened in her hair and he jerked her face forward, rubbing his hard cock against her open mouth, the fabric of his slacks and zipper abrading her lips.

When he jerked her back by the hair there was a barely visible damp spot on the front of his pants, and her lips felt a little swollen.

Daniel swung one leg over her head, disappearing briefly while she knelt staring at the seat. He was back before she had time to psych herself into, or out of, anything.

“Up on the chair. Knees on the seat and lean over the back. I want your ass higher than your head.”

He was behind her, so she didn’t get a chance to see what he was up to. She positioned herself the same way she had before—her midsection leaning on the back of the chair, fingers under her, elbows sticking up, arms tucked against her sides.

Cool, smooth rope—she knew what it was just by the weight and feel of it—draped over her back.

“Unfortunately, you cannot be trusted to stay still for your punishment.” He wrapped the rope, loosely, around her midsection and then, after removing the pillow back and tossing it aside, laced the ends through the slatted wooden back of the chair, bringing it up and around her forearms and wrists in a wide, loose cuff, before threading it back through to the front.

“I won’t run this time, Sir.”

“No, you won’t.” He tied off the restraint. “Because