Last Dance for Cadence Page 21

  Her hair tickled his cheek. Her naked arousal flooded his fingers and scented the air when he murmured, “You’re mine, sweetheart. All of you, all of this—” He squeezed. “—is mine. From now on, for as long as you remain mine, this is how you will be punished. Bare, exposed, vulnerable to whatever I desire.”

  She turned to look back at him over her shoulder, whole worlds of vulnerability colliding in her eyes. It was the kind of look that just begged for comfort and kisses, and he was tempted. Oh, how he was tempted. But what a dangerous precedent that would set for what he refused right now to think of as anything less than the rest of their lives.

  One last stroke of her soft hair, streaming between his fingers, and then he gave the command. “Over my knee.”

  The tension in her smaller body was drawn and tight. It felt electric when she swiveled far enough around to see the ‘v’ of his legs, parted to either side of her.

  “This one.” He patted his left thigh. “I’m going to pin your legs between mine so you won’t hurt yourself when you fight me.”

  “I won’t,” she promised, shaking her head. “I’m sorry, and I’m not just saying that because you…you’re going t-to…spank…” She stammered, stumbling over the word, unable even to say it. That was almost adorable. He brushed her hair back again. “I know you think that, but it’s not true. I am sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “For not trusting you.”

  Marcus shook his head. “We don’t know each other well enough for that kind of blind, unwavering trust. Try again.”

  “For not giving you the chance to explain.”

  “That would have been nice,” he agreed. “What else?”

  She looked down at her fidgeting fingers. “For not staying in bed. I knew when I did it that you were going to spank me for it, but I did it anyway.” She quickly swiped away an errant tear that had spilled past the guard of her lashes. She sniffled and resumed her fidgeting, as if that tell-tale tear had never been.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Not good enough.”

  “But I don’t! I don’t know!”

  He caught her chin and made her face both him and the truth behind that answer. “Why, Cadence?”

  “I don’t know, Marcus!” She burst out, the damn of her tears cracking the instant she had to lock her gaze with his and keep it there. “I don’t! I wish I did. What do you want me to say?”

  “What do you feel?” he countered, soft and calm.

  “Awful! I feel awful! All the time! It never gets better and it never goes away! I’m broken, Marcus!” She beat against her chest until he caught her fists and forcibly held them. “I don’t want to be broken anymore. But the only time I don’t feel this…sadness and rage is…is after you spank me. I don’t know what that makes me. I know it’s not normal.”

  Marcus tsked. “What’s normal, Cadence?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure it can’t be this.”

  He caught her face, unsure whether to tsk again or laugh. “Sweetheart, there’s no such thing as normal.”

  “You only say that because you’re not normal too.”

  “Fine.” He smiled, stroking his thumbs along her cheeks, waiting until she dragged her watery eyes back to his. “We’ll be each other’s abnormal and to hell with everyone else. How’s that sound to you?”

  She looked at him for a long time. He was just starting to wonder if he might have to repeat himself. He’d cup her chin this time, hold her firmly, let her know with his eyes that he was serious and expected her to take him that way. But just when he was about to, her shoulders sank in defeat. “Someday you’re going to get tired of having to take care of the woman you hired to take care of you.”

  And finally, there was the honesty he’d been looking for.

  “Apart from the hired and ‘getting tired’ bit, sounds to me like you just described marriage.” When she startled, he let her think about that for almost a full minute before he patted his left leg and said, “I think it’s time you and all that stubbornness learned once and for all which of us gets to decide what I will and won’t get tired of.”

  * * *

  Cadence stared at his waiting knee. It was like being caught somewhere between a dream and a nightmare. On the one hand, she couldn’t remember another time when she had ever felt so scared. Not even when Sebastian had hit her with her car. Back then, there hadn’t been time for her to get scared as it was happening, and afterwards, all there had been was pain. Right now, Marcus was giving her plenty of time to think about what was coming, and although intellectually she knew there were worlds and worlds, veritable universes, of difference between what she had suffered back then and the pain she would have to endure across his knee, that didn’t make it any less scary.

  She reached for his leg, a precursor to laying herself across it, but hesitated. “Marcus?” It came out barely louder than a whisper.

  “It’s going to happen,” he told her, his voice radiating all the certainty that she currently lacked.

  “I know, but…” She caught a shaky breath, hardly able to believe what she was doing. “Don’t stop too soon, okay? Just not…too soon. Even if I ask you to…okay?”

  She shut her mouth then, flattened her lips tight together one insane plea too late, and quickly struggled to put herself across his lap in a way that wouldn’t make her knees scream too loudly.

  Marcus let her initiate that act of compliance, but then he was helping her, lifting when she needed, guiding her over his thigh until her hips were centered directly upon his lap and the only reason she didn’t bang the floor with her forehead was because she braced her hands against it. He sandwiched both her legs in the vise of his own, just like he’d said he would. That confinement was oddly comforting. His hold was a kind of security; it eased her fear, but only just a little.

  “Would you like me to hold your hand?”

  She didn’t even need to think about it. Cadence shot her right arm back, exhaling a shuddering breath when he clasped it in his own, palm to palm, weaving his strong fingers with hers, before tucking her own hand underneath her as he wrapped that arm tight around her hips. The first clap of his hand came quickly after that. The sound so sharp and loud and the sting…oh, she sucked a quick breath, kicking her feet up off the floor in spite of herself, but her shins butted up against his leg and went no further.

  “Feet on the floor,” he said. “Try not to kick. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

  ‘Try not to kick’ was like trying not to feel as he began that strong, hard, back and forth rhythm all across her squirming hips. This wasn’t like any of the times he’d spanked her before. This was worse, much worse. The flat of his hand felt like solid oak and twice, while swallowing back her cries, she had to glance back to make sure it really was just his hand that he was using and not the hairbrush, sitting as if forgotten, on the little table next to the ready ginger root and the bottle of lubricant.

  She tried to take it bravely, the way grown-up women ought to take something so childish and insignificant as a bare bottom spanking, but that resolve barely lasted past the third or fourth swat. Then she was yelping, mewling, fighting to bite back the cries that were, spank by spank, becoming all the more urgent to express. Oh, and the sting!

  “M-Marcus! Please, ow!” She kicked up her legs again, desperate now to twist her bottom out from under the steady application of his hand. But, between the wrap of his arm around her hips and the scissor of his legs capturing hers, she just couldn’t find the leverage. A truly submissive woman could probably have taken this and a whole lot more. All Cadence wanted was for it to be over, preferably while she still had some kind of bottom still attached to her. She wrenched at her imprisoned hand, needing to get it back far enough to catch his spanking hand or at the very least to block it from reaching its target, but his grip on her only tightened. “Please!”

  Long lauded as a magic word, perhaps ‘please
’ was one because the spanking abruptly stopped.

  Cadence fell limp upon his knee, panting and whimpering, so damned grateful to have reached the end of it alive. Her bottom was one giant mass of smarting, throbbing flesh, just beginning to burn deep in the muscle. His hand came to rest on what surely had to be swollen curves. He rubbed, fanning that slow burn into a very real and roaring fire.

  “What did I tell you was going to happen?” he reminded, taking his caressing hand away. And then she heard it, the plastic pop of the cap being flipped up on the bottle of lubricant just before she felt cool wet dollops of gel fall into the crack of her flaming ass.

  Her eyes flew open. Cadence twisted, looking back in absolute dismay just as he picked up the ginger root. He didn’t test her with his finger. He didn’t try to make her ready in any way. He simply smeared the tip and length of the root in the gel sliding down her crack, and no sooner did she feel the ominous press of it nosing up against her anus, then did he push it up inside her.

  “Ugh!” Cadence tried not to shout, but that was like trying not to kick or squirm, especially when he, not content just to seat the root inside her, began to twist then thrust it. “Ah! Ungh!”

  It wasn’t comfortable. It stung, then burned, then scalded every tender membrane of flesh the ginger touched. But it didn’t hurt. Not really. Not as much as it truly, honestly, unbelievably hurt when he finally seated that peeled bit of root in deep, picked up the hairbrush and began to spank her, fierce and fast, all over again.

  There was no holding still after that. There was no biting back her cries or her tears. She thought her dancing days long over, but Marcus and that horrible wooden hairbrush proved how truly wrong she was. There was no other word for it but that she danced upon his knee, throwing her whole body into it, straining and fighting, bucking and arching, thrashing and sobbing to tuck her hind end anywhere that he could not reach, until exhaustion overwhelmed her, and all Cadence could do was fall limp into place, bawling because she was sorry.

  Sorry she was a mess.

  Sorry she was broken.

  Sorry that she had tried to run away when she should have stayed in bed.

  And most of all, sorry that she needed to have her bare bottom spanked like this before the darkness inside her would let her find a rare few moments of peace.

  Thank God, Marcus seemed to know this. Thank God, he was ready, willing and able to paddle her until all her world was blazing fire and hurt, until the exhaustion of fighting overwhelmed her and all she could do was lie limp in weeping supplication, and finally, finally, the darkness split apart and spat her out. Thank God, he knew when at last ‘too soon’ had passed and stopped.

  She writhed, mindlessly grinding against his thigh, aware of nothing but the burn and pain. It took time even before she became aware of his hand, once more coming to rest, gentle and caressing, upon the flesh he had so thoroughly punished.

  “Shh,” he soothed, letting her cry until there was nothing left inside her.

  Releasing her legs first and then her hand, he dragged her up to sit on his lap. That was a mini torture all its own. She couldn’t find any way to perch that didn’t make the ache behind her flare and swell.

  When his fingers combed back through her hair, knowing what she must look like, she tried to hide her face. He made her look at him, the rough pads of his thumbs brushing at her tears as he gazed his fill. There was no censure anywhere about him. All she could see in him now was hunger, intense and raw, driven into him with the exact same measure of ferocity the hairbrush had wielded.

  Something hard was prodding at her thigh. Catching her breath, hardly daring to believe what she was about to feel, Cadence reached down between them to touch his erection. It was so unbelievably swollen, a dome of solid flesh straining against the confines of his pants the way she had strained against his hold, every bit as desperate to escape its torment. When she licked her suddenly dry lips, his eyes locked on her mouth. His was a look that instantly flooded her core with molten wanting. She’d have gone down on her knees right then, if he’d let her. Never mind that it would hurt or that she never would have been able to get up again without help. Call it added penance, just another part of her punishment, but he only pulled her around on his lap until she straddled him.

  He gripped her bottom in both hands, his fingers knowing exactly where to press to make the pain flare hot and the smoldering fire in her bottom blaze back into bonfire-proportions. His mouth slanted into a crooked smile when she moaned. Pulling at the button of his pants, he leaned away from her far enough to unzip his fly. His cock all but sprang into her hand, so soft and yet so hard, veiny and thick. When she closed her hand around him, her fingers almost couldn’t meet.

  There was a bead of moisture oozing from the tip. She wet her fingertips in it, smearing him in his own clear fluid as she stroked him, from the jutting heat to the tightly drawn up balls underneath.

  “You took your first punishment spanking very well.” Molding her sore bottom in his hands, he began to caress her the same way she was caressing him, exhibiting absolutely no remorse at all when his squeezing fingers made her wiggle and gasp. “I’m going to show you something. I don’t want you to be embarrassed. It made me very happy to see it happening while I was spanking you.”

  Her bottom was throbbing. At the moment, all she could feel down there was hot, aching pulses, building under his hands every time he gripped, squeezed, and caressed. He moved down her bottom, gripping the tops of her thighs the same way, catching all the lowest places where his hairbrush had stung the worst. He only rubbed once before his hands moved again, this time delving in between. She stiffened when he gave the ginger plug a twist. Groaning, she dropped her head onto his shoulder, cradling his cock now in both hands while he gave the root a handful of brisk thrusts that made her poor abused anus ache and burn even more. He shoved it in deep, twisting and rolling it inside her, while thick fingers from his other hand slicked apart the folds of her pussy, releasing the hot scent of her arousal into the air. He impaled her, his fingers sinking into slippery wetness with a mortifyingly loud sucking sound.

  “Oh my God!” she gasped as he stroked her, thrashing and scissoring his fingers inside her, thrusting with a burst of rapid motion that made his palm spank up against her pussy lips and culminated in nothing less than a vigorous tandem fucking between his fingers in her dripping wet pussy and that ginger root in her bottom. “Oh my God!” she howled, sinking her teeth into her own arm just to keep from biting his shoulder.

  He kept his hand on the ginger root, applying just enough pressure to rock and rotate it, keeping her mindful of its presence while he took his fingers from her pussy and showed her just how thoroughly she had wet his hand.

  “I didn’t do that,” she said inanely, horrified by the sight of her own creamy arousal dripping off his fingers. That couldn’t possibly have happened. Not from a spanking. Especially not from one that had hurt so very much.

  Marcus didn’t bother arguing. “Get on my cock,” he commanded, wrapping his free arm around her waist to help her balance. She had to guide him in, but wet as she was, she simply sank down on him, closing her eyes at the way he stretched and filled her. He hugged her hips to his, content in the closeness before taking hold of the ginger root once more. “Ride me,” he said as he fucked her with it. “There’s a good girl.”

  Her whole body stiffened with the intensity, the friction of being so doubly filled, the war of pleasure and pain as she rode his cock, the soreness and sting as her ass was tirelessly pumped.

  “Please!” she begged, every ounce of her needing what only he seemed able to provide.

  “Please, what?” Marcus mocked. “Please spank you again?”

  That sudden lack of friction as he abandoned the ginger plug was replaced by the burning impact as his hand slapped her bottom. Hard and fast, catching whatever parts of her that he could reach as she bounced frantically in the trap of his arms while her vaginal walls spasmed all aroun
d him. It wasn’t pleasure, it wasn’t pain. It was an amalgamation of both, shooting in through her tender bottom, sparking straight through to her clit and exploding there, like tiny shimmering stars that couldn’t be seen, only felt.

  “Please fuck you harder?”

  He picked her right up out of that chair, dropping her to her back on the floor as he covered her. His cock fell out of her when he did, but they weren’t separated for long. She hugged him, with both her arms and her legs when he reclaimed her with a thrust that would have been brutal had she not been so wet and ready.

  “Like this?” He thrust again. “Is that what your ‘please’ is for?”

  The slam of his hips pounding into the cradle of hers was loud unto the point of obscenity. So were her cries, guttural and hard, every bit as hard as the throbbing length of him battering at her walls. “Yes! Yes!”

  Her bottom was on fire, scalded first by his hand and then by the carpet as, every few pumping thrusts, he scooted her across the floor only to yank her back down onto his cock, fighting to get deep again. She was close, so close. She wailed her loss when he abruptly pulled all the way out again.

  “On your belly,” he ordered.

  The pain in her knees was nothing compared to the pain of suddenly being deprived of his closeness and his cock. She got on her stomach, clutching her fists when he got down between her legs. His hard belly against the burning of her tender buttocks made them ache that much more. His breath against her shoulder and ear made her shudder, though whether from anticipation or trepidation she just didn’t know, not even when she heard him ask, “Do you want me to fuck your ass, Cadence? Maybe that’s what you want instead, hm? Tell me, sweetheart have I stopped too soon?”

  Her nipples were twin peaks of sensitivity, scraping the carpet with every gasping breath she took. All she could feel was the length and breadth of him, hot and slick, sliding up and down between her nether cheeks in slow, mocking thrusts.