She’d pushed him too far. He hated himself and her for his broken vow. Though it was the hardest thing she’d ever done, she absorbed his anger. With her body loose and accepting, she opened to receive everything he had to give her—his pent-up frustration, his fury, his need.
When he plowed in deep and came a second time, she burst into tears.
Seke froze, and his eyes flew open. Horror scrawled across his face, and he pulled out of her, rearing back on his knees. “Oh veck. Veck... Did I hurt you?” He scooped her into his arms and crossed the chamber in two strides, heading for the door. “What have I done?”
He opened the door as if he intended to carry her out, both of them stark naked. She threw her arm out to catch the doorframe. “No. Stop. Where are you going?”
“To Daneth.”
“Stop. I'm not hurt. Close the door.” She wriggled in his arms, and he seemed to come back to his senses, realizing their state of undress.
He shut the door. Misery blared from his eyes. “What is it then?”
She dashed at her tears. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”
He gripped her shoulders and shook her, a male clearly at the edge of his sanity. “Don’t tell me nothing. What have I done to you? Speak the truth, Leora.”
“You’re frightening me,” she whispered.
He set her down, slowly composing his face. “You're not hurt?”
She shook her head. “A little bruised. A little sore. But, no, not hurt.”
In a flash of relief, he yanked her into his arms, cradling her head against his massive chest with one huge palm, his other arm snaked around her back to her hip. His face dropped into her hair. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. Or scare you.” The rise and fall of his chest was uneven, his breath erratic. He shifted to cup her face with both hands. “But I am angry with you.”
She drew a sharp breath. His anger was what had made her cry—even though she wouldn’t change a thing if she had it to do over. She wasn’t sorry. Seke deserved to seek pleasure, and she wanted to give it to him.
With a hard swallow, she lifted her wet lashes and met his azure stare. “So punish me.”
It was his turn for an intake of breath. His irises changed to violet, horns thickened. It was hard to imagine after two orgasms he might be aroused again, but the evidence was irrefutable.
With a swift, sure movement, he looped an arm around her waist and carried her to the sleepdisk where he arranged her facedown over his lap. Without preamble, he started to spank her, fast and hard. He’d recovered his normal control, because there was precision to the assault. He struck one cheek, then the other, then right in the middle, over her sex, over and over again.
She worked hard to submit, despite her body’s intense desire to fly off his lap and find someplace to hide. Her breath jackknifed in her throat, caught there, straining, as if it might somehow buffer the explosion of pain Seke inflicted. She now knew he’d held back before—the other times he’d spanked her with his hand.
His free hand tangled in her hair, not pulling but holding her head still while her bottom bounced and jerked on his lap. To keep her hands from flying back and covering, she clawed at the coverlet, wrapping the silk fabric in her fists.
“You’re not breathing, Leora.” Ever the teacher, her Seke. “Is this more than you can take? You asked for this, didn’t you?”
Fresh tears smarted her eyes. “Yes, master.”
He stopped abruptly, and the sound he made almost reminded her of a sob.
“Leora,” he rasped, the word like an entreaty. “Veck, Leora.”
But the spanking began anew, this time with additional swats on the backs of her thighs.
“You knew I did not want to break my vow.” He kept slapping her bottom, so very hard.
She squirmed and panted, tears wetting her lashes.
“You knew I had been struggling to withhold my desire for you. This is not what I wanted.” He continued to spank her with stud
y hard slaps.
“I’m not sorry!” she cried out, wincing at the way her hair pulled when she tried to move her head.
Seke’s breath drew in with a quick stutter and, mercifully, he paused, resting his hot palm on her even hotter flesh. He rubbed it up and down, stroking down the backs of her legs and up to her bottom, first on one side then the other.