His lips quirked at one corner. “Brand-new.”
“Are you planning to groom a horse?”
“You’ve been a bad girl. You disobeyed me. You risked your safety and that of a very valuable horse. Don’t you think you deserve punishment?”
“I’m not a girl,” she flared. “I’m a woman who made a considered decision.”
“You’re a rebel,” he argued with a long black look, “and you were reckless tonight.”
She shrugged. “Maybe. You wanted me to fit in. You wanted me to be one of the boys, and I am.”
“Did I say that?”
“You didn’t have to. As for whether or not I could use some discipline…?”
How is it possible to feel so aroused?
Her lips pressed down as she blazed a challenge back at Dante. “So long as you don’t plan to thrash me with that whip, I’m…interested.”
“That’s what I thought,” he murmured, locking the door.
Her throat tightened as Dante turned back to her. Without saying a word, he began to undo the buttons down the front of her shirt. Using an agonizing lack of haste, he pushed it from her shoulders. Holding her at arm’s length, he drew the tip of the whip slowly down between her breasts, then farther still. She drew a fast breath in as he teased her with the rough leather tongue. Her entire body was responding with the most desperate hunger.
“Breeches off,” he instructed.
As she bent to do as he asked, starting by taking her boots off, Dante traced the line of her buttocks with the leather tongue. The small piece of hide carried so much promise, she was already unbearably aroused by the time he brought it between her legs.
“Don’t stop undressing,” he warned as she froze in place to savor each stroke.
He was quite right. She would have happily remained bent over with her legs edged slightly apart to feel the searching touch of that tongue for hours. It was with a considerable amount of disappointment that she straightened up to do as he asked.
Standing in front of him in her serviceable underwear might have felt ridiculous if Dante hadn’t held her stare steady in his. She tried not to make a sound as he traced her breasts, her arms, the sides of her neck, and then her cheeks and her lips with the end of the whip.
“Admirable control,” he whispered.
“Thank you.”
But he was determined to test that control, and she whimpered when the flexible tongue moved over her belly and sought entry between her legs. Just feeling it there was incredible. She had to have more.
“Lie down,” he instructed.
She folded onto rather than lay on the bed of hay. It was a relief to unlock her knees and just collapse, formless and weak with no thought other than the pursuit of pleasure.
“Draw back your legs, and hold them wide for me.”
Having gone this far, there could be no holding back now. She did as he asked with a shuddering sigh of anticipation.
Whatever she had imagined was far exceeded by the touch of the whip. Dante wielded it with the utmost delicacy, over and around, until he finally settled it in place against the side of her painfully engorged clitoris. He applied a little more pressure, and then he agitated the straining core of sensation to a steady and dependable rhythm, watching her closely as he did so, until finally, he murmured, “Now…”
She shattered into sensation that went on and on and on. She was aware of nothing else, other than the great waves of pleasure gripping her. She had no idea how loud she cried out, or for how long. She only knew that when the world slowly returned to focus, she was in Dante’s arms.
“Better?” His expression was faintly amused as he laid her down on the hay.
She reached for him.
“I didn’t say you could move,” he warned coolly, pulling back. “I haven’t punished you yet for your disobedience.”
There were uses for a dandy brush she had never imagined, Rose realized as she rested comfortably across Dante’s knee. Applied lightly to the buttocks in arousing sweeps, it woke them up, ready to accept whatever came next. And when what came next was a flurry of sharp slaps, there was only one thing left to do.