“I really…” She searched for words, but couldn’t find them.
“Come to me, Sophie.”
His voice was deep, his eyes magnetic and dark. All those times they’d clashed, or merely passed by, electricity had been building between them. She sensed it was about to be unleashed in a way she wouldn’t quickly recover from.
While standing up from her chair, she felt the airplane give a shunt with turbulence, which sent her tumbling into his hands and thence over his thighs.
“Oh my!”
“Settle down,” he said, wrapping an arm around her waist to snug her into position quite firmly. “I’ve got you.”
He did have her, in almost every meaningful way.
“This skirt is so sensible,” he said, smoothing his palm over her rear. “I think it’s time you took it off.”
He was touching her ass. That big, powerful hand was separated from her skin by two layers of fabric. Sophie felt the lower parts of her belly tighten. This was madness.
“Everything changed for you, today,” he said. “Or at least, the truth became more obvious. I know you’re frightened of what the future holds, but Christo gave you a gift, in a sense. He ripped away the veneer of civilization which made everything feel safe and numb. He showed you where the danger was, and how close to it you really were.”
God fucking damn that sounded like bullshit. But she was ready to hold onto anything resembling hope right now. If Alex told her that the sky was green, she’d agree and tell him it looked like Midori.
Alex palmed her ass, and started to explain.
“Punishment is as primal as lovemaking. Dominance is as essential to my being as any part of my body. I like control. In business, and in my personal life. Some women understand that, but ultimately, all of them know that they are free. Not you, though, Sophie. You’re a fugitive. Your freedom is weighed on scales which can be tipped by acts of obedience and servitude.”
That was a very pretty way of telling her that she was now his slave.
His palm met her ass in a harsh swat which shocked her out of her thoughts and put her back in her body.
It started slowly, and not particularly hard, just his palm swinging down against her rear in a steady rhythm which built a sting across both cheeks as he went from one to the other.
“This will happen a lot,” he told her. “I will have you over my knee often.”
She bit her lower lip and tried to understand what was going on. Alex was kinky. No surprise there. Everybody rich and powerful probably was. If all he wanted to do was give her some love taps every now and then, she was getting off easy…
“OW!” she yelped as his hand caught her across her seat with a much harder stroke. “What was that for?”
“For being a naughty girl,” he drawled. “For getting yourself into so much trouble you have to be rescued.”
“It’s not my fault Christo is a psycho!” She hated how valley girl she sounded. What remained of her facade of professionalism was slipping fast. Did it matter? Would she ever exist in any context other than the virtual rescue puppy of one of the world’s most powerful men?
“It is your fault you didn’t listen to my warnings. I told you to go home and go to bed. Nothing good happens after midnight.”
Was it after midnight now? She didn’t know. They were jetting across timezones. The sun might have risen and been warming the earth. She didn’t know. She was looking at private plane carpet and feeling Alex’s hand heating her ass.
“Please, I’m sorry!”
“There will be times I want your apologies. Now is not one of them. I want you to really think about how it feels to be spanked. I want you to feel some small amount of pain, because there is so much more coming if you disobey me once we land. You have proven to me time and time again that you have no interest in obedience. You ignored every warning I ever gave you. Now you have no choice. I will Give. You. No. Choice.”
Each of those words was punctuated with a slap harder than the one before it, until she was gasping and jerking and wailing for mercy which Alex clearly had absolutely no intention of showing her.
She thought it might be over.
Then he pulled her skirt up.
And her panties down.
This was immensely satisfying. Alex had her right where he wanted her — over his lap, her pink, squirming ass about to take on some real color.
He knew she was scared. She had every reason to be. Her freedom had just disappeared out the proverbial window. Every hope she might have held, every dream she might have cherished, gone.
Another man might have felt sorry for her. But a man who felt sorry for her could never have helped her. Sophie’s options were so limited as to be miniscule. She needed someone who could take her out of the healthy realm of law and order, and keep her captive in the void outside it.