Tate (Mountain Men 3)

“And what do you have planned after this?”

“After what?”

“The next book. What else will you write?”

I don’t answer because I have no idea. He told me I’d have to take a sabbatical, but he was being facetious.

Wasn’t he?

“I’ll write about someone else,” I tell him. “I’ll… make something up this time.” I’ll say anything to get out of this.

“Like a proper fucking writer?”

Ohh, that stings far more than I anticipate.

Who does he think he is?

“I am a bloody proper writer!”

Smack.

My punisher, that’s who.

His palm sears me again, and he looms over me, prepared for another smack. “Try that again.”

“You don’t need to insult me,” I say, tears pricking at the back of my eyes. A lump rises in my throat. Out of all the things he’s done, this one stings the worst.

“You’ve made a mockery of my brotherhood. You’ve put us in danger. It’s as if you think everything we do is a fucking farce.”

“No!” I shake my head, horrified he’d think such a thing. “No, Tate, that was never my intention.”

He shakes his head from side to side. “Fucking intentions don’t matter. I’ve heard this before. We all have. ‘I didn’t mean to,’” he says in a mocking tone. “‘I didn’t plan on that.’” I whimper as he kneads my punished flesh, and I’m mentally torn because the touch of his hands on my body makes me squirm, wanting so much more, even as my heart feels heavy and tender.

“Who else knows?”

I bite my lip. I won’t tell him, I won’t.

Smack.

“Is this how you interrogate people?” I blurt out, my anger rising as hot, fat tears splash on my cheeks. I sniff. “You humiliate them and spank them like children?”

He leans over me, his body pressed up against my back, his palms on either side of me. Caging me in. I feel his heat, his breath tickling the back of my neck, and I blink in surprise when I feel his hardness pressed up against my arse. I don’t know why I’m surprised, though. Of course he’s getting turned on by punishing me. I’m naked.

“No, Fran,” he whispers in my ear, his voice harsh with barely contained anger. “I’m taking it easier on you.”

I blink again, more tears falling on my cheeks. I turn my face away, so he doesn’t see. I don’t want him to know how emotional all this has made me. I shouldn’t have felt so vulnerable when he made me strip, but that’s not who I am. I could detach myself mentally from my body. I could tell myself lots of things to disassociate my mind from my body.

But this… he’s hit me where it hurts, and the emotional sting of it’s broken through my walls. And I know somehow that’s exactly his intent.

“Taking it easy on me? You’re an arse, Tate Cowen, and a fucking coward.” I don’t care if he strikes me again. I don’t care if he beats me black and blue. He has no right to belittle me. He has no right.

He ignores my taunts, weaves his fingers through my thick hair which is hanging around my face in ragged waves, and yanks my head back. I scream at the pain, and my throat tightens.

“Normally, darlin’,” he says, his voice dripping with sarcasm in a way that makes me want to punch him in the throat, “we use pain to extract answers. Slowly. Methodically. In ways that leave permanent damage and the memory of who we are etched deep.”

I shiver, imagining things like fingers being cut off and vicious beatings, crazy violence I’ve seen in mob movies. How accurate are they? But it’s hard to reconcile savage acts of brutality with the fierce, protective men I’ve come to know as friends.

Sure, I write about them, but I’ve idolized them. I don’t go into sordid, graphic details. I write for the romantic’s heart, not the bloodthirsty.

But now… when I’m at his mercy and braced for another blow, I can picture it.

Sonofabitch.

He continues, and this is a side of Tate I've never seen before. He's brooding, calculating. And super fucking comfortable in this role.

"But I can't bring myself to torture a pretty lass like you."

No no no no I will not fall for seduction, NO.

“And as soon as I knew I needed answers from you, I imagined this. You, stretched out on my bed, naked and marked from my palm. My handprints on your arse, your pretty fingers gripping my duvet.” He lowers his voice, and I tremble when his hand slides between my thighs. “Your pussy slick with arousal because you fucking love to be punished.”

I gasp, utterly offended and horrified. “I do not!”

I totally do.

He slides his fingers between my legs as if he owns me, as if he has every fucking right to touch me there.

“Look at that,” he whispers. I gasp, my back arching involuntarily when he strokes my pussy. His fingers glide effortlessly through my arousal.