Tate (Mountain Men 3)

“Doesn’t mean a thing,” I pant, and I can’t help moving my hips so he touches where I ache for him. I sigh when he strokes against my swollen clit. “It’s a defense mechanism, nothing intentional.”

He freezes, no longer stroking me.

“You have no control over this. You really believe that?”

“Uh-huh. Yup. Exactly.”

“So you don’t want me to continue this?” He gives me one perfect, absolutely perfect, stroke of his fingers, making me stifle a moan. “If I stop, you won’t ask me to continue?”

I shake my head from side to side, unable to speak out loud.

“You lie,” he says, resuming his position behind me. “And you have more to tell me.”

I scream when he gives me the hardest smack yet, the pain blossoming across what feels like my entire arse. I can’t think beyond the pain, can’t breathe.

There’s nothing but me and pain… and my desperate need for more.

Chapter 9

Tate

I'm torn between wanting to punish her more and wanting to gather her up in my arms and kiss those salty tears off her cheeks. She tried to hide them from me, but I can hear them in her voice, and I know how I’ve affected her. I'm determined to get the truth from her if it kills me. If it drives a wedge between the both of us.

I hate that she’s put me in this position. I hate that she’s put my family at risk. I hate that she lied to me.

At first, when I began to punish her, I felt like I was actually getting somewhere. I don’t miss the tears on her cheeks, or the way her voice has gotten all trembly. I struck a chord, though, when I poked fun at how much of a “real” writer she is.

I don’t regret it. I need to get through to her somehow, and if this is the way I have to do it, so be it.

Jesus, I feel like a douche though. Such a fucking douche.

But I have a job to do, and I’m not going to fail at it.

I rest my hand on her arse and ask her a pointed question. “Are you going to tell me the truth, or do we need to escalate this?”

She pauses, then, with a tremulous voice asks, “What does escalate this mean?”

Without thinking, I spank her again, my palm slapping against her naked skin with the sound of a gunshot.

“Ow! Oh, God, Jesus, I’ll give you the truth. Doesn’t matter what it means, I just wondered if you were calling the others in.”

I spank her again, just where her thigh meets her arse, and she hisses in a breath. Sensitive there. Noted.

“You want my brothers to see you like this?”

“Noooo,” she moans. “No, no, please.”

She’s afraid of being before them, then.

“You fear them more than you fear me?” I ask, shaking my head from side to side. For a vulnerable woman in the process of being punished, she’s got one fucking nerve.

“No! God, no. It isn’t that at all.”

I growl and reach for my belt. “Escalating this means spanking you harder. Punishing you more severely.”

In one quick motion, I tug the belt through the loops on my trousers, fold it over, and slap it against her arse. She squeals and arches.

“Is that what you need?”

“No!” she gasps, panting for breath. “No, Tate.” Her voice cracks. “I’ll give you anything you want. I’ll tell you the truth.” She breaks out into a sob. “All of it.”

Now we’re finally getting somewhere. If I knew she’d react like this to my belt, I’d have fucking started with it.

“What do you want to know?”

We’ll start easy.

I trail the folded leather down her punished skin.

“Tell me the truth about whether or not any of this excites you.”

That wasn’t the first question I should’ve asked, but I couldn’t help myself.

She answers quickly.

“Yes. It hurts like crazy, and I wouldn’t want to be punished like this often, but… yeah. I don’t know how to explain it, but can only say that… yes, it hurts. I hate that you’re punishing me. But… it turns me on.”

It takes something for her to confess this, I can tell.

I nod. I already knew this, but I’m pleased she’s fessing up.

“Good girl,” I say approvingly, the belt still resting against her punished arse. “Next question. Who are your contacts?”

She hesitates. “Which ones?”

“All of them.”

She releases a shuddering breath. “Aisla was my contact here, but since she’s no longer here I rely on my own observations. I’ve got a contact in the Aitkens Clan and one in Wales. I ask your sisters lots of questions.”

She starts when I growl.

Goddammit.

“Do my sisters know you write the books?”

“I… can’t tell you that. I know they suspect it, and I have reason to believe it was one of them who let Aisla go. But I’ve never told them anything, and we’ve never openly discussed it.”