The Bride (The Boss 3)

“Look at me,” he ordered in his low, serious voice. I raised my head, and when our gazes met, he snapped the clasp closed. My breath skittered between my lips, and I forced my eyes open despite my longing to close them, to moan in anticipatory ecstasy.

He stroked my

cheek with the pad of his thumb then traced the tip along my bottom lip. At the slightest pressure, I opened my mouth and sucked his thumb in, down to the knuckle.

He pulled his hand back. “I didn’t give you permission.”

“I’m sorry, Sir.” I really was sorry, it wasn’t a coy play-along. This was a deeper level, and I wanted my ever action to reflect mindfulness of that. I wanted to please him.

The consequences would be harsher tonight. Though I wanted desperately to know what my punishment would be, if any, I kept studiously still. I didn’t even let myself breathe too heavily.

He got up and walked away, leaving me there, not bothering to tell me to stay, because he knew I would.

“On our first night together here,” he began, wandering idly around the sitting area. “I had no idea what to expect when I walked through that door. I thought maybe some sexy lingerie, or that I would find you naked in my bed. Another part of me feared you wouldn’t be here. And yet, I stepped through that door and found this gorgeous, incredibly sexy woman with her legs spread, fingering her beautiful cunt.”

The named part clenched at the picture his words painted in my mind.

“There are very few things in life that surprise me,” he continued, and only the direction of his voice gave me a clue as to where he was. “But you…you surprise me every day.”

“Thank you, Sir,” I whispered, and I closed my eyes. I wondered what he played at. He was making me anticipate my punishment, that much was clear, but I couldn’t tell if he planned to punish me or torment me with the possibility.

“Shall I surprise you tonight, Sophie?” he asked, his voice full of dark, unspoken promises.

“I-I would like that, Sir.”

“I am going upstairs, to investigate what you’ve brought for me. You will stay there, and stay still, until I return.” I heard him take a few of the stairs up to the loft before calling to me, “You know, I’d like you to count your breaths while you wait.”

I couldn’t imagine why, but I did as he asked. At ten breaths, I noticed my inhalations had become deeper. At twenty, my mind went with them, deeper still. At thirty, I was no longer kneeling on the carpet, but far from myself. Though my body was tense with anticipation, my mind was perfectly still. I was waiting. That was my only task, and by the time I reached fifty breaths, then a hundred, I was nearly euphoric at the thought of my next command. My chest hitched, my fingers flexed and clenched rhythmically beside my thighs. Between my legs, a hot, heavy desire bloomed and flourished. I needed him, his stern, commanding voice, his orders that I followed unquestioningly.

We had come so far from the night we’d shared in this room. Not just as a couple, but as a Dom and sub. Our deepened intimacy in those roles bled into every corner of our relationship. I wasn’t sure we would have the same relationship without this aspect that came so naturally to both of us.

He kept me waiting because he could, and that high of total control thrilled him as much as complete surrender thrilled me.

“I’m impressed,” he said as he came slowly down the stairs. I heard the crack of the leather flogger against the palm of his hand. I preferred a flogger with thicker tails. It was a heavier strike, a different kind of pain from thinner leather or rubber spaghetti. My skin tingled at the thought of the agony to come. I loved it, I hated it, I couldn’t live without it if I tried.

“Get on your hands and knees,” he ordered. “Get your ass in the air.”

I slid into position, and knew from the cool, damp fabric against my vulva that my black thong was already wet.

Not two feet from where I knelt, Neil had stood before me, six years after our first incredible night together, and inhaled the scent of me off a scrap of black lace.

“What did you do to earn this punishment?” he asked, slipping the handle of the flogger through one leg of my panties to pull them up tight between my labia.

“I shouldn’t have sucked on your thumb without your permission, Sir.” My voice quivered. I sounded so different to my own ears like this. I wasn’t used to my voice free from heavy sarcasm without restrained professionalism holding me in check.

“Do you know what I’m going to do now?” he asked.

“You’re going to whip me, Sir.”

“Five strokes. You count them.”

The decision to brace myself or not brace myself was taken from me when the first strike across my buttocks landed without further warning. I gasped a “one!” in shock; this was much harder than I was used to. I supposed that was what Neil had meant, when he’d said he would surprise me.

I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth against the pain that would come. The tails of the flogger caught me right under the curve of my buttocks. I couldn’t help the shout that preceded “two,” and I was relieved we were only doing five. I wouldn’t be sitting down much for the next few days.

The next lash landed on the backs of my thighs, with less force in order to avoid the tails wrapping around my leg. The fourth and fifth came in crossed slaps over the already stinging welts left behind from the first, and by the time I uttered, “five,” the word was sandwiched between a sob and a gasp.

He tossed the flogger aside and sat on the couch. “Get up here. Across my lap.”