For a moment, fear claimed the upper hand in her turmoil of spirit.
‘Are you going to hurt me?’
He patted her bottom.
‘I told you. Nothing you can’t handle. Just enough to show you I mean business. If it gets too much for you, just ask me to stop. I can’t believe you wouldn’t.’
Of course. It was obvious. But Jenna was shocked that this hadn’t even occurred to her. She had swallowed Jason’s authority whole, to the extent that questioning it seemed verboten. How had he done this to her, so effortlessly?
Her fear fell like a stone to the lowest reaches of her emotions. Now he was raising the skirt of her dress, revealing her knickers, causing her to squirm a little in his lap.
‘Don’t,’ he said softly. ‘Still.’
He lowered her knickers to her knees. She felt excruciatingly small and humble, reduced to her lowest status since childhood. She took the feeling and, instead of fighting it, sank into it, letting it seep into her overtired being. How light she felt now, how ready for what was coming to her.
When he laid the first stroke, she gave a sound that was more purr than plaint. Yes, she remembered it right, it had felt good. A wake-up call to her skin, to her flesh, to her sex and to that inner kernel of submissiveness she had ignored for all these years.
She knew he was holding back, testing her. The first few slaps were not much more than pats on her bare bottom, but together they joined and spread a festive warmth across her rump.
He paused to stroke her curves.
‘Is that OK?’ he asked, and she realised then that all the power was not with him. He had got her where he wanted her, but he wasn’t going to abuse or overstep her trust. She was safe.
She nodded, then added, ‘Quite nice, actually.’
‘I knew it,’ he said, laying a hard and hearty smack that made her yelp. ‘I knew I was right about you. I’ll stop pussy-footing around then, shall I?’
And he did. She had to hang on to that stool for dear life while he made her bottom scorch and her body flail and her sex melt into a flood of pure need. His palm was hard and his arm had a surprising amount of stamina, considering that it didn’t do much more than hold a paintbrush most days.
But the longer he spanked her, the more she felt she could take. She didn’t mind the sting, didn’t mind the burn – in fact, she found it cathartic. She embraced it, pushing up her bottom for more. It was a good few minutes of solid smack-smack-smack before she began to struggle and emit breathy little cries. But still she didn’t ask him to stop.
Towards the end, he started to speak to her, in gruff, broken sentences.
‘So-won’t-be-doing that-again, eh? Ask-me-next time.’
Words seem to coincide with strokes.
‘Yes, yes, I will,’ she gasped. ‘Won’t do that again … Owww.’
‘Not so easy, now?’
An ‘Ah’ like the escape of gas was all she could manage.
He stayed his hand and laid it on her hot rounds, rubbing them.
‘Bright red,’ he said. ‘I think the lesson got through, don’t you?’
‘Mm,’ she said meekly.
‘What’s that? Didn’t catch it.’
‘Yes,’ she whispered.
‘So,’ he said, his hands heavy on her sore flesh. ‘What was the lesson?’
‘I won’t do anything that concerns you without talking to you first,’ she said.
‘Is that all?’