Forsaken (The Secret Life of Amy Bensen #3)(28)

Returning to Gia, I squat at her feet, my fingers wrapping around her slender ankles, lingering there. And lingering some more. Waiting, waiting, and as I expect, she looks over her shoulder. “Face forward,” I command and she tenses, but obeys. Intentionally, I stay just as I am, letting seconds tick by, ensuring that she feels my eyes once again raking over her naked body. Lingering, letting her feel vulnerable when she is safe, fighting a need to give her one last memory in her life that is without fear. We don’t have that luxury. She doesn’t have that luxury.

When I am certain she has waited long enough to feel every touch magnified, I allow my thumbs to lazily stroke her ankles. She stiffens but almost instantly softens, my cue to inch my way upward, caressing her calves. Moving onward I find the back of her knees, where my thumbs linger again, and finally I use my knee to urge her legs to part. “Open,” I order. She starts to turn and I warn, “Don’t.”

She sucks in a heavy breath and sets her legs in a V. I cup her thighs just above her knees, still using my thumb as a seductive tool. Finally, I explore the lines between her inner thighs, using a teasing touch that doesn’t stop until I almost reach the sweet spots in the V of her body. But I don’t go there.

I want to. Hell yeah, I want to go there, but it’s not time. Instead, I trail both index fingers over the curve of her gorgeous, heart-shaped ass. And the instant I travel upward, traveling the crevice of her cheeks, she gasps, shifting slightly, her hands starting to drop. I’m on my feet before she’s fully moved, leaning into her, covering her hands with mine.

“Now you pay the price,” I promise, and with the tie to the curtain still in the bathroom, I improvise, reaching down to pull my belt free from its loops. Still anchoring her body with mine, one hand holding her hands in place, I quickly wrap it around her wrists.

“What are you doing?” she demands, sounding panicked, uncertain, exactly what I’d expected, planning to make this lesson short and exact, moving on to the adrenaline rush, the pleasure.

“Consequences,” I reply, tightening the belt and buckling it. “Making sure you remember that every decision you make has them.” Still shackling her wrists, my free hand flattens on her bare belly, my fingers splaying wide, my lips brushing her ear as I add, “And now I can do whatever I want to you, and you can’t stop me. Are you scared?”

“Do you want me to be?”

“Answer the question. Are you scared?”

She inhales and lets it out. “Nervous.”

Nervous isn’t scared. That isn’t good enough. For just a few minutes, I need her to feel panic, to see what poison trust can deliver. I cup her backside with both hands, tightening my thighs around her thighs. “I’m going to spank you.”

“What? No. No, I—”

“Then I’ll f*ck you.”

“No, Chad.”

“Yes, Gia. I’m going to step back and fully undress. If you move, I’ll spank you the second you do.”

“I’m going to move,” she assures me.

“Then I’m going to spank you. It’s your choice. I told you not to trust me.”

“So you’re going to prove I shouldn’t. Is that it?”

I ignore the question. “Have you ever been spanked?”

“No, I haven’t, and I don’t want to change that.”

“You might be surprised by how damn sexy and thrilling it is.”

“Say that when someone spanks you.”

Once again, I find myself smiling, which is pretty f*cking amazing. I squeeze her cheeks. “I’m going to undress now, Gia. Remember my warning.”

I step away and shove my pants down, and the instant I do, she turns. I’m back on her before she escapes, turning her back to the wall, locking my legs around hers. “Chad—” she hisses, but I cut her off.

“Don’t object, or fight it,” I say, cupping her backside and massaging it, warming her skin for what’s to come. “It’ll only make it worse.”

“Chad,” she pleads.

“What are you thinking right now?”

“That you’re an *.”

“What else?”

“That you’re naked, and I don’t know why I’m aroused and still want you, when you’re such an *.”

My lips quirk. “What else?”

“I can’t think. I can’t think!”

“That’s what this is all about. It’s the escape. There’s nothing else but you and me and here and now. And you know what I’m thinking? About f*cking you. About being inside you and feeling how hot and wet and tight you are. Nothing else. But first I’m going to spank you.”

“I . . . but is it going to hurt?”

“A tiny sting.” I lean in and nuzzle her neck. “This is just about you and me and pleasure. I’m not going to hurt you. Okay?”

“Yes,” she whispers. “Yes, okay.”

I move to her side, viewing her profile, my cock resting at her hip and belly, one leg in front of her, the other in the back. Her bound wrists rest in front of her chest and I don’t move them, to give her the leverage of the wall when I spank her. One of my hands flattens on her belly, the other goes to her head, forcing her to look at me. “Now is the time you need to trust me.”