A Lesson in Thorns (Thornchapel #1)(41)

I wish I could tell him about the endorphins, which even now are coaxing heady, dizzy bliss to the surface. I wish I could tell him how the red heat on my ass has sunk into every secret place in my body, kindling warmth at the tips of my breasts and at the juncture of my thighs. I wish I could tell him that he’s beautiful. As beautiful as this spanking feels, which is the kind of beauty that comes with bitter pain and is all the better for it.

Auden’s about to do number thirty-four now, and I’m unable to stay completely still. I’m squirming in his lap, and each squirm adds a delicious grind of friction from my clit against his thigh, and also sends me grinding against his cock too.

This time, Auden doesn’t ask me to stop.

A massive thwack makes the whole room suck in its breath, even Auden—who is undoubtedly feeling the sting in his hand right now. I manage to moan out thirty-four, almost beyond all thought, beyond anything but the heat on my bottom and the yanking, angry orgasm building behind my clit. For the first time in my life, I’m about to come with someone else. With several someone elses.

And also for the first time in my life, there’s no feeling of wait, there’s no sense that somehow this isn’t right. It all feels right, nothing feels wrong, and maybe it will happen, if I could have just another moment of grinding against Auden’s muscular thigh . . .

Spank number thirty-five makes me scream. It sears through me, it sets every nerve ending jangling with a surfeit of pain, and I’m rolling my face against the couch cushions, the cushions that are wet with my own tears. My orgasm is hovering, hot, ready to tear me apart if only I could just—

Two things happen at once.

Firstly, Rebecca kneels beside the sofa and gently turns my head toward hers. Her lips brush against my tear-wet mouth, and then she gives me a deep and appreciative kiss. I moan into her mouth, into the softness of it, the satin touch of her tongue and the warmth of her lips. I moan again when she pulls away and the kiss is over.

And secondly, I notice that Auden is completely frozen underneath me, not moving at all—except for the hand that’s come to rest on my bottom, that seems to be reflexively soothing the place he just hurt. I also notice a hot, wet feeling against my hip.

Auden came.

He came from spanking me.

I brace up on my elbows and look at him over my shoulder. He looks stunned, lost, no longer the spoiled boy-king, but the wandering knight who’s just seen the Grail . . . only to have it disappear before he could close his fingers around it.

Those long, long eyelashes flutter as he closes his eyes and drops his head back against the sofa, and the silence around the room breaks when Becket says quietly, “Saint’s gone.”





Chapter 13





Somehow, Auden and I manage to extricate ourselves with minimal embarrassment. The dim room hides the evidence of the pleasure he took in my spanking, and when I stand and Rebecca helps me pull up my tights—checking my ass first to make sure I don’t need any other care—the expressions on Becket and Delphine’s faces are not condemning or concerned. Both of them look near drunk—pale skin flushed with hungry, glassy eyes—the expression of voyeurs with whetted appetites.

But I can’t sate those appetites right now. The only thing I want to do is find St. Sebastian and . . . well, I don’t know yet.

Just find him, I guess, and hope that I haven’t irreparably broken something.

The minute my skirt is back down, I’m padding quickly across the floor and out into the corridor, shivering against the cold air seeping in from the broken window. I wrap my arms around my chest as I go into the main hall and see that Saint has opened one of the big front doors and is about to leave.

“Wait!” I call out, rushing forward. “Don’t go!”

Saint stops, but he doesn’t turn and neither does he close the door, which sends the icy wind whipping through the high hall, and sleet bouncing against his feet.

So I shut the door for him, firmly, standing between him and it until he looks at me.

“What is it?” he asks tiredly.

“That’s my question to ask,” I say. “You should be riding with Becket if you want to leave. Not planning to slog home in the ice and wind in order to prove a point.”

He lets out a joyless bark of laughter at that. “To prove a point? Is that what you think I’m doing?”

“Well, isn’t it? You don’t have to pretend with me, St. Sebastian, I’m not afraid of your honesty. And I’m not new to people having ideas about the things people like Rebecca and I enjoy—”

Saint braces a hand against the door next to my head and stares at me with those dark eyes. He’s nibbling thoughtfully at his lip piercing, as if choosing exactly what he wants to say next.

“I’ve never done what you did in there,” he finally says. “Or what Rebecca did. I’ve never hurt someone, and I’ve never been hurt—for fun, I mean. For—” there’s the faintest flush under his cheeks now, “—for pleasure. But that doesn’t mean that I haven’t wanted it, you know. That doesn’t mean I haven’t been craving it for years, that I don’t fantasize about it—”

He catches his breath; there’s shame everywhere through him, and it’s so delicious that I just want to lick it right off his body and make it my own. “Look at me, Poe,” he pleads, and when I search his face, he shakes his head and dips his chin. “I mean, look.”