Maxence had never taken off his belt like that before.
Cool leather bounced on the skin of her behind, a gentle stroke that could not be considered a slap.
She braced herself, tightening her thighs and digging into the carpet with her fingernails. Anything might happen next.
“Don’t tense up.”
“Why? I don’t understand.”
The pop of the belt on her butt had a little more force this time. “If you tense the muscles and make them hard, you’ll bruise. If you keep everything relaxed—”
His warm hand stroking the back of her buttocks made her flinch.
“—the belt will sink farther into the softness of your flesh before it stops. It’s the difference between you holding out your hand in the air and someone slaps it away, and holding your hand on a desk while someone hits it with a ruler, crushing it against the wood.”
Maxence’s dark blue suit jacket, red tie, and his shirt and undershirt fell to the carpet beside Dree’s hand. The crisp white cotton of his shirt covered her pinky. The warmth of his body lingered in the cloth.
The tips of his shoes finally moved, and the legs of the chair whispered against the carpet.
He was sitting behind her and staring at her butt and her opening.
She asked, “Am I being punished for that guy flirting with me?”
Maxence’s dark chuckle was scarier than anything else going on at the moment. “No, of course not. You aren’t responsible for him. I’m just blowing off some steam with you because it would be inadvisable for me to chase him down and beat the living daylights out of him.”
“You’re not mad at me?”
“If I were, we would not be doing what you’re doing right now. As I said,” he ran his hand over her hip and down her thigh, and she felt his lips on the small of her back, “I need a distraction, and your squeals and screams distract me like nothing else in the world. You remember your safe words?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
The slap of his belt on her hip was a little more solid this time, just beginning to sting. And he followed it up with another slap to her other butt cheek. The small gasp she couldn’t hold in was more surprise than hurt.
“Stay relaxed.”
Little pops of the belt peppered her back over her ribs and her ass again.
And then the warmth of Maxence’s hand smoothed even that small sting away.
He scattered slaps over her back and ass and then stroked his palm over her skin again, and her muscles relaxed under his massage. “The point of this is to spank your lush bottom until it turns a pretty rosy pink, not purple and blue.”
The next time, the smacks had more authority, each one a snap like a thick rubber band on her skin. She couldn’t help but gasp when each one landed on the flesh of her ass or her back.
He smoothed both of his palms over her, rubbing up and down her back like he was languorously kneading bread.
His hands slid farther down over the cheeks of her ass, kneading those muscles too, and then his thumbs slid toward her center, massaging her soft folds of flesh there.
Intense pleasure spiraled up her as his thumb rolled over her clit, contrasting the nip of his belt.
But he stopped too soon, as she’d suspected he would.
His next strikes with the belt flipped up to her shoulders and curled around her ribs to tweak her nipples like a hard pinch.
She gasped.
“Stand up and turn around.”
