Confusion. Not the sticks? “What way?”
His voice was so low it was a growl. “You will speak well of yourself in my presence. If I have to emotionally Dom you until the sun rises tomorrow, you will learn not to degrade yourself. What do you say?”
Shock blanked her mind. In the end, all that was left was a reflex that the person growling at her must be correct and she must be wrong again. “Okay.”
“Princess, is that what you say?” His tone was less stern and more instructive.
“I mean—I mean, yes, sir.”
“Leave this trash on the floor and do what I told you to.”
Colleen gingerly made her way through the little sticks lying on the floor, careful to walk with her toes feeling her way through the darkness ahead of her lest her stiletto heels roll off one of them and break her ankle, until she found the frame Twist had referred to. The metal cooled her fingers and palms as she slid her hands over the rails.
She’d thought the contraption would be taller, but the rails curved like the top of a pool ladder.
She felt his warmth behind her before she heard him. He lifted both her elbows and ran his hands down her forearms, smoothing her hands onto the rails. “Reach farther.”
Colleen stepped forward, but her shins nudged some more of the device. “There’s something—”
His hand pressed between her shoulder blades, bending her.
Colleen acquiesced, hinging from her hips and letting her hands slide farther out on the rails. The stiletto heels on her boots made it difficult to balance, and her toes grabbed onto her soles inside her shoes so she didn’t tip forward.
As she descended, her front found a leather pad underneath her, and she turned her head as she rested on it.
Twist ran his hand down her naked spine and over the skin of her butt to her thighs. “Your ass looks amazing in these boots.”
Colleen flexed her fingers and took a tighter hold on the bars.
“What do you say?”
“—Yes, sir.”
“It’s a shame we have to keep the lights down so low. I’d love to see the marks I’m going to put on you. Every inch of your skin with my marks on it belongs to me, princess. Do you understand?”
A tremor ran through her. “Yes, please.”
“What a gift, you are,” he whispered near her ear and then backed off. “Only my words or your safewords, and nothing else.”
“Yes, sir.”
A crisp clack snapped in the air. “Tell me your safe words again.”
“Yellow to pause or slow down. Red to stop.”
“Correct. Your first punishment is that you may no longer say yes, sir. Your only response will be yes, please.”
Colleen nodded. “Yes, please.”
“And your second—”
A sharp snap stung her backside, low and on her left haunch.
She sucked in air through her nose but didn’t make a sound.
“Remember what I told you. Relax.”
Colleen wrapped her arms around the cold railings, trying to relax the muscles of her butt and legs. The sting was narrow and long, definitely not his hand spanking her again. It felt like a small whip, and she wondered if she’d knocked over a pail of riding crops.
