"Fuck," I whispered into the bedsheets, the word barely audible through my wrecked throat. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."
A sound rumbled from his chest—might have been a laugh, might have been something else.
"That's one way to put it."
I was completely limp now, draped across his lap like a wet towel, every muscle gone liquid. I'd never come like that in my life. Hadn't known my body was capable of that kind of release. Hadn't known orgasms could be violent, overwhelming, transcendent things that rewrote your understanding of yourself.
"I didn't know," I managed, words slurred like I was drunk. Maybe I was—drunk on endorphins, on submission, on the devastating discovery that being spanked by Konstantin Besharov could make me come hard enough to see God. "Didn't know I could..."
"Come from a spanking?" His hand was still in my hair, fingers gentle against my scalp. "Or come that hard?"
"Either. Both." I turned my head slightly, just enough to breathe better, and felt cool air hit my tear-streaked face. "I've never—nothing's ever been like that."
"Good."
The satisfaction in that single word made me clench again, a tiny aftershock rippling through oversensitized nerves.
"Can't move," I mumbled against the bedspread. "Can't think. Possibly can't remember my own name."
"Maya," he supplied, and there was definite humor in his voice now. "Dr. Maya Cross. Brilliant physician, terrible at self-care, absolutely perfect when you come apart in my lap."
The praise made warmth bloom in my chest, different from the sexual heat—softer, deeper, more dangerous.
"Not perfect," I protested weakly.
"Perfect for me," he clarified, and something in his tone made my breath catch.
We stayed like that for another moment—me boneless across his lap, him holding me steady with one hand in my hair and the other now resting on my tender ass. I could still feel his erection pressing against my hip, still hard, still wanting. The knowledge that he'd given me that earth-shattering orgasm while denying himself made something warm and grateful unfurl in my chest.
"Thank you, Daddy," I whispered, the title coming easier now, feeling right on my tongue.
His hands tightened slightly—not painful, just possessive. Claiming.
"We're not done yet, little bird."
He lifted me like I weighed nothing, those massive hands rearranging my body with a gentleness that made my chest ache. One moment I was draped across his lap, the next I was cradled against his chest, my face pressed into the warm cotton of his shirt, his arms creating a fortress around me.
I was shaking—not from cold or fear but from the intensity of what had just happened. My body felt electric and exhausted simultaneously, every nerve still singing while my muscles had gone completely liquid. Tears leaked from my eyes steadily, soaking into his shirt, but they didn't feel like sadness. They felt like release, like pressure finally escaping after being trapped too long.
"I've got you," he murmured into my hair, and his arms tightened fractionally. "Just breathe. You're safe."
Safe. The word settled into my bones, true in a way that nothing had been true for a very long time. I was safe here, held by this dangerous man who'd just spanked me into the most intense orgasm of my life. Safe to be small, to be vulnerable, to be the mess I actually was instead of the composed doctor I pretended to be.
My ass throbbed with heat, tender and marked, and somehow that made me feel more grounded. Real. Present in my body in away I hadn't been for months. Every time I shifted, the soreness reminded me what had happened, what I'd allowed, what I'd earned.
"I ruined it," I managed against his chest, the words muffled and thick with tears.
His hand stilled in my hair. "What?"
"The three days." I pulled back just enough to look at him, knowing my face was a disaster—tear-streaked, flushed, probably splotchy and swollen. "I was so close. One more day and I would have made it, and now I have to start over and—"
"No."
The word cut through my spiral, definitive and absolute. His hand cupped my jaw, thumb brushing away tears that wouldn't stop falling.
"That's not how this works, Maya."
I blinked at him, confused. "But I broke the rules. I failed—"
