“All right,” says Morgana, the teacher. “Any takers?”
I stiffen in my seat, my back straight, my nape tingling harder.
People shuffle, a big, hairy man in strappy leather stands up. “Me, me, me!” he shrieks, jumping up and down, which has everyone laughing and teasing.
After a quick wipe-off, he takes the other person’s place on the bench. She looks around, asking if anyone’s up for spanking or if she should do the honors herself.
Someone gets up—a small, muscular woman in a sports bra, gym shorts, and sneakers. “I got this.” She cracks her knuckles, to the delight of the crowd, she chooses a small leather strap and, after a quick discussion on specific limits and consent, sets to work on the man. The spanking itself is fun and theatrical, with a few pointers from Morgana making it feel like a learning experience. The wildest course I’ve ever taken.
She asks for more volunteers, gets a new couple, then another. All the while, I’m thinking…I could do it. I could. The idea builds inside me and builds, the rushing in my head with it, the tingling, the squirmy, excited feeling that I’m on the cusp of something big and meaningful and right. I want this. Not just an idea now, but an imperative. I need to get up there and bend over that bench, desperately. Now. Now. And then, Morgana’s asking for a volunteer and I stand before she’s finished her sentence.
“I’ll do it,” I say. “I’ll get spanked.”
“Great!”
I move quickly to the front, before I can talk myself out of it. “Should I…” I indicate the bench Morgana just wiped off.
“Might want to take off the robe.”
“Oh, right.” I pull at the sash.
“Any spankers present?”
Someone starts to get up. “Sure. I’ll—”
“The hell you will.” Zion’s voice slices through the levity like the sharp tip of a whip. Shock ricochets through me
Everything goes quiet.
My robe, forgotten now, drops from my shoulders with a slick slide. I barely notice it. All I can see is the hungry way he watches me, the danger lurking in those eyes. A shiver runs through me, drawing goose bumps to the surface of my skin and I can’t for the life of me figure out if I’m unnerved or excited or some other thing entirely.
With effort, I tear my gaze from his, working hard to appear indifferent. When I do, I could swear that a low, threatening growl rises up from his vicinity. It takes everything I have not to react.
I guess the lion’s out of its cage.
14
Zion
“Bend over,” I say into the silence.
At the front of the tent, my wife’s in nothing but that bright yellow bikini, her eyes wide, her mouth a tight little O.
“You okay with this?” Morgana asks.
Twyla doesn’t take her eyes off me, though her expression morphs from surprise into a squinty-eyed annoyance that I feel in my gut. Good. She should be irritated, dammit. She’s the one who busted into my life here, breached walls she had no fucking right to. If the little brat’s gonna traipse aroundmyworld half naked, then she’ll get exactly what she’s got coming to her.
Lips tight, eyes slitted, she nods. “Yep. Fine.”
Morgana watches us. “Want the switch or a pad—?”
“Bare-handed,” I cut through, cracking my knuckles for effect. “You good with that?” Her easy nod only chafes me. “Limits?”
Twyla’s nostrils flare. “Nope.”
“Okay, then, sweetheart. Bend…over.”
Barely hearing the gasps and whispers behind me, I watch, riveted, as my wife lowers her top half to the leather bench, glaring over her shoulder, and presents me with the finest ass I’ve ever laid eyes on. Fuck me. Look at that. It’s round and wide and dimpled and it does something to me—turns me wild and raw. Makes me want to hurt and plunder and take, take, take.
