It also revealed his quite unreasonable demand that punishment couldn’t be combined with pleasure.
No. That’s not quite right. I can combine them, just not on days when I’ve done something that requires correction.
The rules make my head spin. And send butterflies whirling through my belly. And palpitations. And stand every nerve on end.
I punch the pillow again, savagely this time to show it who’s boss. The result doesn’t send me careening towards sleep any more than the previous attempts.
Giving up, I lay on my back and stare at the ceiling. The winking of the bathroom smoke detector appears to be the antidote to counting sheep. With every red flash, I’m wider awake.
A knock comes on my door, so tentative that the first time it happens, my brain tries to find an alternative explanation. Then it comes again, slightly louder. Then once more, unmistakeable this time.
I leap out of bed, ignoring the scaredy cat that lives in my head who insists it’s just a really polite killer. Even if that turns out to be the case, what it is right now is a welcome distraction, and I’m wholly on board.
“I couldn’t sleep,” Baxter says when I fling the door open, ready to give someone a piece of my mind.
Instead, the coarse words die in my throat, shoved aside as I admit, “Neither can I.”
He taps the face of his watch. “You know, it’s after midnight.”
A flood of arousal courses up my body. When it hits my nipples and they turn to stone like they’ve seen Medusa, I cross my arms, shielding the fact. I offer a weak, “Mm-hm.”
“Technically,” Baxter says, walking inside and shutting the door, locking it from the inside for a change. “It’s now tomorrow and all our restrictions are at an end.”
I back up a step and he matches me with one step forward. I take another, then another, until the backs of my legs hit against the bed.
All I have on is my underwear. Baxter still wears his full suit. I can’t tell if that tips the balance of power towards me or him. When he grasps me around the back of the neck, holding me steady so he can take my lips, I cease to care.
His kiss is hard, heavy, and possessive. It feels like he’s marking me as his lips crush against mine, his lower body surging forwards so that I can feel his throbbing hardness against my lower abdomen.
I reach up to caress the side of his face, but his free hand pulls mine away, securing it behind my back and using that grip to press me more firmly against him. His tongue plunges into my mouth, teasing at mine, then retreating. When he tears his lips away to plant them against my neck instead, I gasp for air.
“Get on the bed,” he growls against the base of my throat, the vibrations echoing along my windpipe.
I let my body sag and he steers me where he wants me to go, releasing my hand and the back of my neck in order to lift my hips and slide my panties down, revealing my sex.
He kneels before me, spreading my thighs apart until I’m fully exposed. A trail of kisses ignite the delicate skin of my inner thighs, then his thumbs work on me, mouth blowing a warm breath through my clipped curls before he pulls my lips apart.
When his tongue touches against my centre, I’m so close to the edge that I stifle a cry against my forearm.
“Don’t do that,” he grumbles, stopping his attentions to pull my arm away from my mouth. “I want to hear you,” he mutters against my inner thigh. “I want to hear every sound you make.”
He drapes my legs over his shoulders and runs his tongue along the inside of my folds, swirling around my clit until I grab a handful of his hair and pull him away. “Not yet.”
His rough smile makes my stomach feel like I’m falling. Then he lifts my hand away. “If I want you to come now, then you will.”
Before I can mount another protest, his tongue returns to my pussy, lapping at my centre once, twice, then tensing as it moves down, down, down, thrusting around my entrance until my thighs squeeze his head, my hips moving in time with his motions.
A finger joins his tongue, nudging inside until it’s buried up to the first knuckle and if he stopped now, I’d kill him. Literally kill him. I cross my legs at the ankles, bucking up against his face, an upside-down rider desperate to cross the finish line.
Another finger thrusts inside me, curling and stroking until it finds my most sensitive tissue and drags the orgasm out of me as I pant and gasp and finally scream his name.
Even as I crest the wave, he continues to work me, extending the sensation until it edges towards the wrong kind of painful. Just as I think I can’t stand another second, Baxter slowly draws his fingers from me, letting my legs fall back to the mattress as he stands and grabs a handful of my hair to tug me towards him.
He slips his fingers between my lips, letting me taste myself as I suck them clean, knowing I’ve done well when he swaps them for his mouth, tongue roughly intruding until I cling to him, breathless. “I wanted to come with you inside me.”
“You can come again when I’m smacking that pretty arse of yours.” He flips me onto my stomach, unhooking my bra with one snap, and pulling the straps down my arms before snatching it away.
I roll over and his eyes scorch a trail across my naked breasts, so full of appreciation that I raise my arms and spread my legs to let him see more. Drinking in his expression as his gaze roams over me reignites my ache to have him inside me. It takes long minutes of intensifying need until he looks his fill and reaches out to my hips to reposition me.
