“Do you understand?” he said.
“Yes, my Lord.”
He held my eyes.
“You will count them aloud. Each one. You will thank the year as it goes. Thank you for the first year. Thank you for the second. Thank you for the third. Each strike is a year you are taking back. Each thank-you is the year acknowledging that it belonged to you all along, and you are claiming it now.”
I inhaled.
The wet between my legs was not secret anymore. It was present. It was physical. The shift was thin. He could see. I knew he could see. The bond was carrying everything — my arousal, his response to it, the low steady pulse of want that had been building in him since the study, since the contract, since the first night when he stood on the dais and said I have been waiting for you.
“Come here,” he said.
I went to him.
He drew me over his lap. His thigh under my hips, solid, the muscle of it firm through the dark fabric of his trousers. The shift had rucked up around my waist when he drew me over, the white silk pooling at the small of my back, and I was barebeneath it except for the simple cotton panties I had put on that morning without thinking.
He hooked a finger into the waistband.
He drew them down. Inch by inch. The cotton whispered against my skin, down over the curve of my ass, down my thighs, and he lifted my hips slightly with his other hand—a small adjustive lift, careful with something precious—and the panties came free. He set them aside on the arm of the chair, beyond my sight. I was face-down over his lap, my cheek against the wine-red fabric of the upholstery, my arms dangling, and the cool air of the chamber touched the bare skin of my bottom and the wet heat between my legs, and I shivered.
He noticed.
I felt him notice. Through the bond—the small shift in his attention, the focus narrowing, his gaze dropping to where the cotton had been. I was wet. Slick. Ready. The arousal that had opened like a well in the previous chamber had not closed. It had deepened. The shift was thin. He could see everything—the flushed pink of my inner thighs, the glistening wet at the seam of me, my body already clenching and releasing without being touched.
He laid his palm on the small of my back. Warm. Broad. The same palm that had cradled my face in the gallery, that had set the stylus into my hand, that had written nine clauses in white-gold on a dark page. His thumb traced a line along the dip of my spine.
“I will discipline you now,” he said.
Low. Even.
“Nine strikes. Measured. Deliberate. My hand is broad. You will feel each one. Between each strike, I will rest my palm flat on your skin. The heat will bloom. The care will be felt. Do you understand?”
“Yes, my Lord.”
The first strike landed.
His palm connected with the full curve of my right cheek. The sound was clean — a sharp, bright crack that echoed in the warm wood chamber. The heat bloomed instantly. Not pain. Heat. A spreading warmth that radiated outward from the point of contact, and under the heat, deeper, the certainty that this was care. This was attention. This was the hand behind the promise I will surrender my pride in equal measure to enforce your worth, now placing that promise exactly where it was needed.
He rested his palm flat on the heated skin.
The warmth of his hand against the warmth he had created. The pause. The care being felt. I counted.
“One. Thank you for the first year.”
His hand lifted.
The second strike landed on the left cheek. Harder. The heat doubled. The wet between my legs doubled with it. I felt myself clench—a full-body clench, involuntary, the muscles of my ass tightening under his palm, the muscles between my legs tightening around nothing, and I felt his response to the clench—a low pulse of want, controlled, banked, but present. He was hard under me. I could feel him through the fabric of his trousers, the thick length of him pressing against my hip, and the bond carried that too—the heat of him, the weight, the discipline he was using to hold himself back.
“Two. Thank you for the second year.”
The third strike crossed both cheeks. The heat built. The arousal built with it. I was making sounds now—small, involuntary sounds that were not pain and were not quite pleasure but were sliding toward pleasure with each strike. The wet had spread. I could feel it on my inner thighs, slick, warm, the shift rucked up around my waist doing nothing to hide it.
“Three. Thank you for the third year.”
The fourth strike landed. The heat bloomed and kept blooming. It was not pain anymore. It was overwhelming sensation—heat radiating through my pelvis, through my hips, meeting the wet between my legs and turning it into something sharper, something that made my hips shift on his lap without my permission. A small grind. A seeking motion. The bond showed me his response—a sharp intake of breath, controlled, his gaze flaring wide for a half-beat before he banked it.
“Four. Thank you for the fourth year.”
