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“Bad or good?” he demanded roughly.

“I . . . bad,” she whispered, shame and arousal vying for control of her mind and body. His expression stiffened. “And good. So good.”

“Damn it,” he muttered, his eyes blazing, although she had the distinct impression he liked her answer instead of being angered by it. He brought down the crop again, popping the underside of her other breast, making the globe jiggle slightly. She bit her lip, but her moan vibrated in her throat. “I’m going to turn your ass red for that, you little . . .”

She never learned what sort of a “little” she was, because he popped a nipple again and again, his actions gentle, but firm enough to cause a burning sting that made Francesca grit her teeth and clench her eyes shut. Without thinking, she thrust her breasts forward.

“That’s right, present yourself to me,” she heard him mutter as he popped the underside and side of her breast several times. “Now . . . tell me what you damn well please at this moment?” he murmured, sliding the crop sensually across both of her breasts. Her eyes still clamped shut, she was exquisitely attuned to the sensation. God, her clit was screaming for attention between her thighs.

“Francesca?” he asked sharply.

Oh, no. He wasn’t going to make her say it. He slid the leather slapper across a nipple and made a twitching movement, stimulating her all the way to her core. She gasped.

“It would please me if you . . .”

He twitched the slapper on her nipple again, and she trembled.

“Just say it. There’s no shame in it,” he said, his voice sounding hard and soft at once.

Her jaw tightened, torn between speaking the truth and swallowing it. He massaged her nipple briskly with the leather.

“It would please me if you slapped me . . . between my thighs.”

She opened her eyes warily when he lifted the nipple and didn’t speak. “What?” she asked after a moment, unable to read his rigid expression.

He shook his head slowly, and she realized he was stunned. His nostrils flared, and he suddenly looked fierce. Her heart sank. It suddenly struck her that he hadn’t been expecting her to say that.

“I . . . well, anywhere . . . I . . . I’m sorry. Ian?” she asked, bewildered by his reaction, not sure what she was supposed to say.

“Don’t ever apologize for being beautiful,” he said, before he stepped forward and placed his hand along the side of her jaw. He seized her mouth with his own, pillaging it with his shaping, firm lips and plunging tongue. His taste—his forceful possession—had just started to make her intoxicated, when he lifted his head. “You tempt me beyond reason.” Francesca panted against his lips. His tone had sounded like an accusation, but it began to dawn on her that in this situation, at least, it definitely indicated he was pleased.

Heat flooded her sex, his pleasure somehow her own.

“But I won’t be sidetracked.”

“I wasn’t trying to sidetrack you—”

“I will finish this punishment,” he said as if steeling himself, ignoring her outburst. He kissed her once softly on the mouth. “Now bend over and present your bottom. You may keep your thighs together since your hands are restrained. I’m going to have to make your sweet ass burn for making me worry like that.”

Something in his tone made her think he was going to punish her harder than he had that first time. She lowered her arms, bending and placing her restrained hands on her knees. He immediately began to rub the leather slapper over her ass cheeks in a sliding caress. She recalled how Ian had told her to arch her back slightly. Her sex clenched tight; her supersensitive nipples prickled as she thrust them forward.

He paused in his caressing of her bottom with the slapper. She glanced sideways at him anxiously.

He muttered a blistering curse. She watched in mounting arousal as he began to unfasten his pants hastily. Instead of drawing them down his thighs, he left them around his hips, merely reaching inside the open fly to draw out his rigid erection with what appeared to be considerable effort. He let the heavy weight of it fall once it was free, the bunched boxer briefs and fabric from his pants keeping it suspended at a horizontal angle from his body.

She stared at his cock in amazement. She’d never seen it this close before. He’d never really let her. It stunned her how beautiful it was. How did he walk around with something so obvious, so large, between his legs all the time? Granted, he usually wasn’t this hard . . . but still. It seemed incomprehensible to her, the sheer flagrancy of his sex. She stared, spellbound, at the thick, lengthy staff with several swollen veins running along it, feeding his arousal; the tapered, succulent head that made her mouth water; the shaved, full testicles.

“I should have blindfolded you,” he muttered dryly. “Look down at the floor, lovely.” She did so, having trouble catching her breath. He rubbed the crop against her bottom. “Are you ready?”

“Yes,” she squeaked. Was she?

He popped her ass with the slapper, and she squealed. Perhaps he was learning to differentiate her sounds of excitement versus her sounds of pain, because he continued to smack her, landing the popper on different patches of skin each time, heating her entire ass. Once he’d spanked both buttocks entirely, he began again. The slapping of her already spanked skin did sting. She gritted her teeth, the unbearable sizzle of her clit helping her endure the slight burn of discomfort. Why did the slapper seem to be stimulating her nipples at such a distance? And why in the world did even the soles of her feet start to burn as he continued to punish her bottom?