Page 21 of Slick & Spooky
“No what?”
I swallow hard. “No, Sir.”
He presses in close until I can feel his heat ghosting over my skin without a single point of contact.
“Good boy,” he breathes, and somehow, it lands deeper than the sting ever could.
The teasing has me light-headed, like I might pass out from holding my breath and waiting for the pain I know is coming.
“Breathe for me,” he says, fingertips dragging featherlight down my spine. Goosebumps follow in their wake.
“Do you want a safe word?”
It’s an out. An escape. A lifeline.
But I think of every person who’s ever handled me like glass. Every time I’ve been padded, softened, protected from myself. And I realize that maybe I should say yes. Realistically, I probably should. But I know Knox won’t break me, and I want to see who I am when all the pieces are stripped away.
“No,” I say, steady.
“You sure?” he ask. “Because the version of me you’re begging for doesn’t hold back.”
His tone is clipped and unyielding. Carved from the same steel he’s been using to keep me at arm’s length all semester, but I can tell something’s shifted. There’s a crack in his restraint now, visible and splintering. He’s done pretending too.
“Yes, Sir. I’m sure,” I breathe, “Make it hurt so I know I’m not pretending anymore.”
“You want to be ruined?”
“Yes,” I gasp.
There’s a beat.
“You picked the right man.”
The paddle lifts and drops.
The first strike lands with a crack. Wood meeting skin in a perfect, punishing kiss. I jolt forward, breath ripped from my lungs in a sound that’s somewhere between a gasp and a moan. The sting is immediate, blooming across me like fire, but it’s the aftershock that curls my toes. Heat radiates from the spot, spreading like a fever.
I swear I can feel the grain of the paddle seared into my skin.
My body arches in offering.
Another strike. Then another.
By the fourth, I’m gone.
Tears prick the corners of my eyes, but it’s not from pain. It’s from the release. The clarity. The way he’s stripping me down to my rawest parts and still choosing me.
The wood drags along my skin again, slower this time, a means to underline and admire his own work. I’m trembling. Cock heavy, leaking, straining for contact and still, I don’t move. I don’t speak as I nervously await what comes next.
His thumb presses gently along the edge of one welt, grazing upward until it lands on the raised letters of his name.
“The letters left a mark,” he murmurs. His voice is different now, tinged with something possessive and unspoken. “I like it. Seeing you branded with my name.”
I moan, guttural and unashamed. “Then do it again.”
“You want them to know who you belong to?”
“I want you to know.”