“No,” I say, meaning it. “I am not afraid.”
I blink and we’re face to face, his back against the couch, his shaft thick and hard between my thighs. He pulls my hands between us and he cradles me, his palm on my backside. “I told you I would spank you.”
“I’m quite clear on your tastes, Kayden. It’s not the first time you’ve . . . done that.”
“This is different than before,” he warns. “This is a real spanking, not the pats from before.”
“Those were pats?”
“Yes. Those were what I call pats. You still—”
“Yes,” I say firmly.
“After all he did to you, even beat you, you’d let me do that?”
“You’re not him.”
“Why aren’t you afraid, Ella?”
“Because you’re not him.” And then it hits me, the message he’s getting across. “I trust you completely. There’s your point. But I told you that I trust you. I think it’s you who doubts me.”
“No. I don’t doubt your trust. Why do you trust me? And don’t say it’s because I’m me.”
“You would never hurt me. Because you’re . . . safe.”
“Yes,” he says, his free hand brushing my hair back and tilting my face to his. “Safety comes first. It allows you to keep fighting the battles that need to be fought.”
Suddenly I am squeezing my eyes shut, and I’m back in time, in a gym with my father.
We are facing each other, circling on the mat. “Defend yourself at all costs,” he says, throwing a punch that should hit me, but he stops short.
“Damn it, child.” He knocks me to the ground and stands over me. “You could be dead right now. Your mother could be dead right now.”
“Don’t say that,” I hiss.
“Because of you, she could be dead,” he says. “Defend yourself at all costs.”
A growl escapes my throat and I stand back up. He throws a punch and I duck under it, kneeing him in the stomach. He catches my leg and I go down again.
He stands over me. “What do you do now?”
“Ella.”
I blink and the moment I look into Kayden’s eyes, he presses inside me. I gasp, and then pant, the feel of him stretching me, of pulling me down his hard shaft, stealing any thought or worry. “Now you’re with me,” he says. “That’s where I want you. With me and safe.”
I lift my bound hands and touch my fingers to his face. “I like that I am safe with you. But you are safe with me, too. I want to be that for you. You know that, right?”
His forehead finds mine. “Ah, woman, what you do to me. Yes. I know I am safe with you, in ways only you understand.” He reaches up and rips the tape, leaving it connected to my arms but freeing me. I immediately dive my fingers into the thick waves of his light brown hair.
“That means I need to be that person you can escape with,” I say, tightening my grip on his hair. “I need, I want, to be the person you escape with.”
“You already are.”
“I mean that dirty sex you talked about.”
“Ella—”
I press my lips to his, lingering there a moment, our bodies gliding just a little left and right. “I want that part of you. I want it to be a part of me. I want us to be that . . . complete.”
He cups my backside, pulling me farther against him. “You really want this?”
“Yes. I want to escape too. With you.”
He does a slow slide in and out of me, his lips brushing mine, his teeth nipping my lip. “Feel my hand,” he says, squeezing my backside.
“Yes. I feel everything.”
“I’m going to keep caressing,” he says, rubbing the sensitive skin, “and fucking.” He drives into me. Slow. Gently. He slides his hips back and forth, moving our bodies together. “Then, I’m going to spank you. Three times. Not hard, but not soft. And then we’re going to fuck hard.”
“Can you just do it now so I don’t have to be nervous?”
“If I do that, there’s no anticipation.”
“Right,” I say. “Anticipation.”
He kisses me, a long swipe of his tongue, followed by another, our bodies moving, his hand caressing. “Anticipation,” he murmurs, “is good.”
“My heart is racing,” I confess. “Really fast.”
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Promise? No. I know you won’t.”
“Easy, sweetheart,” he says, dragging his cock slowly back and then driving into me. “What are you thinking right now?”
I gasp. “Thinking? I’m . . . not.”
He drives into me again and squeezes my cheek. “Now?”
“That felt good.”
He does it again. “And that?”
“Better.”
He kisses me again and then says, “Now, sweetheart. One, two, three.”