Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 66904 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66904 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
My breath hitches, and when it comes back, it comes with a little sob. There are tears flowing down my cheeks, and I realize I am crying just because he said something nice to me.
“Have I upset you?” He draws back, his brows quirked over those dark eyes that remain inscrutable to me.
“Why am I good?” I sob the question. I don’t know what prompted his praise, and I wish I did, because I would do that thing a hundred times over if it meant feeling that rush of rare relief from an almost constant guilt paralysis that I sometimes forget about because it’s the water I swim in.
“Because you care about this possible infant.”
“Of course I care! It would be my baby. And it would not be Wrath’s slave, I can tell you that much. If I were pregnant, I would get as far as possible away from this place where you all think that making some under-race of hybrid saurians is a good idea.”
It is bold of me to tell him that. Probably a dangerous admission. I don’t know why I said it. I wish I hadn’t said it.
He smiles and presses his lips to my forehead in a gesture of comfort that is almost as alien to me as he is.
“You don’t have to like what is happening, Lettie. But you do have to obey me.”
I’d almost believe him, if I hadn’t spent my entire adult life engaging in piracy. I love it when he calls me a good girl, but I’m not going to be good.
I’m going to be very, very bad.
“I have to deal with you,” he rumbles. “You might be good, but you were naughty today.”
Something about the diminutive use of naughty makes me want to squirm. There is warmth in his disappointment and judgement. I am in trouble, and I am going to be very sore as a result, but there is no true harshness or loathing in his tone or being. I know very well that Shan and I are linked in a way I’ve never been linked before. I’m safe with him, even though I am in trouble with him.
“I told you not to run away earlier today, and you did. So I am going to give you a reason not to so much as think about disobeying me again. I can’t risk it, but I can stop you doing it again.”
I draw away from him, but I know that won’t change what is going to happen. Shan looks determined, and that is bad for me.
He reaches for me, and I draw back again. It’s a little bit of a game. A silly game, a little test that is designed to see just how stern he will be with me. I don’t know why I am pushing my luck so much. I want him. I want all of him. I want his harshness and his dominance and his punishment and his… cock.
“Stay still,” he says. “I don’t want to chase you down. If you make me, I promise you it will hurt more.”
Even as he says those words, he reaches out, grips me before I can move away again, and pulls me over his lap, pinning me in place. It is all too easy for him. He is just so much more physically adept. For a moment, I am reminded of the state I saw Captain Sullivan and Raine in. I am just as they are. I am helpless (and wet) in the hands of a saurian.
SMACK!
A lash comes down, leather harsh against my tender skin. I am not used to being punished, and the small amount of time I’ve spent with Shan has not been enough time to adjust.
“Fuck!”
I’d forgotten how much being punished can hurt. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking when I thought it might be fun to tease him a little before he started spanking me. I was distracted by the hug, and by the warmth between us. I didn’t think about how Shan is still very much capable of truly punishing me even in his warmest, most tender state.
I wail. For a moment, I resist crying, but as that infernal thing lands time and time again, I give up any attempt at trying to remain stoic. What’s the point? He may as well know that he is hurting me. There is nothing to be gained from making him imagine I am immune to pain. My strength is, or was, stealth. I am not one to put up a good and steady resistance once caught.
I wail and writhe, my thick legs kicking against his hard saurian thighs as he whips me painfully. Every new stroke of the lash makes heat blossom through my skin and flesh. My mind is also suffering under this punitive onslaught. I feel small and I feel bad. There is something about the way he conducts this entire affair that leaves me with the most intense guilt.