Page 98 of Eyes in the Shadows

“Take off your shorts.”

I hook the waistband in my thumbs and pull down, and I’m bared to him as he sits on the edge. I know that even if I were wearing underwear, they’d also be coming off now.

“Shirt.”

I lift it up and it joins my shorts on the floor. He stares at my naked body from his position sitting on the bed. He radiates power, from his posture to his expression to the fact that he’s still almost fully clothed. And the submission I feel in being silently stared at while I have my eyes lowered is unreal—I’m almost shaking from the erotic fear and excitement.

Just as the silence starts to feel heavy, the palpable tension in the air making me shift from foot to foot, he speaks. “You’re going to lay across my lap. I want your ass,” he points to his left thigh. “Right. Fucking. Here.”

Nervous, but unbelievably turned on, I move to kneel on the mattress. I shuffle forward, then go onto my hands so I can crawl over his lap instead of falling into place. I’m so aware of my nudity as I lay across the fabric covering his legs.

I flinch as his hand comes to rest on the bare skin of my ass, but he just rubs the area and I have to bite my lip to keep in the moan. His fingers are so firm, so strong. His other arm lays across my lower back and I feel like I’m strapped in. I don’t know what to do with my hands, so I keep them pressed into the mattress on either side of my head.

“Eleanor, what do you think I mean when I say you’re mine?”

I falter, because I wasn’t really expecting a question, and suddenly, a sharp noise resounds around us. I jump, mostly in surprise, and an instant later, there’s a stinging sensation on my ass. I hiss.

“Do you think I say things like that lightly—that I don’t mean it?”

“No,” I whisper, then jolt as a blow lands on my other cheek. The stinging sensation brings heat to the surface of the skin.

“No,” he agrees. “Do you think I mean that you’re mine for a little while, as long as this job takes?”

“No?” I repeat, but that one is a little bit of a fib. That is sort of what I was expecting to happen. Maybe we’d try for a little while, but invariably…

Smack.I squeal this time, wiggling under his arm from the force of his hand against skin that’s already received an impact. It’s starting to pulsate.

“No. Do you think I just toss aside the things that are important to me?”

“No.”

I tense, trying to be ready for his hand this time. I’m so wet I can feel it on my inner thighs and I know it’s only a matter of time before he sees it.Smack!That's the second hit to my left cheek. I whimper.

“No.” His hand comes down, but gently, kneading the skin and making me squirm on his lap. “Do you think you’re important to me?”

I falter again. But this time, no spank lands.

“So help me, Eleanor, if the answer to that question isn’t ‘yes,’” he warns.

“I don’t know,” I whisper. I feel a tear prickle in the bottom of each eye, stinging the lids.

Instead of another hit, I feel his fingers brush my pussy lips. “You don’t know?” he asks in a low voice I almost have to strain to hear.

I rock my hips back, wanting some more pressure in a desperate way. “I don’t know, yes, I guess. I… don’t know how I could be important to someone like you.”

“Someone like me?” he repeats, his voice thick with bewilderment. “Hold on. As much as I love staring at your ass, I think I need to see your face for this one.”

A surprised laugh spills from my lips as he helps me up off his lap, up to my knees. I sit back on them for an instant, long enough to see the question in the slash of his eyebrows. Then, it feels like too damn much. I climb down off the bed and grab the blanket I fold and lay across the end of the mattress every morning.

He stands, taking a step towards me, and stopping when I move to retreat away. “What do you mean, Eleanor? Hey, talk to me.”

I can’t believe I said the quiet part out loud. I wasn’t supposed to let the insecurities out—those stay in a tiny box that I locked away and labeled “fake it ‘til you make it” to fool myself.

“You’re…” I tilt my head, letting my eyes rove over his body. “You’re brave and strong and charismatic… I’m not like you.”

He smiles a little at me. “I think they call that a complimentary fit, darlin’.”

“Stop, I’m being serious.”

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