Page 8 of Hard Discipline

I release her, then rise to my full height, still holding her gaze and keeping her trapped by it. Making sure she has nowhere else to look but at me. “You are going to make yourself come,” I order her. “And I am going to watch.”

5

Odette

My heart is rabbiting about in my chest and I’m finding it difficult to breathe. I don’t know whether it’s because my second thoughts have grabbed me by the throat and are now choking me, or whether it’s him.

I don’t know what I thought being his submissive would be like, or what he’d be like as a Dom, but it wasn’t this. Maybe subconsciously I expected him to be a harder, older version of his son. Except there’s nothing of Lucas in his blue stare. While Lucas’s questions made me overthink everything, I knew he was asking because he was trying to make me comfortable. But there’s no concern for my comfort in Mr. Fairfax’s eyes. I’m prey and now he has me in his sights, he’s not going to let me escape.

I couldn’t believe it when he first touched my hair. A delicious shiver of anticipation had gone right through me at the brush of his fingers. I’d felt a little smug, too, that going down on my knees the way I’d read about had worked. But the moment he took my chin in his hand, forcing me to look at him as he laiddown the law, his voice breaking over me like an iron rod over my back, all my smugness vanished. I knew I’d made a mistake.

I had a couple of boyfriends before Lucas and the sex with them was fine. Pleasant, but nothing particularly memorable. Lucas is good in bed, but with him I always felt as if it was the sex itself that was the important bit, not me. Even after the attack, I felt as if his kindness and considerateness were because that’s what he thought was expected of him and not because he actually wanted to be kind and considerate.

Luc certainly never looked at me the way Mr. Fairfax is looking at me, with a laser-sharp intensity backed by the iron and steel of his will. It’s a force, that will—almost palpable, pressing down on me hard, and a part of me wants to bend beneath it. That part frightens me. It reminds me of when I was jumped outside the bar, how I froze like a deer in the headlights of a car. Of how I didn’t fight, didn’t scream, didn’t do anything at all. It was as if it was happening to someone else and I was just an observer, watching from outside my body as I was punched in the face, pressed up against a wall, his hands tearing at my dress.

I was weak in that moment, powerless, and that same sense of powerlessness creeps through me now and I don’t know why. I know he won’t hurt me, not like my attacker did, but this isn’t what I thought I’d be getting myself into and I’m frightened. Yet what’s more disturbing is that there’s a pressure between my legs, an ache, as if my body likes this and wants this and I don’t understand that at all.

“Well?” he demands in that voice that leaves no room for argument or protest, only obedience. “You heard me, sub. Do as you’re told.”

My mouth is dry and my brain is whirling frantically. “I…I…” I stutter, struggling to think.

Abruptly he reaches down and this time his fingers burrow into my hair beneath my hair elastic to grip it. I gasp because ithurts and then I gasp again as he yanks me roughly upright on my knees, pinpricks of pain erupting all over my scalp.

“I gave you an order, sub,” he says, his fist clenched tight in my hair.

Tears start in my eyes. I’ve never been handled this way before. The only time I was had been when I was attacked, and now it feels as if Mr. Fairfax is doing the same things to me and I can’t deal.

He yanks my head back again, so I’m forced to look up at him once more, the intensity of his blue gaze difficult to hold. It makes me feel so vulnerable to be looked at this way, as if he can see all my weaknesses, all my flaws, and I don’t want him to see them. I don’t want him to look at me that way.

“I told you this wouldn’t be easy.” He’s studying me like a scientist studies an animal he’s dissecting. Clinical, analytical. “There’s a reason I said no to you, but you insisted. And you forced my hand.” His fingers work in my hair, burrowing deeper, curling into a fist and my vision wavers, my eyes full of hurt tears. “But if you don’t like it, you can use your safe word. I’ll stop and you can go.”

My throat aches, my heartbeat like thunder in my head. I can feel yet more tears gather, because his grip hurts and a weird toxic mix of emotion is churning inside me. Fear. Anger. Shock. And perhaps the weirdest of all, desire. And I still don’t understand why.

I could say my safe word and get out of here, and part of me really wants to.

He wants you to, too.

It’s true, I think, as I’m held captive by his blue stare. He wants me to use it. He expects me to use it. He thinks I can’t do this, that I can’t handle him.

He’s right. You can’t.

Something in me hardens unexpectedly. Because no, fuck that. Yes, this is all a shock to the system, but it is something I asked for. Something I wanted. Something I actually insisted on, and sure, I could sayred. I could turn around and walk away, but where would that leave me? And what would he think of me? I don’t know why I care about his opinion, but I can’t bear him thinking me a coward. He’s so strong, so forceful, and I want to be equal to it. I don’t want to be weak.

So I blink my tears away, press my lips together, and shake my head once.

Something flickers in his eyes and it looks like surprise, and the hard part of me, the stubborn part, is abruptly, fiercely glad. He wasn’t expecting that, was he? Good. I may be much younger than he is, but that doesn’t mean he knows everything, or everything about me.

The surprise vanishes from his eyes, but his grip on my hair doesn’t lessen. His face is impassive, his stare relentless. “I won’t ask again,” he says.

And he won’t, that’s clear. If I don’t do this, he’ll let me go and walk out, and that will be it. I won’t get a chance to prove myself to anyone, let alone him.

So I swallow and lift a shaking hand, reaching down over my dress and down between my thighs. His fist tightens in my hair, giving me a hard shake, making me gasp aloud. Yet more tears of pain start in my eyes. “No.” His voice is hard, implacable. “Not like that.” Before I can take another breath, keeping a firm hold of me, he bends, takes a fistful of my dress, and yanks it up over my hips. “I want to see it, sub,” he growls. “I want to see your fingers in your cunt.”

The wordcuntsends a hot shock through me. It’s not as if I haven’t heard it before, but hearinghimsay it is a whole different thing. The sound of that hard ‘c’ makes my face flame, yet the pressure between my thighs is increasing. Lucas doesn’tdo dirty talk, and I’m not used to it, but it’s clear my body likes it. My body likes his orders, too, no matter the pain or the fear, and it wants more.

He’s looking straight into my eyes and seeing my every thought, knowing I’m finding this difficult and that it’s not what I expected. Except there is noI told you soin his gaze. It’s detached, neutral, passing no judgement, yet the sheer relentlessness of it makes me want to hide.

I can hear how fast I’m breathing, panting almost, and it’s not going to work. I won’t come with him holding my hair like that, so I force out, “It hurts.”

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