Page 120 of Big Daddy Christmas
Fuck.
Killian
* * *
Did she know that everything she felt, everything she thought was stamped across her face like an open damn book?
Probably not. She struck him as the type who would immediately switch up on him, try to hide those reactions if she knew. And he was enjoying the openness, the rawness of her reactions far too much to allow her even that small bit of charity.
But because he wouldn’t allow it, he could see the fear in her eyes. Not the fear he was used to, the kind that mingled with excitement and made for a nervous but eager submissive. No, this was genuine worry, bordering on terror, and that would never do.
Still straddling her hips, he gripped the box with one hand, using his free hand to tap that little crease between her brows.
“Eyes on me, princess.”
He could make her look at him, as he had before. Take her chin between his fingers, force her head up. It was a move guaranteed to make just about any submissive, no matter how hardened, weak in the knees.
But as he’d already told her, he didn’t just want a body in his bed. He wanted a willing participant. Even more so now, having seen how hard she struggled to obey when left to her own devices. The thrill of breaking her, of making her become complicit in her own submission, her own torment, her own humiliation was just too delicious to pass up.
So he waited her out, the room so silent around them he could hear the seconds ticking by on his watch. Ten… Twenty… A full thirty before she finally tilted her head back, her eyes blazing with a determination that was only slightly muddied by the fear still lingering in the pale blue.
Again he was hit with that certainty that he knew her. Something in her eyes, especially when she tried to look haughty or unafraid.
A conversation for after. Right now, he was more interested in settling her nerves, at least enough for her to actually enjoy being hurt by him, hopefully as much as he was going to enjoy hurting her.
Now he did grip her chin, running the pad of his thumb over her full bottom lip. “You are stunning, you know that?”
Surprise flickered in the blue. “Really?”
“Absolutely breathtaking. Tell Daddy what’s wrong, my beautiful princess.”
Everything about her softened at the command, and to his relief some of the fear drained from her eyes. “Oh, that’s not fair.”
“What isn’t?”
“This whole”—she jerked her hands as if to wave at him before she remembered she was bound and she let out a huff of annoyance—“everything. The tone, the flattery, the gentle dominance. How am I supposed to fight that?”
He let his lips curve, let his own amusement show. “You aren’t.”
“Bastard.”
Excitement pounded through his veins. Tightening his grip on her chin, he forced her head back further, a more unnatural angle that would be uncomfortable but not painful. The move was enough to have her eyes going wide, her breath catching in her throat.
There. That was the fear he wanted.
“Naughty, naughty girl. If you weren’t tied to this bed, I’d bend you over the end of it and put seven perfect cane lines up and down your ass. One for each letter in the name you just called me.”
“Alas, I am all tied up. So sad for you.” Despite the bravado of her words, they were breathy, a bit shaky with the mix of desire and terror she was so valiantly trying to pretend she didn’t feel.
“So sad for you, really. That would be the easy punishment. Now I’ll have to get creative.” He waited a beat, let the words land, let her imagination get to work before he leaned in, dropping his voice to a low murmur. “But first, you’ll have to tell Daddy why you were so scared a moment ago.”
“Counteroffer. I tell you in exchange for not punishing me.”
Bold little thing, wasn’t she? “This is not a negotiation, princess.”
“I thought everything was a negotiation in a scene.”
“Cheeky brat.” She had a point, of course, but he wasn’t about to give her an inch. Next thing he knew, she’d be walking all over him. “You are going to be punished for calling me a bastard, one way or another. The longer you delay, the more creative I’ll have to get. So I suppose the question you have to ask yourself is, do you really want to test a man who enjoys hurting pretty little things like yourself?”
