“Swallow every drop. That’s it.” His fingers tangled in my hair. “You look so pretty on your knees with your mouth full of my cum.”
I moaned. A tiny beacon of pride glowed in my chest, and it was only after I swallowed thoroughly that I sat back on my haunches.
“Good girl,” Kai murmured, smoothing a hand over my head.
The pride glowed brighter, but not enough to make me forget the purpose of the game.
“You touched me,” I breathed, my voice raw from my exertions. “At the end. You lost.”
Amusement leaked into his gaze. “I touched you after I came, love. Which means I won.”
“That’s…” I faltered, unsure. I’d been so lost in my ministrations I hadn’t paid attention to the timing.
Kai tightened his grip on my hair before releasing it. “Pick a book.”
“What?” I blinked, disoriented by the sudden and baffling change in topic.
“A book.” He nodded at the leather-bound tomes lining the shelves. “Pick one.”
Curiosity compelled me to select a book at random.
“Open it.”
I opened it to a page in the middle. Coincidentally, I’d chosen Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, one of the few classics I enjoyed.
“Now bend over the couch and spread your legs.”
My confusion ramped up even as heat crawled through my blood, lighting me on fire. In this position, I was bared to him, the tiny scraps of my lingerie doing little to hide my swollen arousal or the juices drenching my thighs.
“We’re going to play a new game.” Kai stepped behind me. “It’s simple. If you can read a full page out loud without stopping or stuttering, I’ll let you come.”
“What…” I gasped when he slipped the flimsy silk to the side and brushed a feather over my clit.
Where the hell did he get a feather?
Another brush, and where he found it suddenly didn’t matter.
A moan climbed up my throat. I tried to push back against him, but his other hand braced my hip, forcing me to still.
“Start reading, Isabella.” Iron underlaid his voice. “Or we’ll be here all day.”
He’s sadistic. That was the only thought running through my mind as I attempted to read the page while he tortured me with the feather. It was firm enough to spark jolts of pleasure but too flexible to induce an orgasm no matter how much I bucked and ground against it.
“Mr. Darcy, with grave propriety, requested…” The feather brushed a particularly sensitive spot, and my sentence trailed off with a whimper. Tiny shivers rippled down my spine.
They turned into a shocked yelp when Kai’s palm landed on my bare ass with a sharp slap. There was a breath-rattling sting of pain, followed by a slow bloom of heat.
“Start over,” he ordered with the stern command of an unforgiving professor.
I did, but I never made it more than two paragraphs before I paused or stuttered. Every mistake earned me another slap until my eyes welled with tears and I squirmed with mindless abandon. Pain and pleasure blurred into one delicious, agonizing burn.
I was barely paying attention to the text anymore. It got to the point where every word out of my mouth alternated with a hard spank.
“Please,” I sobbed. “I can’t…I need…”
“Yes, you can.” Kai’s voice was as unyielding as his punishment. He shoved two fingers into my dripping, exposed cunt.
Oh God. My insides knotted; my breaths came out in heavy, whining pants. So close. If he would only move. I would…I could…
“Unless you’re messing up on purpose.” He kept pushing until he was knuckles deep inside me.
“Does this turn you on, Isabella? Getting bent over and punished like a dirty schoolgirl?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know,” I moaned, too dizzy and turned on to think properly. Tears leaked down my cheeks when he twisted and curled his fingers inside. I bucked again, but it was no use. I couldn’t get enough friction to light the simmering fuse in my stomach. “I need to come…let me come… please.”
But no matter how much I begged and pleaded, Kai refused to yield.
“You can come once you complete your assignment. That’s the game.” He withdrew his hand and resumed his exquisite, feathery torture. “You like those, don’t you? Now start from the top.”
I didn’t know how, but eventually, I mustered enough willpower and presence of mind to read the page without messing up. The words poured out, faster and faster, before reaching a breathless crescendo on the last sentence.
Kai’s fingers slammed inside me again. His thumb pressed against my clit, and his other hand delivered a sharp, final slap on my ass.
My orgasm ripped through me in one brutal, mind-numbing tear. My entire body bowed from the intensity; bursts of light exploded behind my eyes as the book clattered out of my limp hands and hit the cushion with a faint thud.
When I floated back down an eternity later, I was still racked with shudders from how hard I came.
The echoes of my screams lingered in the air, bringing a wash of mortification to my cheeks.
“Perfect.” Kai’s voice softened. He was himself again, not the cruel, demanding master who’d forced me to dance on the razor’s edge of orgasm for God knew how long. Strong, gentle hands smoothed and kneaded away the burn. “I knew you could do it. A-plus work, Ms. Valencia.”
“Fuck you,” I mumbled, too spent to infuse my words with much venom. “I can never read Austen the same way again.”
Kai turned me around and pressed a smiling kiss on my pout. “Look on the bright side. Whenever you come across an obstacle, you know it can’t be harder than reading a full page of Pride and Prejudice out loud while someone’s trying to make you come.”
A simultaneous laugh and groan slipped past my lips. “You’re the only person I know who can turn sex into some weird motivational life lesson.”
“It’s a special talent, along with my fluent command of Latin and ability to produce amazing orgasms.”
“Huh. I don’t know about amazing…”
I squealed when he picked me up and tossed me on the couch. “Do you need another lesson?” he threatened, his eyes dancing with a playful light that made my heart melt. Sex and banter aside, my favorite version of Kai was the relaxed, comfortable one. He was so stressed all the time, and it made me happy to see him happy.
“Maybe. I’ve never been great at school.” He didn’t resist when I pulled him down next to me and draped an arm and leg over him like he was a giant teddy bear. Drowsiness hit with the suddenness of a lightning bolt. I yawned and snuggled closer to him. “But let’s…” Another yawn. “Rest first. Have to recharge.” I mumbled the last sentence into his chest.
Kai and I settled into a comfortable silence. The past few weeks had been a whirlwind of mind-blowing sex and swoonworthy dates, but they didn’t hold a candle to the quiet moments in between. I could lie here next to him and listen to his heart beat forever.
“What are you doing for Christmas?” Kai asked after a while. He played absentmindedly with the ends of my hair, and warmth seeped through me at the casual intimacy of his touch.