Page 53 of Pretty Little Thing

I inhale slowly, forcing my breath to fill my lungs to the top. “All right,” I say, letting it back out. “Let’s experiment.”

His eyes fall from my face to my breasts, quickly bouncing away as he turns toward the closet. “Lay your palms on the table,” he says.

Clive moves toward the open closet as a quick shiver rides up my back. I look at the table in the center of the room, suddenly noticing the gold metal rings hanging down from the corners, and wonder what I signed up for. He said it himself, though. One word from me and it all ends.

Assuming I can trust him.

I step forward and place my palms down on the cold surface.

Clive slides a black riding crop from its place on the closet door. “Don’t move your hands,” he says, walking back over and standing at on opposite side to face me. He curls his hand around the crop’s handle with a tight, white-knuckle grip. “If you move your hands, you will be punished. Sound easy enough?”

“Punished?” I ask.

“Punished,”he simply says.

I shift slightly into a more comfortable stance. “Okay—”

He slaps the back of my left hand with the crop, sending fire up my wrist.

I wince. “Ow!”

“I said don’t move your hands.”

“I didn’t move my hands.”

“You lifted the end of your pinky.”

I laugh. “Oh, come on—”

He hits me again, this time on the right wrist. “You twitched your thumb,” he says.

“Not on purpose!” I gasp.

“Control yourself, Ms. Payne.”

I take a breath, my eyes bouncing from him to my hands and back to that damn crop. His own eyes move constantly, staring hard at my hands with sharp precision to make sure I obey.

Punished.Makes perfect sense now.

After a minute, he takes a step to the left and begins rounding the table, each step creaking the old floor beneath him. I isolate my focus into my hands to keep them still, even as I crane my neck to watch him move.

“Eyes forward,” he tells me as he wanders behind my back.

I look ahead, using my sense of hearing to keep a fix on him. The crop’s tip eases around me and he gently caresses my arm from the elbow down. I keep still, fighting the ticklish feeling beneath my skin.

“Good girl,” he says, slightly growling.

“Thank you, Mr. Snow.”

“Hm,” he hums, the quickest laugh.

He reverses his path, moving the crop up my arm toward my armpit. The closer it gets, the more my skin responds and I fight to stop from twitching.

“That’s cheating,” I say with a chuckle.

“No, that’s the experiment,” he says. He rests his free hand on my right hip. “You try to stay still... and I make that impossible.”

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