Page 27 of T is for…

“If anyone else had said that, I’d roll my eyes,” she huffed.

“Oh, by all means.” He wrapped his other arm around her, forearm braced against her lower back, then forced her into a backbend over his arm, her hands once more gripping him for balance. “Please roll your eyes at me.”

“I thought you said you weren’t strict, and didn’t need an excuse to punish.” Her voice was strained.

“I’m not, and I don’t. Doesn’t mean it isn’t fun. If you want to roll your eyes like a pissy teenager, I’ll play headmaster, bend you over a desk, and take a ruler to your ass.”

“Nathan,” she moaned.

He brought her up until she was standing straight, searching her expression.

“I have never, in my life, found the whole catholic schoolgirl thing even remotely arousing…”

He swallowed the urge to apologize or backtrack, because he knew her, and knew she was going to say more.

“Until right now, with you.”

Nathan switched from fisting her hair to cupping her head, fingertips lightly massaging her scalp. “I’m just that good.”

Tara let out a startled laugh.

“No eye roll?” He tsked in mock disappointment. “I can do better.”

“You could tell one of those bad computer modeling jokes you use at the start of most of your presentations.”

“Excuse me, those are excellent jokes.” Nathan reached around and smacked her ass again.

They both froze.

For a moment, they’d slipped back into their normal friendly dialog, but then he’d warped it by adding the spank in response to her comment.

He pushed the circle of Nathan-and-Tara-as-scene-partners over the top of the Nathan-and-Tara-as-best-friends circle, creating a Ven diagram.

He had no idea what label to put on the overlap.

The silence became awkward, and he knew he was fucking this up. He’d been the one to make it weird, and he was doing nothing to un-weird it.

Five minutes ago, he’d been sure they were past this, that they’d established they were fine scening together. Nathan slowly detangled his hand from Tara’s hair.

Tara’s chin dipped, and she let out a small sigh. It wasn’t a sigh of relief, or sadness. He knew her well enough to identify that sound.

That was disappointment.

A surge of protective energy was followed by a less altruistic surge of sexual aggression.

He needed to make this woman submit. To use her and pleasure her until the only sounds she made were moans of pleasure and whimpers of need.

Chapter 7

Tara tensed, waiting. It was like that moment after a glass or plate falls off the counter, and, assuming you can’t catch it, the only thing you can do is wait and see if it breaks on impact.

Most of the time it shatters, but there are instances where it falls just right. Where the fragile thing survives.

That’s how Tara felt now, as if Nathan’s words had accidentally pushed this fragile new thing between them off the counter and now, she could only wait and watch it shatter on impact.

Nathan tugged the strap on her other ass cheek, pulling it higher, which in turn pulled the entire thing tighter against her pussy. Then he spanked the cheek that hadn’t yet been slapped.

In her mind, the glass hit the floor…and didn’t break.

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