Page 12 of Enslaved By Magic

She watched, enjoying the show as he gasped for breath and frantically fanned at his mouth. “Water!” he demanded desperately.

She had to obey, but she took her time, meandering over to the sink with all the speed of a lethargic snail to fill a glass, and on the way back, she contrived to accidentally drop it. “Oops! I’ll get you another one.”

“Never mind!” he said, pushing past her to get to the sink and thrust his head under the tap sideways. The water poured into his mouth—but it didn’t help.

She could have told him that. In fact, she did tell him, but not until he’d already guzzled half a gallon of water. “Oh, you know, oil and water don’t mix. I think that’s just going to—” the rest of her words were drowned out by his bellow. The capsaicin in the oil would have spread now, all the way down. His eyes watered with pain, and she was tempted, just for a second, to help by suggesting he try some milk.

But he was the enemy, not her friend, and she needed to remember that. Her job was to seduce him so she could guide him toward making his wishes and freeing her. Anything else was just entertainment, and it was admittedly hilarious to watch him yank the hem of his t-shirt up so he could use it to scrub at his burning tongue. It probably would have helped more before the water had spread the oil down his throat and eventually, he realized it wasn’t enough.

He finally grabbed a bowl of jasmine rice off the table to try to cut the flames by scooping out fingerfuls. He swallowed as fast as he could until she was sure his insides were coated with the starchy rice and then the look of blissful relief on his face was just too much. She couldn’t hold back the laughter anymore and the giggles began to escape. They got louder and more hysterical when he turned to stare at her, and she collapsed back against the sink, howling with amusement.

“You did that on purpose,” he said. There wasn’t any anger in his voice, not then. He was still putting together the pieces and she could see when the whole picture finally came together. His face seemed to go through a rapid series of expressions but finally came to a stop at furious. “You knew that would happen and you didn’t even warn me,” he said, accusing her outright now.

She shrugged. “Yes, it was pretty hilarious to be honest. You should have seen your face,” she said, still chuckling and shaking her head as she leaned there casually.

“Why would you do that?” he asked as he took a couple of steps toward her with a terribly angry look on his face.

“Why not? Anyway, it was funny,” she said. She wasn’t concerned about what he might do. She was immortal, at least until she was freed from the bottle and it would heal her of any wounds she acquired until then. Not that she thought Luke would be the type to resort to violence anyway.

She was wrong—in a way.

“I don’t know if you’re really a genie like you claim, or just some mixed-up woman who needs therapy—but one thing I know for sure, you are a brat,” he snapped.

His normally calm and laid-back demeanor had vanished, and she straightened in surprise at the hard look on his face. She was tempted to run, but one word from him would stop her in her tracks so there was no point.

“Look,” she said in a placating tone, “it was just a joke. You were hurting my feelings with the constant suspicion, and I just—just wanted to get a little revenge.” Even though she put as much emotion into the excuse as she could, he didn’t seem to be buying it.

“Yeah, I don’t think so. That was more than a joke, and you let it continue for your own amusement. So now I’m going to do something for my own amusement,” he said. His voice was low, gravelly, and nearly a growl, and suddenly he was grabbing her by the wrist with one hand, while dragging a kitchen chair away from the table with the other. He spun it around and dropped into it, pulling her down across his lap as he sat.

It was all very efficient and the abruptness of it took her breath away. “What—what are you doing?” she demanded. She hated that her voice had gone squeaky with the shock.

“Giving you a taste of your own medicine, Amari. You burned the hell out of me, now I’m going to do the same thing to you,” he said with a grimness that made her shiver.

His hand crashed down, and it became clear what he’d meant by burning the hell out of her. He was going to spank her!

Now, she was scrambling for anything she could think of to stop him. It wasn’t that she was afraid of the pain. She’d been hurt too many times to count over the years—but this was something else. This was a childish punishment; a humiliation, and she couldn’t bear it. “But you told me not to act like a slave! You said I should be a person!”

“I didn’t say to be a brat!” he retorted.

She was grateful for the modern jeans she wore. The denim gave her some protection from his hand when it slapped down with a heavy, meaty WHACK on the same spot! She could still feel the sting, but it would have been much worse on bare skin. “I’m sorry! You’re right it wasn’t funny!”

But truthfully, she did think it was funny, and, despite the danger her backside was in, she couldn’t help the giggle that escaped when the image of him frantically guzzling water popped into her head. She covered her mouth with both hands quickly, but it was too late, and it ruined the careful work she’d done of sounding repentant.

“You’ve got a mean sense of humor, Amari, so maybe you’ll find this funny too,” he said in a tightly controlled voice that made her nervous. His hand came down a third time, targeting her other cheek. There was a surprising amount of strength in the swat and she jerked, twisting to try to cover her backside with one hand. Any thought at all about this being a kinky prelude to sex had vanished before it had even formed.

“Stop that and get your hands out of the way,” he said firmly.

Whether he remembered she couldn’t disobey him and had phrased it like an order specifically for that reason she didn’t know, but as much as she tried to fight the compulsion, her hands were soon flat on the floor below her. It made her seethe with frustration, but it wasn’t her biggest problem at the moment. “Luke, let me go!” she cried.

“I don’t think so,” he said. His hand began to fall at a steady, rapid pace, delivering one burning smack after another to her vulnerable rump. Since he hadn’t forbidden her from twisting or trying to get away, she continued to writhe and fight, but when it got to be too much, an arm looped around her waist pulled her up tight against him.

It was surprisingly hard to endure. It wasn’t about the pain, though the burn and heat in her seat was almost unbearable. It was just that there was something emotionally jarring about being punished like that. The closeness of his body as he pinned her over his knee was unsettling, especially when she realized she’d wrapped one hand around his ankle and was holding tightly to it.

There were too many long-suppressed emotions boiling up inside of her, and the rising sting made it hard for her to focus on pushing them back down. Her mind worked frantically to find a way to stop him, but all she had were her words and they’d been useless so far. In a last-ditch effort to make him feel guilty, she threw, “What happened to consent? You said you preferred consenting women!” at him, but his loud snort made it clear that wasn’t going to work either.

“You want to talk about consent? Did you get my consent before burning a hole in my tongue? If you want to play nasty pranks, then you’ll just have to put up with the consequences. I don’t care if you’re a human, a genie, or the tooth fairy—you acted like a brat, and this is what brats get from me,” he said firmly.

“I won’t do it again, Luke!” she blurted when his hand found an especially tender place at the top of her thigh. It was the closest to begging she would allow herself to go, but like everything else she’d tried—it failed.

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