Her head turned with the sound of my voice as I circled her, reveling in every line of her body.
“Why would I be angry?” Her words were clipped, but there was a slight tremble to her voice.
“That’s what I want to know,” I murmured, stepping closer and running my palm over the curve of her arse. “Because it is exactly what you have been asking me to do, Sweets.” I slid my fingers lower, skating along the lower curve of her arse and she shifted on her feet in anticipation of my touch. “Talk to me.”
“I’m not fucking angry,Theo.”
I huffed, stepping back, and she stiffened at my absence.
“Theo?”
I said nothing for a moment, letting her teeter in the dark, before leaning in to brush my lips over the long shallow slice at her collar, breathing in her scent as I did. The tags hanging between her breasts clinked softly as I brushed past the chain.
“Why did you let me mark you last night?” I asked, my lips grazing down the puckered line.
“Curiosity,” she said tightly.
“And?” I pushed. “Was your curiosity appeased? Did you find what you were looking for?”
“No.” She leaned into me as I ran my lips along the second slice.
I stepped back again, and she rocked against her ties, her lips falling open slightly, and a crease forming between her brows as she searched for me.
“Theo,” she breathed. “Please.”
I said nothing this time, moving silently away toward one of my plants, pulling a thin length of bamboo from its pot, wiping the end off on a large leaf.
“Where are you?” The tags clicked again as Octavia shifted, tilting her head as she strained to hear me.
I let the silence stretch for another heartbeat…two…until her breath began to pick up. I ran the tip of the bamboo down her side, and she jumped, her head swiveling in my direction.
“No?” I asked softly. “What were you looking for then?”
“I don’t—” she cut off with that stubborn lift of her chin I enjoyed so much, and I gave her a warning flick of the bamboo against her thigh.
“Say it,” I ordered.
She stayed stubbornly silent, and I raised my brow, drew back the bamboo, and whipped it once across her outer thigh.
Her mouth fell open with a gasp, but this time I kept the end of the bamboo touching her, trailing along her middle as I circled her.
“You don’t…what?” I asked.
“I don’t know what I was looking for,” she breathed. “I don’t—I don’t know what it is.”
“Then explain it,” I urged, running the bamboo tip up her stretched arm and then back down.
“No.”
She jolted as I whipped the bamboo across her arse, an instant red welt forming across her perfect skin.
“Try again,” I murmured.
“Get fucked, Theo.”
I grinned. “I’d hoped you would say that. Count with me, Sweets. Just like you did in the vault.”
She made a small sound as I gave her a welt across the back of her thighs, my mouth watering at the need to kiss the mark it left on her skin.