Page 31 of Irish Brute
I bow my head. I clutch his shoe. I lean my head against his knee, and when that isn’t enough, I look up into his proud, arrogant, handsome face.
And I beg.
“Please,” I say. “Forgive me. I was wrong. I understood the rule, but I thought you’d never know. I don’t want to leave here. Don Antonio will kill me—maybe not now, maybe not for years, but I know he will eventually. Please don’t throw me out. Please don’t make me leave. Please, I’m begging you. Please, please, please, please, please.”
The word becomes a mantra, a sort of prayer. It melts into every cell of my body. It fills me. It becomes me.
I’m disgusted with myself. I’ve never begged anyone for anything before. I’ve never wanted anything as much as I want Braiden to forgive me.
But I’m strangely at peace too. He told me exactly what to do, and I did it. I didn’t have to make any more decisions, didn’t have to consider any more options. I just had to do the one correct thing.
His hand spreads over the top of my head. His fingers tighten, claiming me, branding me. He accepts me. He forgives me. I can stay.
But then he says, “Pretty words. And I thinkyouthink you mean them.”
“I do,” I whisper.
“But some proper punishment will help you remember today, the next time you consider breaking the rules.”
Punishment.
For one stuttering second, I don’t know what he means. But then his hand slides down my arm. He cups my elbow and helps me to stand.
His fingers make short work of the button on my jeans, and the zipper too. He glares at my sneakers like they’ve committed some capital offense.
“Shoes off,” he says. “Trousers, too.”
I obey, because I’m still in the channel he carved for me, the perfect space where there’s only one true way, one straight path,the simple road he makes. I toe off my shoes and step out of my jeans, leaving them puddled in the middle of the floor.
“Knickers,” he snaps, and my fingers move without thinking, hooking into my underwear and dropping them beside my pants.
I’m wearing nothing but my white cashmere sweater, and he’s still dressed for the office—navy suit, crisp white shirt, tie stripped loose around his throat. I should be mortified, but I’m not.
I’ve turned off my brain. I’ve stopped arguing right and wrong and yes and no and maybe. I’m following orders, and for once in my life, it feels amazing for someone else to be in control.
He nods toward my desk. “Forearms on the glass,” he says. “Hands flat.”
The position leaves me more exposed than I’ve been with any man. My hips tilt up. My bare ass is exposed.
“Spread your legs,” he says.
Good girls don’t do things like this. Smart women won’t. But I don’t have to think about whether I’m good or smart. I just stare at the ring on my left hand, at the golden band with the engraved words close to my flesh:Is liomsa tú.
I am his.
I spread my legs.
Through the glass desk, I see him step behind me. His feet angle toward mine. His weight shifts. And I only have a moment to think that I haven’t heardhiszipper, that he’s still fully clothed, and then the flat of his hand smacks my bottom hard enough to make me yelp.
“Position,” he warns, and I realize I’ve pressed my belly against the desk. I’ve dropped my hips. I’ve tried to get away.
He waits until my arms are back where they belong. He nudges my ankles further apart with the toe of his shoe. “Sayred,” he says. “And I’ll stop.”
The next time he spanks me, I don’t give way.
The contact stings like a jalapeño pepper, surprising and hot and more exciting than I ever expected it to be. I tighten my legs, shifting my hips back and up, and the next blow is even better.
I’ve never been spanked before in my life. My own parents didn’t believe in corporal punishment. Zia Sara, Eliza’s mother, disciplined with harsh words and stolen privileges. I’ve never had a lover who wanted to play this game; I never dreamed I’d be willing to go along.
