Andie couldn’t believe it. After all these years of yearning and pining after Eric, she was finally kissing him. And it was better than any wicked fantasy her mind could conjure. Even by the demanding pressure of his mouth, he was commanding her to do his bidding. He controlled the ferocity of their kiss, the width which she opened her mouth, the brave audacity of their tongues...

But Andie was in new territory, and while she wouldn’t ever forget the foundation of their relationship, she forgot how in-control Eric likes to be at all times. So, when her hunger took the place of all logic, Andie protested against Eric’s lead and, without thinking, tried to take the reins.

She just couldn’t help it. She felt like she was starving and the only thing that could whet her appetite was Eric. She couldn’t press her body close enough to his, no matter how desperately she tried.

Frustrated and desperate for more of him, Andie gripped the hair at the back of Eric’s head in two frantic fists and pulled him close as she kissed him with a fervor that was almost embarrassing. It would have been embarrassing had she any restraint, but she felt absolutely out of control. The monster in her panties had taken control of her body and she was helplessly along for the ride.

It wasn’t until she heard a hiss, and Eric’s head jerked back, that she opened her eyes and came to her senses. Blinking, she watched through hazy eyes as Eric lifted a hand to his mouth, touching one finger to his bottom lip. When he pulled it back, one drop of blood glistened in the light like a perfectly tiny apple. On his lip, another droplet of blood was pooling.

Stunned, Andie opened her mouth to apologize. But not a word came out. She couldn’t believe herself. What had overcome her? She hadn’t even realized...

Eric’s eyes darkened. His mood transformed right in front of her. He looked at her like a wild animal might assess its prey before lunging for the kill. She shuddered beneath the brooding stare of absolute lust and hunger that loomed beneath Eric’s eyes.

“Andie!” Eric scolded and a hot blush crawled up her neck. Panting, she looked down at the nervous fingers that tugged anxiously at each other. A dominant hand reached behind her head and clamped down on the base of her neck. He pulled her close. “I do the biting, little girl.”

Andie shuddered. Images of Eric biting into her skin flashed wildly through her mind. The very idea of writhing and crying beneath each pierce of Eric’s teeth made her even needier than she was before, and she squirmed in an attempt to alleviate the ache between her legs.

But nothing went unnoticed by Eric. He looked down at her squirming hips before returning his assessing gaze back on Andie with one eyebrow lifted dangerously. A smirk ghosted around his lips.

“Is something troubling you, Andie?”

“No,” she answered petulantly through another hot blush, rebelling against his scorning tone while also melting beneath it. Her body raged in a sort of sexual captivity. She wanted to bite Eric. She wanted him to bite her. She wanted him to tie her to something, smack her with something, pinch her with something...

She was coming undone and she felt overwhelmed by it.

“D-do you remember the clothespins from last night?”

“Yes...” he answered with a curious nod.

“What were you going to do with them?”

Eric smiled. It was patient and not at all surprised by her question or the direction of the conversation.

“I thought...” she trailed off with a shaky gulp. “I thought you were going to put it...”

“...Here?” Eric’s hand disappeared beneath her dress. He pressed one thumb to the hard nub beneath her panties.

Swallowing a whimper, Andie nodded.

“No, I wasn’t going to put it here,” he said. And then matter-of-factly: “They were going to go here.”

Andie gasped as a hard pinch tweaked the inside of her thigh.

“That would hurt!”

“Yes, that was the idea. You were to be punished.” He lifted his eyebrows. “Remember?”

Andie’s teeth sunk into her bottom lip. At the mention of punishment, the ache between her legs throbbed again, and she clenched her thighs in response. Sitting astride Eric made it difficult to press her thighs together, and she ended up squeezing him instead. He didn’t bother looking down this time. He just smiled all-knowingly at her blushing face.

“You haven’t changed a bit,” he mused behind narrowed eyes lined with thick dark lashes. “Melting at the prospect of discipline.”

He was teasing her—taunting her.

She loved it.

He didn’t used to be so...patronizing towards her. She saw hints of it as a teenager. Especially near the end, just before he left... Perhaps that contributed to his reason for leaving. Once a patient disciplinarian, his intentions grew darker, hungrier, more feral... She saw bits and pieces of it but nothing like the beast on display now. The man in front of her was unchecked, unleashed, and ready to feast.

The hand on her thigh lowered until its fingers were teasing her skin just above her knee. With a wicked twinkle in his eye, Eric pinched again. Andie gasped and lurched forward, landing directly on Eric’s arousal. There was no denying whether or not he was enjoying himself; Andie could feel the hard length of his desires throbbing beneath her. Only the denim of his jeans and the thin cotton layer of her panties stood between them.

“That isn’t pleasant, is it?” he asked, his eyes searching deeply into hers. “Imagine the hard and thin tip of a clothespin instead of my fingers.”

She did and the image made her shiver.

“You could have just spanked me...”

Eric smiled. “No,” he answered with a smile. “You enjoy that too much. Don’t you?”

Andie chewed a little harder on her lip, her arousal feeling so backward as she responded so sexually to Eric’s bullying.

“I want it like this...” she told him, keeping her voice hushed in hopes of hiding how desperately on the edge of her control she was. With the tips of her fingers, she trailed a path down his chest.

He snagged a fast grip on her wrist when her fingers got a little too close to the button of his jeans. He, then, pulled her hand back toward his shoulder, tugging her closer.

“Want what?” he breathed against her lips.

“You.”

Eric smiled. “I’ll take it into consideration.”

Andie huffed at his rejection and tried to pull her wrist free. “As if you get to be in control all the time.”

“I do,” he told her firmly. “I am. Do you object to that?

Did she?

...No.

She managed a slight shake of her head in response before he turned his head, and still holding onto her wrist, nipped at the sensitive skin just below her palm.

“You want me too,” she argued. “So... let’s just—”

“After six years I think we owe it to ourselves to drag it on a bit longer, don’t you?”

He bit again.

“I...” Andie sighed, slowly unraveling. “I think...I can’t think anymore.”

“Then don’t,” he whispered, dropping her wrist and clasping both hands on either side of her face. “Let me do all the thinking for the both of us.”

And then he kissed her and Andie’s mind went blank. His tongue probed her lips until she parted them, allowing him entry. Their heads tilted and their mouths slanted over one another in a deep electrifying kiss that shook Andie to her core.

Suddenly he was rising to his feet and taking Andie with him. She wrapped around him, holding on for dear life as he carried her through the doorway, across the floor of the Green Parlour, and through another door. Andie heard the series of doors opening and closing, and Eric’s powerful footfall on the ancient wood floors. But she didn’t lift her head from the crook of his neck until he was setting her down. Only then did she find that they were in a new room; a private chamber with an array of implements lining the walls, hooks hanging from the ceiling, cabinets concealing additional BDSM accessories, and...a bed.

When Andie’s glossy eyes returned to Eric, she was surprised to find him several feet away, and it looked as if he had put the distance between them on purpose.

“Andie, before we begin...” he started, his voice tense, his body vibrating with the need to take her right then and there. “I need you to understand that I’m not the same person I was six years ago. My tastes have...evolved. I’m rougher, more demanding, and sometimes downright crude, and if any of those things bother you, you need to tell me now so I can know exactly what not to do.”

Andie blinked.

He would hold himself back for her...?

“Wh-what do you mean by ‘crude?’”

Eric swallowed and Andie swore he looked nervous.

“Name-calling...” he answered like he wasn’t proud of it. “I can be degrading...patronizing...I’ll enjoy humiliating you, making you beg, making you cry...”

A far cry from the twenty-year-old who struggled to take her over his knee for a spanking.

“Andie?” Eric stepped forward once. “Listen, I usually hold myself back because I know how intense I can be, so just tell me what makes you uncomfortable and it’ll be easy to avoid.”

He said it as if it was no big deal at all. He would alter his appetite for her. And here she was, unwilling to be with anyone that was remotely vanilla.

Andie slowly shook her head. “You held yourself back six years ago when I didn’t want you to. I understand why you did it, but... I created this side of you. If I hadn’t asked you to punish me when I was sixteen, then you wouldn’t be here right now.”

Swallowing her anxieties, Andie stepped forward, closing the distance between them and wrapping her arms around Eric’s waist. She closed her eyes and laid her head on his chest. His heartbeat accelerated beneath her ear.

“I don’t want you to hold back.”

Eric’s arms closed around her. He held her to him, his head dropping to lay one cheek on the top of her head. The embrace said so much and Andie felt herself becoming so vulnerable. He was so much taller than her, so much bigger, and despite his callous outside, his heart was booming beneath her. He felt absolutely perfect to her, and she found it unnerving.

She could fall in love with him.

When he pulled away, he didn’t go far. He held her small hands in his much larger ones and looked down, studying her for a moment before saying in a voice low and full of wicked promise: “your safeword is ‘red.’ I am going to push your limits tonight, but if you want me to stop at any moment, you don’t hesitate to use your safeword. Understood?”

Smiling, Andie nodded. But her smile faded when Eric shook his head.

“I need verbal responses from now on. We need to be able to communicate safely, but I can’t do that if you’re not responding properly when I address you. So, say it back to me, please.”

“My safe word is ‘red.’” Andie breathed.

“And?”

“And if I want you to stop, then I use my safeword.”

“Good,” he responded with a smile. “Good girl.” He leaned down to kiss her forehead, warming Andie’s insides into warm mushy goo.

And then, without further ado, he pushed her back towards the bed, guiding her backward until the back of her knees hit the edge. She fell back and Eric followed, hovering above her while trapping her wrists high above her head on the mattress.

“Let’s see how good of a listener you are,” he charmed with a wicked grin. “Keep your hands where they are. If you move them, then you’ll be restrained after I punish you for not doing as I told you. Understood?”

“Yes,” Andie whimpered, her heart hammering erratically in her chest and her panties dampening at Eric’s dominance.

“Answer me properly, Andie...” he warned. Andie swallowed another whimper.

“Y-yes, sir.”

He smiled a dangerously dark smile that sent a shudder of anticipation down Andie’s spine.

“Good girl...”