.

Poppy

      MY BUTT WAS on fire, my throat felt hoarse and my eyes were gritty with tears.

      My orgasm was still pulsing through me, the echoes of my screams reverberating off the glass of the windows and the white walls of Xander’s apartment.

      I’d never felt so good in my whole damn life.

      He’d taken me apart so completely I’d kind of lost myself. In the burning pain as he’d spanked me and the pleasure that had come with it. I didn’t know why it had turned me on so much, but it had. And the words he’d used, calling me his fuck toy and his bad girl, had turned me on even more.

      I’d been wet before he’d even started spanking me and then, when he’d touched my pussy and pushed his thumb in my butt... God...

      I couldn’t stop shaking.

      Lying across his lap like this, with my jeans and underwear pulled down, felt exposing and yet at the same time so unbelievably erotic. He’d been watching me the whole time he’d touched me, making me the complete focus of his attention, as if my pleasure was important to him.

      As if I was important to him.

      God, if I wasn’t careful I was going to be desperate for him again and I hadn’t even come down from the last orgasm.

      Xander removed his hand from between my thighs and gave me a light stroke that made me shiver from my head all the way down to my toes.

      ‘Kneel on the floor,’ he ordered, his voice containing that stern note that I loved so much. ‘And don’t move until I get back.’

      I wanted to ask him where he was going, but he was already urging me from his lap and down onto the floor, and my brain wasn’t working well enough for me to get the question out.

      Then he was gone, leaving me to kneel in the silence.

      My legs were still quaking and I could smell my own arousal. My inner thighs were slick with it. It was embarrassing.

      After a minute or two I shifted to pull my undies and jeans back up again, but he came back just as I was doing so.

      ‘No,’ he said curtly. ‘Don’t cover yourself.’

      He strode past me to the sofa, tossing some condom packets down on the cushions as he sat down.

      I stilled, my heart racing, wondering what he was going to ask of me next and half afraid, half excited about it.

      He leaned back on the sofa, his thighs spread. He was tall, dark, powerful. His black gaze was so compelling and so full of fierce heat that I could hardly breathe.

      ‘Take your clothes off,’ he said in a voice full of steel.

      Okay, so he wanted me to strip. In front of him.

      I swallowed and got to my feet, awkward and afraid and yet somehow even more turned on than I had been before.

      The me of a few days ago would have found this demeaning, stripping for a man while he watched. It would have made me feel too like my mother for comfort.

      But the way Xander stared at me, intense and watchful, his sharp, predatory features full of hunger... No, it didn’t feel demeaning at all.

      There was a power in doing this for him, in following his orders.

      Because it was obvious from the look on his face that it made him as desperate as it made me.

      My hands shook a little as I shrugged out of my denim jacket, dropping it on the floor. I pulled off my T-shirt and discarded it before bending to unlace my sneakers. My fingers felt thick and unwieldy, and I kept fumbling with the laces until eventually Xander said, ‘Stop.’

      I froze. ‘I... I’m sorry. I can...’

      But, before I could get any more words out, he pushed himself off the sofa and knelt at my feet, his long fingers deftly undoing my laces for me.

      It shocked me into silence.

      He didn’t say a word and I could only watch as he finished undoing them. Then he gently urged me to lift up my foot and, before I knew what he was doing, he’d slipped the sneaker off then my sock too.

      His fingertips on my bare skin were so hot that I began to tremble again. My chest felt tight at the care with which he touched me, easing my foot back down onto the floor before urging up the other one.

      When he finished, I thought he’d go back to sitting again, but he didn’t. He stayed on his knees but straightened up, reaching for the waistband of my jeans and pushing the denim down my legs, taking my underwear with it.

      ‘I thought you wanted me to take my clothes off,’ I said huskily.

      ‘I changed my mind.’ He urged me to lift one foot then the other again, helping me step out of my jeans. ‘Besides, you’re mine to do with as I see fit so don’t question me.’

      The dark, rough words whispered over my skin, making me catch my breath. And then I was naked in front of him and shaking with the force of my desire.

      He looked slowly up my body as if he was committing every part of me to memory, and the hot possessiveness in his black gaze eased the fear inside me, made me even more aware of the way I affected him. And how in this moment I was just as powerful as he was.

      I could deny him at any time. I could say my word and he would have to stop, and he would stop. Xander King had always been a man of his word.

      Power glowed inside me as his hands dropped to my ankles, but I didn’t say seven. And I knew I wouldn’t say it.

      Because there was nothing he could do to me that I wouldn’t want.

      Slowly he ran his fingers up the backs of my legs, his palms hot against my calves and then the backs of my knees, and up to my thighs.

      The look on his dark, handsome face became one of intense male satisfaction.

      ‘Beautiful,’ he murmured. ‘You’re beautiful.’

      I’d always hated my beauty. Hated how it made me a target, how it made men always want a piece of me. But right now, standing in front of Xander with him looking at me, desire like a fire in his eyes, for the first time I didn’t hate it. I was glad of it. I was glad he found me beautiful and that it pleased him.

       You’ve really lowered yourself to this? Pleasing a man?

      But I ignored that thought and then it exploded into stars as Xander’s fingers tightened on the backs of my thighs and he leaned forward, brushing a light kiss over my stomach.

      Goosebumps erupted all over me, the breath hissing in my throat. And then stopped altogether as he moved lower, burying his face between my thighs.

      Pleasure twisted like a knife as his tongue pushed roughly inside me and I groaned aloud, my back arching.

      Oh, my God. I was nearly ready to come apart. Again.

      His hands slid higher, cupping my butt and squeezing. It hurt, but the pain was sweet somehow, giving an edge to the pleasure that was cascading through me.

      He held me tightly, pressing his tongue deeper, holding me still.

      I gasped, my hands reaching down and threading through his thick, silky black hair. Standing was difficult, my knees weak and shaky.

      I wanted to lie down, spread my legs wide, give him greater access, but he held me tight and I couldn’t. And somehow that made it even hotter, the lash of his tongue even wickeder.

      Oh, holy shit. He was going to make me come again.

      But, just before the release hit me, he pulled away, dark eyes burning.

      I moaned in protest, swaying on my feet as he let me go.

      He licked his lips, one corner of his mouth curling in a smile that made