Page 14 of The Princess Tied

Nervously, she watched as he rose and walked to a small shrub, began to pluck a few longer thinner branches. He stripped them of their leaves by running his hand down the stem. Leaves fluttered free, and some whirled away on the wind to be blown into the chasm.

He returned to her straight-mouthed, eyes burning, the branches trailing in his hand. What did he intend with those?

“You have a choice. Apologize to me and you get one strike on your bare ass, or don’t and you get ten.”

“But I didn’t insult you and…” She ran down in the face of his anger and her helplessness. Po inhaled, glared. “Very well. I apologize to your parents, and I suppose to you for whatever you thought you heard.”

John chuckled. “Damn. Next time I word that better.”

“Next time?”

“Oh, it will happen.”

The gleam in his eyes was unexpected, and she felt that now familiar closing in of her throat that only he had managed to accomplish.

“Let’s see.” He drew her to her feet by a hand under her arm and headed for a small boulder where he sat and then pulled her over his lap. He held her in place. Po struggled to rise, mortified because she knew what he intended.

“Sit still. No one will aid you. Take this or I will do worse.”

Worse… She stilled, sighing as he took hold of her bound hands and pushed them higher up her back.

“Good.” Then he struck her, hard, but only once.

The sting made her flinch, but she’d pinched her mouth shut and made no sound. She inhaled through that minor pain. It was a mild sensation on her rear, not as painful as the scratches on her finger from the rock climb. It was already dying away, except that now he laid his palm on her there, and he stayed like that, quiet, with that hand doing small movements, pressing down, pressing her onto him.

She was sure he had an erection. Not being an expert, she had to file it under maybe.

After another minute or so, while neither of them spoke, and she felt herself respond to this unasked-for male attention by growing terribly, embarrassingly wet where the split of her sex existed… after that time, he sighed.

“You are going to get dressed after I untie you, Princess. You are not going to misbehave.”

How dare he utter that word misbehave. As if she were some student of his.

Now was not the best moment to protest. Not when the sticks he’d birched her with lay on the ground before her eyes.

“Say yes.”

“Or?”

“Or I will do worse.”

She toed the ground, thinking. “Okay. Yes.”

“Good, my princess. Very good.”

He liked that worse word far too much.

Once allowed up, she stood and only glared, briefly. Slapping him could wait. Besides, her hands were tied. So far, he’d earned a hanging and a garroting, if this were brought up in court.

At least his spectacles were in place. The two black discs seemed impartial and magisterial. Without them, the fire in his eyes swept her into an acute moment of awe, colored by a wash of fear and lust. None of which made sense.

“Get dressed then we ride. Be thankful I’m not tying you to the saddle, naked.”

He released her from the rope.

While she was dressing, she dared to rebut his threat. “That would have you arrested for indecency.”

“What would?” He’d thrown the saddle back on the stallion and was cinching it.