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“Of course not,” Ren murmured, dragging his eyes up to meet mine. “I intend to use a crop on you today.”
My lover crossed to his bedside table, and I realised that the longer length of rope hadn’t been a kindness. Ren wanted me to see what he was doing.
His long fingers ran lovingly over everything inside the drawer. Fuck, half of the things in there I didn’t recognise, andnoneof them looked like they belonged in a bedroom.
I stopped looking.
“Open those pretty eyes of yours, Mat,” Ren warned, “or I’ll get you much more acquainted with each and every one of these.”
I scowled, but the threat was enough for me to obey. The prick hadn’t even turned around.
“You’re a depraved bastard, you know that?”
“It has been said.” Ren plucked a black riding crop from the midst of the terrifying mass of objects, and shut the drawer with a deft flick of his hips. He shrugged and offered a broad grin. “Although mostly screamed.”
“I’m not your plaything,” I said.
I was, and we both knew it.
“Mmm,” Ren agreed, stalking closer with a wicked expression. “Yet tonight, Nathanael, and every night after this, you’re whatever I say you are.”
He pressed his chest against mine, bringing our faces to within an inch of each other.
“And I say you’re mine.”
*
Chapter Fifty-Four
Mat shuddered at those words, so gloriously responsive and I hadn’t even touched him. As my lover’s eyes closed again, I didn’t bother to remind him of my threat. I let the crop do that for me, dragging the leather end of it down across his parted lips.
His eyes snapped back open, that stormy grey-blue colour I loved so much. Fear and lust warred within their depths, and he muttered something uncomplimentary as he defiantly lifted his chin and stared me down.
Fuck, I loved this, all of it. From having him on display for me; arms stretched above his head, naked and trying to hide how he was trembling, to having wrapped the rope lovingly around his wrists with the anticipation of getting to see them laid raw by his struggles.
But there was still a tangled knot of terror in my chest that Mathias eased with his teasing smile and a playful kick aimed at my leg when I stood too close for too long. I hadn’t been lying when I said I didn’t know how he would take this, and it was all too new to him for him to have the answer either. But I trusted him to stop me if he couldn’t – or if he didn’t want to.
I idly inspected the crop, as if I hadn’t already meticulously looked over every inch of it to ensure it wouldn’t hurt him in any way I didn’t intend. Welzes might have destroyed my toys during his brief stay in the palace but I didn’t mind, loving the knowledge that the only flesh this new crop would ever mark was Mat’s. My breathing shallowed as I imagined all the things I could do, the noises I could draw out of him, the patterns I could make on his skin...
“Let me show you what else I’m going to hit you with,” I said, moving back towards the bedside table.
“No.”
I paused. “No, you don’t want me to hit you, or no, you want it to be a surprise?”
Mathias gave me a smile. It had teeth, and that told me everything I needed to know.
The latter, then.
“But you’re going to bitch and moan about it anyway, aren’t you?” I asked wryly.
“Naturally,” he agreed, and then shifted in the ropes, rising up on his toes before planting his bare feet more firmly on the floor. My cock stirred at the mere promise of what was to come. “Alright. Let’s get this over with.”
Oh, my not-so-sweet nuisance of a brat. If he thought that was the way this was going to go down, he wasseverelymistaken.
This wasn’t something Mat was going to be able to just obstinately endure for a minute or two and then get his own way. I was going to make him fucking feel it.
“Sure,” I said conversationally. “Let’s do that.”
