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“I thought…”
“You thought what?” he presses, his thumb brushing beneath my eye, catching a tear I didn’t realize had fallen. “Tell me.”
“I thought you meant it,” I whisper, the words scraping their way up my throat. “When you said I was yours.”
“I did mean it,” he confesses, in a low, dangerous register that scrapes against my nerves. His eyes, cold and flat as a winter sky, pin me in place. “You are mine. That is a fact, not a negotiation. However, you seem to have developed the dangerous illusion that because I enjoy fucking you, you’ve earned the right to question my decisions.”
He takes a step back, the small distance feeling like miles as his gaze rolls over my face. “What happens between us changes nothing about how I run my business. I make the decisions, and when you question them, you become a liability.”
“I’m not a liability,” I choke, fighting back a sob as I blink away unshed tears. “I’m your wife.”
“Then fucking act like it.”
After last night’s tenderness, having him reduce me to a liability hurts like a knife twisting between my ribs. The hurt sears through me, quickly giving way to a surge of fury. I am not his liability. I am not some inconvenience he can dismiss when I stop behaving how he wants. Though neither of us wanted it, I am his wife. And I refuse to stand here and let him make me feel like anything less.
My hand moves before I can think better of it, connecting with his cheek. As the sharp crack radiates across my palm, I freeze, my breath catching as I stare at the red mark blooming on his skin. He turns his head to me slowly, his cold eyes now burning as a devilish smile pulls at the corners of his lips. “That’s not how good little wives behave,” he whispers the silken threat.
With his gaze pinning me in place, he undoes his belt, and the leather whispers against fabric as he pulls it free. “Bend over the desk,” he instructs, gripping the buckle and wrapping the leather around his hand before letting the loose length dangle from his fist.
“No,” I grit shakily, trembling with a mixture of fear and a traitorous flicker of anticipation.
He is on me in a flash, clamping his fingers around my arm and spinning me with a quickness that steals my breath. I stumble, my feet scrambling for purchase as he propels me forward. The cool, polished wood is a shock against my cheek when he forces me face down over the sprawling mahogany.
“There are consequences for your actions, sweetheart,” he muses, with a low, menacing rumble that vibrates through my entire body. “Daddy doesn’t tolerate this kind of behavior.”
His free hand grabs the hem of the oversized shirt I’m wearing, tossing it up my back until it bunches around my shoulders, leaving my ass exposed to his gaze and his mercy. The air is cool against my heated skin as I lie in wait, a second of nervous expectation that stretches into eternity.
The first strike of his belt lands without warning, a line of fire burning across my ass with a sharp, stinging pain that steals my breath away. A strangled cry flies from my lungs as the second strike meets my skin. It’s a mirror image of the first, a perfect parallel line of agony that makes my vision swim and my knuckles whiten where they grip the desk.
He is methodical. Each strike lands with enough force to hurt—a sharp, stinging blaze that makes me gasp and writhe—but not to harm. He knows exactly where the line is, dancing on the edge of it with precision. The belt bites into my skin, leaving heated, raised welts that throb in time with my heartbeat, but he never crosses into cruelty. It is discipline. It is ownership. It is a language he speaks fluently, and despite my tears and the humiliation, some dark, secret part of me responds to it.
I lose count after the fifth lash, my world dissolving into sensation—the crack of leather, heat spreading across my ass, and the helpless whimpers that escape my throat with each impact. But beneath the pain and the tears streaming down my face, pooling on the polished wood beneath my cheek, there is a terrible, traitorous relief. Here, in this moment, there are no choices to make, no sister to save, no corporate empire to navigate. There is only his will, my submission, and the clarity that comes when everything else burns away.
Part of me hates that I need this—the boundaries, consequences, and unwavering certainty of his dominance—but another part, the part I try to bury, craves the simplicity of knowing exactly where I stand. Even if that is bent over his desk with my ass striped from his belt.
He stops as suddenly as he started, the only sound in the room my own ragged sobs.
“Are you ready to apologize?”
The question hangs between us. I could say yes. Part of me wants to say yes and let him shower me with his approval, gather me in his arms, kiss away the sting, and tell me I’m his good girl. The way my body responds to his dominance, it would be so easy to sink into it and forget everything but his will.
But his betrayal burns hotter than the welts on my ass.
“No,” I grit, needing him to understand that this isn’t defiance for its own sake. I lift my head enough to meet his eyes, my vision blurred with tears, but my voice steady. “No. I’m not.”
His fingers tangle in my hair, and he pulls me from the desk and forces me down until my knees hit the plush carpet. Towering over me, he unzips his pants. His veined girth—already hard and throbbing—juts from the expensive fabric of his suit, inches from my face.
“Open,” he commands.
I obey without hesitation. When my lips part, he lays his cock on my tongue and urges me to close my lips around it with soft, wordless pressure. He doesn’t thrust. He simply holds himself there, heavy and pulsing, a silent claim that requires no movement to show his dominance.
His phone buzzes on his desk, and he reaches for it with his free hand. “You’re going to be a good girl and sit nice and still with my cock in your mouth until I’m done,” he instructs, his eyes meeting mine with a challenge that dares me to disobey. “Ashford.”
The mundane conversation drones on about zoning variances and projected returns. I’m forced to listen to the smooth, confident cadence of his voice as my jaw protests its stretch around him. His thumb occasionally brushes my cheek or wipes the spittle from my chin, while he talks for what feels like an eternity.
After finally ending the call, he tosses the phone onto his desk and slowly withdraws himself from my mouth. I stretch my aching jaw, rubbing it to ease the discomfort. “Now, what do you need to tell Daddy?”
I look at him, standing over me, and the last of my resistance crumbles. “I’m sorry.” The words whisper over my quivering lower lip with the realization that I’m not just surrendering this one battle. I’m accepting the role he is demanding. “I’m sorry, Daddy.”
