Page 54 of Ruthless Game

No.

I forced my breathing to calm, to slow. Heard my long-dead father in my head.

Men don’t get hurt. No one touches a man, unless he wants it. Anything less makes you weak.

He’d never said those words to me, not exactly, but I could hear him all the same.

I searched desperately for the control I’d needed since I’d walked into the living room to find Emma there. Since I’d seen her again for the first time.

Since that night.

“What happened to ‘You want my body? That’s all you’ll have,’” I said, a mocking reminder of what she’d said in the locker room. Or an attempted one, since I was about to lose my shit.

“That was before I realized how much this affected you,” she whispered.

It couldn’t affect me, and I couldn’t let her see. Not when she could use it and then disregard it to destroy me all over again.

“Stop talking,” I told her. “Another word out of you and there will be hell to pay. You won’t like it, I promise.”

“Lawson …” she whispered. “Are you … you don’t seem okay. Talk to⁠—”

“No.” The word slapped the air. “I told you, no more talking. The only time I want you opening that mouth is to take my cock in it. Strip.”

She glared at me, straightening her back, her neck, taking on the regality of a queen.

A bratty queen.

“Make me,” she said.

She seemed angry, hurt, and I had to block her emotions before they wounded me. I’d told her not to speak, and she still had. I needed to regain control, and she was fighting me for it, tooth and nail. I couldn’t let her. Couldn’t backtrack, because then I’d be that same vulnerable boy who’d been hurt so easily by the one person I truly loved, which then opened me up to get physically hurt in ways I’d never⁠—

No.

Stop. Stop before you sink. Before you drown.

I didn’t think about that night anymore. I was a man. A man couldn’t be⁠—

Needing to escape those thoughts, I grabbed Emma by her waist, lifting her up and off the bed as I sat down. Standing her between my spread legs, I tore her black and white polka dot dress at the front seam with a loud rip that echoed through my bedroom like a slap. She stood there in a black lace bra and underwear, momentarily paralyzed by what I assumed was shock. I didn’t care, didn’t have time to care, suddenly overwhelmed with the urgency of having her naked and under my hands for me to punish, for me to control.

“Make you?” I asked, voice low and taut with anger and the need to have her in any way I wanted. “Oh, I’ll make you, Angel.”

I ripped her bra in half, then her panties, mollified by her shriek of protest, the way she jerked from the impact. Even more satisfied when she began to fight me, both trying to shove my hands away from her and hit me, kick me, even knee me in the balls. Grappling with her made my blood run hot, made me feel alive in ways I’d forgotten or maybe had never experienced at all. And subduing her with only an arm around her waist to hold her steady gave me back that control I needed so badly.

“Fuck, I love your body,” I groaned, not even caring that I hadn’t said the words intentionally. “I’m about to turn that perfect ass red though.”

Lifting her again, I dragged her face down, ass up, over my lap so her bare cunt aligned perfectly with my cock. My boxer briefs and gray sweatpants were the only barrier between us, and my already hardening cock immediately went solid the second I could feel her, hot and wet, soaking the material.

“You love this, don’t you. Love being manhandled. No wonder you told me to make you,” I murmured. “But I told you not to open that pretty little mouth unless its taking my cock deep, and you didn’t listen, and bad girls who don’t listen?” I slapped her bare left ass cheek hard, watching redness bloom from the impact. “They get fucking punished for it until they can’t sit for a goddamn month.”

I figured that would be enough to settle her, but Emma kept proving she had steel in that beautiful spine of hers, and maybe some crazy, because she twisted her head and looked at me, a wild rebellion in her dark blue eyes.

“Prove it,” she said.

Oh, fuck, yeah, I was going to prove it to her. Without a thought of warming her up slowly or pacing myself, I began to wail on her ass, smack after smack, left cheek, right cheek, both cheeks, the tops of her thighs. She writhed against me, trying to get free, but that only made me spank her harder, my breathing rough and my cock hard enough to punch a hole through my sweatpants and right into her sopping wet pussy. There was no rhythm or method, only madness, as my palm began to burn from how hard I spanked her.

“Lawson!” she cried. “Stop. God. Stop. It’s too much. I need you to stop.”

“There’s no such thing as too much,” I found myself growling as I continued to pepper her ass with spanks, sure at this point I was making her bruise. “Not when it comes to you and me.”