Page 18 of Among the Screaming Trees

“Sir?” he muses. “Do I look like your fucking Dom?”

“No, sir,” I protest, catching the second error quickly, but not fast enough.

“I should bend you over my desk and spank your ass raw for disobeying what you were told yesterday. At no point was ‘Sir’ ever mentioned.”

I cannot move. Paralysis has claimed me, along with any common sense. Bend me over his desk and… spank me? He’s joking. He has to be. But the thought has my core pulsing with need. If he only knew his threat was more reward than punishment.

Elijah stands, moving in behind me and leaning so that my palms land on his desk with a soft thunk. With one foot, he kicks my feet apart. My core pulses with how wrong this is. He’s a professor, and I am his scholarship student. Not to mention he’s around twice my age, if my guess is accurate. His warm breath ghosts the skin of my neck, a palm teasing my outer thigh. This is so fucking wrong, but my brain is in conference with my pussy right now, and the hormones have left the building. I’m desperate to close my thighs, but he tisks when I adjust my stance.

“Ah, ah, who said you could move?”

“No one,” I reply, as softly as I dare. I’m staring down at a pile of paperwork because I’m certain that what is open on his computer screen has sensitive information. If we are breaking rules by doing this, whatever this is, I’d rather limit the discretions to single digits.

“I know you supplied Mr. Vaskari with the GMO soy information today. Why would you do that?” he says, snatching back his hand from my thigh. I instantly regret the loss of his warmth. He moves to the filing cabinet and takes something from a dish on top of it. Plant samples are everywhere. The office walls are decorated with educational sketches of Yukon natives alongside elegant, sketched nudes. One such piece depicts a curvy woman with her back to the artist, looking over her shoulder. The lines are uncomplicated, each curve accentuating her stunning features. The bulk of her hips, the swell of her breasts. Her chin hides behind flowing tendrils of hair, each fiber bleeding into the next.

Just as I’m about to relax and close my legs to ease the ache, he settles behind me again. One steady hand, warm and almost gentle, but not quite, seizes my jaw at the same as time he says, “Open.”

When I don’t comply, his fingers work my jaw apart.

“Good girl. Just like that,” he croons.

I blink, desperate to face this frustrating man. His hold has me immobile. In his other hand is a seed pod or some type of pinecone. He seizes on my surprise and slack mouth to shove it onto my tongue before closing my lips around it. I’m so full.

“Lodgepole pinecone,” he offers, as if this is one of our laboratory discussions. “In case you can’t remain quiet. Do not lose that cone, Aspen, or your punishment will double.”

He holds my mouth closed around the cone, pressing once to ensure it stays put. Stepping behind me once more, he flips my skirt up over my butt and massages each cheek in a hand so large and warm, I almost moan. His grip is firm, and the pressure sends all kinds of needy signals to my core. My underwear, which I can already tell is embarrassingly wet, is lowered down my ass just enough to expose each cheek to the air.

“Do you know why you are here, Aspen?”

I want to open my mouth until the lodgepole cone shifts on my tongue. The scales slide along my flesh, their rough, unyielding texture against my smooth muscle almost too much. Saliva pools, and I have to breathe through my nose to keep the cone still. Here, as in his office? Or here, as in Wyldan, on a scholarship? A myriad of answers form a mélange in my mind. This guy is not what I imagined old man Otto Wyldan had in mind when he turned the first sod on this land. Then again, kink could run through Wyldan veins like gold in the Klondike.

The first spank rains down hard on my unprepared skin. My eyes water at the shock of a physical blow, the cone sliding forward and almost free before I suck it back in and close my mouth. Drops of saliva escape and fall on his paperwork.

“One,” he says, unfazed.

His hand thunders against my sensitive skin a second time. This time, I’m primed for his contact, and I barely flinch.

“Two.”

The third, fourth, and fifth strikes come with unholy force and cruel repetition. While he does not immediately strike the same spot as the last contact, the area is inflamed and sore. His fingers massage my abused flesh, soothing the skin as his fingertips brush across the flesh in a whisper. I stare out at shapes of spruce and larch, even my namesake, Aspen. Through a veil of tears I refuse to let fall, the images provide the comfort I won’t get from Wyldan’s hands. Only, he’s too perceptive. While neither of us can dispute the imminent tears, my pooling arousal has perfumed the office. I’m so wet, it’s about to splash out of me like the droplets of saliva onto his paperwork.

He slides his hand underneath, collecting some onto his fingers before bringing his hand to his mouth. I hear more than see him suck those fingers into his mouth and moan around my taste. This is so wrong; we’re both going to hell for this.

“Delicious,” he croons. “Three more, and then I’ll let you come, okay?”

I nod, my head bobbing around in spite of physics.

Slaps six and seven are sharp and swift. One to my left cheek, the other to my right. The soothing is basic before the last spank is dealt to the right side, the area tinging from the sting of his touch. His chin falls to my shoulder as my head drops.

“Good girl,” he praises while snaking a hand around the front. As he explores my wet slit, his teeth find my ear. He nips at the rounded shell right as two fingers dip inside.

“So, fucking wet from a little spanking,” he chuckles. Such a lighthearted, joyful noise from that man’s mouth is foreign. But so welcome. He pumps in and out once, and then twice, before withdrawing his fingers. I don’t need to mourn the loss, however; they find my clit with precision. Elijah rounds the swollen nub before plucking and pinching my most sensitive area. I moan around the lodgepole cone, before he tisks a warning again.

“Ah ah, pretty girl. Any noise and I will stop.”

Elijah crowds my back, his rich, woodsy-amber scent filling my nostrils every time I inhale. He works the bud with careful strokes, swapping between circling, pinching, and pressing. My body quakes, the tension coiling, desperate for release.

“That’s it, Aspen. Come for me, baby. Just like that.”