Jonathan drags his finger up and down, and when he doesn’t get the reaction he’s looking for, he circles my clit. Nothing. Nada.

It doesn’t matter if I do it or if anyone else does. Being wet is a myth I only read about.

Still stroking my clit, he thrusts a finger into my entrance. The resistance is real and I wince in discomfort.

He pulls his finger out but keeps it at my opening like a looming threat. “You are dead. Fascinating.”

Fascinating, seriously? No idea which reaction I expected, but that’s not it.

In the past, as in literally years ago, whenever any of my previous sexual partners touched me and found out that what I told them is actually true, it scratched their male ego.

Some went on with it and just used my body. Others tried everything to be crowned as the one who finally made me wet or susceptible to sexual pleasure. When it didn’t work, they left and never returned. Not that I was ever looking for a relationship.

The way Jonathan finds this fascinating is throwing me off, like everything else about him. I can’t even tell if ‘fascinating’ is his usual sarcastic reaction or if he’s being genuine.

“What happened, wild one?”

“You might want to consider lube. You’ll be able to get inside and –”

Slap.

My heart lunges in my throat as the sound reverberates in the air and soon after, my arse cheek catches fire.

Did he just…spank me?

“When I ask a question, I expect a direct answer, Aurora.”

“W-why did you do that?” I breathe out, my voice jittery and all wrong.

His palm comes on my arse again and I jolt against his lap. My limp hands clench, needing to grab something. Anything.

My only option is his thigh, but I refuse to hold on to him.

“Do what?” He lands another slap on my heated skin. “This?”

“J-Jonathan…” Oh my God. What the hell is wrong with my voice? Why is it so breathy and almost like a moan?

“Do you have an objection, Aurora?” When I remain silent, he strokes my skin, and my eyes flutter closed at the soothing circles. “According to your terms, I can do, and I quote, ‘whatever I please’. Which was a very reckless thing to say to me, I might add. Are you having second thoughts? Do you want to leave?”

I trap my lower lip against my teeth. “N-no.”

Whatever foreign sensation is building inside me will go away. It’s just a phase. I went to a sex club once, and none of what my partner at the time did turned me on. So Jonathan’s methods won’t affect me either.

It’s just a phase. A mere phase.

He massages my heated arse cheek with slightly calloused, masculine fingers. “Good girl.”

My muscles relax and I feel like I’m about to purr like a kitten or something. His palm comes down on my arse again and the sting jerks my spine upright. A squeal rips through the air as my eyes snap open.

I realise with horror that the sound came from me.

What is happening to me?

“Mmm.” Jonathan slides his finger up my folds and I freeze as he meets slippery skin. “You’re wet for me.”

No. This can’t be true.

“It is, wild one.” His amused, smug tone engulfs me in its savage clutch.

Did I speak aloud?

“You know what I think, Aurora? I think you’re not dead, you just needed something more with your pleasure. Something I’m happy to provide.”

Jonathan thrusts two fingers inside me in one go and slaps my arse cheek at the same time. Slap. Slap. Slap.

He goes on and on until a sob tears from my throat and I’m submerged in a strange sense of arousal mixed with pain. “Ten, for every minute you were late. No one wastes my time.”

Before I can speak, he pounds his fingers inside me over and over, and my cheeks burn at the sound of his skin slapping against my arousal. Heat bubbles in my veins, and my stomach contracts as if it’s about to be smashed into.

Then, I’m hit out of nowhere.

I scream as a bolt of electricity shoots through my limbs and shocks my entire body. My nails dig into Jonathan’s trousers, holding on to him so I don’t fall.

It’s useless, though.

My eyes roll to the back of my head as I keep falling and rolling down a cliff so steep, there’s no landing in sight.

The rush of pleasure grips me in its vice until there’s no way out. Until all I can do is feel my body’s armour crack to pieces with no chance of putting it back together again.

I’m breathing heavily, my chest rising and falling like I’m coming down from an adrenaline wave.

When I finally return to the land of the living, Jonathan still has his fingers deep inside my slick core and his other hand covers my stinging, burning arse.

It’s pulsing, but to my utter horror, it’s not out of embarrassment or repulsion. It’s pulsing with the need for more.

The other dooming realisation hits me straight in the face. Jonathan just brought me to my first orgasm.

My first ever in my twenty-seven-year life. And I didn’t even last a minute under his fierce, firm hand.

He wrenched it out of me in one ruthless, unapologetic manner. As if it was his God-given right.

As if he was always meant to do it.

“Pain.” His strong voice echoes around my dizzy head like a sinister, dark promise. “That’s what you need, Aurora. Lucky for you, I have plenty to give.”

15

Aurora

Second thoughts.

A vile way in which your brain plants the seed so you’ll suspect everything you do.

Last night, I was so sure I could take on Jonathan’s offer and unveil the truth behind Alicia’s death.

Then he lay me on his lap, spanked me, and thrust his fingers into me.

I orgasmed.

I fucking orgasmed.

Not being able to feel for such a long time has made me sure and even smug about my defectiveness. And yet, it happened. I felt. And it was in the most brutal way possible.

Leaning back against my chair, I close my eyes and try not to think about his hand, his fingers and how, when I finally got off his lap, I stumbled and nearly fell to my face.

Jonathan’s lips set in a line as he watched me with those steel eyes that I’m now sure know no emotions whatsoever. The man is a blank board. He’s a tyrant, and like any tyrant, only his benefit matters.

‘I expect you here when I return from work.’

His parting words kept playing on repeat at the back of my mind during the entire drive home, then when I climbed under the covers and absentmindedly looked at the occasional memes Layla sent me.

I wasn’t able to sleep.

I couldn’t.

It’s more than the soreness in my arse or the dark foreboding that comes every time I recall the ferocity of his slaps or how disastrously I reacted to them.

The moment I close my eyes, all I think about is the feel of his strong hand on my arse, or the sound my arousal made when he savagely pounded into me. To my horror, it’s not feelings of humiliation or vulnerability, it’s the acute lust, the flooding pleasure, the —

“Mate!”

I startle, and when my eyes open, I find Layla perching over me and waving her hands in front of my face. “There you are. Were you napping? And why do your cheeks look as red as a football player after playing the championship game?”