Chapter 285: 285 | You Didn’t Say Please
I raised my hand.
And brought it down.
The crack of palm against flesh bounced off the brick walls and scattered across the candlelight like something physical you could catch in your fist. Addison’s whole body lurched forward and a noise tore out of her throat—part surprise, part raw want, part something wild that she’d been choking down since the moment she walked through Aurora’s door tonight. The Euphoric Feedback at level seven grabbed the sting and twisted it into pure heat that spread from the contact point through her hips and thighs and down to her toes, which curled so hard I thought her arches might cramp.
A red handprint bloomed across her left cheek like ink spreading through water.
"FUCK."
I hit her again. Same spot. Harder this time.
Addison’s fingers dug into the sheets hard enough that the fabric started to tear. Her spine curved down and her ass tilted up toward me, an invitation so blatant that subtlety had given up and walked out of the room.
The second handprint layered over the first, my fingers spread wider across her skin, the full outline of my palm stamped in red against pale white like I’d signed my name in her flesh.
"Is that it?" She turned her head so both eyes could lock onto me, mascara tracking down her cheeks, lipstick smeared across her mouth, hair plastered to her forehead with sweat.
A grin split her face that had no business being that gorgeous when the rest of her looked this wrecked. "My grandmother hits harder than that and she’s been dead for six years."
I brought my hand down a third time with the full weight of my C-rank strength behind it.
The sound was obscene. Addison’s body slid forward six inches across the sheets and she screamed into the pillow before jerking her head up and aiming the rest of it straight at the ceiling.
"FUCK YES. Oh fuck, fuck, keep going, fuck me you fucking vampire!"
I spanked her again. And again. I found a rhythm that matched the pulse of Euphoric Feedback running through her system, timing each strike so the conversion from pain to pleasure hit at the exact peak of the previous wave before it could fade.
My palm started burning with that good ache that came from proper follow-through. Her ass had turned scarlet. The perfect outline of my hand sat printed on her skin in overlapping layers that built on top of each other like some kind of perverted painting, right cheek and left, and she pushed back into every single one like she was trying to absorb the impact through her whole body.
Each hit made her push harder. Each push made me hit harder. The feedback loop was building toward something inevitable, and we both knew it.
"Harder!" Her voice had gone raw, stripped of all the gothic armor and razor-wire attitude until it was just Addison underneath—just the girl who’d been hiding beneath all that leather and profanity. Desperate. Honest. Unbelievably turned on in a way that probably scared her if she stopped to think about it.
"Come on, come on, don’t slow down now, I need it, I need you to, fuck, please, please just—"
I stopped the spanking.
The silence of it—the sheer nothing where my hand had been—drew a sound out of her that shouldn’t have existed. Addison Baxter, the girl who’d promised to use someone’s spine as a back-scratcher for insulting Aurora, whimpered like something small and lost because I’d stopped touching her.
Her entire body trembled. Not from exhaustion. Not from the aftermath of impact. From the absence of it. Her fingers released their death grip on the sheets and she reached back blindly, trying to grab my wrist, my arm, anything to pull me back toward her.
"No. Nonono, why did you stop, don’t stop, I didn’t say stop—"
"You didn’t say please either."
The words came out low and calm, like I was commenting on the weather instead of watching a girl who’d made grown men flinch unravel completely at my hands. I ran my fingertips along her spine, the barest pressure through the fabric of her fishnet bodysuit, and she arched up into it so hard that her back nearly creaked from the angle.
"Please." The word came out strangled. "Please, please, fuck, I’m begging you, just touch me, hit me, anything, I don’t care what you do to me anymore just don’t stop."
I traced the outline of one handprint with my thumb, following the curve where my palm had branded her skin through the lace. The heat radiating off her ass could’ve warmed the whole room. She shuddered so violently that the bed frame rattled.
I leaned down. Pressed my lips to the hottest part of her ass where my handprint sat like a brand. The skin practically radiated heat, sunburn-level warmth seeping into my mouth, and I made the kiss as soft as I could. Gentle on purpose. The whiplash between what I’d just done with my palm and what I was doing now with my mouth ripped through her whole body in one long rolling wave that started at her shoulders and ended at her stocking-covered toes.
"You son of a bitch." Her voice cracked straight down the middle. "Don’t be sweet. Not now. Not when I’m like this."
"Like what?"
"Like I’d let you do anything." She buried her face in the pillow hard enough that the words came out muffled. Her ears had gone bright red. "Anything you wanted. Everything. I would literally let you do whatever sick vampire bullshit you’re thinking about right now, and I’d thank you after, and that terrifies me more than anything that’s ever tried to kill me in a gate."
Something in my chest moved without permission. Something warm and annoying and completely at odds with the part of my brain that was supposed to be tracking orgasm counts and running numbers on ability theft windows.
I hooked my thumbs into her panties and dragged them down. Not all the way off—just past the swell of her ass where the black lace snagged briefly on her stockings before sliding free. They bunched at mid-thigh, framing everything between her legs like a picture someone had spent time composing. She was drenched. The insides of her thighs caught the candlelight in slick streaks, and when I spread her just a little with my thumbs she made a noise like someone had kicked every molecule of air out of her body at once.
I kissed the base of her spine.
Then lower.
Then lower still, following the line down with my tongue while she shook beneath me like the whole structure was about to give.
"Jace." Not Monroe. Not milk boy. Not vampire. Just my name, raw and stripped and real. "Jace, please."
