Chapter Five

A Date with Scrambled Eggs

Ella

“It’s just as well I keep a few of these in my robe.”

Tucker gripped the edge of the condom’s foil package as he helped her to her feet. They’d been able to start using contraception since Tucker had found a stash of condoms in his bedroom, and she was glad. The heady mix of lust and stress at the cabin had facilitated their unprotected sex, but she wasn’t proud of it. That regret, though, was the last thing on her mind as she rose from the floor. After the last half hour of ignominy and salvation, it was strange to have her hands free and be standing again.

“Yes, sir.” She grasped the marble counter when he walked to the trash to deposit both the condom and its packaging.

What the hell just happened?

The room was spinning as she made herself remember how simultaneously awful and incredible the penalty had been. She didn’t think he’d ever pushed her so hard before, but then, maybe she always thought that after a punishment. So frequent were her so-called crimes, it was becoming difficult to remember.

“Are you okay?” Reaching for her free hand, his fingers squeezed hers.

“I’m a little dizzy.” She gulped at the admission, aware suddenly of how hot she was even without the robe.

“Sit down.” He wrapped an arm around her and steered her to the nearest dining chair, skillfully avoiding the place she’d been made to eat from the floor.

“There.” He guided her onto the chair before he pulled up the one beside her. “Take a minute.”

“That was a lot, sir.” Resting her elbows on the table, she buried her face in her hands.

Of everything he’d put her through, nothing had seemed as intense as the impromptu breakfast ordeal. It wasn’t only that her knees ached on the tiles, especially after he’d released her hands, and she could lean on all fours. It was the mental tribulation that had truly tested her; the fact that she was willing to physically lower herself for him in such a debasing way was taking some getting used to.

Who am I? What kind of woman actually relishes being treated this way?

“I know.” His voice was calm. “I intentionally pushed you.”

“It worked.” Blinking into her palms, she didn’t know what else to say. She doubted she could even form the words.

“Was it too much, little girl?” His tone shifted to something more serious. “Because if it was, please tell me. I need to find a way to stretch your boundaries but still respect your hard limits.”

Hard limits? She scarcely recalled what they were anymore.

Her eyes fell closed. Was she losing her mind? And if so, why did her breakdown have to occur on the same day she was supposed to be meeting her mother? She’d need to have all of her strength to get through what was sure to be an emotionally draining encounter.

“Little girl?”

She heard the noise of the chair against the tiles as he presumably rose to his feet and the warmth of his hand as it rested on her shoulder a moment later, but still, she couldn’t convince her palms to leave her face.

“I’m sorry.” Her instinct to resist the hot tears brimming in her eyes was overwhelmed by the sheer weight of her emotion, and before she knew it, a low sob caught in her throat.

“Come here.” He tugged her chair, pulling her to her feet and sweeping her up into his arms before she could protest. Gripping his arm for support, she buried her face into his shoulder as he started to move. “You need time.”

“But my mum?” She mumbled the words into his sandalwood-scented flesh.

“Won’t be meeting you for hours,” he reassured. “You have time to recover and talk to me.”

Talk? Overwrought with her feelings, she didn’t know where to start.

“I didn’t expect this, sir.”

By the time she lifted her head, they were back in the cooler confines of the bedroom. There was an instant solace in the new surroundings, the lack of sunlight aiding the looming ache in her head.

“I know.” He held her tightly as he settled on the bed. “It’s okay, little girl. Take your time.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say?” The air was cooler in the new, shadowy surrounds, and it seemed easier to breathe.

“When you’re ready, I want you to tell me if making you eat from a plate on the floor was too much.” He pressed a kiss to her crown, the gesture drawing her focus to her hair, which was clinging to her face.

She lifted one shaky hand to smooth it away, realizing that there seemed to be something tangled in it. Her brow creased as her fingers ran along the tresses.

What is that?

“I didn’t think you’d punish me that way.”

She’d expected a spanking, perhaps with one of the many implements he seemed to house at the apartment, and while her ass was grateful for the reprieve, no number of swats had ever evoked this emotional response from her before.

“That’s still not answering my question, little girl.” His chuckle was playful.

“I know.” She sighed. “I don’t know how to answer because I don’t know if it was too much.” She pulled in more of that consoling air. “I seem to find the denigration harder to manage than the strikes, sir.”

“Harder intellectually?”

“Yes,” she squeaked, sniffing back her emotion. “I can’t rationalize why you want to treat me that way.”

“But you did seem to like the results?”

There was no gleeful judgment in his question, only a relaying of the facts as he saw them, and Ella was in no position to argue. She realized how turned on she’d been by the time he’d plunged into her pussy, and there was no denying it—she’d hardly ever been readier for him.

“Yes.”

Therein laid the real crux of her paradox.

It was bad enough that she’d found a man who reveled in her denigration. Yet it was far harder to reconcile the knowledge that she relished every second of the treatment. Even when she resisted it in the moment, even when she fought and screamed in complaint—and she had hardly done that with the scrambled egg—there was still no getting away from the acknowledgment that deep down, she wanted it.

Tucker propelled her to new depths every day, but once she’d come up for air, she was always begging him for more.

“And you struggle with that?” He’d put the pieces of her contradiction together perfectly.

“I think so, sir.” It was easier to admit in the ease of the bedroom’s half-darkness. “I just don’t understand why I’m like this.”

Why couldn’t she be one of those girls who was stimulated by rose petals and champagne? Why must she be the type who liked rough sex and disparagement?

“Don’t put it like that.” His hand rose to her face and caressed her chin. “You’re perfect just as you are, little girl. There’s nothing wrong with any of the ways we love each other.”

Love? Was that what they demonstrated for each other when he ordered her to suck scrambled eggs from the side of his feet?

Her pussy clenched even as the query flitted through her mind. Sure, it aroused her, and she guessed she’d have to learn to live with that, but could they call it love? Hell, they hadn’t even contemplated using the ‘L’ word before.

“It’s just difficult to understand, sir.” A new calmness settled over her as his thumb made small circles on her cheek. Previous lovers would have driven her mad with such an annoying deed, yet Tucker had a way of quieting her mind with such simple acts. “I didn’t know I liked this until I met you.”

“I understand.” His palm cradled the side of her face as he drew her closer to his chest. “I’ll try to keep all of this in mind, little girl.”

“Thank you.” She smiled against him, safe in the knowledge that however low he pushed her, Tucker would stand by that vow. It was amazing the extent to which she’d learned to trust him in such a short and insanely intense period of her life, and yet breathing in his reassuring scent, there was little doubt that she probably had more faith in him than just about anyone else.

Apart from Susie and Julia.

“I think I need a shower, sir.” Her concentration flitted to the strands of hair fallen around her face. The closer she looked, the more she found pieces of her scrambled egg embedded in her locks. It was the final proof of her recent humbling experience.

“I noticed that.” There was a trace of amusement in his tone again, but the kisses he planted on her forehead consoled her. “And yes, that’s fine. I’ll happily help you wash your hair if you like, but first, I’d like to be clearer about whether I went too far in the kitchen.”

She pressed her palm between the soft hairs of his chest, musing on his question. Had he gone too far? Her initial instinct was to say that he had, but hindsight was warming her to the idea that the ordeal on her knees hadn’t been as bad as it first seemed. The heat between her legs assured her that the experience hadn’t all been bad.

“Honestly, sir?” She lifted her head for the first time since they’d left the kitchen. “I’m a little torn about my answer.”

Tucker’s lips twitched. “Can you explain?”

“It was terrible at times.” She met his eyes. “And wonderful at others.”

“So, no, then?” His brow rose. “It wasn’t too much?”

“I…” The weight of his stare was almost suffocating. “I’d love to say it was, but I can’t.”

“So, tell me…” His mouth skimmed her nose. “Tell me it wasn’t too much.”

Oh God.

When Tucker looked at her that way, it was difficult to breathe, let alone think.

“I don’t think it was too much, sir.”

Time protracted as the admission lingered between them. A part of her couldn’t believe she’d confessed it to him. Tucker—the man who’d charged in and torn up so many things in her life. Yet it was true, and it had been said. There was no taking it back.

“Ella.” He breathed her name against her crown. “You are so incredible.”

Or gullible.

She lowered her gaze at her critical self-analysis. She could hardly complain about the way he treated her when she admitted that she could not only manage his attention but, in all likelihood, enjoy his debauched ministrations.

“I don’t know what’s happening between us, sir, but I do know I can’t imagine going back to a world without you in it.”

“Then let’s not imagine it.” He climbed to his feet, taking her with him. “There is no place I want to live that doesn’t include you, little girl.”