Safe Word: Oasis 3: Out of My League Read online

  Exhaling a shaky breath, she picked up the stack of papers again and began sorting through them. Things that looked like e-mails in one pile. Photocopied articles in a second pile. Another list of their agreed-upon rules in a third pile.

  The air pressure in the room changed. Vaguely she noted the sharpened sounds of the outdoors. They muted as a sequence of thumps and a click indicated the door was closed and locked.

  She willed herself to not look up. It didn’t work. Her gaze rose to meet his, and all the breath left her body. He smiled as he stopped in front of her desk, half of his mouth lifting in a way that sent tingles fluttering to her stomach. “Hey, Mia. How come you’re still here so late?”

  Dropping her gaze to the stack of papers still in her hands, she studied the top one. E-mail pile. She put it where it belonged. Her hand shook a little. “I have some things to finish before I leave.”

  “Always the good little assistant.”

  She lifted her chin, setting her jaw at the jibe. “And what’s wrong with being a good assistant? Some people actually take pride in their work, no matter now menial or unimportant others consider it to be.”

  He bent forward and rested his hands on the top of her desk. “That’s a whole lot of attitude for such a cute little thing.”

  On a normal day, she would be able to come up with five snappy comebacks to put him in his place. Of course, on a normal day, he would never comment on her attitude or call her a cute little thing.

  Pressing her lips together, she decided to change the subject. “I’ll be closing up in a minute, and everybody has left. If you have business with someone, I suggest you leave a note.” She pointed to the other side of the room. “The boxes for each professor are over there.”

  Standing tall, he squared his shoulders and unzipped his black fleece jacket. The blue and gray flannel just made his eyes look darker, hotter. Her breath caught. If things kept going this way, she might pass out from lack of oxygen.

  He withdrew something from an inner pocket and threw it on the desk. It took only a second for her to recognize the yellow binding on the plastic report cover. She glanced up at Kaelen, but he wasn’t looking at her. He shrugged out of his jacket and hung it on the knob of an armoire.

  She took a closer look at the report. The clear cover let her read the first sentence, but Kaelen’s nearness and the imminence of the scene prevented her from concentrating on the meaning of the words.

  “Attitude.” His tone had changed to soft and firm. All the times she’d spoken with him, he had been friendly and charming, flirty, even when he wasn’t pleased with her response. “You need to be taught a lesson.”

  Surprised at his tone, she lifted her gaze. Her eyes felt impossibly wide, but she couldn’t do anything about it. Her breath came in short pants, and heat flooded between her thighs. She thought about running, but her leaden legs wouldn’t cooperate. “A lesson?”

  His dimple showed when he flashed a cocky smile. He leaned over her desk, pausing with his face inches from hers. “Babe, remind me what your safe word is.”

  Shock pulled her from the scene. Blood once again flowed through her arteries, bringing a fresh supply of energy to her cells. “Oasis. Didn’t they tell you?”

  “Safety. I want you to remember that you have the power to stop this at any time.” His low, confidential tone soothed her senses. She didn’t know how to tell him how much it meant that he took the time to show he cared, that he knew what he was doing.

  “Thank you.”

  In one powerful motion, he swept everything onto the floor. Her carefully arranged piles ended up in a heap. The lone pencil bounced and rolled, the ting echoing in the silent room. “Time for your lesson.”

  Her stomach dropped, and her legs worked when her brain told them to kick into action. Leaping up, she turned around and grabbed the handle to the door that was probably the bedroom. It was the only room she hadn’t yet seen.

  An arm banded around her waist and lifted her from the ground. Kaelen hauled her back against his hard body. She wiggled and fought, but she got nowhere. She felt like an empty sack in his arms, something easily hoisted and held. Helpless.

  As someone who was always in control, Mia struggled with the feeling of helplessness. On one hand, she liked to be in control. On the other hand, she craved having it taken away. She craved being able to trust someone else enough to cede complete authority over her body.

  She trusted Kaelen today.

  He placed her on the desk, facedown, her breasts flattened against the surface and her hips dangling from the side. Angling her toes down, she barely managed to touch the floor.

  Kaelen reached under her sweater and hooked his fingers into the collar of her dress. With one mighty tug, he ripped the loosened seams and pulled the back of her dress away from her body. Stunned, exposed everywhere below her sweater, she failed to move.

  “Beautiful. I knew you were hiding something spectacular under all those baggy clothes.” His hand burned hot against her cool flesh. He caressed her thigh and hip, his hand traveling a narrow path. “Curves this luscious are dangerous.”

  Mia didn’t consider herself thin or fat. She was unremarkably average. She carried a little extra flesh on her hips and around the middle, enough to encourage her to wear a bathing suit that covered her stomach, but not enough that she felt self-conscious about it. She had other things to feed her insecurities.

  “Why do you wear such baggy clothes?”

  She didn’t feel the need to dignify that with an answer. This was a scene, not a date. His jeans weren’t tight, and those flannel shirts didn’t advertise the iron muscles she felt when he held her to him. She threw the question back. “Why do you wear baggy clothes?”

  A loud crack rent the room. Mia started more at the sound than the feel of his hand smacking her ass. He rubbed his palm over the spot where he’d struck, spreading heat like body butter. “Don’t worry. I’ll help adjust this attitude of yours.”

  Planting her hands on the desktop, she pushed up. He countered with the heel of his hand pressing between her shoulder blades. Another smack landed on her bare bottom.

  “Stay down, babe. If you’re good, I’ll make you come. If you’re not, I’ll tie you to this desk and keep you on the edge until I feel you’ve begged enough. Your choice.”

  Mia didn’t want to fight. The small part of her that wanted to resist only protested on the grounds that it might be difficult to face Kaelen afterward. But he’d promised that what happened in this cabin stayed in this cabin. She relaxed, turning her head to rest her cheek against the coolness of the wood beneath. “I’ll be good.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  He smacked each cheek once. A pleasant heat began to bloom. This wasn’t Mia’s first spanking, not by any stretch of the imagination. She’d dated a man who liked to give erotic spankings. It was the only time she experienced a climax with him, and she’d lingered in the relationship far longer than she should have. He had stayed in it for the same reason. They had nothing in common except for their love of spanking.

  Just like her and Kaelen.

  Another sharp slap brought her back to the present. “I know that look on your face. Focus. Keep your attention on me and what I’m doing, otherwise I’ll have to teach you manners as I adjust your attitude.”

  His hand landed on her ass again and again, forcing her to pay attention to the exquisite heat barreling through her system. Of its own volition, her ass lifted after each blow, seeking the return of the sting radiating across her skin.

  She moaned.

  “You like that?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  Kaelen stroked his fingertips over her hot, quivering flesh. She whimpered in response. He didn’t hurry his foray. If anything, he slowed his strokes, drawing them out along a longer path. One by one, her muscles relaxed. Tension drained from her shoulders. She sank against the desk, no longer straining to touch the ground with her toes.

  His finger slid along
her slit, teasing the edges of her labia. The tip of her clit, enlarged and throbbing, peeked out. He brushed against it lightly, lingering long enough that she knew he was bent on tantalizing her. “So wet. You’re dripping. Would you like me to touch your clit?”

  As if it could hear his offer, her clit swelled even more. “Yes.”

  The heat of his hand withdrew, but it came back quickly. He centered the blow over her swollen lips. She yelped, but she didn’t protest. Heat bloomed.

  “Attitude, babe. That’s no way to ask for a favor.” He delivered another series of slaps, all of them falling on her ass and upper thighs.

  Her pussy dripped, silently pleading for attention. She couldn’t help but beg for relief. “Please touch my clit.”

  Those lethal fingertips returned to caress paths over her burning ass. “Do you need it?”

  “Yes. Oh please. I need you to touch my clit.” Need made her entire body tremble. She’d beg any way he wanted.

  His finger grazed the tip of her clit too lightly to do more than tease. “Like this?”

  “Harder. Please. Oh, please touch it harder.”

  He pressed, squishing it at such a leisurely rate that she felt every single way the sensitive nub changed shape. She moaned and struggled to keep her hips from thrusting against his hand.

  “You’re trembling.” He rotated the pressure of his finger, widening the circles until he traced a path around the little nub. “I think you need to come.”

  “Yes.” Breathless permission fell from her lips, a plea she hoped he’d heed.

  “You were wearing a dress like this the first time I saw you, teaching that class for Brindley. Everyone said you were a better instructor. You are, but I had a hell of a time concentrating on what you were saying. I was too busy thinking about tearing off your clothes, bending you over my lap, turning your ass pink, and fucking you. Slow. Fast. Hard. Gentle. Change it up until you lost your mind and screamed my name.”

  “Kaelen,” she whispered, a sound halfway between a whimper and a plea. “Please make me come.”

  “Tell me you want my fingers inside you.”

  “Yes, please, anything.”

  He thrust two fingers into her opening. Her cream eased the way, making the motion smooth. He took his time, exploring her walls, mapping them with his fingertips. “Soft. You’re so soft and hot and tight. God, you’re going to feel like heaven around my cock.”

  The walls of her vagina flexed at the promise of being stretched by his cock. Pyroclastic showers of heat shot through her system. Tears pricked behind her eyes, evidence she wouldn’t be able to hold off the strong orgasm building low in her belly.

  He added a third finger, stretching her wider as he thrust them in and pulled them out. With his other hand, he smacked her ass to a different, faster rhythm. “Come for me. Don’t hold it in.”

  She screamed. The conflicting sensations and rhythms blasted her so far over the edge she lost sight of everything. The world flashed behind a white light.

  By the time her senses returned, Kaelen had stopped smacking her ass. He’d slowed the rate of the fingers he thrust inside, drawing out the orgasm as it faded. Her pussy throbbed and her body quivered.

  He lifted her and sat down in her chair. The front of her dress fell away, but the bulky sweater still covered her breasts. She curled up on his lap, letting her head fall against his strong shoulder. Unable to move, she watched as he raised his fingers, glistening with her juices, to his mouth and licked them clean.

  “I knew you’d taste like heaven.”

  Chapter Four

  Kaelen looked down at the woman in his arms. She watched him with a wide, wondering gaze. Her brown eyes were three shades lighter than he’d ever seen them, and he couldn’t stop the satisfied smile that stretched his lips. He’d done that to her. He’d changed her from a ferocious mountain lion to a purring cat.

  And he wasn’t finished yet.

  The swell of her hip fit perfectly in the palm of his hand. For that matter, she fit on his lap and in his arms as if she had been made for him.

  He traced a slow path up her thigh and over her hip. He followed the slight curve of her stomach, pushing her sweater up and out of the way. She stirred, protesting his attempt to strip away the rest of her clothes.

  “You don’t mind me seeing your bottom half naked, but you have a problem showing me your tits?”

  She narrowed her eyes and tried to push away, but he held her tight and laughed. “I fail to see what is so amusing.”

  He laughed harder. “You. You’re amusing. Such a little firecracker.”

  She struggled harder, her ire matching his amusement. “I think we’re done here.”

  All laughter fled, and he lasered her with his sudden sobriety. “Oh, no, babe. We’re just getting started. You still have quite the attitude. I can see I have my work cut out for me.”

  Her struggles ceased. She sat up in his lap, her spine ramrod straight, and he loosened his grip enough to allow it.

  She still had to tilt her chin up to look him in the eyes. “This is just weird. You’re a little too good at this.”

  He shrugged, uncertain what she meant. Since he didn’t quite know how to react, he aimed for cocky. She seemed to respond when he behaved like that. “You can’t tell me you don’t appreciate good. I made you scream my name.”

  A blush made its way up her neck to stain her cheeks and the tips of her ears. “This is true.” Her lips parted, as if she had more to say, but she pressed them together instead of speaking. Finally she walked her fingers up his arm and paused at his shoulder. “Will I be doing any more screaming?”

  He removed the band binding her hair. Using both hands, he ran his fingers through her deep brown tresses, spreading her hair around her shoulders where it fell in soft waves. “Screaming. Begging. If you’re a very good girl, some sobbing.”

  Her eyes flared wider. He recognized her struggle to reconcile her need to be perceived as a capable, independent woman with her need to surrender. Kaelen played with her hair, loving the silky feel as it slid through his fingers, and he gave her the time to wage her war. He wanted her. He yearned to let loose his inner alpha male, but he needed her to want that from him.

  At last she lowered her gaze. “What happens here stays here.”

  If that was what it took, he'd agree. Of course, he’d use all the insights he gained today when he began his quest to win her heart. That would have to wait until they got back to school, though, because he wasn’t going to do anything to interrupt their fantasy day. “Yep.”

  She gripped the hem of her sweater and lifted it over her head. It was a swift movement, not slow enough to tease or so fast that he suspected nerves. The stony look on her face hid her exact emotions, but it clued him in to her discomfort.

  For the longest time, he just looked. She was as beautiful as he imagined. Her legs were short but pleasing. Heart-shaped hips curved up, dipping in at her waist. Her perky breasts were small. They fit her size perfectly. If he spanned his hand across her chest, he would be able to just barely grip them both. She was a handful in more ways than one.

  Thin, pale scars circled both nipples where the pink areola met creamy skin, barely visible at all. He estimated that in a year or two, they would disappear completely. He longed to ask about them, but he knew this wasn’t the time. At least he understood her stony expression.

  He slid his fingers along her cheek until he cupped it in his palm. Because she was so much shorter than he, he didn’t have to do more than lean forward to brush his lips against hers. He wanted to kiss her slowly, tell her without words that he could handle whatever secrets she hid.

  But he was unprepared for the electricity that jumped between them, singeing him to the core. A loud moan rumbled from deep in his chest, filling the room. Her hand shot out and tangled in his hair, and her lips parted to let him deeper.

  He drowned in that first kiss, chasing wave after wave of sweet bliss until he forgot how to breathe.
She broke away and collapsed against him. Short bursts of her hot breath fanned his skin, and her breasts heaved, brushing against his chest.

  “Damn. You’re good at that too.”

  She sounded too disappointed for his ego to stand many more of her compliments. He stood, dumping her to the floor. She scrambled to her feet and turned her fiery glare on him.

  “Take your shoes off and bend over the desk. You definitely didn’t learn your lesson.” If he knew his little firecracker as well as he thought he did, she wouldn’t want him to treat her any differently just because he’d seen a few puzzling scars.

  Her eyes flashed, but he read the relief behind them. She lifted her chin, jutting it at him as she kicked off her shoes. “You’re not man enough to teach me a lesson.”

  He couldn’t stop half of his mouth from forming a smile. Yes, he definitely preferred this undiluted attitude. Without a word, he gripped her by the back of the neck and forced her to bend over the desk. Her luscious ass bore no traces of the spanking he had so recently delivered. Obviously he had gone too easy on her.

  He needed something that would deliver more bite than his hand. Being more into role-playing than BDSM, he hadn’t asked to have paddles or other implements meant to please a masochist, and he never wore a belt. The desk had been equipped with a phone, papers, and a stapler. What other authentic items might he find in a drawer? As a last-ditch effort, he yanked open a drawer.

  The first drawer revealed a box of condoms, pads of paper, pens, and pencils. The second contained files. Another had folded clothes in it. He recognized the outfit he’d requested for her to wear when she played the part of his secretary. Had she hidden it there or had Oasis placed it there? Either way, it was a good thing he’d stumbled upon it.

  On the other side, the top drawer yielded staples, pushpins, and other office supplies. In the back, he found a wooden ruler. It would have to do.