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He doesn't miss that there's something wrong.
He can't. He's trained to catch the tightness in her smile, the furrow between her brows that seems permanent now. But she's hiding it, and he lets her hide—at least until he can work out whatever it is.
It doesn't take long once he gets her alone.
She's fighting him. She never fights him—she's quick to obey, eager to please. She doesn't bite when he kisses her, she doesn't sulk when he asks her to kneel, she doesn't try to twist from the ropes binding her—but she does today. He can taste the blood in his mouth.
He gets a good grip in her hair and pulls her head back. No yanking, just a steady bend, until her chest is heaving and her throat is straining and she's too caught up in trying to breathe to glare at him.
"What has gotten into you?" he asks, holding her still.
"Nothing," she spits. She doesn't look at him, but she doesn't blink, either. She's getting better at this lying business, but she will never be as good as him.
He bends her a little further, and she whimpers. The sound barely makes it from her throat, tense as it is, her body quivering with the way he's holding her—taut like a bow, not ready yet for release. Finally, her eyes are cast down, half-lidded, not open and biting and fierce with hostility.
She's testing him on purpose.
He keeps her there—her breasts rising and falling with each hard-fought breath, her knees spread on the rug, the tension-riddled mass of her on the floor at his feet—and considers what she needs. She has never been this disobedient, not in the whole three months they've been doing this. She revels in submitting. It's a relief for her; he knew it would be before he approached her, knows it again every time he ties ropes around her wrists and sees the boneless, liquid gratitude in her pretty eyes.
But he needs to take a harder approach with her today, because she needs it. Some sense of order, to clean up her mind in the wake of Adamant.
"I don't like your tone," he says at last, his hand still wrapped firmly in her braid.
She doesn't reply. She can't quite get the right angle to give him a contemptuous glance, but she does her best.
"And the glaring is not exactly respectful," he continues.
Reluctantly, her eyes fall back to the floor. He sees them narrow.
"Up," he orders, tugging at her braid, and she follows his hand, keeping her gaze on the floor.
Over the desk, he thinks, which is bare from their long absence in the Western Approach. He pulls the chair out of the way and guides her down until her torso is pressed to the wood. She shivers—no doubt it's cold, after kneeling so comfortably beside a warm fire. Her hands are too low, tied behind her back like this, he decides; he wants them well out of the way. He'll need more rope.
He works in silence, knowing that it unnerves her. Some of the defiance has started to leave her already; when he bends down to tie one of her hands to the leg of the desk, the frown on her face looks less angry and twisted.
When he stands back to admire his work, well out of her line of sight, she squirms. She's a pretty picture like this, bent exposed over her desk, her hands stretched out to the corners and tied with thick rope to the joining legs. She turns her head, the thick coil of her braid falling over her shoulder, and rests her cheek against the smooth surface, eyes straining as far as they can to catch sight of him.
He waits until he's sure that she's seen him to start removing his belt.
She pales. He's never belted her before—but she's never been this defiant before, either. He's taken it slowly with her, gone easy on her, but she knows the rules now. She knows better, and she has earned this.
"You are going to count," he tells her.
Her voice is small when she asks, "How many?"
He lays the strap over the swell of her backside; she tenses at the touch of the leather. "Ten," he tells her, thinking privately that if she ever uses that tone with him again—Nothing, like the cut of a dagger—it will be twenty.
She inhales. He gives her a moment to consider—to safe-word, if she thinks she can't handle it, but in the end, she closes her eyes and nods.
This is better: no back-talk, no squirming, just her body yielding to him. He steps back, gauging the distance, the weight of the belt. She tenses every time it whistles through the air as he tests it, never once striking her skin.
When he finally delivers, she doesn't cry out. The belt bites into her smooth skin with a sharp crack, and she inhales sharply as though shocked by the pain. For a long few seconds, as her flesh pinks in the wake of the belt, she forgets to count. Just when he is about to reprimand her, she stutters out, "One."
There she is.
He strikes again—this time over the backs of her thighs—and she hisses through her teeth. "Two," she grits, an edge of pain in her voice.
He takes his time, sizing up his next target. The longer he waits, the more she tenses, her fingers curling tighter into fists on her desk, the crease between her brows deepening as she screws her face up, trying to prepare herself.
He lashes out, harder this time, at the join between her ass and thighs. Her back arches. Her knuckles have gone white. "Three," she says, louder this time.
He makes the next four quick, leaving her just enough time to choke out the number between hits. Her flesh is a dull red now, stripes across her backside and her legs; she's both straining up on her toes and flattening her torso to the desk, as though trying to escape him, but there is no escape. She's turned her head forward, chin on the desk rather than cheek pressed to it, and he knows that her eyes are wide open, unseeing. Despite the way she squirms, some of the tension has left her muscles.
The next three are steady, slow, leisurely, every contact harder than the last, until she cries out "Ten!" in the exact tone of triumphant relief he'd hoped to wrest from her throat.
The taut line of every muscle has relaxed. She slumps on the desk, letting it support her weight, breathing hard. A few tears have escaped down her cheeks, but when he moves around to untie her, there is nothing but sated, grateful satisfaction in her eyes—which do not look at him, but rest on the floor instead, no trace of animosity left.
"Good girl," he murmurs, leaving a kiss on her forehead. He sees the trace of a content smile on her lips as he goes by to untie the other side.
She doesn't try to move once he's untied her, just stays put, her arms loose and relaxed, sprawled over the desk. She'd earned the beating, but now she's earned a reward, too.
As soon as he kneels down on the floor behind her, he can smell her. Her thighs are smeared with her own arousal; she hasn't moved to press them together, guessing correctly that he would punish her for trying to find her own relief, but the smell of her, swollen lips just barely parted, glistening with her wetness—he has to stifle a groan.
"You liked that." Her body quivers now, sensing his proximity.
"Yes," she squeaks, the word breathy with anticipation.
He parts her with his fingers, spreading her open, and leans in until she can feel his horns against the backs of her aching thighs, his breath on her cunt. She lets out a low moan, and he's hard as his fucking sword in his trousers, wants nothing as much as he wants to bury himself in her wet, incredible heat, but his tongue flicks out to taste her instead. Her next moan is thinner, higher. He licks through her folds, barely grazing her clitoris, but she hardly needs it; she's already trembling violently, every muscle tightening, reaching—
He gives the little nub a last flick, and she gasps, jerks against him; she groans, low and rich and perfect, unraveling for him.
When she's relaxed again, draped leisurely over the desk, catching her breath, he goes back to work. He isn't done with her yet, not even close, and she knows; though she's sensitive, wincing and shifting under his attention, she doesn't move out of his reach. He teases her, his tongue running light over her wet, pink flesh. She stiffens with interest when his finger slips into her, easily guided by the slick still seeping from her—lets out a little, truncated cry when his finger curls, pressing gently against her walls.
She's tensing again, building up beneath his mouth and hands. He uses a broader, slower stroke of his tongue against her now, and her hips rock shamelessly—back to meet the second finger he's pushed inside her, forward to meet the welcome pressure on her clitoris. He doesn't stop her; she has a limited range of motion between his horns and her desk, but she's free to make the most of it. Her breath comes in soft, sharp pants, her body fighting every inch for another climax. He can hear her nails scraping the desk and hopes she'll leave a mark he can tease her about later.
He crooks his fingers again, just as she sways back, and this time she cries out his name when she comes, her voice ringing.
Fuck, he'll never get tired of that.
He pulls his fingers from the vice of her body and stands, leaving her quivering beneath him. "Turn over," he orders, beginning to slip the buttons on his trousers. She moves as quickly as she can—already so eager, as though the earlier sourness has faded completely, and she's his again, quick to obey, longing to please.
When his pants are pooled on the ground, he pats his shoulder. "Foot up here."
Wincing a bit, she raises her leg, bracing her heel against him. He can see the flash of pink flesh, the heat of the back of her thigh against his body; he slips a hand between them, caressing her sensitive skin, and she shudders, twisting on the desk.
He takes her other foot and pulls it up himself, turning his head to kiss her instep, her ankle. Her breath has quickened, her body already hopeful for more; she lets out a moan when he runs the pads of his fingers down the back of her thigh, relishing her quivering. He pulls her to the very edge of the desk and leans forward, testing her flexibility—her legs strain against him—and thrusts carelessly between the cradle of her thighs.
She's so wet—so warm—and he doesn't quite slide into her, but she groans all the same, her eyes half-closed, her back arching, her fingers clenched around the edge of the desk. He wraps his fingers around her thighs and parts them, just a bit more, so that he can see her, open and ready for him; this time, when he rocks forward against her, her cunt closes tight around him.
If he could slide deeper inside her, he would. Her head falls back; her eyes are wide open, staring sightlessly at the ceiling, and her fantastic tits heave with every breath she takes, rippling with every thrust of his body into hers.
"Touch yourself," he tells her, leaning far enough forward to release her thighs and brace himself against the desk instead.
Her watches her slim, agile fingers slide down the softness of her belly, tug through her pubic hair, and finally touch just above where his cock is opening her wide. Half his length slides out, and she presses her fingers in an even, familiar circle around the nub of her nerves, letting out a long, low sigh.
They move together: her hips rocking up to meet her fingers and his thrusts, his cock sliding more swiftly with every stroke into the incredible pleasure of her body. He knows she's close by the way she whines, high in her throat, her fingers tensing, digging harder into her own flesh. The sight of it—of her—shamelessly chasing her climax, open and displayed for him, is nearly enough to undo him.
"Kat," he says to get her attention; she meets his gaze, her eyes wild and dark, her lips parted. He lifts one hand from the desk to cup her breast, pinching a nipple between his fingers, and says, "Come."
She twists, and she's loudest this time, her cries long and ecstatic and wordless, and he rocks into her grasping cunt—once, twice—and follows her to a welcome release, grunting, savoring the pull of her body on his cock.
For a long moment, they stay just like that, breathing hard to get their breath back, and then she makes a face and wiggles against him. "I'm not going to be able to walk for a week," she says pointedly.
He chuckles, taking his weight off her, and she stretches her legs out with a wince. "You needed it."
"I did," she admits. "Sorry."
Everything about her glows now—her skin radiant and flushed, her eyes bright with the dying light of day, the last sunshine catching the lighter threads in her dark brown hair, turning them golden. She sits up, wincing, and hops down from the desk; despite her bellyaching, she strains up on her toes to kiss him deep, her small hands braced on his shoulders.
There is something staggeringly intimate about everything they do, and this has its own place—her mouth on his for no reason other than easy affection, her hands sliding up to cup his face with tenderness in every brush of her fingers.
When they part, there's something heavy lingering in the air between them—Adamant, maybe, or the swell of fondness in his chest for her soft smile—but they aren't ready to address it, not yet, so he offers, "I've got some cream for your ass."
She lets out a peal of laughter and brushes past him to flop down, face-first, on the bed. She's still snickering by the time he sits down beside her and drops a glob of it on one cheek, and she squeals at the cold, squirming. Her terrible mood of earlier has gone, and he thinks, not a little proud, I did that.
It won't always be that easy, he knows, but for now—it's enough.