Bunny and the Beast(Divine Creek Ranch 22)(60)

He paused. “Everything is set with your grandmother and your brother? No trouble there?”

Bunny shook her head. “No, Sir. I checked in with her before I came out here, and she said everything was fine at home. Tristan is busy with Legos, and they were planning to watch a Walking Dead marathon. Grinnie said to tell you hello.” Although she looked away, he saw in her expression that something troubled her.

“Honesty, remember?”

Her smile was instantaneous, and her dimples appeared as he held her chin in his hand. “Grinnie has known me all of my life. She likes you just fine, Sir. She just doesn’t want to see me hurt.”

“Understandable. You and I have the entire night, fiammetta. Club members won’t start arriving for another hour, so I can give you a tour before you change your clothing.”

“You mentioned you were having special guests tonight. Is that who Hughes referred to?”

“Yes,” Joseph said as he took her hand and led her to the main corridor that would take them around to the west wing where the club and dungeon were located. “Hector and Juno and a friend of theirs are all upstairs in their suite, getting ready. Juno is expecting a baby soon, and she was feeling tired and needed to lie down for a bit.”

“I’m nervous,” she said as she took the stairs in light, rapid steps with him.

“About visiting the dungeon?”

“No, about meeting your mentor. I’m afraid I’ll embarrass you.”

He unlocked a door on the second floor and pulled her into the dim expanse of the dungeon. The soundproofing absorbed the echo of their voices, and he paused as the scents of leather and wood, overshadowed with the sharp tinge of an herbal-scented disinfectant, enveloped them.

Lit by the muted glow of the red sconces on the walls, uncertainty dampened her usually ebullient features. Normally he didn’t mind fear in a sub’s eyes all that much, because it was fear he controlled. When Bunny showed fear, it was usually justified. The first time had been on the night of her unfortunate introduction to BDSM during the most recent fantasy weekend. One of his friends and a trusted Dom, Conrad, had mistaken her for the sub sent to him, and he’d chased her down, as prescribed in his fantasy. Bunny hadn’t reacted well to being taken to the floor, gagged, and bound. The look in her eyes then had been one of rampant fear. And then there was the sheer terror in her eyes when she’d nearly fallen from the third floor roof. Just thinking of it gave him an unwelcome jolt of adrenaline. Standing with him in the dungeon right then, her expression was more a look of misery, certainty that she’d fail him.

He was asking a lot of her to be here, but he wanted her here, badly. At his knees, bound to his cross, submitting to him and trusting in him—looking up at him with challenge and good humor in her beautiful blue-green eyes.

“Bunny, I’m not giving you a litany of instructions because I’m concerned you’ll trip yourself up trying to remember all of them. I want you to be the Bunny I’ve come to know and”—love—”care so much for.”

“Oh,” she chirped, reclaiming some of the cheekiness he was beginning to adore. “So I don’t have to worry about my butt getting blistered tonight? That’s awesome—”

With a chuckle, he shook his head. “Oh no, your ass is still mine if you get into trouble.”

She gaped, and her eyes popped open, and even under the red glow of the lights, he could see her cheeks seemed to grow darker. He grinned. The lustful images of him doing more wicked things to her lush little ass than just spanking it made his cock tingle into awareness.

“Sir!”

“Oh, yes. That too, fiammetta. You’re giving me ideas.”

“Shit—shoot!”

“Too late. That one counted.”

“So that was one?”

Joseph chuckled. “I think not, sassy subbie. I’m still counting from last night.” They’d been in his sports car so he’d had nowhere suitable to deliver the kind of spanking he wanted, and that she needed. So he’d been saving up for tonight, anticipating the luscious reverberation of her firm, abundant derriere under his hand. His palm tingled at the thought.

She rubbed her ass and chuckled. “So, we’re at what? Twenty?”

Appreciating her good humor, he shook his head. “No, you wised up after about eight.”

“Your nickname shouldn’t count, though—unless you give me a Sadie Hawkins freebie and I get to spank your nice, tight buns,” she said as she bit her lip and reached around him to caress and squeeze his ass with both hands.

The cheek of the woman!

He roared with laughter, right there in the middle of his empty dungeon, and wrapped his arms around her, squeezing her to him.