Edward sucked in his breath when she emerged from the bathroom.

My god, she is beautiful.

Her hair was down, falling around her like a shawl of dark silk. After having only seen her with her hair confined in some way, first in a braid, since then in various updos, the sight of her loose hair was unexpectedly intimate. He had a feeling very few people saw her like this—naked, hair loose, flush with the last vestiges of pleasure, her nipples hard and pink, her pussy lips bare and glistening with her arousal.

For a moment he felt like the barbarian king, looking at his war-prize bride, who was now as savage as he, stripped of her finery.

His princess.

The temptation to say fuck it, lead her to the bed, and make love to her was nearly overpowering. He wanted this woman, more than he wanted the scene. That was new and rather alarming.

Edward sat in the straight-back desk chair he’d moved into the middle of the room and patted his thigh.

A shiver worked its way down her body, and she lowered her gaze to the floor. Tentative steps brought her closer to him, and when she was in arm’s reach she stopped.

“Across my lap for your spanking,” he told her. “And you may speak.”

“Thank you, Sir,” was her soft reply.

She came around to the side of the chair, then rested her waist on one of his legs, her breasts pressing against his other thigh. He spread his knees, so the front of her shoulders rested on his other leg, her breasts dangling between his thighs.

The long smooth line of her back was bare before him, her ass on his right. She had her knees pressed together, her toes curled into the plush carpet. Next time he’d pull her further onto his lap, so he’d have a better view of her ass while he spanked her, but for her first spanking this was an easy position to hold. He helped her get her arms in position, one gripping his calf, the other hugging his thigh from below. He knew she’d need something to hold on to.

If he were a different kind of Dom, he would have planned a light spanking, merely ten swats or so, but he wasn’t that kind of Dom. He wanted to know what she could take, what she would enjoy. He wanted her to understand what it was to submit. There were only a few activities that could make a woman understand that—a spanking being his favorite.

“I’m ready to start your spanking.” He rubbed her ass with his palm. “What’s your safe word?”

“Lemon.”

“Good.” He raised his hand.

“Wait, please. What if….what if I want you to slow down, or stop the spanking, but not end the night all together?”

Ah, there it was, topping from the bottom.

“That’s not your decision to make.” His voice was firm, but not angry.

“But, how will you know if it’s too much? I’ve never…”

“Trust, princess. You have to trust me.”

“I barely know you,” she whispered, sounding desperate.

“Yet you’re naked over my lap, about to be spanked for orgasming without permission.”

She whimpered. He brushed her hair to the side, cupping her cheek and turning her face so he could see her profile.

“What are you scared of?”

“The spanking.”

“But what are you scared of? The physical pain?”

“Yes.”

“Really? You don’t strike me as the kind of woman who would be afraid of a little momentary stinging and ache.”

“But I am afraid.”

“I can’t know for sure, but I wonder if you’re afraid of not being in control.”

“I’m already not in control.”

“Maybe.” He released her cheek and gathered all that glorious hair in his hand. “But not having control while getting fingered, which is inherently pleasurable, is very different than not having control and facing a punishment.” He pulled her hair, forcing her head up.

She gasped, then shuddered in acquiescence. “Yes, Sir.”

“Good, princess. Very good.” He released her hair, and she let her head fall.

He laid his left hand on the small of her back, holding her firmly against his right thigh. He raised his right hand and brought it down on her ass in a firm spank.

She jerked, but didn’t cry out. He studied her skin, but there was no mark. He spanked her again, then kept going, laying ten swats in relatively quick succession. When he was finished, she was breathing heavily, but was relaxed against him.

It was time to take this from slap and tickle territory to a proper BDSM spanking. He spanked her again, harder this time, using his palm instead of his fingers.

“Ouch,” she yelped.

“Good. It’s mean to hurt. It’s punishment.”

“But I’m not a masochist.”

Edward spanked her again, just as hard. “Stop trying to control this.”

“I’m not, I’m not.”

“You are. You’re scared, this isn’t easy pleasure, so you’re trying to stop it. Control it.”

He raised his arm and spanked her again and again, covering her whole ass, from the center down to the tops of her thighs. After twenty swats her legs started to jump and kick and she let out the first soft cry.

He paused, rubbing her hot, pink skin with his stinging palm. “I’m not done, princess, just giving you a little time to think, to feel.”

“Not done?”

“No.”

“When will you be?”

“When I’m done. When I want to stop. When I’ve given you everything you need.”

“What I need?”

“Yes.” He remembered what Anderson had said. “Don’t fight the feelings. Give in to them—sink into it.”

“I don’t understand.”

Edward resumed the spanking, each swat lighter than it had been, but she’d feel it more due to the state of her ass. As he did he spoke to her, trying to help her find the peace that some subs could achieve through a good punishment. Maybe it wouldn’t be that way for her, and that was fine, but he had a feeling that if he could get her to let go, she’d be able to sink into the scene, and her submission. He wanted to give that to her, wanted to see the softness of acceptance on her face.

“Don’t fight me,” he murmured. “Feel the heat of the spanking. Let that heat spread over you. Don’t worry about when it will stop. Trust me to know what you need.”

Spank, spank, spank.

“Everything that’s hard, that makes you worry, let the heat burn it away.”

Spank, spank, spank.

“There is nothing you can do, nothing you need to do right now. You’re mine now.”

He felt the moment it clicked, felt the moment she gave in to it. Her legs, tensed and braced, went limp. The hand digging into his calf loosened, the fingers no longer digging in with desperation.

“That’s it,” he praised her. “Well done, princess.”

He softened the spanking even more, concentrating on the hypersensitive sit spot for a minute before he started to wind the spanking down.

As he finished, he praised her. “You did beautifully. You accepted that so well. Well done, princess.”

He slid his arms under her waist and lifted her, pulling her onto his lap so she was straddling him, her red bottom suspended between his spread knees.

Her face was wet with tears, and she looked at him with a heartbreakingly lost expression. Edward tucked her hair behind her ears and stroked her cheeks with his thumbs. “How do you feel?”

“Calm,” she whispered. Slowly, she leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder, her arms folded up tight between their chests. He reached between them, tugging her arms out of the way, and stopping her from adopting the closed posture that might counteract the effects of the spanking.

She didn’t say anything when he drew her arms behind her back, then tugged the narrow scarf from around her neck, using that to bind her hands with a few simple figure-eight loops and a single knot. It was just tight enough that she could relax her arms and the bondage would keep her wrists in place behind her.

With that done he settled her more firmly on his lap and held her, stroking her sides, her thighs, as he repeated the praise from earlier. “You did beautifully. You accepted that so well. Well done, princess.”

She nestled her face against his neck and relaxed.

Edward’s heart clenched. He was no novice Dom, and was a firm proponent of aftercare, but holding a sub after a scene had never made him feel like this before. He wrapped his arms around her, and turned his face into her hair.