“Well?” Vanni said, after she’d swallowed. She heard amusement in his tone. He was enjoying this. “What fruit?”

“It was definitely a berry. Strawberry?” she asked shakily.

“Close. But no. It’s a raspberry Kugelhopf, a kind of Alsatian cake. Strike one.”

Her pulse leapt at her throat. She heard something rustle on the bed. She suddenly wanted to close her thighs to put a clamp on the pressure mounting at her sex.

“You don’t have to sound so happy about it,” she said breathlessly. Her heart lurched when she felt his hands on her hips.

“I’ll try to keep my happiness to myself,” he replied drolly. He caught the top of her underwear with his fingers and deliberately pulled them down over her ass. He drew them to her thighs and dropped his hands, leaving them stretched between her legs. The skin on her bottom tingled at being exposed to the cool air. The anticipation was killing her. Her lungs burned.

So did her clit.

She jumped when he put his hands on her waist.

“Shh,” he soothed as he pushed her toward him. His long thighs pressed lightly to her outer thighs. “Bend forward slightly,” he instructed.

One of his hands dropped away when she did what he’d said.

“Oh!” she cried out. He’d turned up the vibrator. Her hips twitched slightly at the arousing sensation.

Smack.

She gasped. The sound of skin against skin, the tingle and the burn on her ass left her stunned. A hot spike of arousal drove through her. Her sex clamped tight against the vibrator.

“I thought it was best just to get it over with and end the suspense,” Vanni said thickly before he spanked her again, this time on the other cheek.

Chapter 20

It was a brisk, precise pop of his cupped hand against skin. This time, she kept her mouth closed over the cry that jumped out of her throat, muting the sound to a whimper. It didn’t hurt terribly. It did burn. The prickle of nerves amplified the simmer of her clit. He kept his hand on her, massaging the stinging skin and muscle. That made her moan and her pelvis strain forward slightly. She wished like hell she could press her pussy against something solid.

“Speak to me,” he said gruffly. “Do you want me to stop?”

Keeping her mouth shut tight, she shook her head.

“Emma?” he grated out.

“No, I don’t want you to stop,” she said emphatically, irritated that he’d made her put it into words and just . . . turned on. Her nipples ached. Her cheeks were on fire.

“That’s all I wanted to hear. Three more.”

His hand rose. Her heart stopped and then leapt against her breastbone when he landed another spank on the cheek he’d smacked first. It wasn’t any harder than the first or second swats, but it stung more for having been previously punished. She bit her lip to stifle a sound. He caressed the prickling cheek, soothing the madly firing nerves. It aroused her, his big hand palming almost her entire ass cheek, massaging the warmed flesh.

“You have a very spankable ass,” he said, and she took heart from the heat in his tone. “Tight and round and ripe,” he added distractedly as he continued to massage her. Then he was palming her other cheek, now using both hands, his actions unapologetically greedy and lewd. Emma bit harder on her lip to prevent crying out.

“Bend over again,” he directed, and she realized she’d straightened slightly as she tried to get friction on her sex.

He palmed one cheek from below, squeezing it, and applied two firm, succinct spanks on the captive flesh. Emma started and couldn’t stop herself from crying out softly. He rubbed both of her cheeks at once.

“There. It’s all done. Your first spanking. How was it?”

“Okay,” she managed.

“Okay? Or better than okay?” he asked, continuing to squeeze and massage her ass.

Shyness suddenly fell on her, a strange, unwanted feeling that mixed oddly with her intense arousal.

“Better than okay. Much,” she whispered the last.

His massaging hands stilled. “You’re so sweet.”

She just stood there, speechless at something she heard in his voice.

“I told myself I could wait for dessert, but I’ve never had to wait for something like you,” he said, his warm breath ghosting her breast. Then his hands were on her upper arms and he was pulling her closer.

His warm mouth closed around an aching nipple.

“Vanni,” she said shakily, her hands pulling on the restraint at her wrists. It wasn’t that she wanted to escape. It was just that his warm, wet mouth and laving tongue on her nipple were unbearably pleasurable. She panted, her body strained tight, feeling deliciously trapped as he resumed massaging her ass as he sucked on her nipple, and all the while, the damn vibrator continued on its merry way. Oh God, she couldn’t take it anymore—

His finger was suddenly on the end of the vibrator on her clit, pressing lightly, tapping out an electrical code in her flesh. An electrical command. Her eyes sprung wide beneath the blindfold. Her muscles jerked tight.

She ignited. She cried out as orgasm shuddered through her. As soon as she began to quake, he slipped his finger beneath the vibrating tip and rubbed her manually.

He was better than the vibrator.

Much better.

Her cry escalated to a scream that she tried her best to contain. After a pleasure-hazed moment, she realized that he’d stopped sucking on her nipple and was holding her sandwiched between both hands, one spread on her ass, palming a buttock, the other open along her belly, his reaching thumb still stroking her burning clit between her lubricated labia while she gasped and shivered.

“You’re beautiful when you come,” she heard him say.

He’d been watching her while she lost control. His thumb strummed her clit, and another shiver went through her. “Amazing,” he rasped, stroking her again ever so lightly. She rippled with pleasure and whimpered.

She felt his lips press to her belly, and his thumb moved again. It struck her that he was feeling her body tremble with his mouth. The caress felt deeply intimate, poignant . . . sacred, even.

But suddenly, his mouth and deft finger were gone and he was pushing her back gently. The vibrator was back in place, but he must have adjusted the controls. The instrument still buzzed her overly sensitive clit warmly, but with a weaker pulse.

She just stood there, breathing heavily, nerves she hadn’t even known existed throbbing and aching and tingling all over her body.

“It’s back to the game then?” she asked raggedly, striving for some levity in the midst of almost strangling sexual excitement and intimacy. She hadn’t been prepared for the latter. The patch of skin where he’d kissed her belly still burned.

She heard his rough laugh, then a slight scraping on the bed, and she knew he’d picked up the desserts again. “Yes. Back to playing. Let’s see if your little punishment increases or decreases your sense of taste.”

“What do you mean?” she asked through pants, puzzling out his words in her head. “Do you think I’ll miss because of anxiety over being . . . spanked?” she said, hesitating over that last volatile word.

“No. After watching the way you just lit up, I think you might miss because you want to be spanked again,” he growled softly. “Now open your mouth, Emma.”

She opened her mouth to protest what he’d said—she’d never been the type of person to lose at a game on purpose—but then the fork was slipping between her lips. She closed around it instinctively and moaned. The taste of a light, sweet cream filled her mouth.

It was delicious.

“This one is more complicated,” he said. “There are two fruit flavors you have to name, one obvious, one more subtle.” She had a sudden, vivid picture of him sitting on the bed, watching her with a narrow-eyed stare. Did he hope she would miss so that he could spank her again? Had he enjoyed it?