Page 80 of Dominion
She lay perfectly still for them, holding her breath. A spanking really would clear the air between them. He’d given her a serious spanking once before, and while it had hurt and she hadn’t enjoyed it, it had brought them closer.
He didn’t continue to spank her though, nor did he leave. He settled beside her on his back, his fingers knit behind his head, looking up at the ceiling.
She would take what she could. Curling against his body, she tucked her face against his side and closed her eyes, praying he’d find it in his heart to forgive her.
Ashley radiated anxiety.It sent his shifter instincts haywire to feel his mate’s stress, and yet he couldn’t manage to change his own emotions, which largely seemed dead. He’d returned to the way he’d been before he met her—the ‘Stone man’ who lacked emotion, fired people at will, and never smiled. He took her hand in the elevator, making an attempt to soothe her.
She looked up at him with her big blue eyes, the pleading quality twisting his heart. The elevator stopped and the doors slid open for other employees to get on. Ashley moved to pull her hand away, but he held it fast, tugging her slightly behind him to hide their clasp. He did not release her until they reached the top floor and they parted without speaking. He’d never been a man of many words, but even to him, the silence seemed strange. The gulf between just seemed to grow with each passing moment.
He wasn’t angry. Betrayed, yes, and he felt like an idiot for the months he’d thought they were trying to conceive a child while she’d been taking the pill. The lack of trust between them devastated him. He wasn’t the type to trust or love easily, but when he’d taken Ashley as his mate, he’d thought he’d turned a corner. Now, he could practically feel his old walls re-erecting themselves around his heart.
Worse, he couldn’t stop thinking about Ashley’s fear of him. Maybe mating with a human couldn’t work. The difference in their physical abilities would always separate them. Shifters have a pack order. Dominance is established and maintained with physical expressions. Males resolve problems with other males with a fight. They resolve problems with a female by spanking. Ashley hadn’t minded it—hell, she loved it when he flexed his authority, but even so, she must worry he’d lose control as he had when he’d marked her, causing her real injury and harm.
He didn’t hear from her until lunchtime, when she tapped on his door and entered. Usually her smile and her presence brightened his days. Today, she looked diminished, almost shy—which didn’t fit her outgoing personality. He hated seeing her that way.
“Do you want to get lunch? Or, um, do you want me to get you something?”
He didn’t want to go to lunch with her. Just seeing her pained him. “Bring me a sandwich,” he said, not meaning to sound so curt.
She ducked her head and nodded, leaving without a word.
Damn. Why did he have such a talent at making things worse?
She brought him the sandwich, and he ate alone at his desk. He poured himself into financial reports for the rest of the day, not surfacing until six o’clock, when he closed up his office and found Ashley slumped in her chair, staring at her computer screen.
“You ready?” he asked.
She looked disappointed, as if she’d hoped he would say something else. But what was there to say?
They walked in silence to the elevator. Once inside, he put an arm around her and pulled her to his side, where she melted against him. He bent to kiss the top of her head.
She lifted her eyes. “Are we okay?”
“Yeah,” he said, but they both knew it was a lie.
At home, she went to the kitchen and began to reheat the dinner she’d made for them the night before. He took off his jacket and tie and unbuttoned his shirt at the collar. From the kitchen, he smelled steak, but also the salty smell of Ashley’s tears.
Nothing subdues a shifter more than the scent of his mate’s anguish. Damn. He walked into the kitchen to find Ashley facing the stove, her shoulders hunched and tears running down her face.
“Hey,” he said softly, turning her around. “Enough.” He wiped the tears from her face. “That’s not helping anything.”
“What will?” she asked, her voice rising to the pitch of desperation. “Because I can’t stand this living with a stranger thing we have going at the moment. Why won’t you just yell at me? Or punish me? Aren’t you the alpha around here?” She gave him an ineffectual shove, her face screwed up into a little ball of fury.
“Enough,” he said, lacing his voice with the hard edge of authority.
“Is it?” She slapped his chest with the palm of her hand.
Even knowing she meant to goad him into it, he responded instinctively, as any dominant wolf did when challenged, catching her wrist and spinning her around to pin it behind her back. He delivered the first swat before he had a chance to think.
He stopped, inhaling deeply. He didn’t want this. If she feared him, spanking her didn’t help. But then she’d practically begged him for it. Maybe she needed it, to assuage her guilt. She certainly wasn’t fighting him now, standing perfectly still, her head bent forward so her thick hair curtained her face.
He released her and turned her to face the living room. “Take off your clothes and kneel in the corner over there,” he said, pointing to the one near the couch.
She moved immediately, not meeting his eye, her head still bowed submissively.
He remained where he was, conflicted. It was too late to change his mind, of course. But what if punishing her only made things worse between them? He shut off the oven, leaving the steaks inside to stay warm.
When he turned, Ashley had taken her position. He caught his breath at the sight—her long reddish-brown hair falling down her back, the flare of her hips and, of course, her perfect ass, settled between her heels where she knelt. His cock forgot his reluctance to punish her, pressing eagerly against his trousers.