Chapter Two

While he tugged gently on her arm, Sabin shifted himself so that he was no longer sitting in the corner of the couch, but on the middle cushion instead. And he didn't pull her to his side, as she'd expected, which was why she was so compliant throughout. No, she ended up neatly stretched out over his lap.

Before Honey could even begin to come to grips with where she found herself, one large, muscular arm had come down to lie gently across the small of her back, with the other draped across her mid-thighs.

"What the fuck, Sabin?" she asked, looking back at him from her very vulnerable position. Honey tried to lift herself off him, but she quickly found that she couldn't move unless he allowed it. "What are you doing?"

"Maybe I' m tired of telling you things over and over again, Honey B." He'd called her that since, not long after they met, he'd found out that her middle name was Beth.

Honey frowned. Come to think of it, she couldn't remember having told him that.

But that was an argument for another time. There were much more pressing issues to deal with at the moment!

"Sabin, let me up." She said it as calmly and firmly as she knew how. This was not good—not good at all! Being over his lap like this, Honey could already feel her body responding to him, and in a way that was even more uncontrollable than usual. She should be livid with him for doing this to her, for putting her in this situation, but the truth was that her nipples were peaked beneath her shirt again, and she could already feel moisture dripping onto her panties. Worse than that, she could tell that he was aroused, too.

Funny, she'd never paid any attention to any kind of sexual clues or cues from him, probably since she'd never expected that there would be any to notice—not that she was the cause of, anyway. They'd watched movies together that were explicit, and she wouldn't have been surprised to look over and see that they had aroused him, although she never had.

But there was no one here but the two of them, and yet he was rock hard beneath her; there was no mistaking an erection poking into one's tummy, even from behind the zipper of his own jeans. And the more she wiggled, the larger it got, so Honey stilled her efforts to get off him immediately with no prompting from him at all.

"You fit perfectly over my lap when you stop struggling," he commented quietly, and she found it hard not to take that as a compliment, for some strange reason.

"I don't want to be over your lap, Sabin. Let me up—now!" Without moving any other part of her body, she put her palms on the couch cushion that was beneath her and pushed, and she got absolutely nowhere. As much as she hated to admit it, she knew she wasn't going to get anywhere unless he allowed it, the bastard.

He'd never done anything like this to her before, and Honey was at a loss as to how to react, at least until he spoke again, and then she just felt abject terror.

"Some women who crave discipline are unable to admit it." His tone was much too casual.

Dear God, how had he guessed? How long had he known? And she'd always been so upfront with him—she wasn't even sure she could lie to him. He was much too insightful and attentive to her; she'd be willing to bet that she'd never get away with it.

Honey knew she should say something—something indignant, something angry about how he was manhandling her.

But despite the fact that she worked with words all day, every day, nothing was coming to mind. And the longer she remained silent, the more she knew he would think he was right. And he was right! But she didn't necessarily want him to know that!

"Nothing to say, Honey?" he needled softly, still not touching her in any overt way, just leaving his arms where they were, holding her in place with obvious care not to hurt her.

"What do you want me to say, Sabin? Besides let me the fuck up? I have sexual desires just like any woman or man."

"Yes, but you've never shared them with me, not in all this time."

"I haven't shared them with you now, either!" she pointed out sharply.

Sabin frowned.

"We don't have that kind of a relationship."

"Very true. Still, it was quite a shock to me when I found out what your interests entailed."

Oh, dear God. Honey closed her eyes and lay her head down on the couch cushion. She wrote mainstream romances under one pen name, and more explicit, specifically tailored ones under an entirely different pseudonym.

She'd never told him either name under which she wrote, not wanting him to read any of her stuff, with his high-class education. The man was so much smarter than she was that she knew she'd feel utterly embarrassed if he read so much as a grocery list she'd written. But what if he'd discovered them himself? The kinkier one, of course—it couldn't possibly be the less smutty one that had caused her to end up where she was at that moment. But how?

Her face flushed hotly at the very idea and she felt a little faint. And his continuation didn't help much to alleviate either of those symptoms.

"Imagine how surprised I was to meet Jeff Winkler at a business conference I attended last week."

Holy crap! She'd practically been engaged to Jeff, and Sabin knew it.

"He was in his cups one night at a dinner we both attended. We ended up being the only two left at the table, and he was quite talkative—expansive, even, you might say—especially about you."

Yeah, that was Jeff all right. He was a beta, at best, who was constitutionally incapable of keeping his mouth shut, especially around powerful men like Sabin Northrop. She'd bet he barely had to say anything about knowing her at all before Jeff had spilled all of the beans about her particular interests.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck." Her desperate whispers were muffled by the couch. Honey sighed, feeling guilty about her sexual preferences, then feeling even guiltier about feeling guilty about her sexual preferences.

She knew she had to play this cool if she was ever going to be able to save her relationship with Sabin—and despite her embarrassment, she really did want to do that. Although she couldn't imagine what that would look like, with him knowing her predilections.

"So?" She was proud of just how casual she managed to sound.

But when his hand—the one at the end of the arm that had been across the backs of her thighs—began to move up enough to encompass almost all of her bottom, she couldn't stop herself from beginning to shake. And not gently or cutely, as some women undoubtedly would manage to accomplish. No, her body began to shake as if she was experiencing her own personal earthquake.

"Honey?" he asked, but she just couldn't bring herself to answer him.

Alarmed at her reaction, he maneuvered her, with depressing ease, so that she lay in his arms, cuddled close to his big, warm body. Sabin noted that it had helped some, but she was still shaking.

His first impulse was to frown and ask, "You're not afraid of me, are you?" but he didn't like the way that sounded, as if he somehow found fault with her because she was trembling, or indeed, fearful of him, which he didn't like to contemplate. Instead, he asked quietly, "Have I made you afraid of me, by springing this on you all at once?" He really didn't know what he was going to do if she answered in the affirmative.

She didn't look at him as she answered, "No," and for the first time since he'd known her, he wasn't absolutely sure that she was telling him the truth.

Sabin cupped her cheek in his palm, tilting her face up just a bit, enough that he could look into those stormy gray eyes of hers. "Are you being honest with me, my dear?"

Her eyes flickered away from his. "Of course, I am."

"You know, that's something I've always cherished about you—that you always tell me the truth, even if you know I don't want to hear it."

"I'm being truthful," she said rather forcefully, and he had to wonder if she was trying to convince herself more than him.

His, "I believe you," was as soft as the kiss he pressed to her forehead. Then he asked her another question to which he wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer. "Am I the only one of us who is interested in taking our relationship in a direction that would make it even closer than it already is?"

***

Her eyes went wide at that question, and he wasn't sure what to make of either her expression or his sudden inability to read her. She'd never hidden things from him before, that he knew of—except, of course, those particular interests of hers—and he didn't like that he had the feeling she was doing so now.

Sabin decided to put his cards on the table, come what may. He would rather know that she wasn't interested in him that way than wonder about it. "I want you, Honey," he confessed baldly, searching her eyes.

"Because you found out about what I like?" she asked, blinking at him owlishly.

He cleared his throat. "Well, that's part of it, yes. But I can't remember a time when I haven't wanted you, frankly."

Her loud, "Bullshit!" was like a jolt to his system.

But he had to laugh at that. Few people on the planet would say that to his face. "Why do you think I'm bullshitting you?"

"I don't know. I guess I can't see you realizing that you're interested in a woman and then doing nothing about it for more than a decade. You're not that patient a man."

"Well, that's where you're wrong, because I have been extremely patient with you, especially considering all of the times I wanted to put you where you just were—over my lap."

She frowned at him. "'All of the times'?"

"Yes. Like when you stayed with Rafe much longer than you should have—the asshat who kept screwing around on you and hurt you so badly."

"You were nothing but kind to me then; I cried on your shoulder about him all the time."

His jaw set in a dangerous look. "Yes, when, every time you did, I wanted to kill him with my bare hands and spank your bare bottom."

Knowing her cheeks were glowing brightly at that, she gave him a considering look. "Well, thank you for giving in to neither of those desires. I will never have enough money to bail you out, and I wouldn't want you to do either of those things for me anyway."

"I know that, which is why I didn't confront him. But spanking some sense into you would have been extremely satisfying."

"Humph. That's not how it works."

He had the most endearingly boyish, lopsided grin that didn't go with the rest of him at all. "Oh, yes, it is. I would have spanked you thoroughly and held you in my arms afterwards to comfort you, before making love to you until you couldn't think of anyone else. Then I would have told you to break up with him because you were mine."

Now she had to worry—on top of everything else—that her drenched panties were going to leak through her jeans and onto him at what he'd just said, when she should have been outraged by it.

"And then there was the time that you—"

She tried to sit up, and he let her, but she knew he wasn't going to let her get away from him, and he didn't. He kept her on his lap.

"I don't think I need to hear the list of the times you wanted to discipline me, thank you very much."

"Ah, but I've spent lots of time over the past twelve or so years thinking about nothing else. When you're mine—if you're mine," he corrected with very obvious reluctance at the unencouraging look on her face, "you would be disciplined quite often, based on your behavior of the past." He brushed the still damp curls away from her face with exquisite gentleness. "Like when you refuse to use an umbrella and arrive on my doorstep soaked to the bone."

Sabin was glad to note that her shaking had stopped, although he definitely felt her quiver once, strongly, at his words.

After a long moment of silence that he had a hard time bearing, he asked, "So. What do you think?"

Honey snorted. "I-I don't know. I don't know what to say."

That really wasn't what he wanted to hear. She sounded about as enthusiastic as if he had given her a snake as a gift. As much as he tried not to frown at her, he knew was doing it anyway. "Do you mean that you've never thought about being intimate with me?" He didn't like that idea at all, especially since he hadn't been exaggerating when he said that he thought about spanking her all the time.

"I thought about it a lot when we first met," Honey confessed while not looking at him, "but I've always known that you're way out of my league."

He tsked at her. "Honey. You know I don't like to hear you talk like that."

"I don't much care whether you like it. It's the truth. I don't date Hollywood stars, or underwear models, or successful male entrepreneurs. Jeff was a car mechanic, Rafe was a doctor and Carl was an Uber driver. I'm not anywhere near your class of dating."

"Yes, that's definitely a spanking offense," he informed her, jaw setting stubbornly, as it did often when she was saying something he didn't want to hear.

She brushed his threat off. "I know you don't want to hear it, and that's a great attitude. But it doesn't address the fact that it's true."

He was going to break his teeth if he clenched them together any more tightly. "The reality of the situation is that I see whomever I please."

"Yes, you do. And so far, there's not been a normal woman amongst them who I know about. They've all been the aforementioned models, actresses or genius businesswomen. I don't fall into any of those categories, in case you haven't no—"

In the middle of that word, he bent down and kissed her. Not brazenly or forcefully—well, a little forcefully, but not overwhelmingly so—but in the most firmly tender way she'd ever been kissed.

Honey desperately wanted to melt against him—it was an almost overwhelming compulsion—as his warm, soft lips melded with hers. It was a very old fashioned, almost pristine kiss, and she couldn't stop herself from reaching up to wrap her arms tentatively around his neck. But when they were halfway there, she chickened out and left her palms to rest lightly on his muscular shoulders instead.

Sabin moved away a little, looking down at her. "I really have made you tentative about me with this, haven't I?"

***

Swallowing hard, she met his eyes for one of the few times since they'd begun talking about what was a very sensitive subject for her. She knew that he had taken a big chance by opening up about the fact that he saw her as something more than a friend now.

So, she decided to be as completely honest as she could with him, too. "Sabin, if you had said this to me after we'd just met, I would have melted into a puddle at your feet and told you to do with me as you would."

He looked like he wanted to smile at that but was holding back because of how she'd phrased it.

"I had a ginormous—truly astronomically large—crush on you when we were first friends."

His head jerked back at that, eyes wide. "You hid it from me very well. I had no idea."

"I know. It was very hard to do, at first, and if you'll remember, I didn't make myself very available to you, and that was the reason. I knew who you were, and I knew who I was, and if it came down to it, I knew I wouldn't really survive an affair with you. So, I vowed never to let it get to that point." His lips were pursed, and Honey knew that there were things he wanted to say, but he kept quiet so she could speak. "And I didn't. You were very busy at that point, too, which helped, building your empires."

Legal and illegal, she didn't say, but they both knew the truth of what she'd omitted, although nowadays, he was mostly legit. Unlike the fictional gangster she'd teasingly named him, he had not allowed himself to be drawn back into nefarious dealings. He'd made it out and was a legitimate businessman. Almost completely.

"And, eventually, my…fervor died down as I watched you take lovers and took them myself, until we evolved into the close friends we are today, so many years later."

"That must've hurt you, to see me with other women." He didn't sound conceited in the least but, rather, was voicing obvious concern for her.

She looked down as she replied, "Yes, it did, at first." But then that mass of curls revealed her eyes to his. "A lot. But not anymore."

His hand found the small of her back, carefully rearranging her so that she was straddling him, perched upon the iron hard, denim covered spike of his erection.

"So we've wanted each other for quite some time, neither of us willing to upset the applecart of what we had in order to make it something more."

"Something like that." She gazed at him more warily than he would have preferred. "But finding out that I'm a submissive changed everything for you in an instant?"

"It added yet another reason to the pile of them that have had me kicking myself for not claiming every bit of you that I could for my own, from the start," he rumbled, catching her chin in his fingers so that she couldn't look away from him. "I know you can feel how hard I am for you, Honey. And I've lived pretty much like this since we met. But you were so independent and aloof—especially early on—that I barely thought you liked me, and I was quite sure you didn't want me as your lover, especially since I do like submissive women in my bed."

The fingers of the hand that had been holding her chin delved slowly into her hair, cupping the back of her head and using his hold to draw her lips to his.

She should have resisted him. She should have put her palms on his chest and pushed back against what he was doing.

But she wanted to kiss him again much more than she wanted to take her next breath, and, for once in her life, she gave in to the desire she'd been suppressing for so long, knowing that it was going to prove to be a mistake to have done so. But she was already lost—there were no practical thoughts of self-preservation in her head, only the ache between her legs that intensified as his tongue parted her lips to find hers ready and waiting for that intimacy from him.

This time, her arms did loop around his neck as she pressed herself against the big, enticingly unyielding wall of his chest, feeling his arms tighten around her as she did.

Sabin couldn't keep himself from thrusting his hips upwards at that, towards the warmth and heat of hers, making her yelp slightly and try to move away from him, to disengage from the kiss. But he wouldn't allow her to do so, one hand making its way slowly down to cup her bottom and hold her in place as he continued to press the massive bulge at the front of his jeans against her, causing her inseam to subtly tease that hidden part of her that wanted him the most, such that the next sound he stole from her, seconds later, was a soft, revealing groan as she stopped fighting him and began to cling to him instead.

Moving so that he could tuck her even more closely into his arms, Sabin growled, "That's what I want to hear from you. I'm going to make you scream. I promise you that."

Her reaction to his heated vow was far from what he expected. "No, don't say that!" she whispered, looking stricken and trying to crane herself away from him.

Sabin wracked his brain, but couldn't understand why she was objecting.

"What is it, sweetheart?" he asked as softly and encouragingly as he could, while keeping her very much in place.

She'd been a fetching pink—of varying shades—throughout their discussion, but now her cheeks were a deeply embarrassed red, and she stared down at her hands as she spoke. "Sometimes, I-I have a hard time…relaxing enough…with someone new to…you know…really enjoy it. Especially the first time."

"Baby girl, I'm hardly new to you." Sabin breathed low, kissing the sweet-smelling top of her head. "Have you ever been with a man who has known you as long—or as well—as I do?"

"No."

"Well, then, I hope I have a better start than most men in regard to you feeling comfortable and safe and relaxed with me."

"Prolly."

"Regardless," he said firmly, brushing her hair out of her face. "You aren't to worry about it in the least—come what may. Or not," he added ruefully, hoping to make her smile.

The corners of her lips went up almost immediately at his play on words, and he was eventually rewarded with a tentative smile.

"Not that I'm not going to try my damndest to get you there, you understand."

With that promise, he kept her legs around him as he stood with her in his arms, as if she didn't weigh what she knew she did. Honey gave a startled cry as she found herself sitting much taller than she usually did. "Of course. I imagined that you were as goal oriented in bed as you are out."

"Exactly." He kissed her again, in a potent combination of tender care and explosive passion, then he leaned back and said, "I'm going to bring this to my bedroom, or I'm going to spray myself against the inside of my zipper right here and now."

She snorted at that. "You have such a genteel way with words, Sabin."

He grinned at her as he headed down the short hallway to the master bedroom. "I'm not the one who's a writer."

"Yeah, but you're much better educated than the one of us who is."

To her surprise, he didn't stop at his huge bed but kept right on walking into the ensuite bathroom, where he set her down and kept his hands on her until he knew she was steady.

"All right?" he asked, leaning down a bit to look into her eyes.

"Yes," Honey answered tentatively, despite the blatant concern in his gaze.

He took her hands in his, and she marveled—as she always had—at the size difference between them. "I'm going to undress you, and it's going to be an exercise in self-control for me, so wish me luck."

"I don't think I've ever seen you lose control, Sabin." She'd seen him get unnervingly quiet, and he'd certainly given her a look that put her on alert that he was not happy with her, but she'd never heard him yell, or seen him throw anything in a fit of temper.

From where he had lithely knelt down to take off her boot socks, he glanced up at her. "Well then, I've done very well around you, haven't I?"

"Are you really that volatile, Mr. Northrup?"

She sensed that his "sometimes," was a somewhat evasive answer, but he had put her other foot down by that time and stood in front of her, being intimidatingly big and tall.

"But that's nothing you'll ever have to worry about, Ms. Jacobsen."

"Despite your excellent track record, I'm not sure that you can make such a blanket statement, Sabin."

He was already gathering the loose hem of her overlarge t-shirt into his hands, and before he lifted it over her head, Sabin caught her eyes. "Oh, yes, I can. Because I'll have two ways of working out any volatility I might feel toward you—spanking you and fucking you. Or, preferably, both," he added, keeping his eyes on hers as one slight movement sent her shirt billowing to the marble floor, leaving her standing before him, bared to the waist.

Although she had the usual female reaction to being exposed to a man for the first time—crossing her arms across herself—Sabin, being Sabin, didn't do what most men would have—reach for her breasts. Instead, his hands found her wrists as he moved her arms to her sides, still without looking anywhere but into her eyes. Then he took a step closer to her, such that their bodies were just barely touching, his feet planted outside hers, as he kissed her again, more deeply than before.

Honey gasped when her peaked nipples rubbed against the golf shirt he was wearing, hearing him groan seconds later, as if her outcry had inspired his own, which was an unbearably potent thought.

Her lips wanted to reclaim his immediately when he broke off the kiss, muttering under his breath, "This is very unsatisfying," before he quickly divested himself of his shirt and took her back into his arms. His open mouth settled greedily over hers with a sigh of, "Much better now."

She had to agree as she stood as close as she could to him, pressing herself against him and feeling her breasts mashed against his chest as his hand on her back had her arching even further into him while she buried her own fingers in his leonine mane of deep black hair.

Maybe she had been wrong to worry about whether or not she was going to be able to climax with him. Maybe that had just been other men, since she found herself wondering starkly at that moment whether it was possible to orgasm just from kissing?

If it was ever going to be possible for her, it would be with him, she knew now.

Finally, when she was seconds from climbing him like a tree, he put her slightly away from him.

"Damn, woman! I want this to be slow and romantic, a culmination of all of those years of wanting you, especially since I know now that it might not be easy for you to let yourself go with me. But I'm going to go up in flames any second!"

Honey tried to reach for him, but he easily kept her hands at her sides.

But as soon as he let go, she was trying to cling to him again.

"No, baby girl," he scolded in that just right, deep tone of his, and she felt another gush onto her panties. "Hands at your sides while I deal with the rest of your clothes, and mine."

Again, he took a knee in front of her as if it was the most natural thing to do, instead of the ridiculous sight of an extremely powerful mafia boss-slash-businessman-made-good kowtowing to a less than successful, wanna-be writer whom he'd known entirely too well, but not quite as much as lately, apparently.

Although his instinct was to take her jeans down then her panties, Sabin wasn't at all sure he could stand the wait for that, so once he'd undone the button and unzipped the fly, he tucked his fingers into the waistband of both and brought them to her ankles.

And there, right in front of his eyes—and his nose—was the evidence he was hoping for. The crotch of her panties was dark with the unmistakable evidence of her desire, and he could smell the scent of her, too. Some men might have found that a turn off, but he liked a woman's clean, natural scent and preferred it to artificial flowers or perfume.

Knowing it would make her uncomfortable if he commented about what he'd noticed, though, he pushed her clothes to one side and stood.

Almost before he made it all the way up, she was eagerly trying to unbutton his jeans.

"What did I say about where your hands should be, Honey?" he asked in a stern tone.

As she looked up at him, her teeth came out to worry her lip. "At my sides," she answered softly, looking the slightest bit wary, as a submissive in her position should, but not scared.

"That's right—so you've earned your first of what I'm sure will be many spankings, I'm afraid, sweetie."

Honey frowned, wondering if he was going to punish her right now, but she got her answer when he quickly pulled down his own pants and underwear, then turned on the multiple shower sprays in the stall behind him before taking hold of her hand and pulling her into it with him.

But before he did anything else, Sabin brought her eyes to his. "Don't think that you're getting away with anything, little one. You'll be thoroughly spanked once we get out of the shower."

Damn, she looked even cuter when she pouted! It wasn't a face she'd shown him often, but he'd bet that was going to change in the coming months.

Not trusting himself not to partake of that which had been laid bare before him, Sabin squirted a bit of his body wash into his palms and set to work washing her, gently massaging areas he knew from prior experience were places where her tension and stress dwelt—neck, shoulders, and down her back. If her moans were any indication, he seemed to be hitting all of the right spots.

Of course, when he was done, he was wholly unable to resist giving her a slight smack on her bottom, which made her jump.

Then came the harder part, when he turned her to face him, and hands that ached to touch her glided over unbelievably beautiful breasts, tweaking each nipple sharply.

"Sabin! Stop that!" A hand came up as if to swat his away, but one look from him had her putting it right back where it belonged.

"Smart girl," he complimented, sinking down in front of her to wash down her thighs as well as each foot, seeing to each toe individually before he caught her eye. "I've waited a very long time to say this to you—spread your legs for me, Honey," he ordered, hoarse, but firm.

Again, she bit her lip in hesitation, and he wondered if she was going to defy him outright, which would have gotten her an immediate spanking added on to the one she was already going to get later.

But she complied, if more tentatively than he would have liked, as if she thought he was going to hurt her, when that was the furthest thing from his mind.

Sabin took his time exploring her with a soap slickened hand that dwarfed that very private area, and for the most part, he behaved himself. Although, he did spend an inordinate amount of time "cleaning" that little bean, eagerly cataloguing every caught breath, every time her head fell back, and how she opened herself to him—unconsciously, he thought—just a bit more as he was pleasuring her.

But he stopped well short of any sort of culmination, hoping that a bit of teasing might make her a bit more receptive to that later. He was going to have a hard time with it, he knew, if he wasn't able to pleasure her tonight, although he'd never let on to her that that was the case. She didn't need to put herself under any more pressure than he knew she was already going to in regard to that.

So, he withdrew his hand much sooner than he really wanted to, to stand in front of her.