Free Elemental Desire by Denise Tompkins Page A

know?
    “I can control the magic and, thus, the outcome.” Probably. Maybe.
Oh, shit. Maybe.
    Seth stared at her, fury lighting up his bright green eyes like glass. “Clearly you can’t.”
    “It’s not up to you whether or not I try,” she said through lips gone numb. Then she repeated almost verbatim the same thing he’d said to her such a short time ago. “You only choose how we get to my desired outcome.”
    “I could kill you for this.” The snarl ripped across the space between them, animosity fouling the air with its sulfur-like smell.
    “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.” She hated the way her voice trembled. “To that bench, please.”
    He moved silently, an automaton, limbs stiff and movements jerky. The important thing was that he complied. Stopping in front of the padded bench, jaw clenched, he didn’t look at her but rather waited for her next directive.
    “I’d like you to take your pants off and get on.” She moved in behind him, tracing a hand down the ropes of muscle on either side of his spine. Goose bumps followed in the wake of her caress. Summoning her power and fighting the fear the magic would rule her, she laid her hands on Seth’s shoulder blades. “Same rules, same safe words—green, yellow, red. Do you understand?”
    “Why wouldn’t I understand?” he snapped, parroting her earlier belligerence.
    “That’s two. Lie down and align your wrists and ankles with the cuffs, please.”
    He complied. Arms straight out in front of him, knees on the padded lengths, he did as she asked but nothing more. “Do you even know what this is?”
    “A spanking bench.” What should have been a statement of fact was flavored with uncertainty.
    “Give the witch a prize.”
    She looked him over, thrilling at the sight of his swelling shaft. “I’ve got exactly what I want,” she murmured as she buckled him down tightly before moving to the nearest toy box. With her back to him, she perused the items. Thank the Goddess he couldn’t see the furious blush staining her cheeks. No doubt he would have laughed. Taking a deep breath, she summoned calm, found her center and clutched her magic. “What do you fear most?”
    Silence ruled the moment.
    She waited.
    His voice, rich with grief, broke through the quiet. “Being forced to take the throne.”
    “Why?”
    “Royal genealogy never takes into consideration the needs or desires of the next in line.”
    “What do you need?”
    “Control.”
    “What kind of control?”
    “Absolute.”
    “What do you desire?”
    His nostrils flared. “Control.”
    “But you just said—”
    “Emotional.” The admission set the muscles in his shoulders twitching.
    “What happens if you don’t have emotional control?”
    “People die.”
    Her heart ached. The urge to go to him, comfort him and let him find solace in her embrace, swamped her. “Who died?”
    “The first woman I cared for. The first to give me what I needed.” He swallowed hard. “I can’t do this. I can’t risk coming apart and killing you.”
    If jealousy over a woman long dead had pierced her heart, his pleading scraped her soul raw. “I won’t die.”
Probably.
“Trust me.”
    He lowered his forehead to the bench. “How?”
    “Give me a color, Seth.”
    The weight of his decision bore down on her with bone-crushing pressure. Again, she waited him out. It was up to him.
    “Green,” he croaked.
    With a wave of her hand, the candles around the room lit. She retrieved a blindfold and fought against the tightness in her chest as his breaths came faster. “Close your eyes.”
    Securing the blindfold, she grabbed a short leather paddle with a squared end and stroked the blunt edge along his thighs, tracing his scrotum, across his ass and up to his nipples. The dark buds hardened. She dragged the side of the paddle down his side before flicking each nipple with her fingers.
    He jerked and arched his back, rattling the restraints.
    A short, soft slap of the paddle to