Free To Love a Man by Carolyn Faulkner Page B

her to feel picked on or that she was constantly being punished, either, so he did his best to counterbalance the discomfort he knew he brought to her. No matter how much a sub craved to be punished, she also craved release.
    She had a worse punishment coming than her first one had been. And for that one he had gone admittedly quite hard on her, figuring it was better to give her a bad first impression and see if she decided, as some did, that this just wasn’t for them, rather than to start out easy and have her expect that that was how it was always going to be. So he was just as happy that the first thing she’d done wasn’t something more trivial.
    Her obedience to him was not something he was willing to overlook or downplay.
    He’d decided that the next Friday night would be when she would be punished, so that Wednesday – he was still insisting that he wanted to see her as much as he could, so they were still going out, or rather staying in more often lately, three times a week – night would be the right time to introduce her to the fact that he could give her so much more than pain.
    Although, he was definitely going to have to keep himself on a very tight rein. Doing this for her was going to make him at least as crazy as it was going to drive her, and he wasn’t about to allow himself to break any of his promises to her, especially not ones that were so important – so intrinsic to their relationship.
    So, before he went to pick her up for dinner, when he was getting ready, he took matters into his own hand, lying on his big bed, thinking of nothing and no one but her. She’d been the star of all of his fantasies since they’d begun dating, and he couldn’t see that ending any time soon – or any time at all.
    Most of what he thought of while he was stroking himself was what he had seen while he was spanking her – the way her white skin became an acute red almost as soon a he removed his hand from it after each swat. The sounds of Ellie – whom he had already begun to think of as his Ellie – trying to be brave and not show how much the punishment hurt her, even right from the beginning, when she would do this delightful yelp, as if it was a surprise to her that she was being spanked. And cumming on her well-spanked bottom – that was definitely the highlight. At that time, he had not only been furiously rubbing up and down his length, using her lubricant as his own, he had been fondling her bum with his other hand, making her yelp again, making her try to stir and get away from his touch. But her efforts were those of a very recently disciplined young lady who was afraid to try too hard to avoid his touch and end up with even more of a chastisement than she’d already gotten.
    It was the thought of spanking her again that put him over the edge, had him crying out hoarsely, helplessly as his hips jerked up into the air, imagining it was her sheathing him instead.
    Hours later, in the middle of a rather innocuous dinner at a chain restaurant that she favored, he was feeling expansive and indulgent at the idea of giving himself pretty much free rein to touch her later, so he had agreed to go although he wasn’t much of a fan. But he was finding that making her happy was at least as addictive as punishing her, and he was anticipating that bringing her off was going to end up on that list shortly.
    “Is it up to snuff?” he asked, motioning towards her dinner with his drink. He figured he needed it, although he wasn’t going to drink much, just enough to take the edge off.
    Ellie nodded, looking happy. It was downright infectious.
    “Well,” he said, leaning towards her over the small table, continuing sotto voce, in a tone that was just slightly stern but full of husky, barely leashed desire, “I just want you to know that, once I get you back to my place, I’m going to stretch you out on the couch and have you for dessert.”
    Her eyes went round and her mouth fell open until she snapped it