Read Collared (Vegas Nights Book 1) for Free Online

the shocking rush of pain and adrenaline the first time his thick hand made contact. He wasn’t holding back. She knew immediately that he wanted to give her a genuine taste, and that he intended to make every swat count. His hand fell again and again, and she could actually feel her skin flatten and bounce back up with each thudding smack.
    Staying stoic was a fight she was determined to win. But the struggle ended about the tenth time his hand fell across the crack of her ass, covering both sides at once in a punishing blow.
    “Ow!” she cried out. “Okay, okay, okay ! You can stop now. I get it.”
    Pax had the audacity to chuckle. “Oh, sweetheart, I’m just getting started.”
    She wasn’t sure what infuriated her more: that he laughed, that he called her sweetheart, or that he wasn’t planning on stopping.
    “Stop! I said stop!” she yelled furiously, even as his hand fell across the lower crease, where her bottom and thighs met.
    He stopped. “Are you declining the job?”
    “I…” she paused and thought about going home to the large mansion with its constricting gates, and the constant barrage of news crews and photographers, even now. Especially now. It wasn’t worth it. “No?” She didn’t sound nearly as sure as she felt.
    “Then we’re not done here.”
    His matter of fact assurance was oddly comforting, and she forced herself to breathe through the pain, and focus on the end result, which was her anonymity—the freedom provided by being able to hide in plain sight. “Yes, sir.”
    With her consent to continue given, Pax drew back his arm once more, and she winced at the fact that she could actually hear a whooshing sound as it traveled through the air on its way to her ass.
    “Pax’s girls behave like ladies,” he warned between swats. It was an odd thing to say, as she hadn’t been one of his girls last night, and she technically wasn’t still, but the words gave her something besides the pain to focus on, and she was thankful for that. “There is a three drink per week limit, and only on your days off. There will be no drinking anywhere on the premises besides your own room, so if you want to have a drink at a bar, you leave the hotel.  You must be back and in your room at midnight each night.”
    Three hard, earth shaking swats fell during his edict, and Diamond raised her eyebrows at the thought of having a curfew for the first time in nearly a decade, but it wasn’t an issue. Except for the occasional girls’ night out if her sisters came to town, she was usually safely in bed watching cable by 10:00 pm anyway, unless she was working. Then it was much later.
    “You watch what goes into your body.” His hand had moved lower, and she shrieked as it fell across the top of her thighs. What a difference an inch or two made in her pain tolerance.  “You don’t go over your spending limit with room charges.” Two more swats fell across her thighs as he spoke, and she squirmed relentlessly, until he placed his other hand across her back to brace her. “Stop moving. You earned this spanking, and you need to take it. When you move, it messes up my aim.”
    “Yes, sir,” she squeaked, shocked when a stray tear rolled down her cheek and landed on the thick cotton spread beneath her. That one sentence, that she had earned a spanking, had a powerful impact, cloaking her in shame, but also, covering her with an aura of peace, giving purpose to the act of being spanked. Diamond had always been a good girl, but even the tiniest mistakes had crippled her with guilt until she forced herself to move past them. Actions had never had tangible consequences, and her few past mistakes would hit her with guilt gut at the most random of times, often keeping her up at night, remembering the time she had cheated off Mathew Roger’s history test in the tenth grade, or skipped fifth period Spanish to take a long lunch. She wasn’t even sure what she had done last night, but the fact that she could