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eyebrow at me and said, “Tomorrow night, you won’t have to be quiet.”
    I knew what that meant. I was always quiet. Practically silent. Connor had been trying to get me to open up, to feel comfortable enough to let loose. The most I’d managed so far was a husky moan. I’d never been a screamer. I internalized everything. Tears might streak my cheeks, but I would not cry out. I could not. Connor had plans to change that.
    While I waited for him, I paced the apartment, clad in an outfit we’d bought together: a short black-and-white plaid skirt, silky black T-shirt, fishnet stockings, knee-high Docs. I walked into Lois’s room, where I’d set out all the toys Connor had given me. Then I paced again. He’d used his belt on me, but never a paddle. I stroked the flat side, tentatively touched the wooden handle. It was in my thoughts to try the thing on myself, to see what the pain would feel like, when I heard Connor knock.
    Feeling guilty for no reason, I hurried to the front door and let him in. He had flowers with him. And a crop.
    Jesus.
    He looked me over, head to toe, then nodded his approval. The flowers were left to die a slow death on the cracked blue Formica kitchen counter. There wasn’t even time for filling a wine bottle with water. Connor grabbed my wrist and led me back to Lois’s room, a girlyboudoir with pink walls and a brass bed. She had angels on her dresser and her nightstand, and they looked odd as background to the various sex toys. Gargoyles would have made more sense.
    Connor sat on the edge of the bed and looked at me. I knew what to do. I understood his expressions by now, could practically read his thoughts, but the crop kept me from coming forward. The way it leaned against the dresser made me want to run and hide. Not because I didn’t want to feel the sting, but because I did—and that scared me to death. I’d confessed all of my secrets to Connor over our months together. I’d told him every little fucked-up fantasy I’d ever had. I couldn’t hide from my truth, but I had a difficult time facing the reality head-on. Be careful what you wish for.
    “Get the paddle,” he said. My legs threatened to give out as I walked to the nightstand and gripped the new toy. “Over my legs, girl. Now.”
    I bent myself into the proper position, felt his warm hand lifting my tiny skirt, felt him watching me. He pressed the paddle against my panty-clad ass, letting me feel the weight before he landed the first blow. I sucked in my breath, but remained silent. The sting was different from the belt, but not worse. He began spanking me more rapidly, pausing only to pull my black satin bikinis down my thighs, leaving them on me, but baring my ass. The pain intensified immediately, and tears wet my eyes, but I still didn’t cry out. I wasn’t trying to test him. This wasn’t a game. I didn’t know how to do what he wanted. Not without sounding phony. Not without being fake.
    “What did you think about today?” he asked, taking a break to pull my panties off completely and then herd me to the full-length mirror on the back of Lois’s door,to show me my scarlet rear cheeks. He held my skirt up for me, so I could see, and he grinned at his handiwork, clearly pleased.
    “This,” I said. I’d gotten a temp job in an office on Wilshire, and my day had been busy, but every time I’d had a breather, I’d thought of Connor and his bag of toys.
    “And this?” he queried, cupping my bare pussy with his hand and giving me a stern look, no sign of a smile now.
    I wanted to melt into nothing. Disappear into a silver mist. Over one midnight confession, I’d asked him if he’d spank me … and then, unable to actually voice the request, I had simply put his hand over the front of my panties. “Spank me here …?”
    For some inexplicable reason, I was always waiting for the moment when I’d go too far. When he’d give me the disgusted look that Byron had shot me after my drunken night of spilling