How to Punish Your Playboy (DommeNation #3) by Mina Vaughn Page A

anything. I looked around for anyone else by the boathouse and stepped inside. A pleasant surprise greeted me.
    Aston leaned on a huge, six-foot anchor, and was beginning to tie one arm to it with some nautical rope. His shirt was unbuttoned and open, the vest was long gone, and the tie around his neck was hanging loosely down his bare, muscled chest. He was positioned between two windows that overlooked the crashing ocean below, and his espresso hair had fallen into his eyes. Nice scenery on many levels.
    “Mistress,” he said, still winding the long white rope across his tan (and accidentally hairless) wrist, “I don’t deserve to be your date, but can you make me worthy of your presence, at least for now?” The sound of the waves crashing outside synched with his low voice, nearly hypnotizing me with its rocky cadence.
    I took a step toward him, fighting the urge to lick my lips. Or take out my camera. This was positively frameable. “Is that an attempt at an apology?”
    “I brought you here with . . . unclear intentions. Now I have only one. To please you. I found a padlock on the ground by the door. We can stay in here as long as you want. We don’t have to go back out there.” I nearly chuckled at his formal wording. I supposed we were both new at this.
    Outwardly, I frowned. “So now you’re hiding me?”
    He shook his head. “We’re in here so you can punish me. If I’ve earned the right to escort you as a date, then I’d be proud to take you back to that reception and dance with you all night.”
    I glanced at the wall. There were oars, paddles, all sorts of things I could use to punish Aston. I found his pose interesting. “Why the anchor?” I asked. There were plenty of hooks and other spots in the room he could have used to bind himself, but instead he picked the cold, sharp, metal hunk lying against the wall.
    “Your tattoo,” he said. “This reminded me of the one on your arm. What does it mean?”
    Again with the disarming questions. Couldn’t he have left it alone? “I was off course, Aston. I had lost everyone. I needed an anchor,” I said, tracing the navy blue mark on my arm.
    He nodded. “So do I.”
    I stepped right up to him until his face was level with mine. “Why do you need an anchor?” I asked, taking the rope out of his hand and finishing the knot on his wrist. Again, his pulse twitched beneath my fingers. I grabbed a second skein and started binding his other muscular arm. I felt my face heat and my legs quake. This felt easy, effortless. I tied him up so smoothly it was like my muscles already had the memory.
    “I haven’t had a job outside the family business my entire life. People have let me float by ever since I was a kid. I drifted through school, coasted through college, and now I’m fucking lost in a business I couldn’t care less about. I want to be my own man.” I tied the second knot and he relaxed into the pose. The rosy light of sunset peeked through the window and onto his skin, making him nearly glow.
    I fingered his messy bangs and then ran my finger down the slight stubble on his jaw. “You want direction.”
    “Yes. I’m used to getting things handed to me, including women. This is different. I like having to work for it.”
    “You desire something . . . firm,” I said, placing both hands on his warm chest and running them slowly downward, grazing his stomach with my fingernails. He sank into my touch, skin positively glowing with feelings of sureness and acceptance. No more fear or confusion. Yes, beneath all the confidence, Aston was in desperate need of real validation. He wanted to earn something for once. And for once, I was ready to take what I wanted. The waves outside the boathouse crashed, escalating, heightening my senses.
    “I’m going to punish you, Aston. You want that, don’t you?”
    He nodded. “More than anything, Mistress.”
    “If you’re good, I’ll please you, too,” I said, to myself almost as much as to him.