each and squeezing firmly. His ears were keenly attuned to every possible reaction she might have to his actions, from a gut-wrenching groan to the softest sigh; and this time it was the latter, as if she might be trying to withhold or tamp down on her responses to him. He couldn't be sure that that was what she was trying to do, but he kept that thought in his head. His index fingers closed around her nipples, each at the same time, while the rest of his hand and strong, firm fingers continued to squeeze her flesh rhythmically, his motions rolling out of his hands from pinky all the way through to those tightly pinched nipples in a motion that was almost as if he was milking her, knowing that it was something she enjoyed enormously – or had in the past.
Her responses this time, however, were quite subdued, and he began to think his suspicions were right. She was deliberately tamping down her usually loud and enthusiastic responses to everything he did to her. Mace wondered what might inspire her to do such a thing. Not that he was going to allow her to continue to do it, but he always wanted to know what she was thinking. She was unlike almost every other woman he'd ever known in that she didn't much like to spend time talking about her feelings – or his – for which he was ever grateful, except when it was something he thought he should know about.
In trying to establish a new level of intimacy in their relationship, though, he knew that they needed to talk to each other, even about the things that they would each much rather avoid. "Miss Miranda," he breathed huskily.
Damn, he was going to start talking to her at a time like this? How could he possibly expect her to converse when he was handling her breasts so possessively, so enticingly? It was all she could do to try to tone herself down. She wanted to writhe and moan and arch herself even more obscenely, offering herself up to him, to get him to handle her even more roughly than he already was. But now that she was faced with the starkly sexual sight of them together like this in her mirror, she realized abruptly that she wasn’t at all sure what the rules were anymore, considering that he seemed like he wanted to change the game and up the ante, as it were.
"Are you holding out on me?" he asked sternly. One hand left its breast behind to cup the curve of her throat. And that paw was so big that his fingers extended almost to her chin as he lifted it back, thumb resting at the underside of her jaw, just in front of her ear, requiring that she arch her neck at least as much as her back was already.
There was absolutely no implied threat there that he would ever choke her. Neither of them was into that. But he had – as usual – noticed that she liked him to make her very vulnerable. This was one quick and easy way to remind her just who was in charge without having to punish her. Not that he would shy away from that, either. In fact, he was thinking that a second disciplinary session might well be in her very near future, depending on how she answered his question.
How had he noticed that in such a record time? No other man she'd ever been with would have probably noticed at all that she wasn't quite as vocal as she usually was when he made love to her, but Mace caught on in two seconds flat.
He could feel her swallow very hard behind his hand. "Be very careful how you answer me, Miranda Kiley. You really would not want me to catch you in a lie, believe me. That would make all of your other punishments to date feel like I was trying to stroke you to orgasm."
She whimpered at his words. "I-I w-wasn't t-trying to. I just… didn't know… you know…"
He brushed the flat of his tongue from her collarbone up to her ear lobe, leaving that moist trail at once white-hot and yet she shivered at his action as if from a chill. "What, sweetie? Tell me. You can say anything. I won't be mad." Mace met her eyes in the mirror, seeing a lot of doubt there that he'd