Because of his damn son, but I don’t voice that. I meant it when I said that Jonathan doesn’t get to tell me what to do.

“That’s what I thought.” He pushes me so that I’m bent over the table meant for supplies.

My chest touches the hard surface as he holds me down by my wrists. My throbbing nipples turn painful with the mere friction. I hear a belt snapping behind me, but before I can focus on it, the sound of a slap fills the air.

I bite my lower lip, eyes closing to engrave the sensation.

“One final chance.” His words echo around me like a dark promise, and I hate that my first response to it is wanting more.

He’s turned me into a mess who can’t get enough. He was right the other day. I’ve become a glutton for his punishment and rough handling. I’ve become attuned to him on a scary level.

“You want to be fucked here and now?” His voice lowers with lust and something else I can’t put my finger on. “You don’t even care that we’re in a religious setting, or that anyone can walk in. You’re quite the exhibitionist, aren’t you?”

His words should be a turn off, but heat engulfs my body and burns the last of my inhibitions.

Jonathan thrusts into me from behind, his huge cock filling me whole with a slight tinge of pain. The position gives him access to parts of me I didn’t know existed.

“You’re quite the adventurous one.” His raspy voice adds more punch to his callous presence at my back. “Wild. Unstoppable.”

He pounds into me with an urgency that slams my thighs against the edge of the table. With my hands bound behind my back, I can’t do anything.

Not that I want to.

The sense of helplessness adds to the pleasure gripping me by the throat. There’s something so utterly addictive about the way he takes from me, leaving me barren and with no way out but back to him.

The sheer power of Jonathan King turns me helpless, speechless, almost like I’m levitating and living an out-of-body experience.

He slaps my arse, and while the sting may start there, it ends up straight between my legs.

“Oh… Aaaah… J-Jonathan…” My voice shifts into a loud moan as the orgasm brews in the distance. My stomach tenses and my fingers curl, nails sinking into his or my skin — I can’t really tell anymore — in preparation for the impact.

It’s coming. The sensation builds on the horizon, mounting and magnifying, about to hook into me and snatch me into its barbarous clutches.

His hard chest covers my back, fully, entirely, as if he’s about to suffocate me.

He doesn’t.

His lips find my earlobe. They’re hot and firm like a blade. He whispers in a voice filled with raw possessiveness, “My name is the only name you’re allowed to moan. The only name you’re allowed to think about or even dream of.”

I’m too delirious to make sense of his words, let alone form a response.

He thrusts harder, hitting my hip bone against the table with the force of it. There’s nothing normal or ordinary about the way Jonathan powers into me.

He doesn’t just fuck, he owns. He stakes his claim with each long thrust. His fingers wrap around my throat and he squeezes until he’s all what remains in my conscious.

“Show me how you come for me, wild one.”

The explosion of an orgasm takes me under in a fraction of a second.

I don’t have a choice in it.

The softness of my body is attuned to the power in his, to the way his hips jerk forward with dominant resonance. To the way he grips my wrists, to how my arse stings from the feel of his hand on my flesh.

I’m panting, fighting and scrambling for breath by the time I fall down that cliff. I’m rolling in the dirt with no landing in sight.

And honestly, screw landing. I can stay suspended in this alternative reality all day.

“That’s it. Good girl.”

Jonathan follows soon after, this time, spilling inside me. I don’t tense or think about it. That possibility doesn’t scare me.

Everything ended before it even started in that regard.

“Fuck.” Jonathan pulls out, his hot cum streaking down my thighs. “Are you on birth control?”

I pull up to a standing position, even though my legs hardly hold me upright.

Jonathan releases my throat and my hands to tuck himself in. My wrists feel sore, empty almost, at the loss of his grip.

“You should’ve thought of that before, don’t you think?” I smooth down my dress.

“Answer the question, Aurora.” His face carries the same mask of unemotional blankness, but there’s a tic in his jaw.

Jonathan lost control by coming inside me, and he doesn’t like losing control. However, that’s not the only reason he’s ticked off. He doesn’t want any type of accident — a child. Which is understandable, considering he has Aiden, who is nineteen going on twenty, and his nephew, Levi, who’s a year older than his son.

That doesn’t mean I’m not pissed off myself, though. “Maybe I am, maybe I’m not.”

“If you don’t quit provoking me, I’m going to spank your arse until you can’t sit straight.”

“Already done.” I extend my palm. “Give me my underwear back.”

“How about no?”

“Jonathan!”

“You can’t give me attitude and expect to get things from me.” He tilts his head to the side. “You’ll go back in there with nothing underneath your dress, and you’ll think of me every time you squirm in your seat.”

“You can’t do that.”

“Consider it already done.” He reaches a hand and wipes something at the corner of my mouth, a sadistic smirk grazing his sinful lips. “Also, you might want to freshen up. I don’t mind dragging you outside looking like this, but you might.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You look thoroughly fucked, wild one.”

I push his hand away, a flush of heat ascending to cover my already flaming cheeks.

Jonathan chuckles as he steps out the door. The sound of his rare laughter resides in the room long after he’s gone.

Why did he have to laugh, damn him?

I use some tissues to clean up and then sneak behind everyone’s back to get to the bathroom. He’s right, my hair is in a state of disarray and my eyes are puffy and watery. My lipstick has smeared a little from how I bit my lips.

It takes me a good ten minutes to make myself appear somewhat presentable.

When I go back, Kenza has already found her phone. She jokingly tells me she thought I was the one lost.

If only she knew how true that statement is.

We sit in tables of five for dinner. The dick, Layla, puts me with Jonathan, Ethan, Elsa, and Agnus. And Jonathan is right beside me.

“What?” Layla said when I almost strangled her. “I can’t deny requests made by those who write large cheques. Think of the cause, mate.”

She’s now waving at me from her table, where she’s seated with her parents and two old ladies from their community. Layla’s doctor brother is in Africa, her two British Army brothers are captains in Afghanistan, and her fourth brother couldn’t make it tonight.

While she gets to sit in a familial atmosphere, I’m stuck here. To say the atmosphere is tense at my table would be like saying my life is normal.