"No. Bad girl."

I lowered my head and clutched at my floral bedspread. He teased, he tempted. He dipped the head close to my slit, then withdrew. A soft whine communicated my indignation. He laughed and slid his fingers into the back of my collar. He pulled me up and held me clasped back against him.

"Question, girl. Have you been with anyone else?"

I shook my head, aghast at the idea of it. "No, Jeremy. No."

His fingers burned a trail up to my breasts. He squeezed one tit. "Neither have I." He squeezed the other, then his fingers brushed over my sternum to once again grasp the collar's O-ring. "Are you still on the pill?"

"Yes." A good owner protects his property. He was letting me know that he was still safe, checking that I was too, before he came inside unsheathed. The idea of it touched some deep part of me. The care he gave me, it was remarkable. If it were me, I would have already speared myself on him, disease or pregnancy be damned. But not Jeremy. "Please." My voice was shaky with emotion. Please, I love you. Please, come inside. I pressed my ass back against him and got a little shake at the collar.

"Wait."

"Yes, Jeremy." Melting with desire. Tortured. He turned me around by the ring.

"Lie down." He half pushed, half helped me lie back on the bed. My hands skittered around, unfettered. I almost put them in my crotch, desperate to assuage the ache. I finally grasped the covers at my side. He buried his fingers in my hair and leaned forward. I felt his warm breath tickle my clavicle, then felt his rough cheeks brush the soft skin under my chin. I smelled his aftershave and hummed with pleasure at every sensation, every familiar scent. I hungered for his cock.

"Give me your hands," he ordered.

I held them out and he gathered them up and pushed them over my head. He arched above me. I stared up at his golden torso, the sculpted abs. I lost control and pulled forward to put my mouth on him, to taste, to lick.

"No." His reprimand was delivered with a trace of a smile. He stroked a finger down my quivering middle. "Have you become so poorly trained? In such a short time?"

"Yes!" I was wild. I bucked my hips against him. "I need...I need..."

"You need me to teach you a lesson?"

"I need you to fuck me!"

Jeremy laughed and kissed me. I thrust my tongue in his mouth and tasted him. I wanted him so much. He pulled back and took my lower lip between his teeth.

"As uncontrollable as ever."

"Worse," I said. "It's been so long. Please!"

"Little grabby sluts who beg are sometimes not given what they want." I shook my head. No, I couldn't bear it. He continued, leaning down to nuzzle against my cheek. "But sometimes, they are."

He slid inside me, all the way to the hilt. My whole body reacted to the astonishing pleasure, the feeling of being stretched by him. I remembered it, the delicious pleasure, and yet it was totally new. My hands flew wild. My arms came up off the bed. He caught them and held me down with his hard, immovable body. He arched forward again, then back. His pace quickened. I felt possessed by him, unable to move, giving up my will to the invasion of his flesh. My walls felt ready to explode, the pleasure was so intense. His pace quickened. I pressed against him and arched my back.

"Yes, yes!" He drove me on as my incoherent noises rose in intensity. His pelvic bone ground against my clit. His fingers pinched my nipples, and the hot pressure sparked right to my center. His hips drove into me, dragged me across the bed. He gathered me up, and I pressed against him, dying for release.

"Not yet." He was gasping. "Not yet. Look at me." It took a moment for his words to register. "Look at me, girl." The tenor of his voice drew me back to attention. My gaze met his. He grabbed the collar and thrust his thumb into the ring. "You're mine. Now come for me, girl. Let me see."

My pelvis convulsed. He yanked on the collar and I struggled against him. His gaze held mine, and he fucked me hard, banging against my pussy. I thrust my hips against him again and again as he held the collar tight. "Oh, oh!" My pleasure was growing, spreading wide. I felt a new closeness pulling us together, and not just where we were joined. My body and mind opened to him, and he gazed back at me. His other hand cradled me, squeezed my shoulder. I stared into those clear blue eyes and let everything go.

I cried out as the orgasm shook me. The intensity was terrifying, white-hot. As the pulsing waves took over my body, I felt the part of us that was connected grow into something more, something bigger. A concordance of hearts. I felt hot tears on my cheeks, but I didn't remember starting to cry. I was afraid. I was replete. I was aware, more than anything, that he held me tethered by the thick silver ring. The black circle. The gold ring on my finger. He had me. The circle was me and him.

His hand tightened around the collar and he rocked against me, growling. His pelvis jerked in fits and starts as he rode out his own intense climax. His thick member pulsed inside my rippling walls until we both came to rest. My pussy contracted in soft, rhythmic aftershocks. With each wave, his cock seemed to swell anew inside me. My nipples still tingled with lingering sensation.

After a moment his fingers unwound from the collar and moved up my neck to twine in my hair. I felt the soft pull, the caress of fingertips. His hot breath teased my ear. We both realized at the same time that my arms were still stretched over my head. We looked at each other and laughed. His chest hair tickled me, and I laughed harder. He thrust his tongue in my mouth and kissed me, then drew back. He smiled down at me.

"You're mine," he said, as if I didn't know it.

When we woke in the morning, his finger was still crooked through the ring at my neck.

Jeremy groused about having to move to Cambridge, but we both agreed a long distance relationship just wasn't going to work.

"I want you by me, for me, under me, every fucking day," he'd insisted as we lay together the night he came to take me back. "I don't ever want to be away from you. Can you live with that?"

"Yes, Jeremy." I snuggled as close to him as I possibly could.

I'd slept that night wrapped in his steel embrace, neither one of us willing to let an inch of space between us. We spent the next day alternately making plans and fucking. We'd be in the middle of packing or making notes or phone calls when he would just pull me down and take me. If the woman at the electric company wondered at the short, urgent gasps peppering our conversation, she was too polite to inquire what was going on.

And I didn't mind it at all. It felt absolutely perfect to be available to him again, to be filled with him when he wanted it. I'd felt empty in so many ways without him.

The truck came for my things on Tuesday, and on Wednesday we flew out. We arrived in Boston and drove straight to the charming little house he'd bought me adjacent to campus. I didn't even want to know what he'd paid for it, but I figured money could buy just about anything.

Anything but love.

And it must have been love between us, for Jeremy to leave his luxurious L.A. mansion to move into my tiny, modest house. In fact, it suited us perfectly, and we both felt strange whenever we returned to the L.A. house, like two kids wandering around in some museum. The only thing he missed about his L.A. house was the state-of-the-art dungeon there. Before the summer session was over, he had Kyle arrange to move the equipment here.

Kyle visited us regularly. He still arranged Jeremy's trips and photo shoots, although his job now was to streamline these duties into the shortest possible time. He was good at doing it too, just as he was good at doing everything else. He seemed inordinately pleased that everything had worked out for us. Without him, I suppose, it wouldn't have. As I told him once, he had saved both of our lives.

For now, Jeremy was taking a break from filming. He planned to look at scripts that could be set in Boston or possibly New York. I told him I could always take a semester off if he needed me to. We both agreed that spending more than a week apart was absolutely impossible.

Most mornings when he was there, Jeremy walked to class with me. We held hands, ignoring the paparazzi who crouched behind the bushes to take their shots. It didn't bother us so much, now that we had nothing to hide. Although the silly, cloying TOGETHER AGAIN! headlines were a little ridiculous for a while.

"Beautiful day," he always said as we walked, and I always agreed with him, because now, even the rainy, muggy summer days seemed beautiful and wonderful. He would walk me to the courtyard outside my classroom and kiss me lingeringly.

"Be a good girl today, Miss Ashton," he'd say.

"Or what?" I'd ask, whispering in his ear.

"Or you know what," he would reply, nuzzling me softly. "You know what," he'd tell me with that smile that always made me shake.

Epilogue.

I hurried down the sidewalk toward our little house. I looked ridiculous in my short, pleated schoolgirl skirt and skintight Harvard sweater, but I didn't care. I'd been studying for exams like crazy the last week while Jeremy stood over me supervising, and now I was about to get my reward.

As soon as I'd turned in my essays, I headed to the bathroom and locked myself in a stall to change into the little outfit Jeremy had tucked in my bag. The toy was there too, with a little trial-size packet of lubricant, like he'd fixed me some kind of twisted kinkster lunch. I inserted the plug gingerly, feeling like his naughty slut even though he was nowhere near, which I'm sure was what he intended. Next I pulled on the silky crimson thong.

Ha, Harvard colors. He must have been planning this for weeks. I pulled the stockings on last, the ones made like knee socks that ended just above my knee. They drove him crazy. I don't know why, but I was happy to wear them for the reaction they got.

I was so close now. Just three more nicely manicured yards to pass before I reached our den of depravity. I felt like running, but that wasn't something I really liked to do when I had a toy in my ass, even with a thong over top of it. I slowed down instead, in case he was looking out the window. I tried to look like a well-behaved but slightly-in-need-of-correction coed on her way home from acing an exam. By the time I neared the house, Jeremy waited in the doorway.

"Come in, Miss Ashton. You're a little early."

"Well, I...I didn't want to be late, Professor Gray."

"Have a seat over there by my desk." He pointed to a wooden chair against the far wall, then shut and locked the door.

I sat down on the hard seat and squeezed my knees together. I was so wet already. I had been since the moment I'd turned in my exam. He crossed to sit behind "his" desk, which was actually mine, then leafed through some papers with a frown. I sat and waited, buzzing with lust. Finally he sat back and fixed me with a hard stare. I squirmed as his gaze traveled lower. He cleared his throat.

"Penelope, if you sit on that lovely skirt like that, it's going to get wrinkled in the back. Perhaps it would be better if you pulled it up and sat with your bottom directly on the chair."

"Oh, okay," I said, rearranging myself.

"Much better. Now let's talk about your test results. I looked over your essays..."

With a flourish, he took out a pair of fake, intellectual-looking glasses and perched them on edge of his nose. I tried to stifle my laughter, but one wild giggle escaped.

He looked up at me from over the lenses. "Too much?"

"They're awesome, Jeremy," I said, trying to compose myself. "Please leave them on."

"Stop laughing, then, you little goofball."

"Okay." I schooled my face back to a serious gaze.

"So these essays..." He went on, scowling at me through the glasses. "I realize you're a highly intelligent girl, and a Harvard student," he added, nodding at my tight-fitting sweater, "but the ideas in these essays are just, well, far too scandalous and temerarious for a young girl like you to express-"

I totally cracked up again at temerarious, but being the actor, he was somehow able to keep a straight face and not fall out of character every thirty seconds like I did.

"Young lady, I don't find this situation at all funny."

I made a great show of trying to collect myself. "I'm so very sorry, Professor Gray."

"Have you been drinking, Penelope?"

Oh my God, he was going to kill me. I burst into helpless laughter again.

"Very well," he said. "I see now your essays are not the only thing completely uncontrolled and lacking in discipline. In my opinion you are a very ill-mannered and saucy girl." He took off the glasses and fixed me with a dire look. I tried to look partly apologetic and partly scared.

"I'm afraid this kind of behavior really needs to be dealt with strictly. I wouldn't be a good teacher if I allowed this sort of thing to go on. Stand up, Penelope, and bend over the desk for me. And turn up your skirt to expose your bottom." The stern tonality of his professor voice resonated straight to my clit.

"Oh, Professor Gray, I can't! That would be so humiliating!"

"Nevertheless," he said, putting his glasses aside, "I think a very strict paddling is the only thing that will bring you in line. So I'm going to have to ask you again to stand up, bend over my desk, and turn your skirt up."

I sighed and draped myself over the desk, sulking and pouting. I stole the opportunity to press my clit right against the edge. While I'm sure he noticed, he pretended not to.

"That's right. Bend right over," he said as he opened the drawer and pulled out a thick, broad wooden paddle that I knew very well. I shivered with the familiar thrill of anticipation, excitement tied up in knots of dread. "Your skirt now, please."

"Oh, Professor, please just paddle me over my skirt. Please, I'm so ashamed."

"You'll be more ashamed before this is all over. Your face will be as red as your behind when I'm done with you. Quickly now. The longer you make me wait, the more licks you're going to get."

Licks. God, I hoped I got some real licks later. After scenes like this, I often did.

"Yes, sir." I lifted my skirt to expose my crimson thong and the toy planted between my ass cheeks.

"Good Lord Almighty," Jeremy said. I muffled my laughter in the desktop as he paced back and forth behind me, tapping the paddle against his hand. "What on earth have we here?"

"It's...it's an anal plug, Professor Gray," I whispered, pretending to be ashamed.

"And you are wearing it because...?"

"I don't know, Professor. I can't explain."

"Perhaps because you're a horny little cum slut."

"Yes," I said softly. "That could be why."

"And you love to have your little asshole violated, because you're such a little fuck-happy whore. You love to have a cock shoved up inside there, drilling you and using your ass until it's full of cum. Is that it?"

"Yes," I confessed in a whisper. My clit throbbed and my tight hole clenched around the toy. "I love to have my ass taken and used."

"I bet you do. And to tell the truth, sometimes there's no other way to put a headstrong little coed like you in her place."

"Yes, Professor." I pressed my clit against the edge of the hard desk again.

"Stop fidgeting," he snapped, running his fingers up the inside of my thigh and then back down to trace the top of my schoolgirl stockings. "Spread your legs and brace yourself for a nice, hard paddling. Afterward I'll take that naughty little toy out and give you exactly what you deserve."

"Oh no, please, Professor. You won't...you won't take me...there? Will you?"

"I most certainly will. And I should warn you, my cock is much larger and much less forgiving than that little toy you play around with."

"Oh, no!" I pretended to be distraught. "What if...what if your big cock hurts me?"

"I sincerely hope it does, since you are in such severe need of correction." He brought the paddle down hard on my ass. "I have no intention of going easy on you."

Ouch. Tell me about it.

Whack. He brought it down again. "Owww!" I yelped, not totally faking. "Ow! Please!" The more I squirmed under the paddle, the more my clit rubbed against the desk. I spread my legs farther and arched my back as the sting of the paddle spread across my cheeks. I loved every second of it, but yes, it really hurt. It was easy to play the squirming, chastised student getting paddled hard by the stern professor because, well, that's exactly what I was.

"Please, oh please, Professor! I'll never write anything so...so...inflammatory again!"