“But before we go in, we're going to need a safe word that will let me know immediately to stop if a lesson is too much for you,” he says, all business. However, this is the opposite of commerce. It’s something I don’t have to do. Something I want to do.

“How about Meemaw?” I ask after a bit of thought.

Waylon raises both eyebrows. “You know, Meemaw used to run the whole maid service. And when she retired herself, there was a lot of protest—some of it coming from guys half her age. She's not exactly—”

“Okay, okay, I get it!” I say, holding up both hands.

As fraught as this conversation is, I suddenly find myself cringing and laughing. “How about Delaware?”

A shadow falls over his face at the name of the state I've been trying to get back to all this time. Then he says, “Yeah, Delaware will do.”

He says that.

Then he looks at me for a long, hot second, his blue eyes once again set to blazing.

Then he grabs me.

Waylon’s way may not have been easy, like he claimed. But it is fast. He picks me up off the porch, and we’re in the house in a blur.

But he doesn't take me straight upstairs for this lesson. He slams the back door behind us and then shoves me up against it. Face first.

“Teacher’s finally got you where he wants you,” he growls into my ear, his beard grazing the sensitive skin on my neck. “We got a lot to learn tonight. A lot of punishment that needs to be meted out.”

Punishment…the word sends an unexpected flush of desire through me. Makes me moan.

“You tried to leave me,” he complains low and mean in my ear as he presses his erection into my backside and slips his hand down the waistband of my jeggings. “You tried to give yourself to somebody else. That's going to have to be dealt with. You thought you were built for life in the suburbs with some asshole doctor who couldn’t give you what you want if he tried…what you need. But I can because your body belongs to me. It’s mine, and I know…. Teacher knows what this body that belongs to me wants…what it needs. I was nice before. Too nice. You thought you could leave me. But tonight, I’m fucking you, angel. I’m giving you the punishment you deserve. Yes, you’re about to learn….”

His words…they’re so filthy and harsh. But my clit pulses under his touch, and my body swells with arousal.