NOVEL NEXT Chapter 353: I Need More Punishment!
Julie had braced herself for something brutal, her mind racing through punishments she knew from her military upbringing.
She imagined him making her run endless laps around the forest until her legs gave out, or forcing her to kneel with a boulder balanced across her thighs until she was trembling and broken.
That was the kind of penance she understood: pain, endurance, discipline.
But this...this she had never anticipated.
Instead of iron and sweat, instead of pain and exhaustion, her "punishment" came in the form of Cassius's mouth claiming hers with sudden, devastating passion.
"Smooch!♡~ Smooch!♡~ Kiss!♡~ Smooch!♡~ Sip!♡~"
For a heartbeat she froze, stunned by the sheer audacity of it. Her lips parted instinctively when his pressed harder, when his tongue invaded and tangled with hers, leaving her breathless, overwhelmed.
She was the commander of an entire brigade, yet in this moment, all that authority, all that hardened training, melted away.
She wasn't a knight, wasn't a leader, wasn't anything except a helpless girl whose very first kiss was being stolen and devoured.
"Mwah!♡~ Mwah!♡~ Pucker!♡~ Mwah!♡~ Suck!♡~"
At first, she resisted, stiff with shock, her hands pushing faintly against his chest.
But the longer it went on, the more the resistance bled away. His kiss was merciless, every stroke of his tongue demanding and commanding, and she had no defense against him.
And slowly, timidly, her eyes fluttered closed, her lips softened, and instead of resisting she let him have her.
She let him explore, let him take, let him overwhelm.
"Peck!♡~ Peck!♡~ Kiss!♡~ Peck!♡~ Taste!♡~"
What was worse, what was more terrifying, was that she didn't hate it.
She thought she would...She thought she would despise being taken like this, her first kiss ripped from her in so forceful a manner.
But instead, the heat in her chest grew warmer, deeper, until she was trembling not from shame, but from a pleasure she hadn't known was possible.
"Mmm!♡~ Mmm!♡~ Smack!♡~ Mmm!♡~ Lick!♡~"
Her hands crept upward of their own accord, clutching at his shoulders, then wrapping around him, pulling him closer. She kissed him back, hesitant at first, clumsy and unsure, but then growing bolder, responding to his tongue with her own, clashing with his as if she couldn't stop herself anymore.
"Kiss!♡~ Kiss!♡~ Mwah!♡~ Kiss!♡~ Sip!♡~"
Cassius noticed as well. He felt the shift, felt her yielding turn into hungry answering. And with a victorious growl muffled between their joined mouths, he crushed her closer, deepening the kiss until it swallowed her whole and this went on for quite a while...
...When Cassius finally broke away, it was not mercy, it was necessity.
"Haah! Haan! Haaa! Haaah!"
Julie was gasping, her lips parted and wet, chest heaving as though she had sprinted a mile. Her eyes, hazy and luminous in the dim light, were wide with bewilderment, her cheeks flushed red, her lips swollen from the ravishing.
She looked dazed, undone, stripped of all her knightly composure and he, too, was panting, a thin grin tugging his lips as though he had just won the greatest battle of his life.
"Well..." Cassius murmured, brushing his thumb along the corner of her mouth, still wet with their mingled breath. "How is that, Julie? How is that punishment of yours?"
His grin deepened as he leaned back just slightly to take her all in, the trembling lips, the flushed cheeks, the stunned, molten look in her eyes.
"It's something you'll never forget for the rest of your life. More than enough to atone for every little sin, don't you think?"
He expected her to explode, to push him away, to sputter and shout that he had stolen her first kiss, that he was shameless, that she hated him.
He braced for her pride to reassert itself with a furious slap to his chest.
But instead…
Julie's breath slowed, her lashes lowering slightly as her gaze fixed on his. There was a quiet in her expression now, a strange stillness that was almost more dangerous than her usual fiery temper.
When she finally spoke, her voice was low, hushed, and yet trembling with something between desperation and yearning.
"…This won't be enough."
Cassius blinked. "Huh?"
"This..."
She touched her swollen lips with the tip of her finger, then looked back at him with a soft, earnest gaze that nearly made his chest ache.
"This kiss...it's not enough. Not for everything I've done. I've sinned too much, Cassius. Lied, cheated, gambled, deceived. O-One kiss can't possibly wash it all away."
Her voice grew firmer, though her blush only deepened.
"I want to be cleansed fully. I want every sin erased. I want to be pure again, a knight without shame."
"...So, you have to kiss me more. You have to kiss me until there's not a trace of sin left inside me..."
"...Don't you think that's the correct way to make me ammend for my sins?"
"...?"
Hearing this confession that came out of nowhere, Cassius stared at her, floored. He had been ready for denial, for fury, for tears even.
...But not this.
Not Julie, stubborn, proud, impossible Julie, looking at him with those limpid eyes and begging him for more.
...And seeing this he felt his restraint unravel.
"Well then..." He murmured, tilting her chin up between his fingers. "If my beautiful little knight wants more punishment...then as her boss, it's my duty to give her exactly what she asks for."
He didn't wait another heartbeat. His mouth crashed onto hers again, fierce and unrelenting.
"Mmm!♡~ Mmm!♡~ Kiss!♡~ Mmm!♡~ Slurp!♡~"
This time, Julie was ready. Her arms wrapped around his neck, her body pressing against him, and she kissed him back with as much passion as he gave her.
"Kiss!♡~ Kiss!♡~ Mwah!♡~ Kiss!♡~ Nibble!♡~"
Tongues tangled, lips bruised, breaths stolen. They clawed at each other, desperate, frantic, their bodies straining closer as though trying to fuse together.
"Smooch!♡~ Smooch!♡~ Kiss!♡~ Smooch!♡~ Sip!♡~"
They kissed like starved lovers, like a couple long denied. Every shift of their lips, every desperate pull of breath, every eager press of body against body only stoked the fire higher.
Julie's legs even tightened around his waist instinctively, pulling herself tighter against him, as though she feared he would stop before her sins were truly burned away.
"Mwah!♡~ Mwah!♡~ Pucker!♡~ Mwah!♡~ Suck!♡~"
Cassius also felt her surrender completely, her passion igniting like dry tinder, and he kissed her harder, deeper, hungrier, until even the most experienced of lovers would have turned away in embarrassment at their sheer need.
There was nothing knightly about her now, nothing disciplined or restrained. She was just a woman lost in the storm of her first real passion, kissing like she'd never breathe again if she stopped.
And in that moment, they weren't commander and knight.
They weren't master and subordinate.
...They were simply a man and a woman, tangled in each other's arms, devouring each other with the hunger of something far deeper than punishment.
—
Just like that, the frenzy of kisses melted into silence, their foreheads leaning together, breaths mingling, the heat of what they had just shared still clinging to their lips.
They ended up draped across each other's shoulders, Cassius' hand resting lazily at the small of her back, Julie's arms looped loosely around his neck.
Neither wanted to speak of fear or hesitation, both content to pretend, just for a moment, that they were only a man and a woman who had stumbled into something far larger than either of them had expected.
Cassius was the first to let his thoughts drift.
He had walked into the night expecting nothing more than the dull business of teaching Julie how to cook, patient, exhausting, perhaps amusing.
Never had he imagined it would spiral into spanking, confessions, and finally, that blazing kiss.
Yet he couldn't bring himself to regret a single second. There was satisfaction curling in his chest, a quiet joy at how the night had unfolded, at how sweetly she had melted against him.
But Julie...Julie was another matter entirely.