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The sound of his voice comes from the living room. I’m doing nothing in particular, my mug abandoned on the counter half-full, the coffee having gone slightly past the temperature where I’d bother reheating it. I leave it there and walk through the doorway.

Soren is sitting on the couch.

“Come bend over my lap.”

I stop with one hand still on the doorframe. My mouth opens. Closes. Opens again.

“What.” Not a question.

Soren looks at me patiently. “Come here and bend over my lap.”

My brain immediately runs diagnostics. The week. Phone: clean. Therapy: clean. Rides: clean. Communication: exemplary.

I have not broken a rule. I have not even come close to breaking a rule. My compliance has been so thorough that Dex complained at Redline on Thursday that I’m becoming disturbingly well-behaved and he finds it unsettling.

“What did I do?”

“Nothing.”

I stare at him. This does not resolve the confusion. It makes it considerably worse.

“Then why—”

“Maintenance.”

I blink.

“Maintenance.”

“I’d like to make it a regular thing.” His mouth moves at one corner. “Once a week. Whether you’ve broken a rule or not.”

My suspicion increases immediately.

“You can’t just invent a new rule while I’m standing here.”

“No.”

That throws me more than if he’d argued.

Soren rests one arm along the back of the couch. “It isn’t a rule. It’s an offer.”

Oh.

“I like spanking you,” he says. “You like being spanked. It settles you. I like the ritual of it, and I think you would too.”

My body has already become a traitor.

“And you want to do this every week?”

“I do.”

“Even if I’m good?”

“Especially if you’ve been good.”

Fuck.

Soren watches my face.