my shirt, folding it and setting it on the dresser against the wall. Hanna finds a spot in the opposite corner, watching as I peel off the rest of my clothes until I’m down to my boxers.
Ellis walks slowly over to me with a familiar black piece of silk running sensually between his fingers. “On your knees,” he says, tilting his head back and glaring down his nose at me. “You might have asked me for this, but that’s all the say you’re going to have from here on out. I know what’s best for you, and I’ll be the one giving it to you. You don’t ask and you don’t argue. Understood?”
“Yeah,” I answer in a shaky breath as I lower to my knees. Ellis bends at the hips, gripping my hair tight in his fist and pulling my head back so I can look at him.
“What was that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You can make this difficult, and that’s fine. I like a little fight, but I have a feeling you’re not going to like this so much.”
He drapes the black silk over my eyes and the world goes dark.
“Arms up,” he says coldly. There’s a subtle boredom in his tone as if he’s uninterested in this, and I know he’s doing it on purpose. To deny me his attention and interest is its own form of torture.
Obediently, I raise my arms, and I feel the cool leather of the cuffs as he snaps them around each wrist. Pulling a little harsher than he might pull anyone else, he hoists me to my feet and leads me across the room. When I feel the bed against my legs, I freeze.
“Climb up, on your knees.”
Doing as he says, I get on the bed and wait for his next instruction when I feel him walk away, no longer hearing his breath or smelling his scent. Somewhere in the room, Hanna is sitting silently watching, and I wish I could look at her, touch her, feel her comfort, know she’s not too scared.
When Ellis returns, I feel something large and soft against my legs. It comes up to my hip bones, and when he hinges me forward, I realize it’s a wedge ramp, putting my ass up in the air as I rest my forehead on the smaller wedge attached to the opposite side. It’s a form of humiliation, having my ass in the air, and I breathe through it.
He’s making me vulnerable, and I knew going into this he could do just about anything, and after everything I’ve put him through, I prepared myself for him being harsh. He knows my wounds and now he can throw all the salt he wants in them. I just fucking hope it pays off in the end.
Suddenly my arms are pulled tight over my head and I hear the snaps as he attaches each one to his bed post, so my top half is completely stretched out across his bed with my ass high for him. When his hand rests possessively on my back, I flinch.
“A little jumpy,” he growls. Then he’s close to my ear, and I shiver as he whispers, “I knew you’d hate this, but this isn’t for you. It’s for me.”
He runs his strong hands along the muscles of my back, and it’s a contradiction to his harsh tone. They are soothing, like his touch speaks a different language than his words, and I melt into the contact. Even as he peels down my boxers, leaving me completely exposed, my semi-hard dick presses against the velvet texture of the ramp. There’s a cool breeze on my balls as Ellis nudges me to spread my knees. Stretching the skin, I know this is about to hurt like a bitch.
“We’ll start off slow with just the paddle. You will count. Eight for the first round.”
When his hand leaves my back, it’s silent, and I stiffen, trying to breathe. “Yes, sir,” I mumble.
Suddenly, the paddle lands hard against my backside, reverberating through my spine in a sharp crack and I let out a grunt. The pain hits me by surprise. My breathing picks up as I start to panic, clenching around the tight knot of nerves in my stomach.
“Nash.” His voice carries loud and angry through the sound of my heart pounding in my chest.
“One,” I groan.
It lands again, this time on the opposite side feeling even harder. Mother fucker said he was going to start off slow. Like hell that’s starting slow. Struggling against the