restraints, I clench my jaw wanting to yell at him, tell him to start easy like he said he would.
“This is the last time I’ll remind you to count before I add another eight, and I won’t go easy after that.”
“Two!” I shout through gritted teeth.
The next three smacks against my ass feel like fire licking through my flesh, but I breathe through it all, counting as he told me to, but it’s not until the seventh and eighth hit I start to feel the muscles in my arms soften like butter.
He runs his hands across my ass, and I hiss in response to his touch.
“Oh baby, that was nothing. Don’t you want more?”
Fuck him if he thinks he’s gotten even close to breaking me.
“You’re going to have to do better than that,” I snap which earns me a harsh pinch of my sensitive flesh. I let out a muffled string of obscenities.
“Don’t make me gag you,” he says, dragging his nails across my sore ass.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I breathe through the urge to talk back, but I know he’ll keep his word if I do, and that nasty thing crammed between my teeth is the last fucking thing I want, so I bite my tongue.
His hands drift upward, across the tense muscles of my back, along my sides until he’s squeezing my shoulders and neck.
“What are you holding onto?” he says, but this time he’s speaking in the familiar Ellis voice, not the low, controlling tone. Like he’s stepping out of character, and it hits me a little harder. Knowing he’s in there. Knowing he cares.
I don’t answer him. Instead, I mumble into the velvet. “Again please.”
He lets out a sigh and his hands leave my back. When I hear him pick something off the bed, I prepare myself for another paddling.
“Eight again. Don’t forget to count.”
As the thick strands of leather land hard and sharp across my back, I let out a yelp and fidget against the restraints again.
“Fuck!” I cry out because the pain doesn’t fade away. It gets stronger, spreading across my back like he’s pouring boiling water on my flesh.
When it lands again even harder, I lose the ability to breathe.
“Count and start at one,” his voice booms through the panic echoing through my skull.
What the fuck? How did Lilac put up with this? I’m not a fucking pussy, but right now, I’m realizing I had no goddamn clue what that girl was feeling.
My mind is racing, trying to catch up with itself when he hits me again, and I scream.
“You are still on one, and if I were you, I wouldn’t forget to count.”
“One,” I gasp.
He sounds so fucking angry, I cower to it. It’s like I’m a ten-year-old kid again, staring up at a man who represented everything I wanted to be. Confident, smart, rich, good looking. I wanted to be him so bad, I built my life around that desire. And now he’s angry at me, landing another soul crushing hit against my back. Something in me breaks like a tiny crack in the dam.
“Two,” I mumble out, my mouth wet and breathless.
He’s not taking it easy on me. Every harsh crack of that flogger against my back is like knocking another peg out, and instead of fighting the pain, I let it flow through me.
And it’s burning down everything.
My groans turn into shouts, but I keep up my counting. I hardly notice when we get to eight and I’m sweating all over the ramp, breathing through something even more painful than what he’s doing to my back. It’s a stabbing wound in my chest, and it’s making it hard to breathe.
“Still holding on. Maybe we should stop. I don’t think you can handle any more.”
“No!” I burst out. “No…I can handle it.”
“Eight more,” he says, and I whimper, already anticipating the pain, which comes down hard, and I can’t tell if my back is sore or numb, but the sting feels more like a shallow stabbing pain.
He doesn’t let up, and I start to realize what we started with was easy compared to this, but with each lash, I drift farther and farther from this moment, from this pain and the voice in my head. They send me deeper and deeper, flushing away the thoughts that plague my soul.
I don’t know how I remember to count, but I do, and he keeps it up.