down like this, not me, not me. “Pretty,” he comments. “Red stripes look good on you.”
I said I wouldn’t cry. I meant it. The covers ball up in my fists.
“I can see you trying not to cry.” Leo snaps the belt back again and this time it lights my whole ass on fire. My knees buckle but I don’t fall. No sound comes out of my mouth. If I make a sound I’ll cry. “No one would be surprised if you went back on your word. It hurts like a motherfucker.”
“It does,” I hear myself admit, and I also hear a swallowed sob in my voice. “It hurts so much.”
“Point your toes.” I have just enough time to register how gently he says it before the words are cut down by a vicious blow. A cry struggles up to my tongue but I keep my lips shut tight, chest heaving.
Leo puts two more lines of fire across my ass, hard and deliberate. I’m an idiot. So stupid. I didn’t see this particular cruelty coming. I didn’t want to see it. A tear breaks free, trickles down my cheek, and lands on the comforter. My toes aren’t pointed anymore. He’ll strap me again for it. I move myself back into the position and keep hold of the blankets.
“If it’s too much, darling, you can leave. Stand up and walk out the door.”
The invitation snaps me in two. Breaks me. The tears I’ve been holding back rush out, soaking the comforter, but I do not stand up. Leo is lying. I can’t stand up and leave. I won’t. I will do anything for my father, including this. More than this. I will bend over and take whatever depraved punishments Leo Morelli wants to give if it means keeping my dad out of harm’s way. There’s no stopping the tears now and they run in hot streaks down my face and drip down my nose. I spread my thighs another few inches. Point my toes. “Do it.” My voice is rough through the tears. “Hurt me. Do it. I’m not leaving.”
One sharp breath. I don’t know what it means. Don’t turn my head to look. His hand comes from nowhere, and Leo threads his fingers through my hair and pins me to the bed.
For five more strokes.
They last an eternity. Each sharp slap is punctuated by someone crying please please please and it’s me, it’s me, but I don’t recognize my own voice. I don’t recognize the woman whose hips rock into the bed. Not trying to get away from him, no, trying to feel his hand in my hair, trying to get contact where I need it. A little contact would turn this inside out, turn the breath-stealing pain into something different. It’s wrong. It’s fucked. I don’t care. I can’t stop.
Leo puts his fingers between my hip bone and the bed and prompts me up, giving himself enough space to reach between my legs.
Not with his hand.
With the strap.
The one he used to punish me with.
To my horror it feels good on my wet, swollen flesh. I don’t know how he’s managing to keep it where he wants it, pressing tight against my clit. All that matters is that he does.
“Yes.” His voice soothes and humiliates. “Fuck the strap.”
My hips jerk against it, senseless, wanting. My tears turn hotter with embarrassment. With the mortification of having to rock my hips into the same leather that made me sob. That made me wet. Leo keeps one hand on my head. It’s more intense than being bound, feeling his fingers in my hair. At least, I think it is. He hasn’t tied me up yet. An image of myself, panting and coming and restrained, makes me work myself harder against the strap.
“Come, or we can start over.”
He means he’ll take the wet strap from between my legs and punish me with it again, right here, right now. Leo would do it. He would degrade me with a strip of leather soaked my own juices, he would laugh at my tears, he would—he would—
I come so hard my knees give out and my vision dims. From the distant reaches of space, I try to keep myself upright. Try to keep my legs spread. He’ll fuck me now. That’s the logical conclusion of all this. He’ll take my virginity while my ass burns and my tears flow and I make these sounds, god, I can’t stop.
Leo tugs the strap out from under me. It comes