He’s come undone, and I’m not so sure what his reaction will be.
“To not speak unless I command it. I removed your gag. Your straps. You’re free to move around…for now. But if you disobey me, then you won’t enjoy the punishment?—”
“I beg to differ, asshole. I think?—”
Before the sentence ends, he rips the handle down and flings the door open, shoving me back against the craggy rocks behind it. Deftly, he closes and locks it again as I leap onto his back and grip his neck, tugging with force.
As if I weigh nothing, he flings my body onto the bed, and I bounce back, holding my hands out in front of me. He tugs me forward, dragging me until my knees hit the ground, scraping along the jagged floor beneath the threadbare rug.
“Stop!” I scream, but he’s lifted me into the pillory. Lowering the bar over the back of my neck.
When I kick his shoulder, he bites my leg. I squeal as he grabs my foot and secures it onto the bottom bar, then secures the other.
All I can see is the weeping wall in front of me. Body uncomfortably bent and locked into place.
I shift my thighs as the frigid breeze hits my bare pussy.
To taunt him further, I don’t know why, but I yell, “You better gag me, motherfucker. Because I’m about to scream this whole house down.”
The only noise is a creak as the heavy lid of the chest slams shut. Then a ruffling of clothing.
He leans in close and drops his voice low, though still filled with something like amusement. “Good.”
Searing sharp agony slaps across my ass. I jolt forward with a ragged wail launching from my chest. “What was that?”
I sense his body behind me. Heated and fuming with insanity. If I stick my ass out more, my skin brushes his.
“The crop?Do you not like it?”
“Fuck you— Ouch!” A crack of lightning rips across my still-wounded butt.
“You have three ways to make this pain stop, Ashlyn. You remain silent. You tell meyes, lord. Or you say the safe word. Which will it be?”
My jaw sets as I contemplate the answer. He and I both know I won’t give in with the stupidsafe word. I’ll fight to the death before I’d give in and let him know he hurt me.
Remaining silent seems so out of character. But also…it may drive him the craziest.
So that’s what I choose.
“Good girl.” The warmth of his bass sends staggering tingles through the blisters forming on my ass. Somehow, I’m wet. Needy. Body arching back to feel him there.
His palm settles on my lower back, and I gasp at the pleasure replacing the ache. Only a tiny sigh releases from my lips as he slips his firm cock through my pussy repeatedly but never enters. The thick crown of his length slots against my hole, throbbing. Stretching me, but not moving. His hand trails down to hook around one of my hips, the other still holding the crop by his side.
“See? I knew you could be obedient. Now…I want you to say, ‘Please fuck me, my husband.’”
“What? We aren’t marr— Fuck! Aiden!” The burn is so strong, I can only sob, salted tears running over my cheeks. I sniffle, settling into my fate.
“Going to say it, or no?”
His voice sharpens, and my body answers before my brain can stop it—flinch, breath held, waiting for impact. I know this script. My flesh knows it.
My mind takes me back to those moments at Crest. Hands bound to a table by one of the female counselors, swatted with a wooden ruler as another, usually one of the men, would ripmy pants down. And then the belt. A paddle. Sometimes one of the kitchen spoons.
I hate that it feels as if this is myhome. The place where I should be. That, for some fucked-up wiring in my brain, Icraveit. Because it was ingrained in me.
I’m abad girland need to be punished.
Years later, everything in me still speaks the language they taught me—pain as permission, obedience as worth.