“One,” I gasped.
Another, quick and precise, across the other cheek.
“Two.”
Luka’s hand never left my neck, anchoring me. No space to move. No space to think.
The third strike landed harder. Pain flashed sharp, then flooded warm, heavy, pulling something loose inside me. My hips jerked. Heat spiked between my legs.
“Three.”
My hands trembled against the binding.
The room fell away. The office. The call. The humiliation. Each strike stripped something off me, piece by piece, until there was nothing left but sensation.
No past. No future.
Just this.
He didn’t ask for another number.
Instead, he glided his palm over the rising ladder of welts, as if claiming the marks. I whimpered and pressed back into his touch.
Something inside me fractured open. And stayed open.
Without warning, he yanked me upright by my bound wrists. I stumbled, off-balance, heat still burning across my skin. He turned me to face him and looked me over, slow and assessing.
He ran the cable around my torso, winding it under my breasts and over my shoulders, cinching it into a crude harness. The plastic pressed and bit where it crossed under my arms.
“Deep breath,” he instructed.
I drew one in. The wire held firm but didn’t stop my lungs. I could still breathe, but it was his air, on his terms.
Luka nodded, satisfied.
Then he scooped me up. My feet kicked uselessly in the open air before he laid me on my back on the coffee table. My head rested at the edge, but my legs hung free. Cold glass bit at the fresh welts on my skin.
He pressed a palm to my sternum, steadying me. Then he threaded another length of cable through the harness, under the table’s edge, then back up. He pulled it tight, cinching my body flat against the glass. When he secured the line, my ribs barely lifted with each breath.
I looked up at him.
He loomed over me, expression sharp—beautiful and terrifying. He bent my knees and pressed them outward. My legs opened, spread wide, calves falling over the edge of the table. Cool air moved over exposed skin, every nerve awake.
Luka worked quickly, looping, tightening, snipping the cable at my sides, wrists, and thighs.
At first, I followed the movement. Then I lost track.
Only when I tried to shift—lift an arm, draw my knees in—did it register.
I couldn’t move.
My arms were secured above my head. My legs fixed open. The harness pulled my breasts upward, the tension holding everything exactly where he’d placed it.
Luka paused above me, surveying his work, his hands tracing the lines of cable down my torso. He squeezed my breasts through the crosshatch, thumbs digging into the soft flesh until I moaned.
Then he dropped between my spread thighs and pushed my knees wider, opening me further.
Cold air hit first. Then his breath—humid, warm.