Another crack. Slightly lower. The pain doubles, overlapping the first line, white-hot. My fingers curl so tight around the belt strap that my knuckles ache.
“Two,” I gasp. “Because I answered his questions.”
The third comes, and I’m already crying. It hurts. My skin is on fire, my eyes blur, and there is a humiliating pulse between my legs that I refuse to think about because I will actually die if I let myself.
“Three,” I sob. “Because I talked about my research.”
“Because now everyone in that room knows exactly what you are,” he says. “What can you do. How valuable you are to the right buyer.” The fourth lands.
“Four.” The number breaks apart. “Because I made you look weak.”
Everything goes quiet afterward except my ragged breathing and the drum of my heart.
The belt drops in a soft thud somewhere near my hip. His hand leaves my back.
I expect him to pull away. Instead, his fingers slide down, past the stinging welt on my thigh, and cup me between my legs.
I gasp, trying to clamp my thighs shut, but he’s too strong.
He pushes in. One swipe of his thumb. He pulls his hand back and holds it up in the dim light, glistening.
“Look at that,” he murmurs. “You’re dripping.”
“It’s a reaction,” I sob. “It’s just adrenaline. It’s not—”
He wipes his hand on the sheet, slowly. “You can lie to yourself, Anya. But your body knows who owns it.”
We stay like that for a long moment. Him kneeling beside my bound body, his hand heavy between my shoulder blades, my face pressed into sheets that smell like him and smoke and now salt from my own tears.
When he finally moves, his touch changes. His palm slides down my spine, over the hot, throbbing skin, then pauses just below the curve of my ass, fingers spreading slightly as if to feel the damage he caused.
Heat flushes up my neck and over my ears. My body is shaking. Every nerve feels raw and exposed.
“Breathe,” he says softly. “In through your nose. Out through your mouth.”
I do, because there’s nothing else to hold on to.
The air scrapes on the way in, leaving shivers behind on the way out. His hand leaves my back.
“Look at me,” he says. I turn my head slowly, cheek still pressed to the pillow, eyes burning.
He’s right there, crouched beside the bed, too close. His shirt is unbuttoned at the throat, hair mussed, face tight. There’s a wildness in his eyes that scares me more than the belt did.
“You disobeyed me,” he says again, quieter now. “I punished you. That’s how this works in my world.”
My throat closes. I hate him. I hate him so much my teeth hurt from clenching.
“And I am still,” he adds, “the only thing standing between you and men who would have done worse than look at you tonight.”
He reaches up and loosens the belt around my wrists, fingers careful on the reddened skin.
When it falls away, I bring my arms down slowly. Pins and needles rush into my hands, and I have to bite back another sound.
“Stay there,” he says. He gets off the bed. I hear the bathroom tap, the rush of water, the wringing of cloth. When he comes back, he wipes my face first. Then the back of my neck. Then lower.
His touch is brisk now. It’s not gentle, exactly, but it’s not cruel. He switched off. He tosses the cloth into the bathroom without looking.
“Tomorrow, you go to the lab,” he says. “You see what they’ve set up. You tell me what you need.”
