I chose. God help me, I chose to drape myself across his lap like a naughty child, fingers clutching the pink sheets while he adjusted my position with clinical efficiency. The dress rode up easily—designed for this, probably. My panties felt like tissue paper, might as well have been nothing.
"Count each strike clearly," he instructed, one hand resting on my lower back. "Lose count, and we begin again. Understood?"
"Yes." The word barely made it past my teeth.
"Yes, what?"
I squeezed my eyes shut. "Yes, I understand."
"Good girl."
The first strike came without additional warning. His hand connected with enough force to jolt me forward, stinging heat blooming across skin that had never been hit like this. Not even in consensual bedroom play—I'd never let anyone have this kind of control.
"Count," he reminded me.
"One." The word tasted like copper pennies.
The second strike landed on the opposite cheek, balanced and measured. He wasn't holding back, but he wasn't using full strength either. Just enough to hurt. Just enough to humiliate.
"Two."
By five, tears pricked my eyes. By ten, they flowed freely. Not just from pain—though it hurt, God it hurt—but from the position, the helplessness, the way he turned punishment into science.
"Fifteen." My voice cracked.
"You're doing very well." His free hand rubbed small circles on my back, a comfort that shouldn't have helped but did. "Halfway there."
Halfway. Fifteen more. I pressed my face into the mattress and tried to disappear.
But I counted. Through twenty, where each strike felt like fire. Through twenty-five, where I started sobbing. Through thirty, where my legs kicked involuntarily and his hand pressed firmer on my back to keep me in place.
"Thirty." The final count came out as a whisper.
"All done." His hand left my burning skin, and for a moment I just lay there, draped over his lap like a broken doll. "You did beautifully, Lilah. Took your punishment like a good girl."
Something about those words—the praise wrapped around my humiliation—snapped the last thread of my control.
I rolled off his lap and swung.
My fist connected with his jaw in a satisfying crack that sent pain shooting up my arm. His head snapped to the side, and for one glorious moment, I'd won. I'd fought back. I'd shown him that Lilah West wasn't some subject to be conditioned and praised and—
He moved faster than thought. One moment I was standing, riding the high of violence. The next, my back hit the wall hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs, his body caging me in, one hand pinning both my wrists above my head.
"Now that," he said, working his jaw with his free hand, "was unexpected."
Blood welled at the corner of his mouth. I'd split his lip. The sight of it—red against his pale skin, evidence that he could bleed like anyone else—made me feel wild.
"Let me go." I struggled against his grip, but he held me easily. "Let me fucking go!"
"No." He studied me with something new in those grey eyes. Not anger. Not even annoyance. "Do you know how many subjects have tried to hit me, Lilah?"
"I don't care about your other subjects!"
"None." He leaned closer, and I could taste the copper of his blood in the air between us. "Three years of research. Dozens of participants. And you're the first to actually land a blow."
"Good. I hope it hurts. I hope you—"
He silenced me by pressing closer, his body a wall of heat against mine. This close, I could see the storm in his eyes wasn't just grey but threaded with silver, could count individual lashes, could watch his pupils dilate as he processed this new data point.
