“Oh, nice touch,” Silas said. “And then the five-mile run.”
“I’ve decided on her lines,” Boone said.
She’d have sworn her heart skipped a few beats.
“She’ll sit her ass down and write: ‘I must respect my owners and follow every order. I don’t need to understand their reasoning, I only need to do as I’m motherfucking told’.”
He met her gaze. “One hundred motherfucking times.”
Willow’s throat burned as she followed Boone back to the weight room, each step a fresh wave of agony. The leaves clawed at her ass, her nipples, her cunt. The elastic of the shorts forced them deeper.
A sob broke from her chest when Boone reached for the leather strap beside the door — she’d feel it every time her form wasn’t perfect. Striking her ass, probably over the leaves. Pressing them in even more, if that was possible. Maybe her breasts if they were an easier target.
She’d brought this on herself. Her tone, her defiance, her fucking attitude.
Why the fuck had she mouthed off?
Chapter 7
Willow read the last few words of her final, one hundredth line in her head as she wrote them.
…I only need to do as I’m motherfucking told.
Her red and inflamed fingers cramped so bad she could barely pry them off the pen. The ache ran all the way up her forearms, the swelling and sting in her fingertips somehow worse than the vicious burn in her chest, cunt, and ass.
Every squeeze of the pen had ground nettle oil deeper into the tiny cracks where skin had started to split. The bra had become a torture device hours ago, and it clung to her, pressing the poison in harder. Each breath dragged a dozen stinging nettle hairs across already angry skin. Her clit felt like it had been dipped in battery acid, and the inside of her panties might as well’ve been soaked in hot sauce. Even her crack burned with every little muscle twitch, pulsing in sync with her heartbeat, each throb fanning the fire higher.
She couldn’t sit still anymore because everythingfucking hurt.
The bike shorts held everything in place, compressing the pain until it screamed.
She stood too fast and staggered, her calves screaming from the run. Boone had kept pace with her the whole five miles,silent and unrelenting, and he’d brought the strap. He’d used it less than a dozen times, but hard enough to light her already punished ass on fire when she slowed. He’d meant business when he said faster, and her ass had blazed before she ever sat in the unforgiving wooden chair he’d pulled up to the table.
When he’d walked her into Kenny’s office, Silas had been setting a meal up for her — thick chowder and grilled cheese sandwiches, enough to replenish her energy stores and pad her stomach for the next round. It’d hit the spot. Exactly what she’d needed, and not just the food itself, but the kindness. The care.
But then had come the reminder to start her lines when she finished eating, and she’d written nonstop for three fucking hours, and every second of it hurt.
At first, she’d cried from pain. Then from frustration. But somewhere around line fifty, the shame took over. She wasn’t angry anymore. Not at them. Not at Boone. Just at herself.
What thefuckhad she been thinking?
The shame cut deepest of all. She could’ve gotten herself seriously hurt with that barbell. Shehadmouthed off. And no, they weren’t exactly gentle when correcting her, but damn, what the hell had she expected?
And if she was honest, she’d have never spoken that way to Kenny or Silas, so why the fuck had she done so with Boone? She’d disrespected him, and she couldn’t figure out why. It wasn’t like she didn’t think he’d follow through with punishment.
By line seventy, she was thinking about Kenny. About how disappointed he’d be. About how bad it was going to be when he wanted her to explain her actions.
By line ninety, she’d started trembling. She was no longer angry, but humiliated. Shamed by her words.
Now, with one hundred lines stacked neatly and legibly in front of her, she gathered the pages, but not the seven she’d scrapped for errors, and walked to Kenny’s desk.
He was busy comparing building plans on one monitor with line items on another. Five monitors glowed with architectural schematics and software she had no desire to understand.
The fire in her body made it almost impossible to stand still while she waited. Her clit throbbed. Her ass ached. The inside of her bra felt like it’d been laced with crushed glass. Her fingers were puffed up like sausages, her wrists screaming.
She shifted her weight once, then froze again.
He still didn’t look.
