Her stomach dropped.
He let her head fall. Her cheek hit the desk with a softthud, and she swallowed.
“I’m going to ask a question,” he said as he circled to her other side. “You will answer clearly. Immediately. If you hesitate, I hurt you. Are we clear?”
“Yes, Sir.”
Silence. The air stretched long and thin.
“Why did you speak to Boone like that?”
She opened her mouth. Closed it. She didn’t have an answer. She had excuses, but noreason.
He stepped so she could see him again, and her heart stalled in her chest when she saw the loopy Johnny. Not the leather one, but a crude one, handmade from an old network cable. Brutal and fucking vicious.
She flinched before it touched her.
The first strike landed across the center of her ass, the very same skin already inflamed from nettles, and from the strap during the run.
The pain detonated. Electrical pulses radiated from the lines it left, as if it were trying to etch its message into her already inflamed skin.
She sobbed once. Bit her lip. Stayed in place.
“We’ll try again,” he said. “Why did you speak to Boone like that?”
“I—” Her voice cracked. “I thought I had the form right. And then I didn’t. And I—”
“You snapped at him because he offered his valuable time to correct your form?”
“I… yes, Sir.”
“Because your owner corrected you? Offered his wisdom?”
Her eyes burned. “Yes, Sir.”
A long pause.
“That’s not the whole story. Why else?”
She opened her mouth. Closed it. The delay was only a second—
Another strike.
High on her left thigh this time. Perfectly placed to hurt, and she screamed into the wood.
“Answer,” he ordered.
“I was frustrated!” she cried out. “With myself! And I took it out on him!”
“You’ll take five more strokes for not starting there.”
They fell like drumbeats. A rhythm designed to make his point.
One across her ass, another centered on her right thigh, a horrible strike that looped around her hip, then across her sit spot, and the last centered perfectly where ass meets thigh.
She screamed. Wept. Choked on a sob.
Then he crouched beside her again. Not touching her. No words. Just watching.
