“Chamomile, comfrey, Epsom salts, and witch hazel to calm the nettles, because I’m so thoughtful,” he told her while he knelt beside the tub.
“Sometimes, medicine hurts.” He ran his hand through her hair. Relaxing her. “There are things that wouldn’t have hurt. I chose three that don’t, one that does.”
His smile was soft if you didn’t know him enough to see the cruelty underneath, and his words verified what her hawk vision had seen.
“The one that bites is the one you’ll remember.”
“Thank you for seeing to my needs, Sir.” And she meant it. Truly. Even if it burned like the fires of Hell, which it did, she’d put up with anything to stop the fire of the nettles.
His face went solemn, his eyes serious. “You held yourself together for Kenny. Spoke with honesty and truth. I’m proud of you.”
She couldn’t speak around the sudden knot in her throat.
He pressed a shockingly gentle kiss to her temple, then reached to the side and came back with something small and sharp.
Her eyes widened when she saw the butter knife.
“Spread your legs.”
Her breath hitched.
“Now, wrecked-fucking-whore.”
She spread, and he dipped the knife in the water, tracing the tip along her inner thigh, moving upward.
She jolted. Gasped. Her knees twitched inward on instinct, but locked back open when she remembered who she is.Whatshe is. Her breath came in short bursts, arousal twisting with dread. She’d been handed over to a sadist and was completely at his mercy when her skin was already on fire.
“The barbs keep releasing their poison into your wrecked whore-meat until there’s nothing left,” he explained in that aggravatingly calm voice. “The sooner we get all the poison out of them and into your already screaming flesh, the sooner your shifter metabolism can deal with it and flush it from your system.” He shrugged. “Gonna hurt like hell until then though.”
The knife scraped its way up until it found the tender crease where thigh met cunt. She jerked, and he clicked his tongue in mock disappointment.
“Stay still so I can work on your ruined holes. Your mouth’s going to get a lot of action until we’re sure your other holes aren’t going to fucking bite us.”
The steel blade moved slowly, tracing angry welts. Gently, at first. Then harder, dragging heat across heat, raising every nerve to the edge of panic.
The tip circled her clit. Pressed. Lifted. Scraped just enough to make her hips tremble.
She whimpered.
“Don’t twitch.” He glanced up at her with a half grin. “Unless you want me to slip?” His voice dropped, almost fond. “Wouldn’t take much to fillet this pretty little bundle of nerves. Paper-thin cut. Like slicing into fruit.” A chuckle. “Or butter.”
She clenched the sides of the tub, barely breathing.
He reached with his other hand, pulled her clit hood up, scraped lightly at her bared clit, and she closed her eyes and stopped breathing.
Again, but slower. More pressure. The sting knifed through her pelvis like electric glass. Her vision swam, and she pressed her teeth together with the effort to keep from screaming.
“You screamed for Kenny, little painwhore. Don’t pretend you’re silent now.”
The warm metal moved over and around her clit, slow and firm, while his thumb trapped her hood out of the way, and she concentrated on staying absolutely, perfectly still. Every nerve flared under the steel, but she didn’t dare scream and move even a millimeter.
At last, he stopped with the knife, but he crushed her entire clit between thumb and forefinger of his other hand, rubbing them together hard, rolling side to side, and she finally gave himthe scream he’d wanted, raw and from the bottom of her lungs because this was a whole new level of fresh hell.
“There we are.” His voice radiated joy. “Boone was thorough, wasn’t he? Making sure you’d feel the pain on your clit, the underside of the hood, the outside. Nothing half-assed about our third, is there?”
The tone of his last two words made it clear he expected an answer, and she managed to choke out, “No, Sir,” between her sobs.
And then the metal edge was back, scraping through her folds, pressing across every fucking little crease the nettles had invaded. Shallow channels of pain, one after another.
