No words. No ritual. Just the quiet command of my hands.
I lifted the hem of her slip, baring her slowly. She was already bruised from the nights before — faint handprints blooming purple across her skin. My marks. My claim.
Tonight I didn’t spank her for disloyalty.
I spanked her for making me want to be better.
The first strike was open-palmed, sharp, deliberate. She gasped, back arching. I didn’t soothe it this time. I let the sting sit, let her feel it fully.
The second landed lower, across the curve where thigh met ass. She whimpered.
“You put yourself in my way,” I said, voice rough. “You decided you’d take whatever I gave out.”
Another strike. Harder. Her knees buckled slightly, but she held position.
“You don’t trust me not to hurt the innocent,” I continued, “but you trust me to hurt you instead.”
The truth of it burned.
I rained measured blows — firm, controlled, but unrelenting. Not to break her. To thank her. To confess without words that her courage had cracked something open in me I’d thought long dead.
She started crying quietly — not dramatic sobs, just soft, steady tears that soaked into the duvet. Her body trembled, but she didn’t fight. She took it. Every strike. Every unspoken apology.
When her skin was hot and glowing, when her breath came in shaky sobs, I stopped.
I dropped to my knees behind her.
Not to worship this time. To kneel.
I pressed my scarred cheek — the ruined left side — to the burning heat of her ass, lips brushing the marks I’d made. My hands gripped her hips, holding her steady as I kissed each welt, each bruise, slow and deliberate.
A silent confession:You were right to doubt me. And I hate that you had to.
She stilled, confused, trembling harder now from something other than pain.
I rose slowly, turned her to face me, and lifted her onto the bed properly. Laid her on her back. She was shaking, tears tracking down under the blindfold.
I didn’t strip her with reverence tonight. I stripped her with need — fast, almost desperate, until she was bare beneath me.
I didn’t go down on her. I didn’t draw it out.
I spread her thighs and sank into her in one deep thrust, bare, no warning. She cried out — sharp, overwhelmed — and I swallowed the sound with my mouth over hers, kissing her for the first time. Really kissing her. Not through silk or shadow. Mouth to mouth, scarred lips against soft ones, tasting salt from her tears.
I fucked her slow and deep, hips rolling, forehead pressed to hers.
“You think I’m a monster,” I whispered against her lips. “And you protected my people anyway.”
Another thrust, grinding. She moaned, legs wrapping around me.
“You think I’ll hurt you,” I said, voice breaking, “and you offered yourself up.”
I sped up, harder now, one hand fisted in her hair, the other pinning her ringed hand above her head.
“I don’t want to punish you tonight, Chrissy,” I rasped, the name slipping out before I could stop it. “I want to fucking thank you.”
She clenched around me at her name, gasping.
I drove into her relentlessly, chasing the truth I couldn’t say aloud: that her decency had ruined me. That I didn’t deserve her. That I’d never let her go anyway.
