A vicious giggle froths from my belly and fizzes up to my chest, fighting for freedom. My lips quiver as I clamp them shut to stop it. I look at him again, he’s close to me now, so close he could touch me if he wanted. My laughter dies in my throat, like a flame that’s been extinguished with an abrupt splash of water. My lips tremble again, but this time it’s not from mirth. I don’t know what it’s from this time. I’m not sure. Whatever it is, it’s not something I’m used to feeling. My organs feel odd. Too big and too small. There are strange spaces inside me that are twisting and pulling. I’m not a hundred percent sure, but I have an awful feeling that the thing that I’m experiencing is nervousness.
Nervous?
Me?
No.
I don’t get nervous. I don’t need to. I don’t let people affect me. I can’t be nervous around this buffoon. The horrible feeling curls in my chest again, and I’m forced to acknowledge I’m either nervous, or I’m afraid. I can’t stand, or fully explain the feeling, but at least I’m able to comfort myself with the fact that I know I’m not scared of Saint. I know that. I’m not scared of him. Even this morning, covered in blood, I wasn’t scared of him. I’m not scared of him now, either. I’m only scared he’s going to do what he threatened to do. I’m scared he's going to treat me like he said he would. I’m afraid he’s going to follow through; humiliate me, hurt me, make me pay.
More than that, I’m scared he won’t.
While I try to determine which is worse, nerves or fear, following through or not following through, I turn my head to look straight ahead of me. I find myself looking out of a big bay window. The grass outside is thick and glossy, leading all the way down to the lake. There are sweeping, powder-blue mountains peeking out behind the mirror of water. There are trees everywhere. Dense and lush. There are four snow-white Adirondack chairs arranged in a semicircle on the banks of the lake. If you were into nature, you’d think this set-up was full-on idyllic. Seriously, you would be charmed. I can’t stand nature, so for me all it does is unnerve me and strengthen the horrible feeling that I’ve managed to find myself in the most perilous of positions.
“Stand up,” he says softly.
I get up quickly and he takes my spot on the sofa, sitting down and patting his knee. I stand, legs stock stiff, and stare at his hand in disbelief. His actions are patient but firm. He seems to be under the impression that I’m going to allow myself to be bent over his knee. My breathing becomes harsh and uneven. He reaches for my wrist and gives me a gentle tug. In case you were thinking there’s a dignified way to position yourself over a man’s knee, you’d be wrong. Very wrong. I half crawl, half topple over to get into place. The second I do, he raises one leg, making me jolt forward, sending my ass higher into the air than my head is.
My head swims. I’mastoundedby myself. This past week has taken some beating. Honestly, so much has happened to me that I never in a million years thought would happen, but despite all that, despite the kidnapping, and despite the ransom, despite the murder-y business this morning, and even despite all the fucking, it’s this,this, that’s shocked me to my core.
“Damon,” he says calmly. “Do you know why you’re here?”
Oh, fucking no. No! He’snotgoing to scold me.
There’s no goddamn way this lunatic is going to scold me.
I cast a quick, furtive look back. His face is dead serious, almost serene. He has the look of a man who firmly believes he’s doing the Lord’s work. I’m shocked and horrified. Sadly, my damn fool dick can’t get enough. It’s living for this. This shit is literally giving it life. I’m so engorged I can feel my pulse in the tip of my dick.
“It’s okay if you don’t,” says Saint. His voice is still soft, but now it’s oddly soothing, too. I can feel it running down my spine like warm, molten honey. “This is important, so I don’t mind explaining it to you.” My erection lurches violently against his thigh. I try to move so it’s not pressed against him, but he’s draped an arm over my back and holds me firmly in place. “I’m going to spank your bottom because you are a rude, spoiled boy and rude, spoiled boys need to be put in their place.”
My traitorous cock lurches again and a horrible sound simpers out of me. I crane my head back and see that he has his hand poised, raised, ready to strike.
“If you want me to stop, say ‘stop’ and I will. If not, I’m going to spank you until I decide that you’re sorry.”
An even worse sound makes an escape. I clamp a hand over my mouth and brace myself. It doesn’t help. He brings his hand down and I cry out on impact. Stinging heat burns my right cheek. I try frantically to compose myself, but there’s no time for that, the next swat lands and so does the next one. He strikes me over and over. Left cheek then right cheek, then left cheek again. In seconds I’m squirming. My face feels hot, and not just because I’m ass up, face down.
“You’ve whined and complained more than I ever thought it was possible for a person to whine and complain,” he says, punctuating each phrase with a hard whack. “You’ve driven me to distraction. You’ve been purposefully annoying.” He pauses and I fight desperately to catch my breath. The heat from each blow burns into me. Through me. It flows through my veins and strangles reason. It consumes me. It makes my lips feel swollen and my cock and balls, too. “Now, I recognize that the circumstances of our meeting have been far from ideal, and I’ve made allowances for that. Plenty of allowances. More allowances than any man should ever be asked to make.”
He's finally stopped talking. For a moment, I think the spanking is over. I feel a quick burst of relief. Or is it disappointment? Perhaps it’s relief and disappointment rolled into one. I’m about to start congratulating myself on surviving the ordeal with relative poise, when I realize that was only the warm-up. He sets to work with a steady, terrible rhythm. It’s predictable, predictable, predictable, and then suddenly, it isn’t. When it isn’t, the pain is so sharp and jarring, it makes my thoughts turn blurry. I cry out freely now, any attempt to stop it well and truly abandoned.
Jesus, Asshole hits hard.
As he rains crisp, sharp slaps down on my rear, I’m trapped in an awful limbo. I’m trapped somewhere between hating what he’s doing and loving it. I hate that I’m letting him see me like this. I hate that I admitted I wanted it. I hate waiting for the next blow to land. When it does, God, I hate it. Or, I should hate it. It’s hard and it hurts like a mother fucker, but what I feel falls just short of hatred. I don’t hate it completely. I kind of love it. I love the heat and the burn and the sting. I love what it does to my dick. I love that I should flat out hate it, but I really, really don’t. There’s something very wrong about all this, and I love that, too.
“Are you ready to tell me why you’re being spanked yet?” He sounds slightly out of breath. Ordinarily that would please me but it’s of little consolation because I’m as out of breath from taking his punishment as I would be if I’d run a marathon. It occurs to me I’m going to have to speak but can’t for the life of me think how to access my voice.
He spanks me hard at the top of my thigh, right where my ass and leg meet, to remind me. My leg stiffens and kicks back pitifully of its own accord. I quickly put it back in place, so as not to look even more tragic. He slaps my other thigh, just as hard, if not harder, and I have to admit it does seem to get through to me.
“I…I…” Slap. Pause. Slap. “I’m rude,” I cry. Slap. Pause. Slap. “I’m spoiled.” Now that I’ve found my voice, I can’t seem to stop it. My words come tumbling out over each other. “I complained a-and annoyed you a-and I whined, I whined a-all the time. I-I’m rude an…”
“You already said rude.”
I cringe and burn with the embarrassment of having been reduced to this.
He stops hitting me and the weight of his arm on my back disappears. I get up quickly, pulling my top down in the front to hide the obscene state of my dick. He stands next to me, placing a big hand on my back. It’s warm and even more soothing than his voice was earlier. He nudges me forward so gently I hardly even notice what I’m doing. I lean forward and place my hands on the sofa. My legs feel lame and my ass pulses with heat.
“Come here,” he says, putting an arm around my lower back and pulling me sideways towards him. He grazes his erection against my hip where it’s bent. Far from resisting, I lean into him. I do it gratefully. “Spread your legs.”
He gives my inner thigh a firm tap, so I do as he says. He reaches around over my back and grabs my dick and balls in one hand. I whine in pleasure, realizing too late he’s only moving them out of harm’s way. He sweeps his free hand over my feverish cheeks. It’s big and hot. He touches me softly, with care. It makes me whimper. My ass feels like someone has taken sandpaper to it. It’s raw and inflamed. It feels like hell when he touches me but because of the way I’m put together, it feels like heaven, too. He rubs his hand over me again and talks to me softly.
