I try to twist away from him, hide my hip, yet he still finds a way to tap the crop against that one stinging spot. My writhing rubs my nipples against the cross, stimulating them unbearably.
In the end, I dance from foot to foot, trying to disperse the pain. He hasn’t tied my feet. With my arms thoroughly bound, he doesn’t need to.
“Present your foot to me.”
Oh no. Is he serious?
I raise my foot and point the toe, giving him the perfect target. The crop prods the tender skin of my arch. Swiping up and down, almost tickling me. Then it snaps against my sole, and I cry out. But I keep my foot pointed for him to snap that one spot again and again. The pain splinters through me, blazing through my bones, the nerves of my foot lighting up the rest of my body.
My foot is throbbing so hard it takes a moment to realize he stopped cropping my foot some time ago.
“Good girl. Now, the other.”
I’m shaking, wincing as I shift my weight to my poor, beaten foot. When I finally press it into the floor, the pain takes my breath away. I whimper and collapse against the cross.
He hovers behind me, waiting. Patient. Inexorable. He doesn’t have to speak to assert his will over me.
I sniffle as I raise my left foot and point the toe. I don’t even try to hold myself upright, instead letting the cross and the ropes around my arms bear my weight. Each blow of the crop wracks my body.
“There,” he says in that beautifully deep voice, so gentle and cruel. “Whenever you take a step, you’ll think of me.”
The thought makes me so happy I sob harder. Sweat rolls down my back, and I’m panting like I’ve run up seven flights of stairs.
He’s hit me in only three places, and I’m already undone.
“Shhhh,” he says. Something stirs my hair, and I freeze. My hair tie must have given up the fight because my bun is half undone. My hair tumbles down my back, and he’s lifting it. Not with the crop. With his fingers, he sifts through the thick strands. Touching me. It feels so good, and I can lean into it, protected from him as I am by his gloves. “Good girl. My good, beautiful girl.”
He drops a hand and presses into the fiery spot on my hip. I shriek and rise to tiptoe, but he follows me, pushing his gloved fingers into my bruised flesh.
Endorphins bloom through me, lifting me up. I can’t tell when he steps away. I still feel the imprint of his fingers on my side.
“You’ve done so well.” He tucks my hair over my shoulder, out of the way and wipes my face with a soft cloth that bears a trace of his cologne. He holds a water bottle to my lips, and I drink greedily until I’m full.
It still takes me a moment to clear my throat to ask, “Are we done?”
“Do you want this to be over?”
“No.” Not by a long shot. But I’m not sure if I can take any more.
“Then no, Inara.” He sets his hand on my back, between my shoulder blades. Over my bra strap I can feel how large his hand is. I was right. He is a giant.
This is the first time he’s touched my skin. The gloves mask some of the heat of his body. It’s like nothing else—the strength of his fingers stroking down my back from shoulder to hip. He’s gentle over my marks, but I find myself twisting when he gets close to the single mark he left on my love handle.
He avoids it now, soothing me. “Shhh. No more pain. Just feel.” He glides his hand carefully over the curve of my ass and all the way down my legs. His touch awakens a deep ache inside me.
The pain seems to pulse from point to point, from hip to foot to foot. A red-hot trinity painted on the canvas of other sore places from our last night. But there’s also arousal surging in my core. Each pass of his hands melts the tension from my limbs while also stoking the smoldering sparks between my legs.
I flex my fingers, straining against the rope, but I’m relieved I can’t get away.
Because if I could, I would run. Fast and far. I’d regret it later when I was lying in my bed, but right now, I’m reminded of why I usually request no touching. It’s dangerous.
It’s not that I don’t feel, can’t feel. It’s that I feel too much. And I don’t know how to filter, how to stop it. So, I shut everything out.
Even in the gloves, his hands on me feel so good I want to cry. Cry with happiness and cry knowing how much I’ll miss them when they’re gone.
He braces behind me, his body covering mine with mere inches between us. I revel in how big he is—tall enough to plant his hands high on the cross so his arms blanket mine. His shirt sleeves brush the rope bracelets ringing my forearms. I can’t feel it, but I hear the soft fabric sound.
“I want you to come for me.”
