“Is that contrition I sense, sweetling? Regret for your actions? Shame over your behavior? Or is it only remorse for being caught and for your punishment? Hard to believe you’ve experienced such a change of spirit so quickly . . . you’ll need to do a bit better than a few sniffles, little one. I’m unconvinced.”
She screamed when fire consumed her once more. Fire and pain, cramping her insides and making her feel as if she were being incinerated at the seams, and the all-consuming smell of cinders and ash choking her. Grey soot had settled into the crevasses of her brain, into the gaps and holes where her decency was lacking, until she was enveloped in soot and ash and cinders, and there was no end in sight.
* * *
The gingerbread house-making party her sister had organized sounded stupid, she’d thought.
“Nessa, can you bring the cups? You don’t have to cook anything; I’m just asking that everyone brings a dessert to share and I know you don’t bake. Just stop at the grocery store on your way and pick up some holiday cookies or something, and get me four bags of the big red plastic cups, okay? I’ll send you the money on CashMe right now.”
The notification had popped up on her phone when she’d been at the salon getting her nails done, serendipitous timing as she used the app to pay for her service. She had no intention of going to the stupid party. It didn’t matter that Della had spent weeks organizing it, or that her family was expecting her presence. The bar was hosting holiday happy hour specials, an event she didn’t want to miss, and she wasn’t that interested in seeing her grandmother anyways.
Similarly, she’d never asked to be involved in the office adopt-a-family drive.
“Nessa, I’m going to have you drop the bags of gifts off, okay? I’ve already cleared it with Cheryl, you’ll get an hour on the clock. The charity’s intake center is downtown, right on Center Street.”
She’d never asked to be involved. She didn’t particularly care about kids she didn’t know — hell, she didn’t especially care about the kids shedidknow for that matter. The sign-up had gone around the office several times at that point, and she’d passed it off each time it landed on her desk. She had no intention of perusing the toy section of a crowded big-box superstore and parting with a chunk of her paycheck for a stranger, no matter how many beseeching email memos Marcie in accounting sent out.
Her co-workers, it seemed, had been easier to dupe. Brightly wrapped packages began to appear beneath the office tree the very first week in December, the pile growing with an alarming speed as the days went on, and if she hadn’t known they contained only worthless toys, Nessa thought she may have filched a few. The toys had been loaded into the trunk of her car, several giant sacks full, to be delivered to the charity’s intake center on behalf of the entire office . . . loaded into her trunk, where they still sat. She’d never made the time to drop them off, had used the hour of paid time at work to get her nails done, the same day she’d used her sister’s money to pay for her French tips.
Now it was Christmas Eve. Her mother had left several messages, questioning when she was coming over, and should they hold dinner for her? She hadn’t planned on having dinner with the family, had never responded to the group text between her mother and sister and two aunts, hadn’t asked to be included. She was more concerned with calling him, to whine that she desperately wanted to see him. That wasn’t necessarily true, of course, for she didn’t desperately need anything from anyone, but she liked the note of panic that would spark through his voice when she called at inopportune times when she knew his wife and children would be there.
She had never intended things to go as far as they had, at least, not at first.
It had been a flirtation, a lark, completely harmless . . . she hadn’t considered it cheating, even though she knew he had a wife at home.Shewas single, after all. She wasn’t cheating on anyone. It had been easy to initiate, leaning over his desk, giving him a good, long look at the ample cleavage she displayed, bending over slowly in short, tight skirts to retrieve dropped pens beside his desk. He’d gotten in the habit of having her take dictation in his office, a completely antiquated notion, and in turn, she’d gotten into the habit of perching on the edge of his desk to do so, leaving her panties behind.
It had been easy,soeasy! Almost too easy, for she normally enjoyed a bit of a challenge, but he provided the shine of an attractive trophy, his corporate title alone being worth the effort. She’d been sitting on the edge of the desk, had already given him a peek of what she wasn’t wearing beneath her skirt. As she gazed down at the growing bulge in those tailored trousers, she’d slipped off a spiked heel, resting her bare foot against his clothed erection. He’d grunted in surprise and pleasure, letting her stimulate him with heel and toes until he’d undone the leather belt with shaking fingers, letting his swollen cock spring free. She’d dropped from the desk, sinking to her knees before him, putting her mouth to work, glad that she’d been born without a conscience. She’d let a dribble of his come coat her lips when she’d returned to her own desk, already planning her next move.
Since then, it had become a game. How tightly she could keep him wound, held by an invisible lead attached to his cock, at her beck and call every time she gave the line a tug. She didn’t care about him, of course, was certain she didn’t even like him, but it wasn’t as if that mattered. When he’d done up his trousers, leaving her apartment to go to his wife’s office Christmas party several nights earlier, she’d pouted, had pulled him back to bed, gliding her nails down his chest and back into his pants, coaxing his cock into forgetting his other obligations. Christmas didn’t mean anything to her, any more than he did, but her other plans had fallen through and the night had been young.
She’d thought it might have been him that night when the knock sounded at the door. That had been hours ago. Hours and hours and she were choking on soot and the smell of smoke and her body was on fire.
She’d looked at the photo on his desk before — a smiling quintet of upper-class blandness, taken at a marina; two high-school-aged children and one who looked a bit younger, the smiling woman at his side completely oblivious to the sham her happiness was, Nessa had snickered to herself. It wasn’t her problem, and it wasn’t her fault, as she reminded herself often.Shewas single, was twenty-five and beautiful, and assumed she always would be. Her partner had been sloppier though, hadn’t borne the weight of his conscience as smoothly, and the smiling woman in the photograph hadn’t been as ignorant as Nessa assumed. A Christmas wish had been made, a wish for vindication, for each to pay for ruining her Christmas, and Krampus had answered.
She should have known it wasn’t him knocking, should have known from the heavy, rapping thud, but her ego had not allowed her the possibility that itwouldn’tbe him. The creature outside her door was massive, with the curling horns of a ram and the hooved hindquarters to match, as black as the night, and she’d screamed, high and shrill and as loudly as she was able, loud enough for one of the neighbors to hear.They’ll hear and they’ll come to help, she thought, at the very least they would call the police. As the demon-like creature pushed its way into the apartment, she held her breath, waiting. Surely,surelysomeone had heard her scream, someone would help . . . the black-cloaked figure released the basket it had been carrying upon its back, leaving her terrified at what might be inside, and no sound came from the empty corridor beyond her door.
Nessa remembered then, with a sinking heart, the way she’d let the elevator door close on her neighbor when her arms had been full of groceries, just two weeks prior, and how she’d slipped a rude note under the door of another, complaining about the smell of the cooking spices they used. No one was coming to help.
“A year’s worth of misdeeds and selfishness,” the creature mused, chuckling as it reviewed her file. “Your lack of generosity and decency has landed you on my Naughty List, and you ought to be glad your punishment is not worse. Krampus is here to see you understand the error of your ways. You’ve been a very bad girl, Nessa.”
It started with a spanking, a punishment for a year’s worth of greediness and uncharitable actions. The bundle of sticks it wielded was a poor substitute for the crack of a leather strap, however, and she remained stoic as it ineffectually paddled her. The creature seemed amused by her attitude, swatting lazily with the branches as if he had all the time in the world. Nessa realized too late that she might have had the power to end things then: if she’d wept, if she’d been contrite, it may have ended the punishment.
“There’s nothing I enjoy more than breaking a bad girl of her spirit, sweetling. I assure you, before this night is done, you will have learned your lesson.”
She’d been baited, she realized when its razor-sharp claws ripped through her clothing as easily as slicing butter, leaving her completely bare. She’d been baited into further bad behavior, for as she was yanked forward across its bristly, fur-covered legs, the creature displayed a sure-handed prowess it had not displayed only moments earlier. The branches had more of a bite across her bare skin, and Nessa jolted at the first lash. One, two, three, four . . . on the fifth swat, the creature’s hand stilled. A rough palm slid over the swell of her ass, smarting from the spanking, before delivering a hard slap that made her cry out before it resumed striking her with the branches.
It hurt, of that there was no doubt. It hurt . . . but it wasn’t intolerable, wasn’t an inhumane whipping in the town square, and as the monster’s hand slapped her bare skin again, she was forced to admit she didn’t hate it. Nessa didn’t want to admit to herself that she was turned on, didn’t want to accept in her rational brain that being stripped naked and spanked by some nightmare creature was something sheenjoyed. . . but her body responded to the way its hot palm slid over her reddened flesh every dozen strokes, the way the force of its spanks moved her over its furred lap, that the way it had splayed her over its caprine legs simulated her clit in just the right way.
The beast seemed to read her mind. The next time it smoothed a palm over her ass, it drifted lower, pressing against the lips of her sex and gathering the moisture that pooled there. It laughed, deep and ugly, a sound that made her stomach tighten in apprehension. A dozen more strokes with the bundle of sticks and then . . .then! The creature’s tongue was a long, red snake of an appendage, dropping more than a foot from its mouth, hot and glistening as it slid over her cleft. She was unable to hold back a moan as it licked into her, pushing through her hot folds to lave at her juices, lifting her hips until it could reach her clit, curling and stroking until she mewled. Its laughter was a rumbling vibration that only heightened her pleasure as it pulled her legs open wider, licking her clit with a precision her business suit-wearing partner in infidelity had never mastered, unceasing in its attentions. When she came against its tongue with shaking legs and a spasming cunt, she was horrified at how enjoyable it had been.
“A choice,” the beast chuckled, gripping her tightly by the wrists once it spun her on its lap, “you’ll continue to receive your lashes, or you may choose to receive your punishment in a more . . . creative way.” The inhuman tongue curled and coiled around her breasts, teasing at her nipples, until it dropped once more, seeking the source of her heat. Coarse black hair covered its lower body like a pelt, and it laughed again when she moaned, a rasped sound as that hot, red tongue pushed into her, pressing against her walls, fucking her as deeply as any cock had or could, a sample of itscreativity. It wasn’t long before she climaxed again, enjoying the ripple that moved up her spine when it licked over her pulsing clit.
“I think I like your creativity.”
She should have known better. The monster smiled, wide and terrible, showing the glint of fangs as he rose, dropping her unceremoniously to the floor, revealing a cock as red and wet as its tongue. It would fill her completely, would stretch her beyond what she was used to, and ifthiswas her punishment — being fucked by that thick, straining cock and having her clit licked until she came again and again — Nessa would ensure her behavior the following year was even more heinous.You’ll definitely steal the presents under the office tree next year!
Rising on her knees, she nosed and licked the large, fur-covered testicles, taking note of how heavy they seemed, heavy and full, before moving on to the swollen shaft.With balls that full, this probably won’t even last that long! You can suck him off and be at the bar before ten.The curving cock rose from a sheath, red as blood against the beast’s black pelt and riddled with thick, pulsing veins, with curious ridges up the underside. It was hot against her tongue, as she licked a broad stripe up to the head, laving her tongue over and around, finding the winking slit in the tip. She moaned, sucking the bulbous head, into her mouth giving him her best porn star look, something that always worked during her illicit office extracurriculars.
The beast only chuckled. “Do you think this is how things will work, sweetling? You’ll suck my cock and all of your misdeeds will be forgiven? Isn’t time on your knees what got you into trouble in the first place?” A clawed hand scraped into her hair, gripping it tightly and pulling, her first hint that she wasn’t at all in control. “Well, dearest, if you want to suck, start sucking properly.”
