He pulls the hem of the T-shirt up to my middle, leaving me exposed from the waist down. I want to fight, but I can’t move a finger. I know from experience I’m not going to win. Like bad déjà vu, the knowledge freezes me.
He pushes me down with a hand on my shoulder until I’m once more lying flat on my back. “Who stitched you up?”
“I had a little money. I went to a nurse my mother used to call out when my father’s men were injured. She never asked questions, and she accepted cash.”
Staring at the center of my legs, he unbuckles his belt.
I should plead, but despite the fear, I’m too proud. “That’s all I know.”
He pulls the belt from the loops in his waistband and folds it double, holding it with the buckle in his palm. “What did he look like?”
I think I may hyperventilate.
I speak faster. “Red hair and freckles. Crooked nose. Eyebrow piercings.”
He steps between my legs. “Clothes?”
“It was dark. I barely got a look at his face in the streetlight.”
He lowers the belt to the junction of my legs, dragging the leather over my folds. Sensations assault me from all sides, the fear mixing with shameful arousal. I open my mouth to tell him to stop, to lay down my pride and admit I can’t take this, that I’m too weak, but the sharp sting of the leather as he brings it down between my legs pulls me from the past back to the present.
I’m no longer there, on that night, but here, in the room, with Dante standing between my thighs and my pussy burning with a fire that heats more than just my skin.
The reaction catches me off guard. The pain isn’t excruciating. It’s pleasant, if pain can be called that, and strangely liberating. It allows me to feel pleasure without guilt simply because it’s so different from the sweet pleasure we shared before. The ugliness of these sensations doesn’t feel like a betrayal of myself. I can let myself go and not worry that I’m giving Dante something he has no right of taking, because the only thing he’s getting is the not-so-pretty side of me.
He brings the belt down again, softer this time. “Clothes. What did he wear?”
Resisting the urge to lift my hips and chase after the friction, I fist my hands in the covers. “Nothing that stood out.”
He spanks me again, aiming lower. My back arches. And again. When he slowly drags the belt over my folds, the tell-tale tingling is already building in my abdomen.
“Jeans and a T-shirt,” I blurt out.
He punishes me one more time. Pleasure sears through my skin to burn right down to my core.
“Wait,” I cry out, terrified that I’ll come. “A cap.” I suck in a breath when he flicks the belt over my folds where it hurts less and burns hotter. “With a Yankees logo.” The man’s sinister grin flashes through my mind, something sparkling in the dim streetlight. “He had a gold-capped tooth.” I want to close my legs, but Dante is still standing between them. “That’s all.”
Pushing his right knee onto the bed, he bends down and tests my folds with a finger. I don’t think I’ve ever been this wet.
He stills with the digit barely parting me, satisfaction slipping into the darkness of his smile. “Good girl.”
He never spoke to me like that. He never treated me like a submissive or a pet trained to react on his command. This is what I wanted, but it also burrows like a thorn under my skin.
“I told you everything I remember.” I sit up and try to push him away with my hands on his shoulders. “You can get off of me now.”
He kneels on the bed, forcing me to scoot back to make space for him. “Not yet.”
“Dante.”
His face is expressionless, giving me nothing. “Are you going to tell me you’re not enjoying being treated like a needy slut? Isn’t this how you wanted it? You want it to be rough so you can hate it.” He drags the belt over my folds. “But you don’t, do you?”
“Dante,” I say again.
What I’m truly hating is the fact that he can read me so easily.
“You can make it stop. Just say the word. Or tell me to love you like before. You know I’m capable. No matter how much you pretend, you haven’t forgotten how sweet it can be.” He taunts me with his words, dangling the craving for affection like a carrot in front of me. “It’s yours for the taking. All you have to do is ask me.”
I open my mouth to say no, but the word dies on my lips when he spanks me with the belt between my legs. I’m split open and vulnerable, and he holds an instrument that can inflict terrible pain, yet he knows exactly how far he can push me. He knows exactly how to walk the fine line between torture and pleasure. He knows how to mix depravity and desire.
