She held them out.I wrapped the silk around her wrists, once, twice, tight enough to hold but not to hurt.Her breath quickened as I tested the knot, as the reality of her vulnerability sank in.
“Good girl.”
Her eyes flared with equal parts offense and arousal.
I guided her toward the bed, bent her over the foot of it with her bound hands stretched above her head.The position left her exposed, her ass raised, her spine a perfect curve of surrender.
This was what she needed.Not gentleness, not comfort.She needed someone to take the weight of control from her shoulders, to strip away the decisions and the responsibilities and the grief until there was nothing left but sensation.She carried so much.The hotel, the murder, a marriage she hadn’t chosen.Tonight, I would carry it for her.
My belt slid free from my trousers with a whisper of leather.
“You want to forget?”I doubled the leather in my hand.“I’ll make you forget everything except my name.”
The first strike landed across her ass with a crack that echoed through the room.She gasped, her body jerking against the restraint, but she didn’t tell me to stop.Didn’t use the word that would end everything.
The second strike landed harder, and pink bloomed across pale skin.Her fingers curled into the bedding, her back arching as pain transformed into heat.
“More,” she breathed.
I gave her more.
The third strike landed harder than the first two.The fourth harder still.I found a rhythm, the crack of leather against flesh filling the room like a heartbeat.She gasped with each blow, her body jerking, but she didn’t use her word.Didn’t tell me to stop.
“Count them,” I ordered.“Out loud.”
“F-five,” she managed as the next strike landed.
“Good girl.Keep counting.”
Six.Seven.Eight.Each number torn from her throat, each strike painting another stripe of heat across her flesh.By ten, she was shaking.By twelve, tears were sliding down her temples into the bedding.Not from pain alone.From release.From the permission to finally let go of everything she had been holding.
“Fourteen.”Her voice broke on the word.“Please.Please.”
“Please what?”I paused, letting her feel the heat radiating from her punished skin.“Please stop?Or please more?”
“I don’t… I don’t know.”She was sobbing now, her whole body trembling.“I don’t know anything.I can’t think.I can’t?—”
“Good.”I leaned over her, my mouth against her ear.“That’s exactly what you asked for.You wanted to forget.So forget.There’s nothing but this room.Nothing but my belt and your skin and the sounds you make when I mark you.”
The next strike made her scream.
I didn’t stop.Each blow drove her deeper into that space where the thinking stopped, where the grief and the fear and the weight of her world couldn’t reach her.Her ass was crimson now, welts overlapping, and still she pushed back into each strike instead of flinching away.Chasing the edge.Needing to fall over it.
Mine, the wolf growled.Ours to protect.Ours to break apart and put back together.
“Look at you.”I ran my palm over the abused flesh, feeling the heat sear into my skin.“Crying.Shaking.Dripping down your thighs from this.”I slid my fingers between her legs, finding her soaked.“Your body knows who owns it.”I thrust two fingers inside her.“Even when your mind fights me, this knows the truth.”
She clenched around my fingers instantly, her body desperate for something to grip, something to anchor her.I fucked her with my hand, rough and unrelenting, while my other hand came down on her ass in sharp slaps that made her jolt with each impact.
“You’re going to come like this,” I told her.“From pain.From being used.From letting me do whatever I want to this body that belongs to me.”
“I can’t—” she gasped.
“You will.”Another slap.Another thrust of my fingers.“Because I told you to.Because your body knows it’s mine even when your pride won’t let you admit it.”
I curled my fingers inside her and pressed hard against that spot that made her scream.She shattered, clamping down on my hand, her whole body convulsing as the orgasm ripped through her without warning.I didn’t stop.Kept fucking her through it, kept my hand coming down on her ass, extending the sensation until she was sobbing and shaking and completely undone.
“That’s one,” I said, withdrawing my fingers.“We’re just getting started.”
