“Yes,” she breathes.
I instantly pull it back, but don’t strike. I drag it across her back, over her ass, her thighs. Just as her breaths turn to pants, I lash her on the other ass cheek a little harder than the first time.
Her back arches and I swallow rougher than I was prepared for.
I wait for it. The rejection, the word stop, for her body to lock up and brace. It never comes.
She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t retreat.
As my tongue traces the new red line, she pushes herself the smallest bit into me. I let my lips linger as I circle her clit with the butt of the handle.
The evidence of how she’s feeling speaks for itself when I pull the whip back and run my fingers over the wet leather.
That undoes me in a way I didn’t expect.
The air in my lungs rushes out of me, and I flick the whip a little higher where it lands across her entire ass at one time. The sting echoes around the room and so do the husky sounds that come out of her.
The sensation I was prepared to feel doesn’t come and reality slams into me as she slings her head back and calls out my name.
Every reaction, every breath, every shift in her body anchors me in the present instead of the past.
Something inside me loosens. Not all at once but piece by piece. I realize, almost abruptly, exactly why I wanted to do this to her. What I wanted both of us to get out of this.
I crowd her and plunge my finger inside of her as I lower my lips to her ear.
“Tell me you feel it. Tell me this was everything you were hoping it was going to be.”
“No,” she mumbles and the blood in my veins turns to ice. “It’s so, so much more. I didn’t expect to feel…”
“Free,” I breathe.
“Yes. Free. Even chained. I’ve never been freer.”
I kiss her neck and back away from her slowly.
“Amick,” I say once I reach the edge of the bed. I don’t look at him as he approaches my side, but his gaze is weighing on my face. “Get up there and get beneath our Binder. Give her what she wants.”
He hesitates only for a second.
Thayla’s cry of ‘please’ crumbles his restraint. She slams herself down on him as soon as he’s underneath her, and both of our names pour from her sweet mouth.
My chest expands as I inhale deeply, letting everything I just dissected in myself settle. A low laugh pulls from my chest, and I close my eyes as I shake my head.
Why I wanted to do this to her is so clear now.
At Seductions, my power was taken from me, yet I still held power over others. Just like so many people there, her choices were taken from her. I was the one taking choices away as the Empowerer.
I wanted to prove to myself—
My answer seems too simple to be comfortable. It’s not complicated or layered. Just honest.
I wanted to prove to myself that I could stand in the exact position where I once felt powerless…and not become the thing I hated. That I could hold control over someone else and still remain safe with it.
Still remainme.
That I could be trusted with power being placed in my hands and not turn it into harm. Because part of me has always wondered if what happened to me changed something permanently. If being on the receiving end of it meant I would never be able to exist on the other side of it without repeating it in some way.
And she was the answer I didn’t know I was looking for.
