Page 47 of Sinful Bride

And then it stops. The silence is deafening. I can hear my own ragged breathing. I can hear him breathing too, heavier than before. I hear the clink of a belt buckle as he sets the belt down on the bed beside me.

His hand is still on my lower back, holding me in place. He steps back after a moment. "You can get up now," he says finally.

But I can't move. I can't make my body obey. I'm frozen there, bent over the bed, my ass burning and my panties soaked, my entire body trembling with the aftermath of what just happened.

Slowly, I push myself up. My arms shake with the effort. When I'm finally standing, I turn to face him, and that's when I see the obvious bulge in his jeans.

It’s unmistakable. He's hard. Despite everything he said about this not being sexual, his body is telling a different story. The thick ridge straining against his fly doesn’t lie any more than my soaked panties do.

"You're—" I gesture at his crotch, my voice shaking with fury. "You're hard. You're aroused. This was sexual, no matter what you claim. You're just an animal. A brute who gets off on hurting women."

His jaw tightens. For a moment, anger flashes in his eyes, and I think I see a hint of my own shame reflected there, too. But then it's gone, replaced by that same deadly calm.

"Don't worry," he says quietly. "Your punishment isn't over. So you should keep thinking whatever you want about me. Because by the time I'm done, you'll understand the difference between punishment and pleasure. And your own pleasure won’t factor into this, Elena."

My stomach drops. "What?"

"Be in my office tomorrow at two o'clock." He picks up his belt and threads it back through his loops with steady hands. "Don't be late."

"I'm not⁠—"

"Two o'clock, Elena." He moves toward the door, and then he's gone. The door closes behind him and the lock clicks.

And I'm alone.

For a long moment, I just stand there frozen. My body is still trembling, my ass throbbing with each heartbeat. My panties are soaked through with evidence of my body's betrayal.

I reach down, my hand sliding into the front of them. I grab the corner of the bedpost as my fingers work frantically over my clit, desperate for my release. It comes almost immediately, my fingertips sliding in the slick mess between my folds, and I nearly collapse as it tears through me.

Fuck you, I think to myself. Fuck you for saying I can’t come. I just did.

That tiny act of defiance fades, and then the tears come. They tear out of me in great, gasping sobs that shake my entire body. I collapse onto the bed and curl onto my side, my face pressed into the pillow to muffle the sounds. I cry over the loss of control, the humiliation, the way my body responded to something it shouldn't have. The fact that I'm trapped in this marriage with this man who plows right through every defense I have.

But underneath all of that, there's a burning ember of guilt.

He's right. I was cruel tonight. I insulted his men to their faces. I undermined him in his own house. I crossed a line, and I knew I was crossing it even as I did it. I was rude, and my father would have been ashamed of me for being so impolite, even if they deserved it.

He didn't ask for this marriage any more than I did. He didn't ask to be put in a position where he has to prove himself to families who see him as beneath them. He didn't ask for a wife who treats him like he's not good enough. And I've been making everything harder for him. Deliberately. Cruelly, because I'm angry and hurt. I'm terrified of what my life has become, and I don't know how to handle it except by lashing out at the person closest to me.

But that doesn't make it right.

I cry harder, my body shaking with the force of it. My face is wet, and my nose is running. I'm a mess, and I don't care. There's no one here to see me. No one to judge me for falling apart.

I want to go home.

The thought hits me with sudden, desperate intensity. I want to go home. Back to my father's house, back to my room with the familiar furniture and the view of the garden. Back to the routine I knew, the life I understood, even if it wasn't perfect.

Home wasn't a loving place. My father is cold and calculating. My brother is distant. But it was familiar. I knew the rules there and what was expected of me. I knew how to navigate the dangers and the demands.

Here, I'm lost. Everything is different. The rules have changed. And I don't know how to be the person this new life requires me to be.

I miss my mother.

The thought comes unbidden, and it makes me cry even harder. I miss having someone who might have understood, who might have held me and told me it would be okay. She might have been able to give me advice about what to do.

But she's gone, and I'm alone. I'm trapped in this marriage with a man I don't understand and can't control, who just spanked me until I cried and made me wet while he did it.

The shame of that is almost unbearable. I press my face harder into the pillow, trying to block out the memory. But I can still feel the wetness between my legs, the way my body responded to his dominance. What does that make me?