Chapter 28
ANNA
“Get on your knees,” Darius demanded. I couldn’t move. My eyes stayed glued to his hands.
His shirt sleeves were rolled up, showing off the thick veins in his forearms. The lines and curves of his tattoo made them seem more pronounced as it extended down toward his fingers, which were clutching the thick black leather of his belt.
“No,” I said, my voice shaking. I knew what he was going to do with that, and I couldn’t. It was too much. His palm was bad enough, but the sting of leather... I couldn’t see how that could bring anything but pain.
“Anna, I’m not going to tell you again. Get. On. Your. Knees.”
I hesitated another moment, and then he grabbed the belt with both hands, folded it in half, and snapped it. The sharp, loud sound echoed throughout the room, making me jump.
Suddenly, I wasn’t thinking about the weight of the necklace around my throat. I wasn’t thinking about all the things that he had done to me, about what Peregrine said and did to me, or what my mother said and thought of me.
The only thing I could think about was the sharp bite of that leather and what Darius was going to do to me with it.
He snapped the belt again, and another jolt of fear rocked me. But I knew I didn’t have a choice. I was tied to the bedpost. There was no way for me to run, no way for me to hide.
My legs shook as I carefully sat up and turned around to grip the bedpost where my hands were tied.
I closed my eyes and focused on the sounds of the room. His footsteps were slow and steady as he rounded my bed, his breathing fast and shallow.
When he touched my lower back, I jumped, but it was only his hand that ran up the curve of my back until he got to the zipper of my dress.
“Please,” I whimpered. It was bad enough that he was going to use the belt on me, but I thought that at least he would let me keep my clothing on. That he would give me some relief from the leather on my bare skin.
He didn’t pull the zipper down. Instead, his hand moved back down my spine, sending warmth and tingles to every single place he touched until he got to my ass.
He flipped my skirt up, the soft black fabric that should have been at my ankles now covering my shoulders.
The cold air in the room kissed the backs of my thighs.
I braced myself, gritted my teeth, and waited for the first snap of the belt, but it didn’t come.
Instead, the belt was laid down over my calves, and his hands went to my uncovered hips. They rested there for a moment before his thumbs slid under the waistband of my panties and he pulled them down.
My body flinched at every single touch, and my heart roared in my ears. I tightened my grip on the bedpost and waited.
He pulled the belt off my calves, letting it slowly trail off and drop. And then in the same breath, the end of the belt lashed out in the first strike.
I heard the snap of the belt before I felt its sting. Somehow, it wasn’t immediate. The pain was delayed for half a second, but when it hit, it was intense. Like a lash of fire landed on my skin.
Darius gave me a moment. At first, I thought it was a kindness, but maybe it was just a warning, and he was done. Then I realized it was part of his mind games. He wanted to wait until I was relaxed, until I didn’t suspect the next lash, and that was when he struck.
The second lash hurt more. I didn’t know if it was because I was expecting it or because he lashed across the very tops of the backs of my upper thighs.
I cried out, not bothering to hide my screams.
“All you had to do was be a good girl,” he said as he lashed out again and again. “All you had to do was to do as you were fucking told. But no, you had to be a brat.”
“I’m sorry,” I cried out every time the belt landed.
“Sorry? You’re sorry?” he spat. “For what? All the problems you caused?”
There was another volley of smacks before I could ask what I had done.
“I was in control.” The next whip was harder. The scream caught in my throat and came out in a hiss. “My world had order. It made sense. Then you came along, and you fucked everything up.”
“I’m sorry,” I cried again, not really tracking what he was saying.
“I wasn’t supposed to want to protect you. I wasn’t supposed to want to fuck you.”
I couldn’t tell exactly when it changed, but something had. Every single strike still hurt, my nails still gripped the bedpost, my knuckles white, and tears still streamed down my face. But the pain was different. It was cathartic.
“You were supposed to be a means to an end. I was just supposed to threaten you, and you were going to play your fucking part. But no, you had to be so much more than just some random socialite bitch.”
I heard his words, but I couldn’t process them; they weren’t making any sense. But the lashes —those I was starting to understand.
The pain was becoming a release for both of us.
Something in this plan of his wasn’t going the way it should have, and he was taking it out in violence, but every strike allowed me to release everything I had buried.
Each swipe of the belt was like a cleansing fire, burning away my rage first. The more he swung, the more I was focused on that and not on the anger that had soured my stomach. Every time it connected, the muscles in my abdomen loosened and released.
“You are not what I’m supposed to want.” He spoke through gritted teeth. “You are everything I hate in this world. You are anarchy, you are chaos, and you are a fucking mess. Why can’t I get you out of my fucking head?”
His next strike didn’t hurt, it just added to the burn that covered my ass and thighs.
That burn was a godsend. The icy fear and terror that had been around my heart, squeezing it, making it impossible to breathe, melted.
It didn’t matter anymore. The shame that I felt from not living up to my mother’s expectations disappeared.
What did her expectations matter when this was now my life? Why should I be afraid of this man behind me, the one who was so angry at me for being who I was, but mostly angry at himself because despite the fact he didn’t want to want me, he did?
With every single punishment he gave me, it felt like I was paying for a sin, so I didn’t have to carry its weight. Every strike peeled off another layer of self-loathing, self-doubt, and second-guessing.
By the time he threw the belt over to the side, I was out of breath. Tears were running down my face, but they felt like a purge. Even as they flowed over the scratch, stinging my skin, they still felt cleansing.
Darius was also out of breath as he rested his head on my back, his ragged breath panting over my heated flesh.
The pain, the punishment, was the release I needed, and that terrified me.
This entire arrangement was temporary. How was I going to cope with this when he was gone?
Was he really expecting me to be able to go back to my life before this?
To hiding from my mother, from her suffocating expectations, inside a dusty old vinyl shop?
I didn’t even know how to understand it.
“Are you still sorry?” he asked, and my brain screamed at me to say yes and to beg for his forgiveness. But when I opened my mouth, that wasn’t what came out.
“No,” I said.
He lifted off the bed, standing next to me.
I tried to move, but he put his hand on the nape of my neck and held me in place.
His other hand went to the zipper of my dress and pulled it down.
Then he pushed the dress up, over my head, uncovering every inch of me, and left it bunched where my hands were tied to the bed.
“You’ve been a bad girl,” he said as his hand trailed down my spine and then between my red-hot ass cheeks. “I don’t think a simple spanking is enough anymore.”
I didn’t say anything.
Not until he went over to my bedside table and opened up the tiny drawer.
“No,” I said, but it was too late. He brought out the dildo and the lube I kept there.
He smiled that cruel smile that only he could pull off as he carefully placed them on the tabletop.
“And what do you do with these?” he asked.
My cheeks flamed, but I said nothing.
“Because good girls don’t have such naughty things in their bedroom,” he tsked.
I buried my face in my arms, dying of embarrassment.
Slowly, he started undoing the buttons of his shirt and then dropped it on the floor. Then he kicked off his shoes, and his pants fell to join the shirt.
I braced myself, thinking he was just going to fuck me again, but then he grabbed the pink dildo.
“What are you doing?” I demanded.
He just gave me that same cruel smile. “Open your mouth.”
“What?”
“I said open your mouth.” He grabbed my hair, angling my head back, and when my lips parted, he thrust the toy into my mouth. “Suck on it like a good little slut and maybe I’ll go easy on you.”
He forced it so far down my throat I had to work to suppress my gag reflex. He held it there with one hand. The subtle click of the plastic cap echoed in my ears, and then cold, viscous liquid being poured at the base of my spine dripped down my crack.
He took the dildo out of my mouth, the taste of silicone thick on my tongue.
“Tell me what you like to do with this fake cock.”
I clamped my lips shut.
His hand moved to my abused ass cheek and squeezed, sending a wave of fiery pain down my spine. I didn’t know if that was supposed to be the punishment or a warning.
“I asked you a question, maya soloveyka.”
He had told me that name meant little nightingale, and even like this, I loved hearing him call me that...or maybe it was especially like this.
“Tell me,” he demanded. “Why do you have this fake cock next to your bed?”
“I use it,” I answered, when his fingers pressed into a particularly sore spot.
“How?”
My cheeks burned as hot as my ass. But I responded. My dignity had already been stripped away. What else did I have to lose? “Late at night when I am feeling lonely, I pretend I have a lover and I slide it inside of me.”