Chapter Six #2
The haze hanging over my thoughts grows.
My sensations heighten—not just physical, but all of my senses simultaneously go on turbo while also muting.
I can feel every individual crinkle of the bedsheets, the heat of Max’s erection pressing into me, and the cool temperature of the room.
I can hear an ice machine crackling somewhere in the complex, and sounds of footsteps thudding above us.
I smell the lemon cleaner that must’ve been sprayed in this room, and the slight fragrance of the woodsy cologne clinging to Max.
“That’s thirty,” he finally says. My ass burns and aches, but my brain is firmly caught somewhere between confusion and contentment.
I’m dazed, pliant in a way I’ve never been before.
All of my worries have melted away, leaving behind nothing but a calm emptiness and absence of the fear that clings to me every minute of every day.
“Why were you punished, Ember?” Max asks.
I blink. “Because I upset you?”
“Because you tried to run, put yourself in danger, and lied to me.” He smacks my ass again, so abruptly and harshly it makes me yelp. “Apologize.”
I bite my lower lip. Haze aside, I can’t just bend to his whims. I have no clue what’s happening to my mind or body, but I need to be actively focusing on getting out of here, not giving into him. I also need to take his head with me once I manage to escape—
He goes back to spanking me, much harder. This time, I struggle in earnest, because fuck, it hurts, and the pain is different from the sharp bite of a whip or the unbearable, radiating ache of a broken bone.
“Apologize,” he says, again, amping up the strength of his hits. I sink my teeth so far into my lips I taste blood, desperately trying to twist out from beneath him, but he holds me steady. The pain morphs from unbearable to outright agonizing, and he’s not stopping or slowing down.
He won’t stop until he gets what he wants.
“I’m sorry!” I shout.
He stops immediately. Rests his palm on my lower back, waiting. “What for?” he prompts.
I try to recall what he said I was being punished for. My thoughts feel weirdly slow and detached. “Running, putting myself in danger, and lying to you.”
“Are you truly sorry?” he sounds genuinely curious.
I almost lie and say yes, before realizing that lying is part of what got me into this humiliating position. “Not really,” I mumble.
“Hmm,” he says. “Well, at least you didn’t lie.”
He rearranges me with startling ease, flipping me over and laying me down on the bed.
I hiss at the cool contact of the sheets on my burning ass, but Max doesn’t seem deterred by my pain—in fact, his eyes are gleaming as he climbs over me and searches my expression.
He tenderly tucks a piece of hair behind my ear.
I frown at the intimate gesture, confused, overwhelmed, and still fuzzy.
“Let’s establish some ground rules,” he says. “If you want to avoid punishments—which will increase in intensity—you’ll follow them. Don’t run. Don’t endanger yourself. Do not lie to me, and don’t bother trying to kill me. Many people have tried, and all of them died painful deaths.”
A slice of clarity cuts through the fog. “If we’re in a battle to the death, you should know I don’t lose.”
“I already told you I have no interest in killing you,” he says. “Flame, I want to keep you, not kill you. But, if you try to kill me, you won’t be getting a meager spanking. The punishment for that infraction will have to be far more severe.”
I blink slowly, trying to think through the fog and examine him. “I think the zoo has loosened their policy on keeping rabid beasts caged. That’s why you’re here, right?”
Max chuckles, and the accompanying smile lights up his entire face. He lowers his head, skimming his nose up the side of my neck.
“Flame?” he asks.
“I don’t respond to strange nicknames.”
“It’s not a strange nickname. It’s my name for you.” He exhales a long breath that tickles my jawline. “I wish you remembered the day I bestowed it upon you.”
“It’s a B-grade nickname, not a knighthood,” I deadpan. “You aren’t bestowing shit.”
He laughs again, and it almost makes me smile. Almost. “I want to eat you out. Will you let me?”
God, I want to know what it feels like just once… but no. I can’t. I need to crawl out from whatever weird spell he put me in, kill him, and get back to Dagon before he finds me—and he will find me. He always does.
“No.”
He pulls the skin of my neck between his teeth, sucking hard. I trap a moan in my chest. Fuck, his lips feel divine. And I feel… like someone I’m not.
I’m not driven by sexual gratification; I never have been. I prefer to have affairs with boyfriends between the pages of books, not in real life. In real life, if I ever slept with or showed interest in a man, Dagon would kill him, cripple me, and then kill her in front of me.
“I won’t ask next time,” he murmurs, kissing a path up my neck. He pulls back, gazing into my eyes. “Your mind and your body are so out of touch, I don’t think you know what you want.”
“At least I have a functioning brain, which can’t be said for you.”
“I’ve fucking missed you, Flame,” he says with so much fondness, it makes my chest momentarily ache. “So much.”
“I honestly regret the day we met. Kidnapping me was the dumbest thing you could possibly do.”
“Mm.” He doesn’t sound concerned. Why doesn’t he sound concerned? “I’m going to take a shower. Then, you can shower. This’ll be the first and last time we shower separately.”
The fog clears. Clarity cuts deep. He’s going to allow me in the bathroom alone, unsupervised.
One of my specialties is making weapons where there aren’t any available.
“Sorry about this in advance, Flame,” he says.
“Sorry about—” I cut off when he scoots me up the bed and grabs my bound wrists.
He picks up the strip of dress he used to gag me—I sense where he’s going with this, so I start struggling, hard.
I writhe, try to relieve him of his ability to have children by kneeing him in the balls, let out a shriek of outrage…
and all of it’s moot. He ends up tying my wrists to the metal bedframe.
I shriek again; he claps a hand over my mouth.
“Don’t bother,” he says. “I told the receptionist that my girlfriend and I are here for kinky activities. They’re under instruction to ignore any screaming that originates from this room.
Now, I’m going to take a shower and make some calls, and I’ll be safe in the knowledge that you’re not going anywhere. ”
He gets off me, rising to his feet at the foot of the bed. “Think about it this way,” he says. “At least you won’t be able to earn another punishment.”
He disappears into the bathroom, whistling a merry tune, and I release a roar of sheer fury.