Chapter 34 BETH #2
The living room was too quiet when I entered, too familiar, suffocating me in memories. I sniffled, wiping a stray tear with the back of my palm, then shrugged off my jacket, tossing it onto the couch. I kicked off my silver flats and began to head into the room.
In the room, I sat at the edge of the bed, hands clenched on my lap as my thoughts spiralled, my chest heaving, tightening, while the tears came in lazy, slow drops.
I didn’t know what he was going to do to me. I just knew I didn’t want it, knew I would fight but fail miserably. I had never won in this fights before.
The door suddenly swung open and I startled to my feet, my heart slamming against my ribs as I staggered backwards.
He stood there, silent and unreadable as the dim lighting cast a shadow over his face, deepening the darkness in his eyes. And there was a way he looked at me–jaw clenched, gaze sharp, letting me know he didn’t like what he was seeing.
“Odd.” His tone was a low, deliberate threat, a crackling whip in the air. “I could swear I told you what to do when you get here. And I remember you nodding in understanding.”
He shut the door slowly behind him, his back resting on it, hands tucked inside his pockets.
“I‐” I started, my voice barely above a whisper. “We were just talking. I wasn’t going to do anything with him.”
“Five seconds.”
My stomach dropped.
“Get rid of those clothes,” he ordered, moving toward the bottle of wine on the coffee table. “Five seconds or the punishment doubles.”
Punishment?
My pulse stuttered. What did he mean by that?
I didn’t want to find out what the punishment would entail, or what it would look like when doubled. Yet I yanked the tank top over my head, my fingers trembling as I pushed down my cargo pants, then my panties.
His eyes ran over my body, heat licking every part they touched. Then his gaze stopped on my arm, flickering between the two, jaw feathering. For a split second, I almost panicked, dreading this being the day he would tell me to take my arm warmers off.
I could let him freely trace the lines on my back, let him press his finger into it as if measuring the depth. But my arms, they were my secret, my shame. They already felt the whisper of my slow descent into madness. No one needed to know that I was this broken.
Because broken girls didn’t get love.
A breath of relief left me when his gaze finally shifted from my arm to another place.
“Move to the desk.”
A shiver ran down my spine at the brutality of the command, something bitter curdling in my stomach when I couldn’t help feeling moist between my thighs.
I stood next to the desk, watching his slender fingers work his belt’s buckle, the movement slow and precise.
I bit the inside of my cheek, glancing away at the same time a tear dropped.
I knew what he was going to do to me. And I knew I would attempt to fight it as usual, but in the end, I would bend, cave and beg for it. I knew this truth and it made my teeth grind, nose flare, and tears to pour in waves as my heart wrenched painfully inside me.
What sort of a vicious circle was this?
“Turn around. Bend over. Brace your hands on the desk.” The commands dragged through the room like blade on concrete. My throat closed up, my nails digging into the edge of the table.
I didn’t obey. I fooled myself for a while, pretending like I had a say, deluding over an idea that I had a voice of my own when truthfully, I was merely just a puppet.
“I said…” He started then paused, his voice dropping to something quieter, deadly, like a knife stained with poison. “…turn around. Bend over. Brace your hands on the fucking desk, Elizabeth.”
I didn’t need him to repeat himself. The air in the room had shifted, the command hanging over me like a blade pressed to the throat.
Slowly, I turned, leaned over, the cold, polished wood scraping my nipples as I braced my hands indeed.
This was it, the final and bitter truth.
I had never really been fighting him. I was just fighting myself.
I was never meant to accept this version, never meant to yield, never bow.
But every time, it had always ended the same way; breath hitching, spine arching, my will folding like paper in his hands.
I didn’t want him, yes.
My heart didn’t want him.
But my body did.
And so did my mind.
And my heart had always been weaker when my body and mind wanted the same thing.
My breath scraped through my lungs when I heard it, the pad of his footsteps approaching, the quiet sound of leather slipping free from its loops.
Then there was silence after, the heat of his presence looming behind me, a dark force pressing against my senses.
I gasped, a shiver travelling up my spine when his cold fingers brushed against my waist, lifting my hip until I was standing on my toes.
And there it was, the sharp crack of leather tearing the skin on my ass.
A loud cry tore from my throat, pain and pleasure tangling in the mix. The sting bloomed across my flesh, burning, electrifying, awakening again, that thing that stirred at the echo of his shadow, something deep and twisted.
“How many minutes did he hold your hands for?” he demanded, his cold hand gently touching the welt forming on my ass.
“I d-don’t know,” I choked out, a hot roll of tear sliding down my cheek.
Another strike echoed.
My head snapped backward, the cry tearing past my lips, louder this time, but the fire between my thighs intensified.
“Think hard, Elizabeth,” he murmured, his finger tracing the fresh marks forming on my skin. “Or I will keep going until your ass is all red, bleeding, and you can’t sit for hours.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing mind to remember.
“Four minutes,” I whispered the first number that floated into my head.
“My bad,” he clicked his tongue, tone cynical. “I should have probably warned you. You get extra whips if you lied.”
My heart pounded louder, my body trembling, slick with sweat.
“He held your hands for two minutes while I stood there.” He sounded irritated, agitated. “So how about you stop dreaming about my cock and give the damn numbers.”
I sniffled, shame tangled with pain and pleasure, wrapping around my ribs.
“It wasn’t for long.” I tightened my hold on the edge of the desk. “Three to four minutes. I don’t know.”
“Three or four minutes?” His authoritative voice commanded my surrender, the huskiness sending a wave of heat to my inside.
“Four,” I blurted.
“Start counting.”
The next slash stole my breath, and the one after that. As each strike landed, sending me into a haze of pain and unbreakable pleasure, only one question consumed me.
What was this? This wild, uncontrollable thing unfurling like a beast inside me?