by Pam Godwin
It was sick the way her pussy clenched in anticipation. She’d fantasized being taken by him—forcibly, passionately—since forever, but the circumstances were all wrong. He was all wrong. Her insides knotted.
Still, she kept her attention on the door, anxiously awaiting his expression upon finding her posed in presentation.
The knob turned, and the door swung open, revealing the golden flames of his eyes, motionless in a sea of crimson.
Blood spattered his face and throat and caked the ink on his forearms where he’d rolled up his sleeves. His black shirt and pants glistened with wetness, and his hands clenched at his sides as he stared at nothing.
“What happened?” Her heartbeats fell hard, her posture crumbling. “Are you hurt?”
He didn’t look at her, didn’t acknowledge her in any way as he stepped into the bedroom. No noticeable limping. Not a hint of physical pain or visible wounds beneath the smears of blood.
Stopping at a built-in cabinet, he opened the doors to a wet bar and poured a glass of aguardiente, neat, the way Colombians preferred their soft vodka.
She wanted to ask him whose blood he was covered in, hoping with every shuddering breath that the gore didn’t belong to one of the captured women. “Matias?”
His entire body stiffened, the glass hovering midway to his mouth. Maybe this wasn’t the best time to call attention to herself.
He swallowed back the guaro in one gulp, poured another, and carried it into the closet. When he disappeared beyond the doorway, she couldn’t see inside, but the retreat of his footfalls hinted at the extensive depth of the room.
She pressed her lips together and sat back on her heels. Did he get in a fight? Torture someone? Stand too close to a ritualistic slaughter?
Her stomach rolled. Maybe this was just a normal day of work for him. Except the crystallized glaze in his eyes suggested that whatever happened had rattled him.
A moment later, he exited the closet, carrying a fraternity paddle, a cane, handcuffs, and a ball gag. His stony gaze landed on her.
“What’re you doing?” Her pulse went crazy as she scrambled to her feet and shuffled backward until the chain snapped her to a halt. “I behaved while you were gone. I fucking knelt for you!”
Jesus, he hadn’t even changed his clothes, standing there like a blood-soaked nightmare. And his eyes… Something wasn’t quite right in the shadows behind those unmoving flames.
He dropped his bundle on one of the armchairs and dragged the chair toward her, its legs squealing across marble.
Parking it just out of her reach, he stood so very still and silent, intent on watching her while her insides fell apart and her bladder screamed to spill all over the floor.
“I have to pee, Matias.” Her voice wavered. “And you need a shower. I’ll help you clean up.”
He continued to stare, studying her in a detached way. No, not studying. He seemed to have retreated inward, mentally shut down. His hand blindly swept over the chair and picked up the ball gag.
Shit shit shit!
“Matias? Remember when I got this?” With trembling fingers, she parted the hair on her scalp.
His gaze flicked to the jagged scar above her hairline and returned to her mouth without a trace of emotion.
She was seven when she fell out of the orange tree, busting her head open and bleeding all over the place. “Do you remember what you told me?”
“An ounce of bravery is more valuable than a gallon of blood.” His voice was ice grinding against rock. “Andres taught me that. Then he died a coward’s death.”
What did that mean? His uncle had perished in the fire that had taken her family. A conversation for another time.
“The day I got this scar,” she said hoarsely, “you promised me you would never let me fall again.”
If she reached out an arm, she could touch his sticky shirt. But she didn’t dare.
He stood taller, his chin level with her forehead as he lifted the ball gag. “Open your mouth.”
“Don’t do this.” She shook her head, eyes blurring. “Don’t hurt me.”
“If you fight me, what will I do?” His tone held no pitch or fluctuation.
Take it out on someone else.
She tensed with the compulsion to kick out a leg, knock him off balance, and lock him in a chokehold. Then what? She was chained to a fucking pole.
Her attention flew to the cane and paddle. Deep down, she believed he wouldn’t kill her. Probably wouldn’t make her bleed either, no matter how badly this would hurt.
She stretched open her mouth.
His lips curved, but there was no pleasure in his smile. No dimples. No emotion whatsoever as he pressed the rubber ball between her teeth and secured the strap behind her head. Thank God, his hands were free of blood, washed clean up to the wrists. Or he’d worn gloves.
“Face down.” He stabbed a finger toward the floor. “Legs spread wide and pray to hell.”
A punishment position, one that allowed full access to the tender areas of her body. She lost control of her breathing, her tongue pushing against the gag as her skin broke out in a cold sweat.
She must’ve hesitated too long, because he grabbed her hair and forced her to the floor on her stomach. With his knee digging against her back, he wrenched her arms behind her, forcing her hands in a reverse prayer position and securing them in the cuffs. Then he grabbed the long wooden paddle.
Tremors assaulted her arms and legs, and her throat sealed up. Didn’t matter how high her pain tolerance, this was going to hurt like a motherfucker. She might’ve fantasized about Matias spanking her, choking her, and fucking her to near-death, but the truth was, she didn’t enjoy pain. Unless…maybe…it was inflicted with love.
There’s no love here.
Her reflexes begged her to fight him off, but experience had taught her that tensing muscles beneath a strike resulted in days of painful bruising. So when he removed his knee from her back and replaced it with the heat of his hand, she let her body go limp and focused on breathing deeply.
Before she drew her second breath, a whistling scream cracked the air, and the paddle made contact in a fiery explosion of broken skin.
CAMILA HOWLED AGAINST THE GAG, her teeth sinking into rubber as Matias swung again and again. He’d skipped the goddamn warm up and slammed her straight into a body-twitching, skin-burning overload of agony.
Kneeling at her side with his weight braced on the hand at her back, he struck her ass and the backs of her thighs with deep, swift, penetrating thuds. Had she been standing, the first hit would’ve knocked her over. As it was, it felt like he was beating her into the floor.
Stop! Dios mio, es demasiado. It’s too much. Her screams garbled against the gag as every hit vibrated through her like a muscle-thumping bass note, chattering her teeth and blazing fire down her legs. Please make it end. She wanted to curl into a ball, close her eyes, and dream all of this away. And never wake up.
The fucking wooden paddle didn’t let up, its rigid width covering such a huge impact area she felt it everywhere. Each heavy, hard-hitting blow stopped her heart and lingered long after the next thud. Her vision blurred, her lungs wheezed, and her bladder felt like it was going to burst.
No más, por favor. No more!
She attempted to slow down her breathing, but she couldn’t tune out the anguish. So she tried to experience it as an observer, focusing on where each burning sensation originated, where it ended, what shape it was, and how deep it sank into muscle and bone. The exercise pushed her through the worst of it, but eventually, dizziness set in, endorphins flooded her bloodstream, and darkness invaded the edges of her consciousness.
Just when she thought she would pass out, he tossed the paddle in the chair. “If you need to pee, do it now.”
He didn’t move to unchain her. Piss on the floor then? Maybe he got off on that brand of humiliation, but she was in too much pain to give a fuck. Except, when she tried to release her bladder, it wouldn’t relax.
She concentrated harder. Nothing. Was it shock? Stage fright?
She bit down on the rubber ball and glared at him through her tears.
Caked in blood, expression vacant, eyes cold, he was death and hell and the devil that ruled it all.
Hooking a finger through the ring on the collar, he dragged her to her knees. For an ignorant moment, she thought he was finished.
Without meeting her eyes, he arranged her lethargic, aching body against the post. On her knees, back against the column, and shins bracketing the base, she felt a tug at her wrists. Heavy deadness pulled on her eyelids. She blinked, tried to keep hold of awareness, but she had no fight left.
The smack of a hand across her cheek snapped her awake, and her attention fell on his bloody shirt. Oh God, this is still happening.
Her breaths came in asthmatic bursts. She tried to pull her arms forward, but they remained where they were, hugging the post at her back and locked with metal rings.
Saliva pooled around the ball in her mouth and trickled down her chin as her entire body shook beneath a rush of adrenaline and whatever morphine-like chemicals her brain had released. She wished she was drugged or drunk. Or dead.
He picked up the cane, and she swung her head left and right. She couldn’t do this. No more pain. Please, Matias!
Like the paddle, he didn’t ease in. The cane flew through the air and landed on the front of her thigh.
“Noooo” ripped from her throat in a keening, indistinguishable wail.
The cutting stripe seared a trail of heat across her skin, followed by another and another.
Her chin dropped to her chest with the weight of her head, and she watched with horror as each new welt bloomed on her thighs. The cane never slowed. Ladder-like cuts formed, some of them torn and bleeding on the surface. It was if he were trying to mark every inch of skin between her groin and knees.
She’d rarely cried after those first few days in Van’s attic, and she hadn’t intended to now. Except this was Matias, her childhood best friend, beating her body to a pulp.
Tears coursed down her cheeks, and a heavy, helpless feeling settled in her chest. But amid the heartache throbbed something sharper, darker. Something so very wrong.
Her gaze lifted to the zipper of his pants, where the long, hard outline of his erection strained against the fabric. She looked up at his eyes and found a smoldering flicker had chased his coldness away.
His breathing lost rhythm, and his hand shook as he lowered the cane. He was turned on by this, by her responses, her body? Whatever it was, his arousal fed hers, awakening the nerve-endings in her pussy and soaking her with heat as images of him coming on her abused body flashed through her mind.
Her stomach cramped with disgust and shame. Why was she so fucked up in her head?
If he were any other man, she would’ve vomited against the gag. The only reactions Van had stirred in her were raw fear and rage. But Matias was deep beneath her skin, his gaze touching her everywhere, heating her from the inside out.
He dropped the cane, and it clattered across the floor.
She sagged in relief, wobbling on her knees as every welt on her body pulsed with the beat of her heart. When she caught her breath, she dragged her gaze to his.
“You’re a fucking feast for the eyes, Camila.” He stared down at her, no smile, but his dimples flashed.
While life seemed to be returning to his face, she could feel the last trickle of energy draining from her limbs. He caressed her cheek, and she didn’t have the strength to pull away. Until his other hand opened his zipper.
Eyes wide, she made a groaning noise against the rubber ball.
His blood-soaked pants slipped down his thighs as he freed his cock. He fisted the length, gliding his hand up and down. A vein bulged along the shaft, the crown swollen and wet with precum. He tilted his head back, and his jaw looked so fucking strong, so powerful shadowed in stubble and clenching harder and harder with each vigorous stroke.
“No teeth, Camila.” He pinned her with an intractable glare and released the buckle on the gag.
The instant it fell from her mouth, he thrust past her lips and hit the back of her throat.
She gagged, convulsing and drooling, but he didn’t pause or slow.
“Oh fuck.” Tremors skated across his thighs as he dragged his length over her tongue. “So fucking good.” He circled his hips and gripped the post with one hand while holding on to her head with the other. “Goddamn, I missed your mouth.”
Tears blinded her eyes. She choked and sucked air, her hands twisting in the cuffs. She had nowhere to go, couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. She sure as hell didn’t roll her tongue or do anything to increase his pleasure. She was just a hole pinned to post, a face to brutally fuck.
And he did, every slam of his hips adding another fissure in her memories until the rot seeped out. Van’s musky scent. The coarseness of his hair against her nose. The ruthless hammer of his dick in her mouth.
“Stay with me, mi vida.” Matias gripped her jaw with both hands and forced her eyes to his. “I know what he did to you, and that’s not what this is.”
Yes, it was! Only so much worse. Van had beaten and tormented her to terrify her into obedience. He’d made her powerless in her pain and humiliated by her pleasure. With Matias, her depraved desires came from a completely different place, the part of her that had never stopped loving him.
He stared at her like he could feel her anguish, as if he longed to take it away. His expression softened, his eyes watchful. Thoughtful. So unlike the man who just caned her. Jesus, what the hell was happening?
At least with Van, she’d known he was the enemy every harrowing hour she spent in his attic. But this man? He was the criminal who petrified her and the lover she longed to lay beneath while he did all manner of dirty things to her. It threw her off balance and made her want to lash back with burning revulsion.
Without looking away, he widened his stance, his breaths quickening and fingers tightening against her cheeks. He was close. Please hurry.
His body became a piston, flexing and jerking as he found his release. The next thrust sent a shock wave down his thighs. He pulled out then sank deeply, his hands shaking as he shouted to the ceiling. “Fuuuuuck!”
Salty come shot down her throat, and his cock slid free from her lips. She vibrated with a full-body shiver, her lips tingling with his taste and her pussy aching to be touched, filled, pounded.
It had been twelve years since she’d taken him in her mouth. She struggled to make sense of the man staring down at her while her mind clung to the boy who used to guide her lips to him, slowly ease his girth in and out, and encourage her with softly whispered words. The boy who never orgasmed without seeing to her pleasure first.
Now he simply stared down at her as her ass throbbed and her thighs lit with pain, with no relief in sight.
He kicked off his shoes and made fast work of stripping his bloody clothes. Fully nude and partially erect, he removed her cuffs, unlocked the chain from the collar, and lifted her off the floor.
Cradled against the damp skin on his chest, she let her head loll against his shoulder. Every shift against him made the welts on her thighs throb with heat. She couldn’t bring herself to do anything but droop in his arms.
He carried her into the bathroom and set her on the toilet. Her bladder released immediately, and a wave of vertigo sent her canting sideways.
His hands caught her shoulders, his broad body crouching in front of her. “You need to eat.”
“I need anslers…answers. Shit, I’m slurring.” She couldn’t make her mind work, every part of her over-stimulated. Lost to sensations.
“It’s the intensity of the pain.” Something slipped behind his eyes, there and gone before she could identify it. He scratched at the blood on his neck. “The adrenaline burns off quickly, but the endorphins linger, creating a crash.”
Rage powered through her spent muscles. “How many torture sessions did it take for
you to learn that?”
He stared her down as if trying to frighten her. She wanted to smack that look right off his fucking face, but she couldn’t summon the strength. So she stared right back, despite the tremble in her chin.
Rather than giving her time to wipe and flush, he scooped her off the toilet and stood her on her feet in the shower.
Soap in hand, he scrubbed them both with clinical efficiency, his expression tight with concentration.
She leaned against his chest, hating that she needed his support to stand, but the floor was tilting. The room darkened. Too dark. She couldn’t see. She didn’t care.
A towel wrapped around her, then his arms, and she floated.
She must’ve passed out, because her eyes blinked open to a fully-dressed Matias. He wore a charcoal suit and a gold button-up that he’d left open at the neck. His dry hair spiked in chaotic strands that fell over his brow.
Lying face up on the bed, she was dressed, too…partly. A stiff, silver corset strangled her torso, and lacy black panties rode high on her ass. She looked around the room. Where were the rest of her clothes?
“I need you to get through the next few hours.” His hands slid over her thighs, working a glob of ointment into the cuts.
Dread simmered in her empty stomach. “What’s the next few hours?”
“Dinner.” He capped the tube of ointment and grabbed her hand, guiding her to the full-length mirror propped in the corner.
“Dinner with who? Where? What am I supposed to wear?” She met his eyes in the mirror.
Standing behind her, he combed fingers through her hair, arranging the length to fall in waves around her shoulders. She’d always considered her hair black, but even semi-damp, it wasn’t as dark as his. Same for her complexion. By no means was she pale, but she looked straight-up white next to him.
His frame dwarfed her, twice as wide and a head taller, and now she knew what it felt like to be on the receiving end of that strength. As if his size wasn’t intimidating enough, the way he raked his sharp focus over her reflection made her want to retreat to the floor in a fetal position.