by Pam Godwin
And so it went. A garbled scream followed every whack, each one corkscrewing through his heart, stripping away pieces that would never be recovered. Liv kept unimaginable control of her swings, bringing down her arm in a rhythmic tempo as if moving to a cadence no one but her could hear.
He shuddered with the smack of leather on flesh, the pierce of Kate’s wails in his ears and the twitch of her small body receiving his punishment under his gaze. Guilt fisted his stomach and shoved the turmoil to his throat.
Each strike fell hard and steady, but the more Liv swung, the more noticeable the trembling became in her free hand. Her fingers pressed against her thigh and her body seemed to lose its upright, stiff posture. It was a subtle change, but something was definitely pulling at her resolve.
Finally, she lowered the crop. A pattern of red welts striped Kate’s backside and thighs but did not break the skin.
Liv circled around him to stand at his back. He hadn’t seen her face since she’d returned, didn’t know what mask she was wearing, if one at all. What was she feeling beneath her stony exterior? What held her here, bending her to do things he knew she didn’t want to do?
Maybe he was just imagining her reluctance. Lord knew he prayed for it. There were so many unyielding barriers between them. Her masks. His chains. Van.
When Van released Kate from her restraints, she lowered her eyes and her knees to the floor, crawling toward Liv, legs trembling. “Thank you for the discipline, Mistress.”
Her words plunged Josh deeper into the cold clutch of his new reality. It was a terrifying feeling to be enchained by people who could break a girl so unequivocally she thanked them for it. And while Liv delivered the strikes, he was convinced she was nothing more than an instrument operated by another.
Across the room, Van leaned against the wall, arms crossed, expression slack but watchful.
No doubt there would be a profusion of defining moments in the weeks to come, but Josh suspended this one in his mind, branding it to memory, and made a vow to himself. He would adapt to this environment, but he would not become an instrument, an empty shell, or a grateful slave. His parents would surrender their lives before they’d want him to become something less than he was. His heart ached at the thought of anything happening to them, but he sat lighter in his resolve, his shoulders loosened and his jaw unlocked.
“This training session will focus on requirement two.” Liv’s detached voice tiptoed over his shoulder. “Given your inability to remember the requirements, repeat after me. Slave will service Master sexually with exceptional skill, and his body will be prepared to make it easy for Master.”
Ugh. He never wanted to hear that rule again. He climbed to his feet. “Slave will break through Mistress’s mask with exceptional skill—”
Crack.
Fire erupted on his backside, a concentrated burn in the crease of his butt and thigh. Dear God, she had an arm on her. He breathed through it and hung on the support of the chains. He glanced over his shoulder, not giving a crap about the rules. His throat dried at what he found there.
Red bled over the white of her left eye, surrounded by pink, swollen skin. His heart roared in his ears, and his fingers curled into his palms. With the ragged half-inch cut on her brow bone and the scar marring the length of her cheek, she looked like a battered mess. Worse was the pleading fragility softening the edges of her gaze. She was begging him for something. To obey her? To ignore the beating Van had obviously given her?
Van held his relaxed pose against the wall, but there were signs of edginess. His arms were crossed too tightly, his fingers pressed against his biceps, and the skin around the indentations of his grip blanched.
With Kate in her kneeling position beside Josh and Liv at his back, a division was drawn in his mind. There was a significant intersection in the room. Josh stood with the girls and faced the true threat.
A toothpick rolled slowly between Van’s lips as he studied Josh. Perhaps Van was measuring him the way he weighed Van. Josh’s limited counseling experience taught him that an abuser’s violence was rooted in arrogance, in a belief that no one was as good as he was. Liv was someone Van could control and possess, someone to serve him. That sense of ownership bred jealousy not love.
Van was a problem that couldn’t be resolved with a few anger-management sessions, not that the man would be willing to talk through his issues. Because even if he could be rehabilitated, one harrowing fact remained. Josh was on the wrong side of the bars—or chains.
If Van moved close enough, could Josh hold himself by the chains, swing his legs up, and wrap them around the man’s throat? What then? He’d seen them both remove weapons hidden in their clothes. Even if his arms were free, he would still be outmatched by muscle and whatever Van was armed with. Despite the challenge charging his nerves, there was nothing he could say or do to stop this training session.
To top it off, Liv’s pleading eyes held a desperate grip around his heart. He didn’t want to make this harder on her, and with that certainty, he turned toward her with his head lowered. Kneeling at her feet, the chains crisscrossing above him, he tried to repeat the requirement from memory, with a few adjustments. “Slave will service Mistress with exceptional skill, and his body will be prepared to make it easy for her.”
Her toes flexed. She seemed to be digesting his wording changes. “Slaves, stand and face me.”
He rose with Kate, surprised by her wide eyes when they locked on Liv’s swollen face. Kate’s shock flashed for only a second before she averted her gaze. Van, who appeared bored by the whole exchange, picked his teeth with the toothpick. Was his abuse a rare thing? Or did Liv usually hide the evidence behind her masks?
She pinched Kate’s chin, capturing her focus. “We’re going to teach the boy the proper way to kiss.”
“Yes, Mistress.” Kate wet her lips, pressed her bare breasts against Liv’s larger ones, and tilted her head.
At a similar height, their mouths brushed with ease and familiarity. Slowly, enthrallingly, it bloomed into a jaw-stretching, tongue-touching, hands-wandering-curves pleasure to watch. The intimate slide of bodies and lips was sweet, gentle, and hell on his libido. Throughout the kiss, Kate held her mouth open and accepting, her tongue tracing her own lips as if inviting Liv to lead. The fluidity of their shared breaths drew him in, heating and hardening his groin. He gripped the chains to steady his balance.
“Very good.” Liv pulled back, her smile quivering. No doubt the muscle movement aggravated her injury. “A slave’s kiss anticipates her Master. It’s intuitive, an articulation in submission, total perception-by-feel. Return to the cot, girl.”
Beneath the delivery of her words lurked a strained emotion. It didn’t sound like a scripted speech. More like a remembered feeling leaking from a deep well within her. Something akin to the inviting kiss she’d let him steer in his truck. What did that mean? How did it fit with her motivations? Those answers held the key to unlocking her.
“Boy.” Liv stared up at him. “As with all your requirements, number two is commanded by your future Master, for his purpose, which means you will learn how to kiss a man the way a man desires.”
CHAPTER 19
Josh’s pulse sputtered and his stomach bucked. He should’ve expected this. Van’s role was suddenly and devastatingly clear.
As if he’d conjured the devil, a hot, sweaty palm gripped the curve of his shoulder and throat. Fingers added a warning pressure to his nape, punctuated by a thumb on his trachea.
Van leaned in. His mouth was too damned close, reeking of roast beef and ill-intent. The toothpick protruded from one upturned corner.
Restrained by the hand and the blasted chains, his thrashing only pressed him closer to Van’s body. “No. No way in hell. I won’t do this.”
The swing of the crop whistled behind him, and the sharp burn of leather struck the rise of his backside. Ow, Jesus, that hurt. He clenched his jaw.
“Open your mouth and accept his kiss.”
/> His muscles tightened. “No.”
Another strike, harder. He sucked in a breath. “I won’t kiss him.” He ground his teeth and prayed for his parents’ safety. “Not happening.”
The lashes that followed came quicker, spreading out over his buttocks, thighs, and lower back. He held onto his resolution as his body swayed on his feet and his head swam through a haze of pain. At some point, she switched to a whip. Still, he refused the kiss.
She and Van gave him a wide berth as he fell to his knees, his torso held up by his arms in the chains, the tip of the whip cutting so sharply he felt it scorch through his blood.
The strikes turned into hours, the hours into days, and so his training lunged into full swing. As those days passed, they didn’t seem like days at all. With the absence of windows and the constant pull of fatigue, it was always night. But he gaged the stretch of time by the healing of Liv’s face. When he slept, it was on the rug beside her mattress. When awake, he was chained to the ceiling, the floor, the walls, or her bed.
While her tactics varied in creativity, her drive was steady, unyielding, and rife with trickery. Hours of silence would spur him to speak. Twenty lashes. A tender caress on his cheek would draw his eyes to hers. Twenty lashes. Her gripping strokes along his penis guaranteed an orgasm. And twenty lashes.
Some sessions were better than others. Sometimes the pain carried him to a strange space of unawareness where time and chains didn’t exist. Where he mindlessly accepted the punishment. He anticipated that feeling of bliss. In fact, when he was in the moment, he didn’t want her to stop.
On the third evening, she restrained his naked and kneeling body to the floor and opened the door. Van’s swift gait sounded through the room followed by the click of her heels.
His blood pressure doubled as Van circled him. He lifted his shoulders, protecting his neck, and held his elbows close to his sides. After countless beatings, he’d learned to protect the most vulnerable parts of his body.
Luckily, he hadn’t seen Van in three days. It didn’t take long to find out why she’d finally invited him in.
She slammed her spiked heel into Josh’s back, knocking him forward. “Accept his kiss, boy.”
Violently shaking on his hands and knees, he glared at the floor and bit down his cheek. His anger boiled so hot his skin flushed with fever.
Van squatted before him, hands laced together beneath Josh’s bowed head.
Screw them. He’d rather stab the bastard with a three-foot toothpick than kiss him. He would not become a broken grateful slave. “No.” He pinned his lips and braced for twenty new welts.
The silence in the room drew tightly around him, overtaxing his nerves as he stared at Van’s unmoving hands. Finally, she spoke, using the empty voice he’d become accustomed to hearing.
“Raise your eyes and sit back on your feet.” She walked around him, the pointed toes of her black heels stopping beside Van.
He lifted his upper body, his bruised muscles screaming in protest, and lugged his gaze to meet the frigid sharpness of hers.
Van rose and tucked his hands into his jeans pockets. “It’s okay, Liv. He doesn’t have to kiss me.” His tone was casual, but his gaze was molten silver and aimed on her. “You’ll give me what I need.”
A flash of fear lit her eyes, and Josh’s blood ran cold. The scar on her cheek seemed to draw the corner of her eyelid downward into a miserable reflection of his own thoughts. He didn’t want her to give that man a damned thing.
She snapped her chin up and looked down her nose at Josh. Then her expression blanked, and she stared through him like he wasn’t there. With a roll of her hips, she stepped into Van’s body and cupped his groin, squeezing him through the denim. Josh slammed his teeth together.
The slide of Van’s hands up the back of her thighs pushed her skirt to her waist and revealed her panty-less backside. The profile of their hips pressed together and Van’s grinding and groping sent Josh’s pulse careening, his heartbeat pounding, and every muscle in his body tensing. He tried to shake off the anger. It was just a game, a psychological torment meant to break him.
Van freed the button at his waistband, shoved his jeans to his bare feet, and kicked the material away. Naked from the waist down, he grabbed her hand and curled her fingers around his erection.
The chains held Josh to the floor, but it was the heaviness in his chest that pulled him down and squeezed his lungs. Would Van rape her? Was it rape if she wasn’t struggling?
She captured Josh’s eyes and pierced him with a look so cruel, it struck harder and deeper than any implement she’d used on him.
He dropped his head, eyes burning and arms hanging numbly at his sides. What was the purpose of this?
“Watch us.” The snap of her voice splintered through his spinning world.
His neck ached with tension as he raised his head.
The manifestation of her sudden smile seemed forced, blanching along the seam despite the glaring curls at the corners. She angled her chin away, and Van caught her mouth.
He attacked her lips, licking and sucking. With a hand in her hair, the other wrapped around her fingers, stroking his fully aroused length.
Josh’s throat thickened, and a guttural roar burst from his throat. “I’ll do it. I’ll kiss you. Just…” He trembled with the violent need to bash Van’s face in. “Just get away from her.”
Why did he care? She’d whipped him for days. He should hate her. Yet the pain of watching her with another man eviscerated his insides and destroyed his ability to see a future beyond that room.
Van released her lips, his arm pinning her against him, and cocked his head. “Maybe next time.” He returned to her mouth, his tongue whipping aggressively, dominating the movement of her jaw. He lifted her, hooked her legs around his waist, and backed her into the wall a couple feet away.
When Van’s hand shoved between their hips, Josh barreled forward, the strain of his body caught by the web of chains. He jerked and yanked, the cuffs on his wrists scraping along his skin. “Mistress? Mistress, don’t let him do this.”
Her glassy eyes peered at him over Van’s shoulder. She lay her palms flat on his back, her shoes dangling from her toes where they hung behind Van’s flexing thighs.
A vicious force of nausea spun through his gut. Why was this affecting him so furiously? There was no love between him and that woman. He sucked in a breath, his mouth thick with salvia. Wasn’t this possessiveness he felt for her a method of control? Maybe he was supposed to feel sorry for her. Sympathy was more effective than hating her. The proof was in the painful collapse of his chest as Van thrust his hips, sinking inside her and grunting his pleasure.
His ears burned with the sound of his heart ripping, bleeding with loss and crushing into the shape of betrayal. Why the hell did he feel betrayed? Because she didn’t fight? But the skin around her mouth blanched and strained. When he snagged her eyes, she looked away.
The hammering of Van’s hips accelerated. The color drained from her face, and she pressed her grimace against Van’s shoulder. Josh aged ten years as he watched beneath the weight of his chains, his perceptions grinding into a jaded palate of anguish, helplessness, and jealousy.
The fact that she wasn’t struggling snarled and thrashed through his head. If he thought about it, really pushed past the shock and fury of his emotions, the truth was painfully obvious. She couldn’t control him with punches and whips, but this…this would leave a permanent mark. She was doing her job by any means possible. His lungs constricted, his mind a mess of twisted conflict.
As Van pummeled into her limp body and pawed at her breasts through the bodice, a wet sheen glazed her eyes. When a lonely tear escaped, she looked at Josh, startled. She quickly brushed it away on her shoulder and averted her gaze.
His chest hitched. She didn’t want this. His belief in that didn’t mute the pain as Van buried himself deep inside her and released with a revolting groan. But it renewed his faith in his ability to ex
pose her goodness and gave him the strength to keep fighting. For her.
Two days later, he lay on his stomach, stretched over her mattress, his nose burrowed in her sheets. Her familiar womanly scent warmed his inhales as the strikes of her cane pommeled his backside.
The passing of time had warped into an ugly mass of emotions, the intensity and direction of his thoughts changing as frequently as her masks. He flailed between hating her, wanting her, fighting her, and praying for her. And through it all was the incessant urge to screw her. The latter formed a knot of guilt in his stomach. After witnessing Van’s treatment of her, his arousing thoughts were selfish.
The air whistled. Crack.
Burning pain stole through his thigh and cut his breath. He held tighter to the chains connected to the wall.
Crack.
His tender skin flinched, shuddering away from the hurt. But the warmth that remained spread tendrils of heat to his groin. When her footsteps clicked over the floor, he loosened his muscles, anticipating her next hit.
Crack.
The impact stabbed his backside, flexing and quivering his gluts. His lungs labored. He relaxed into the lingering twinge, and his arousal mounted.
Crack.
He ground his pelvis against the mattress, seeking relief. He tried to muster the shame in it and failed. He’d reached that place in his head where the pain transformed into a lofty phenomenon, his body floating through an immersion of sensations, every nerve ending devouring her attention. He rocked his hips.
Her knee pressed between his spread legs, and her hand wedged beneath his groin. She gripped his erection and stabbed her fingernails into the throbbing, sensitive skin. “Slave will not rub Master’s property against the mattress in a sexual way.” Her tone was as cold as the absence of her hand as she stepped away.
Crack.
Fire seeped into his bones and smoldered in his joints. He thrust his arousal against the bed, wanting more. It was strange how badly he longed for her full focus on him, only him, whether or not that attention came with pain.