“I –” Whatever answer might have left her disappeared as one of his hands slid over her hip, trailing down her soft stomach to swipe at the damning wetness between her thighs.
“Naughty girl,” he growled against her hair, lingering his touch at her core without the slightest brush of her clit. “I think the answer is excited. Just remember, beautiful, this is punishment for your transgressions. There will be no coming, no subspace, no matter what. Understand?”
“Yes, sir.” Maddie agreed, even though his words still felt strange to her ears. When he pulled away she almost asked how she could possibly come during anything he called punishment, but then the sharp crack of his palm against her ass made her hips jolt forward into the cross. It stung, but it had been so sudden she’d not even thought to cry out.
“That was for forgetting to respond properly inside the club.” Without more than a heartbeat of a pause, he started to land spank after spank across the round globes of her ass, a warming burn building slowly after each spike when his hand met her skin. “These are because I like how your ass looks when it’s pink and glowing.”
Maddie was chewing on her bottom lip, soft whines slipping out, but even though he was spanking her harder than he had the first time – she knew this was not the punishment. Each snap of his palm was a fresh surprise, and she found herself shifting from foot to foot, already reaching for that confusing place where the sting would become something else.
“Beautiful.” Thomas stopped as quickly as he’d begun, and then his footsteps moved away to her left.
Peeking through her hair she saw him in front of some kind of black cabinet, gathering things into his hands. What will he use? The belt again? Maddie twisted her wrists in the restraints, anticipation making her even more antsy now that she couldn’t move.
“What was the first reason I gave you for punishment tonight?” The question floated over to her and she looked away from him, turning her eyes up to the sight of her hands loosely fisted on the other side of the leather cuffs. What had he said at the restaurant?
“I told them Jaxson invited me,” she answered, and Thomas returned to his place behind her.
“Do you know Jaxson, Maddie?”
She shook her head, feeling her wind-torn hair catch on her shoulder. “No, sir.”
“Have you ever met Jaxson Davidson?” There was an odd tone to his voice, but she couldn’t think straight enough through the fire in her blood to evaluate it further. Her heartbeat was picking up speed as she waited.
“No, sir.”
“Then you understand why that was a mistake? To name him as your invite into Black Light?” Leather stroked over her skin, and she dug her nails into her palms in preparation.
“I do. Yes, sir.” Nodding, she tried to focus on him, on the cross pressed into her skin, on what was about to happen – but at the mention of Jaxson her mind was pulled back to the teensy, tiny, itty-bitty detail that the man behind her knew the Jaxson Davidson, the owner of Black Light, the man who had built ridiculous levels of security to keep out people just like her.
Fuck.
A line of fire across the right side of her ass lifted her onto her toes as she hissed air between her teeth. Its twin landed on her left, and she jerked her wrists against the cuffs on instinct, biting down on the cries she wanted to release as the pain segued into heat.
“I promised him that I would deal with your little indiscretion…” In the pause between his next words he delivered a hard swat of the leather a little lower than the first set. “Ten sounds like a good number, doesn’t it?”
Two more blistering stings, and he paused when she shouted something unintelligible. Maddie was tense, up on her toes, pressing forward against the cross as if she could escape – but she was bound, exposed, and had no intention of avoiding whatever punishment he’d deemed appropriate. No matter what fell from her lips, it wouldn’t be red.
If only naming Jaxson was my worst sin here.
“What number are we on?” Thomas’ voice was lower, a rolling thunder that made her shiver as she tried to think through the stinging skin and the throbbing need between her thighs.
“F- five?” The word turned into a question as she doubted herself, and his chuckle behind her didn’t help to validate it. Another snap of the leather and she arched, biting down on the cry, but he tapped her foot with his shoe and she pressed her heels back to the floor.
“Right, so now there’s just four more with the strap.”
Strap.
Her mind wrapped around the word, focusing on the differences between this and the belt. The belt was slightly more forgiving, longer, and it stung more, while this felt more powerful, heavier.
Sting versus thud.
All of her research snuck that phrase into her brain, and she knew exactly what they meant now. There was more weight to the strap, more – “Fuck!” she yelled as he landed the next one just below the curve of her ass.
“Oh no, we’re not even done with the first set yet, beautiful. Any possibility of fucking is still far off.” Another hard swat.
“Please,” she begged, but his only answer was the last two snaps of the strap on the backs of each thigh. The whine that left her lips had more to do with the sudden assault on the delicate skin of her legs, than with the plea for him to have her, even though the visual had her hips shifting.
“Strap is done, Madeline, but that set wasn’t for me, was it?”
“Sir?”
The sound of him moving behind her was distracting enough that she was able to let the heat of the strap settle. There would be new bruises, she was sure of that, but she was also sure he wasn’t done. He was close again when he spoke, “That set was to appease Jaxson. So, tell me, are you sorry?”
“Yes, sir.” She tried to swallow down the pique of troublesome guilt that attempted to emerge from the waves of confusing arousal, discomfort, and newfound submission.
“Say it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Say what you’re sorry for.” Thomas’ voice was colder, stronger, and she felt a little breathless as something swished through the air behind her.
“I’m sorry that I said Jaxson Davidson invited me to Black Light. Sir.”
“Forgiven.” There was a snap just behind her, and she jumped, but nothing touched her. The purr to his tone became more seductive than threatening as he asked, “What is your second punishment for tonight?”
“It’s for, um…” Maddie wracked her brain. “You’re upset about the texting? Sir?”
His shirt brushed against the bare skin of her back, his lips grazing her shoulder. “I’m not upset at all, Madeline. This set you asked for yourself. Each time you referenced the belt.” Teeth caught her skin for a moment, sending a vibrant rush through her nerves. “Every time you told me how much you wanted to feel it again. Did you lie about that?”
“No,” she whispered. Truth.
A spank landed atop the marks from the strap and she gasped.
“Sir!”
“Such a good girl. I’m just giving you what you asked for now. Another ten –” A swish through the air again made her tense. “With the crop this time.”
The crop.
A riding crop.
“Shit!” she shouted as the hard, thin, leather bound object landed almost perfectly across both globes of her ass, the barest hint of a sting wrapping to her right hip.
He had said ten, but then two, three, and four landed in such quick succession that Maddie found herself squirming against the cross, her arms pulling at the leather cuffs as she tried to stifle the sting of the tears in her eyes while the already blistered skin of her ass screamed.
“Please!”
“Please what, Maddie?” There was humor in Thomas’ tone, a hidden challenge there, and she bit down on the request for him to stop. Swallowed it. Each line was still vibrant, somehow different than the lingering burn from the strap, but the initial panic had ebbed as he paced behind her, as the throbbing faded
into a dull ache surrounded by heat.
“Nothing, sir,” she whispered.
“Are you sure?”
“I have six more, right?”
A sharp snap of the crop at her sit spot, that painful place where the curve of her ass met her thighs, had her bouncing on her toes, and the tears she’d been struggling to hold back spilled onto her cheeks. “Five now,” he answered.
Despite the pain, there was something else inside her. The beginnings of a blur to the peak of each painful swat, the hum of her arousal filling the gaps, and there was the promise she’d sought. The dark promise of more, of oblivion, if only she could hold on. Steeling herself, she settled her body on the cross, reveling in the hard press of it against her ribs, the way she could brace her knees into the wood so she could take it. Five more. “Yes, sir…”
Two more, back to back, but she held in the cry. Three more.
Another across her thighs, and she jerked, crying out as her mind walked some indelible line between pleasure and pain, teasing her with the possibility of some warm and sparkling quiet place just beyond the bite of the damn crop.
“Your screams are lovely.”
Lovely?
The impact of the crop on his next swing criss-crossed with a blur of other marks, waking them all up, and sending another cry out to echo in the room. As she tried to breathe, tried to sniffle and hold back the tears that were blurring her vision, a single thought floated to the surface – could all of those D.C. elite hear her through the door? Did they think her screams were lovely too? Were they listening to each powerful crack of leather against her skin?
“Are you wet for me, Maddie?”
“Sir…” her voice wobbled, her breath catching on the next inhale.
“Answer me.” A command. Cold, and dark, and hard.
She nodded. As insane as it was, she could feel all of the heat in her skin focusing between her thighs. Her clit was pounding in time with the still throbbing ache of her ass, and while there was no way she could have explained it to anyone, the answer was, “Yes, sir.”
“Fuck, Maddie…” Thomas’ words were almost a groan, and then the crop landed for the tenth time, forcing her up onto her toes as she shouted, whining as more tears fell.
This hurts. It hurts.
There was a buzzing in her head, a delirium that was mercifully dulling the edges of the lingering pain.
“How’s my girl doing?” he asked, stepping around to lift her head up and push back her hair. It took a minute for him to brush it off her damp cheeks, his thumbs running over her skin. Beneath the hazy green-brown of his eyes was a veritable forest fire, an intensity that stole the last of her breath. “You are so beautiful like this, you know that?”
Slowly, she shook her head. Her nose was trying to run from the crying, and it had to be as red as her cheeks at this point. With her luck, her mascara and eyeliner had probably smeared into raccoon eyes – and Thomas Hathaway was calling her beautiful? Impossible.
A smile crept over his face, and then he kissed her fiercely, one hand shifting to tangle in her hair and pull, holding her lips in place as tiny sparks raced across her scalp. His tongue clashed with hers, fierce and hot, and he was breathing as hard as she was when he broke away. “Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Can you take more?”
There was no doubt inside her that he would stop if she said no, that he would take her off the cross and do all kinds of wonderful things if she just refused. Her body was a conflicting swarm of messages, urging her to end it, and begging her to continue. Questioning her sanity at staying tethered to the wood, and rewarding her for holding on with a tingling rush that flooded over her skin in a shiver. As she stared into his hazel eyes again, she knew one thing for sure – she hadn’t lied – she trusted him. “Yes, sir. I can take the last set.”
He groaned and kissed her again, nipping at her lip and tightening his fist in her hair until pinpoints of electricity burst into life and rushed across her body to nestle between her thighs. His voice purred against her lips when he spoke, “I’m going to make you scream.”
Maddie was dizzy with arousal, and that buzzing hum in her veins was getting stronger, but it was his words that left her breathless.
Stepping back, Thomas kept his eyes on her as he unbuttoned his shirt. The fabric slid from his shoulders, and he dropped it on the floor. His undershirt came off next and she had to swallow to keep herself from staring. Lean, muscular lines, with a hint of the abs under his skin. Strong arms, a hint of dark hair scattered across his chest and another line leading down from his belly button to where his belt stopped her eyes. None of that hopped-up-on-steroids, vein-bulging insanity – just real, and incredibly sexy. “How late were you to dinner tonight, beautiful?”
It took a mental shake to get her to focus enough to answer. “Four minutes, sir.”
“Then, I think you deserve one for each minute you were late.” His fingers wrapped around a thin, long wooden thing that had been lying on the floor. “And one more to help you remember how important it is to be on time.”
“What –” is that? The question evaporated as she stared at him. Asking would reveal just how uneducated she was, but whatever it was… it looked like it was going to hurt. A lot.
“You’ll take five as your punishment, and then you’ll be forgiven. Think you can handle it?”
No. “Yes, sir.”
“You’re incredible.” A smile tugged at the edge of his lips as he walked behind her, holding the wooden implement down at his side.
She tried to breathe, tried to prepare, but the first swish of the wood cutting the air made her tense. It landed evenly across both cheeks, and for a heartbeat there was nothing, and then she screamed. Pain, worse than anything she could remember, rushed out from the thin line of fire. Red surged to the tip of her tongue, pleading with her lips to shape the word. Instead, she bit down and whined as the torment slowly receded into a pulsing ache.
Thomas waited longer than he had between any of the other things he’d used, but then the soft whisper of it moving again filled her ears. Strike. One, two…
Maddie sobbed as her body caught up to the impact, failing to hold in the sounds as the burn enveloped her and she twisted in the restraints. This mark was just below the first, and every synapse in her brain was focused on it, her mind pulling the proverbial fire alarm. Urging her to run, fight, flee. Words were leaving her lips, pleas and desperate requests for him to stop, but he stayed silent somewhere behind her. The flickering light of the false torch made the wall in front of her eyes dance through the haze of tears as she tried to calm herself.
It would just take one word.
The little voice in her mind sounded like him. It had the same purr, the same low rumble that caught her attention, and she knew it was what he was waiting for. It was why he was quiet and still behind her – he expected her to use the safe word.
With a strength she hadn’t been aware of, Maddie pressed her heels into the floor and clenched her fists tight until the distant sting of her nails digging into her palms competed against the echo of the last strike. Thomas was closer when he spoke again, “Are you ready to continue?”
Unable to make her vocal chords form the yes, she simply nodded and braced. Another quiet swish, another bolt of agony, but she clenched her teeth tight against the scream. The pain crested, and ebbed, as she whined behind closed lips. A brief lull of peace followed, her body shivering, and then the fourth landed at her sit spot. Maddie’s legs buckled for an instant as the torturous thing struck, pulling her wrists hard against the cuffs, but she was restrained too well to the cross to actually fall.
Had she screamed?
The raw feeling in her throat suggested she had, but there was a humming edge inside her, the glistening horizon of that thing he called subspace – the same thing he’d forbidden her from at the onset – and she wanted it. It was quite possible she was crazy, more than a little realistic to imagine some deep place in her was damaged in some way
, but the thrum in her veins was a call she couldn’t ignore. All of the darkness his wicked words promised, the strange pull she felt whenever she was around him, it all beckoned her to hold on. To wait just a little more.
Just one more.
Soft steps across the hard floor buzzed in her ears, as if she could sense his presence even though she couldn’t see him. In her mind she tracked him, pacing to a place on her right where she could see him if she just looked – and then moving back to her left. The sensation of his eyes over her skin felt like a heated touch.
He stilled and she froze, air held in her lungs, sealed behind her lips as the object cut towards her again. Her breath exploded on a wail, but as she cried out she was already falling through something indescribable. Pain on the surface, pure and impossible, and then just beneath it – a warm rush. A promise fulfilled. The ache fled her consciousness even faster this time, leaving behind just the memory of it. The dulled surprise that she had done it.
Five.
Forgiven.
Swimming. That was what her head felt like, swooshy and fuzzy, but not quite gone. Not back to that place from before, from the first time.
“Maddie.” Thomas’ voice was a light at the surface, calling her back to a place she didn’t want to rise to. Not yet.
There was so much more to see in the dark. She was almost there.
“One more.” It was barely a whisper, but it hung between them like a tangible thing. A wicked and dangerous request, gleaming in the darkness she was sinking into.
He was pacing again, quiet footfalls, the shuffle of his shoes across the floor. The debate as much in him as it was in her own head, but then she heard the low hiss of it, felt the blinding burst of pain – but the wash of delirium that flooded in to wash it away was worth it. Static tingles, a sweet buzzing inside her head that pushed away everything else and left her limp against the cross. A clatter of something falling met her ears just before his bare skin pressed against her back, one arm slipping around her waist to support her, but she was beyond caring about the cuffs biting into her skin. His fingers brushed over the welts, raised and tender, and then he squeezed, waking up the pain to make her whimper and arch against him.
Black Light: Exposed (Black Light Series Book 2) Page 10