“Punishment, Valentina.” I let her name roll over my tongue, loving the sound of it. Such a pretty name. Valens. Strong. It suits her.
She twists in her constraints. “I didn’t do it on purpose.”
I reach up from behind, grabbing her arms to still her. “I know.”
She stops struggling, and her body freezes. “Then why are you doing it?”
I sweep her silky hair over her shoulder and brush my lips down the curve of her neck.
“Because I get off on this.” Another layer of truth.
A sob tears from her throat. “Please.”
My cock twitches. There’s begging in that word, but also acceptance. She knows there’s no turning back. Even if there weren’t Sylvia’s expectations or my mother’s threat, I can’t stop myself. Not anymore.
I kiss the shell of her ear.
“Gabriel…”
She should call me sir or Mr. Louw, but the sound of my name on her lips is a treat I’m not going to deny myself. Already battling to carry her weight, she tips back. I catch her around her waist. My hands dip under the hem of her nightgown, gliding up her soft thighs. Hooking my thumbs into the elastic of her underwear, I pull it down over her hips and calves, leaving it around her ankles.
She shivers under my palms, but wisely doesn’t speak. There’s nothing she can say to stop this. When I step away, her body sways backward. Like a ballerina, she dances on her toes to regain her balance. A cry leaves her lips when I grip the collar of the nightgown and rip it down the middle. The fabric hangs loosely down her body, giving me a glimpse of her smooth back and the curve of her ass, but I’m greedy. To save time, I use one of the combat knives from the weapon counter, cutting open the arms to free her from the constraining clothing.
I step back to admire the view. Fucking hell. Restrained, with only her panties around her ankles, she’s an erotic image that will haunt my dreams. Her frame is a flowing portrait of Slines, from the slender curve of her neck to the sides of her plump breasts and the narrow diameter of her waist to the swell of her hips and the rise of her firm ass. My eyes follow the trail of her legs from her quivering thighs to the dip of her knees and from the gentle expand of her calves to where they taper to her delicate ankles. My fingers ache to bury themselves in the cheeks of her buttocks and in the warm, wet depth of her cunt. I expel those thoughts almost violently, knowing I can’t enter her there. For now, I’m content to have her naked and bound, and if I’m honest, I’ll admit this isn’t about retribution or proving to my mother I’m not weak.
This isn’t even about saving Valentina’s life. This is all for me.
I cup her breasts from behind and search the soft sweetness of her skin, dragging my lips down the elegant curve of her neck. “If I don’t do this, Magda will kill you.” She turns her head to the side, away from my caress and voice.
So be it. She won’t defy me much longer. I can never have my fill of looking at her like this, but her arms can only hold her weight so much longer before I risk tearing them from their sockets. I shake my fingers to loosen them and breathe in and out a couple of times to find my control. It’ll be easy to go over the edge with her. Too easy. There’s something about her that shatters every ounce of willpower I possess, a new experience I’m not sure I like.
I loosen my buckle and pull the belt from the loops of my waistband. Only then does she look at me again. Finally, she understands my intention. Her eyes grow large, and her lips part.
“Eyes in front.” I don’t mind seeing her tears or hate, but I don’t want her to see the lust in mine, the darkness that makes me the monster.
Stepping so close I can smell the raspberry fragrance of her skin, I smooth my hand over her ass. When she clenches her muscles, my cock pushes painfully against my zipper. I knead her ass cheeks, playing with the firm softness of her flesh. Parting them, I can glimpse the pretty pucker of her ass. I draw a finger down her crack, teasing the dark entrance before running the tip down to test her pussy. She’s dry. Good. I love the challenge.
I take a step away, widen my feet and find my stance. Drawing my arm back, I practice careful control with my strength, letting the leather collide with her ass hard enough to sting, but not forceful enough to bruise.
Whack.
The red line that welts over her golden skin makes my cock twitch. A drop of pre-cum heats the tip of my shaft.
Whack.
She cries out softly and jerks in her restraints. She’s holding back.
Whack.
“Let me hear you, Valentina.”
Fire simmers with tears in her brown eyes as she glances back at me. “Fuck you.”
“Very well.”
The next lash falls over her thighs, just under the curve of her ass. She squirms and whimpers, grinding her teeth so hard I can hear it. The next smack is gentler, aimed higher to heat her pussy.
Her cry comes involuntarily. She tenses up as the sound escapes. I let the lashes go higher, leaving a crisscross pattern over her back and shoulders. Allowing the tip of the leather to fold around the sides of her breasts, I keep well away from her nipples. My lashes are not hard enough to draw blood or break skin, but before long she’s grappling for air, moving as far away as the position allows, which isn’t much. I let the belt curl around her waist, letting her feel the bite on her stomach, and move back down to her ass and thighs.
I give her a break to catch her breath, using the time to free her underwear, spread her legs, and tie each ankle to a cuff on a chain extending from the wall. She can move her legs forward or backward, but she can’t close them.
I walk around to face her. Grabbing her jaw, I kiss her hard. She’s crying into my mouth, her lips defenseless as I sweep my tongue over hers, devouring her like a starving man. Forcing myself to pull away, I steal a last, chaste kiss before taking my place behind her again.
“Ready?”
I test my strength by swinging the leather under the curve of her ass. When her golden skin is left unmarred, I twist the belt one more time around my hand, leaving a shorter bit at the end, and let a succession of soft but fast swats rain between her legs, aiming the leather to heat both her labia and clit. She fights it at first, flinging her head back, and pushing her breasts forward. “Let me hear you.”
I don’t stop until she finally breaks for me with a scream. The breath she’s been holding escapes, allowing her shoulders to rise and fall with violent sobs. At her surrender, I cast the belt aside and grab her to my body.
I want her. I want her so fucking bad I can’t think. For all of my intentions to be gentle, I can’t help the rough way my fingers feel between her legs. A groan is trapped in my chest when I find her wet. I need to be inside her. Now.
My hands shake as I undo my pants and let them fall to my ankles to free my cock. My shaft aches with need, the root pulsing as I grab it in my fist and guide it to Valentina’s wet pussy. Bending my knees, I spear through her thighs and drag the head of my cock through her folds. I shiver in anticipation as her moisture slickens me, and the heat emanating from her core invites me deeper. Driven by primal hunger, I place the sensitive head against her opening. My only instinct is to impale her, to take her as deep as I can, but it’s her frightened whimper that pulls me back from my dark lust.
Barely holding onto reason, I coat my dick in more of her arousal before slipping free from between her legs. I’m too far gone to back off completely, and as much for my sanity as her chastity, I carefully open her ass cheeks, and wedge my slick cock between them.
“Please,” she begs, arching her back away from me.
My voice is guttural. I don’t recognize the sound. “Relax. I won’t fuck you.”
She stills at that, but only until I start gliding up and down, folding her ass cheeks around my cock with my palms. I have to push her body against the wall in front for leverage. When I move faster, she starts squirming in all earnest, twisting to the left and right.
“Keep still,” I hiss, “or I’ll a
ccidently penetrate your asshole.”
Again, she goes slack, allowing me to find my release by grinding my cock up and down the crack of her welted ass. I find her breasts and hold her to me as I come, shooting my seed up her spine, the hotness of my release dripping down between our bodies. When there’s nothing left to give, I let go, stumbling back a step to look at her. She’s marked with the imprint of my belt, and my sperm running between her ass cheeks over her pussy and down her thighs. Intense satisfaction surges inside of me, overriding even the physical high of ejaculating on her skin. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve seen, and that fucking scares me.
Coming to my senses, I pull up my pants and unlock the cuffs around her ankles. I loosen the rope from the hook on the wall, releasing her arms. Valentina falls backward, but before she hits the floor, I catch her around the waist and use the same knife I used to cut off her clothes to cut through the rope around her wrists. She’s crying and shaking, her body limp in my arms. I use her nightgown to wipe her back and between her legs, getting rid of most of the semen, and then I pick her up in my arms and carry her to her room.
Placing her inside the bath, I run a cool shower and sponge her down. She doesn’t object to anything. Her pretty eyes are closed, but tears are leaking from under her long lashes, and I have to look away. I find them way too appealing. She’s like a ragdoll in my arms when I towel her dry, taking care not to press on the marks of my belt. They’ll be gone in a day, but she’ll hate me much longer. No marks will be left on her body, but not everyone carries their scars on the outside.
I put her to bed on her stomach, naked, and don’t pull the sheet over her. She’ll want nothing to touch her skin for a while. Going down on my knees between her legs, I make her come with my mouth until she begs me to stop. Through her begging, I wring one more orgasm from her before I’m satisfied. Then I get onto the bed next to her and pull her onto my chest so that she’s stretched out on top of me. I kiss her head and stroke her hair, holding her until her breathing takes on the even rhythm of sleep.
It’s after midnight. Magda will be home any minute. Valentina doesn’t wake up when I ease out from under her. Looking down at her slender back marred with red welts, I’m filled with the devastating affirmation that I can’t play with a perfect, new toy without breaking it.
* * *
I wait in my study for Magda to return. I prefer to relay tonight’s events to her myself, before she hears the news from Sylvia or Carly. I can still taste Valentina on my lips. Her arousal is a powerful aphrodisiac that twists my balls into rock hard knots and feeds my lust. There’s peace in knowing I own her pleasure and discord in not being able to take her. Until she’s no longer a virgin, I can’t bury my cock in her soft body, and I want nothing more than to train her to come with my dick until she gets wet from the mere sight of me. It takes everything I have not to go back to her room and fuck her raw. I drag my tongue over my bottom lip. Savoring Valentina’s womanly scent one last time, I pour a drink and down the liquor, drowning the perfume of her skin in alcohol.
Magda is pissed as hell when I give her a brief summary of how the night turned out. It’s when I assure her Valentina’s been punished, and she watches the video feed of Carly asking for a coconut cake that she calms.
“You have work with Carly,” she says. “That girl has issues.” “I know.” I rub my eyes.
“Do something about it, before it becomes a disaster we can’t fix.” She walks from my study without saying goodnight.
I touch the photo of Carly on my desk, having plenty of questions and no answers.
* * *
Valentina
It feels like Gabriel took something from me. I knew he was dangerous, but I had no idea how dark he is. What Tiny did to me was almost more bearable, because it never turned me on. What Gabriel did to me last night made me wet, and that makes me sick. I, of all people, should be disgusted by the violence. It wasn’t the lashes on my back. It was the intense rhythm of the leather between my legs. I both resented and appreciated that he took care of me––both emotionally and sexually––afterward. It was something I needed desperately, and I hate myself for it.
Wanting to hear a kind, safe voice, I call Kris before she’s due at the practice, and speak to
Charlie, who sounds as happy as only Charlie can be. It soothes me enough to get me through my Friday morning chores. My body is sensitive from Gabriel’s lashing, and each brush of the rough linen of my dress is abrasive on my skin. Carly is at home today, skipping school to recover, and I do my best not to run into her. I only clean her room when she’s outside by the pool.
Marie avoids my eyes. If she knows about last night, she doesn’t say so. She comes looking for me in the entrance where I’m mopping and fixes her gaze on a spot behind me. “Mr.
Louw says the towels in the gym needs washing.” “Okay.” I mop past her feet.
“You must take clean ones. Now.”
She leaves stiffly, hiding her discomfort behind her brusque manner.
I fetch a clean pile of towels from the linen closet and make my way down the hallway. As I descend the stairs to the gym, my stomach clenches, and my throat closes up. Forcing my feet to move forward, I stop abruptly when the door opens, and Rhett exits, blood all over his naked chest. He’s pressing his palm to his nose, his head turned up, and almost bumps into me before I have time to jump out of the way. The reason for the blood seems to be a broken nose. The bridge is swollen and the cartilage askew. His right eye sports a shiner, and the skin on his cheekbone is split. When he notices me, he glares and pushes past, making for the stairs. I’m still staring after him when Gabriel walks through the door dressed only in sweatpants and clutching the ends of a towel draped around his neck. His face and chest glistens with perspiration.
My face flushes at the memory of last night, and my mouth goes dry. Where I come from, I’ve seen a lot of gangsters who pump iron in the gym all day, but no one as hard or perfectly cut as Gabriel. His upper arms are the size of my waist. Deep lines define his pecs and abs. A trail of dark hair starts beneath his navel and disappears under the pants, the V of his hips cutting sharply down to his groin. It’s not the beauty of his body that renders me speechless, but the power of it. Even with his disability, he stuffed Rhett up badly, and Rhett is a hulk. As he advances, I stand there like an idiot with the towels in my arms, not having words.
A smile flirts with his lips. “Training,” he says with a shrug, grabbing one of the clean towels off the pile to wipe his face. He gives me his intense stare, searching my face. “How are you?”
“Fine.”
“Good.” Dumping the towel in the basket by the door, he limps away.
It’s the first time I see him in anything but a dress shirt and suit pants. The broadness of his shoulders and the tightness of his ass don’t surprise me as much as the way the sight of him, half naked, makes my womb flutter. I can’t feel desire for a man who tortured me. It will make me as twisted as him. It will drag me down to a place I won’t be able to come back from.
Angry at my unwelcome reaction, I enter the gym and pack the clean towels on the shelf before picking the dirty ones off the floor. I take my time to do what I haven’t done last night––take stock of the room. There’s a section with free weights in the corner and a small bathroom off to one side. Judging by the metal rings bolted to the ceiling and the hooks fitted on the walls, this is where Gabriel tortures his enemies. A chill fills my veins, and I’m not able to look any longer.
I rush back upstairs, banishing my memories of last night to the depths of the gym. In the lounge, I run into Carly.
She props a hand on her hip. “Hey, Valentina.”
I can’t ignore her without being rude. “How are you feeling?”
She cocks a shoulder. “I’ll be fine.”
“Why did you do it?”
“To get you fired.”
I don’t know if she knows what her dad does for a living, but if she doesn’t, it
’s not my place to disillusion her. I can’t tell her I’m here against my will, especially not after Magda’s threat to kill Charlie and me for one wrong word. All I can ask is, “Why?”
“I saw the way my father looked at you at dinner.”
“What way?”
“A way he never looked at my mom. It’s the money, isn’t it?” She gives me a wry smile.
“It’s always the money. Well, plenty of others before you tried, and it always ends the same way. He won’t marry you, and you won’t get a cent, so save us all the trouble and pack your bags now.”
“Yes, it’s the money, but not how you think. I can’t give up this job, even if I want to.”
“You don’t belong here. I want you gone.”
“So badly that you’ll endanger your life?” I ask with a note of anger.
“Oh, come on. Why are you so upset? It didn’t work, did it? You’re still here.”
“I have every reason to be upset. What you did was foolish and irresponsible.”
“What’s your problem? You’re acting like you’re the one who almost died.”
“My problem is that if you had died, I would’ve carried your death on my conscience for the rest of my life. Have you considered that?”
“Who do you think you are to speak to me like this?”
“Is it the attention? Is that the only way you can get your parents to show you they care?”
She draws back her arm and lashes out. Her palm connects with my cheek, leaving a burning sting. “You know nothing about me.”
In that moment, her guard is down, and a vulnerable part peeks out from under her bitchy veneer.
I cup my cheek, pressing a cool palm on my heated skin. The fight goes out of me as I only feel pity for the poor, rich girl who, underneath it all, is just a girl.
I sigh. “Listen to me, Carly. You’re young, beautiful, privileged, and healthy. You have your whole future ahead of you. You can have anything you want. It’s more than most people get. Don’t waste it. Even if you don’t see it now, your parents would’ve been devastated if anything happened to you, and I would never have forgiven myself.”
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