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Thwack-thwack, thwack-thwack, thwack-thwack.A slow forehand-backhand rhythm she'd often used herself lifted the blood beneath her skin. Back and forth, back and forth, working slowly from her shoulders down to her butt and thighs. Keeping her eyes shut, she moaned and felt her body sway in time with the beat. Thwack-thwack, left-right.
“Good girl, little sub. Just relax.”
The flogger flicked against her thighs one last time, then immediately started back on her shoulders. Faster this time, a rapid thwack-thwack-thwack, with all three strikes landing in the same spot before hopping down a couple of inches and striking again with thwack-thwack-thwack. Harder with this set, more wrist action behind the punch of leather on her skin.
Her hands jerked uselessly against the restraints.
Over and over again, Atticus worked the flogger from shoulders to thighs, upping the force even as he changed the rhythm. He said nothing as the flogger swung, but every time he began a new set, he told her she was a good girl.
Goddamn him, he was starting to widen the chink in her armor. Her arms were aching from fighting the cuffs and chains, and her chest was growing tighter with each rapid breath. She hadn't dared to open her eyes yet, because tears were building behind them.
She braced for his, “Good girl,” when the leather strands stung the backs of her legs, but none came. On edge, she waited, trembling viciously, and cried out when his hand cupped her from behind.
“Give me something, Connie. It's only gonna get harder from here, and this sweet cunt is wet and wanting. You're fighting me, fighting submission, and those fucking band aids you've slapped on all these wounds are going to hurt when we rip them off.”
She dug her fingernails into her thighs and used the pain to try and bind the gaping hole in her chest. The one he kept prying open further and further. She was stronger than this; the locks on her inner vault could withstand any—
Heavy leather knots rained down on her shoulders like a vicious hailstorm, sucking the air from her lungs and leaving her gasping. Barely a second passed before another volley pattered down on her butt. A third blow made her eyes pop open on a hollow scream, and she met Atticus's satisfied gaze in the mirror he’d uncovered.
“Oh, you sneaky bastard!” she shouted, flinching as the knots pummeled her shoulders again. All the effort she'd put into rebuilding herself fell away, leaving her core exposed. The emotions she was clinging to so frantically pulsed, framed in the edges of the open wound like a heart. “Stop. Please, stop.”
He said nothing, his eyes never straying from hers in the mirror as his arm showered her with penance. She surrendered to the pain, letting the first tears fall as she understood what the lashes represented. Her failure to heal Alicia. Her inability to deal with her own stress and anxiety. Her lack of strength, her grief, her depression. The knots each carried a weight, and that weight became a punishing force of nature thudding mercilessly into her flesh, over and over.
Pounding her failures and mistakes into her until she broke with a wild, keening sound of utter despair.
Unable to cover her face with her hands, Connie hung her head and accepted every strike from each frond without struggling. Tears dripped, her vision blurring, but she made herself stand there. Made herself take the blows without stepping away, and told herself she deserved every single one.
Her knees burned as they hit the carpet, and she fell forward without her hands to break her fall. With the floor rushing up to meet her face, she found she didn't care. Her heart was bleeding from the pressure of the secrets she cradled close, her body was numb and in ruins. The dominance she relied on was in pieces around her, like a vase dropped from a great height.
An arm hooked beneath her breasts and curled tight, hauling her up against a hot, hard chest. She didn't want comfort. She didn't want saving. Thrashing weakly, she howled. Submission wasn't her gift to give anymore. Something she'd once loved doing was now a nightmare she tried her best to avoid, and it was a weapon being used against her.
Just like it had before.
Only, instead of harming her, Atticus was using it to help.
“That's it, Con. This is the tip of the iceberg, sweetheart. That fucker's gonna sink you to the bottom of the Atlantic if you let it.” He held on to her effortlessly as her struggles increased, refusing to allow her to fight free. His big hand grasped her throat, stabilizing her head and neck. “Take a good look in the mirror, little sub. Look at what repressing your life does to you.”
The image reflected back at her was blurred with tears, but Connie hated it anyway. She was on her knees, her body open to the mirror. Her full breasts were pushed higher by the tanned forearm beneath them, her skin and his markedly different in tones. The woman staring miserably back at her was breathing too hard, too fast, and sweat gleamed in the low lights.
Her face was pale, drawn, with eyes haunted and sunken. Red-rimmed and lined with tears. Her hair was a riotous mess, obeying the laws of no man. By the look of her, this woman was done floundering in icy seas, and was ready to release her frozen grip on her lifeline. To drift down in the black water, down beneath the surface. Just…down.
But the man kneeling behind her wore an expression of grim determination. He straddled her legs, caging hers with his own and towering over her. His eyes were fierce on hers in the shiny mirror, the shadows in the green hiding most of his thoughts. “Look at what denying who you are does to the soul.”
“Master Atticus,” she whispered, her tongue feeling thick and clumsy in her mouth. “Please…I don't want—”
“Look,” he insisted, giving her a slight shake. “Give me a secret, Connie. Give me a secret from your past and we can start chipping away at the iceberg.”
Trapped at every turn. No matter which way she moved, Atticus was there. Guiding her back into the storm instead of out of it. She closed her eyes to the failure in her line of sight, blocked the image of the big, broad Dom supporting the massive mess she'd become. “You already know everything, don't you. You can access everything…and everyone.”
“Don't assume what I do and don't know, little sub. That isn't important. What isimportant right now is that you tell me, in your own words, something that is making your existence teeter towards destruction. I can sit here all night with you, sweetheart. All day tomorrow too, if that's what it takes. Hell, I can rip a page from Jasper's book and bring welts to your ass with the cane, if that's what you need to loosen your tongue.”
“I hate you.”
“No, little sub. Try again.” He propped his chin on the crown of her head and sighed. “Tell me how it feels to carry the weight of everyone's problems on these shoulders. Braun and Bodie, Jasper and Anarchy…they share their pain with you, and you give them relief, but who lifts that burden off your hands?”
Utterly defeated, she went limp. “No one.”
“Because you won't let anyone help.” Atticus kissed her cheek, then clambered to his feet. The lack of thudding on the carpet told her he'd slipped his boots off at some point. Lifting her off her knees, he scooped her up and laid her out on the bed, her lower legs dangling off the edge. “I want to see your eyes, Connie.”
