“For the final three,” he said. “That is what you choose?”
I collapsed into the bed, trying to regain my composure. It was only three strikes. I could handle three strikes.
A paddle full of thin blades was different, though. Three. It was all he thought I could take.
After a moment, he readied himself. “You know how to make this stop. ‘Red’ is your safeword.”
I planted my belly on the bed, and looked back over my shoulder. A coldness was in his eyes. There was something else he was facing at that moment, not only me. A ghost from his past.
“One,” he said.Crack!The paddle hit me, feeling like thousands of tiny knives had scraped my skin. I cried out, scratching at the bed around me, pulling at the sheets for something to hold onto. His eyes stared down at me, one hand holding me back, his cock hard against me.
He was hard. Seeing me writhe underneath him. It wasn’t easy to believe that this was the same person who had spread me on top of a desk and pleasured me until I was practically screaming.
I was dripping wet now. I could feel desire falling down my legs, tracing it. Even now, with my ass on fire, and his cold eyes on me.
“Two.”Crack!I writhed again and held the bed, thrashing as hard as I could, because it hurt like hell, like I had no more skin left, but he held me in place. I cried out, the words indecipherable, blinking back the tears, but he didn’t say anything, and I knew the word that could make it stop. But I didn’t want to say it. I wanted to prove that I could take it.
“Three.”Crack!Even knowing thatthiswas it, thatthiswas the end, I still thrashed, revolted, trying to get away.
“Red!” I screamed. “Red!”
Nate’s voice in my ear, the warmth that I was used to, that Ineeded, broke through, but I kept trying to get away. “Hey,” he said. He held me and I kept pushing him off. “Hey. It’s okay. It’s me. It’s over. You made it. You’re safe.” He held me tighter and tighter. I didn’t feel safe. Until finally, I slowed.
It was over.
You made it, he had said.
“Why did I want to do that?” I asked. My voice shook and I couldn’t stop the tears from coming, from pouring out. He was so different like that. Vicious. Cruel. How could he hide that inside of himself? The question I wanted to ask ate away inside of me: How could he do that to me? The words wouldn’t come out.
I wanted to trust him, I did, but fear ate away at me. I had seen the side that they had warned me about. Three strikes to unleash a different side of him. He tipped my chin, and I jerked away until he grabbed my face and forced me to look at him. His gaze enveloped me, holding me still.
“You did it for me,” he said.
