Page 172 of Breathe Like Hell

But he didn’t.

“Wait here,” he instructed, his tone switching back to the one he’d been using before. The professor tone that made me wet and pathetic. “Hold the edge of the desk. Don’t move your hands while I’m gone or I’ll be angry.”

I curled my fingers around the carved wood, my heart hammering a frantic beat against ribcage.

Break me, make me yours.

He disappeared and I heard his footsteps upstairs after a minute, then descending the stairs and coming back down the hallway to where I was bent over in his office. He was holding a bundle of his favorite black rope.

“Stand up.”

I obeyed, staring up at him. He turned me to face away from him, then began to work on tying my wrists together behind my back. Once the rope was secure, he carefully bent me forward again.

The slide of the belt off the desk and into his hand made me shiver.

I was nervous. Really fucking nervous.

But my desires were bigger than my nerves.

“I’ll do one, to start. Stay as you are.”

I nodded.

He barely gave me any time to prepare before the belt came down hard, branding a stripe of white hot heat across my skin.

My entire body tightened, my nails pressing into my palms, my eyes squeezing shut.

A choked noise escaped my lips, something wounded and desperate. The sting was fading slowly as Micah stood silent and motionless behind me, the heat dissipating, my muscles relaxing.

“Can you handle that?”

“Yes.”

“Can you handle a lot of that?”

I paused. “I think so.” It doesn’t matter if I can, it only matters that I want to, and I will.

“You’ll tell me if you need to stop.”

“Yes,” I affirmed, knowing I’d never tell him to stop.

Even though he didn’t respond again, I knew he was thinking the same. He knew I’d never stop him, never end this. My instinct for self-preservation had never been very strong.

I waited quietly as Micah ran the belt over his palm, the whisper of leather sending a wave of goosebumps over my skin. He folded it in half, gripping the end with the buckle, and then he hit me again.

I cried out, my spine twisting.

The belt landed on the back of my thighs next, harder than before, making me bite my tongue to keep quiet.

That type of pain was enough to wipe away everything else, to do nothing other than draw me closer and closer to him, all my trust spun into threads that pulled us together. And he didn’t stop. The hits kept coming.

Again.

Maybe this was Micah’s version of water. If Mason could force me into a new headspace underwater, Micah could do it with pain.

He hurt me like a ritual, a prayer, a promise.

My blood came up to kiss the inside of my skin while his leather kissed the outside.