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I expect her to fight me and she does, at first.
She fights like a hellcat.
But then, after three more strokes, she lays there and takes it. Resigns herself to it, maybe, hands fisted, body tense. I still have to keep my knee on her back—she’s not that still—but I expect more of a fight from her. Hell, from anyone.
And I don’t take it easy on her. The more strokes I lay down, the less she fights, the more I know she’s in real trouble. What in hell could be so awful that she’d rather take a whipping than tell me?
But then the act itself takes over. That sound of leather on flesh, that look of her reddening ass as each stroke is met with a breathless scream as if the belt were forcing the air from her lungs.
Fuck, I know it’s wrong, but my cock is hard.
After two dozen, she’s got her face buried in the blankets and she’s fisting handfuls of it sobbing so loud, I’m sure Axel, who’s waiting outside, can hear. Hell, the entire neighborhood must hear.
“Enough?” I ask her.
She won’t look at me, but she nods, and I hear her sniffle.
I move my knee from her back, adjust my dick because now is not the time. I watch her slide to her knees on the floor, hands first cupping her ass, then covering her face. She’s hiding herself from me as her shoulders shudder with her sobs.
I weave my belt through the loops of my pants and watch her, then crouch down, take her hands away from her face and make her look at me.
“Let me help you, Melissa. I want to help you.”
“Go to hell!” she yells, hands on my face, clawing me.
I grip her wrists, pry her off of me and hold her like that, watch her in her rage, in her pain. I want to shake her. To make her talk.
It takes everything I have to let her go. To stand. To look at her like this. Down on her knees, punished. Sobbing.
It takes everything I have to turn away.
And I’m about to go, to walk out, when there on the bed I see her bracelet. She hasn’t noticed it’s broken off yet and I don’t tell her. Instead, I take it and shove it into my pocket.
“Get yourself together. You have three minutes to be outside,” I say, and force myself to walk out that door.
19
Melissa
I don’t know if I’m glad or upset that he’s already gone when I get outside.
I took longer than the three minutes he allotted me. Hell, it took me twice that to get up off the floor, to stop crying. And still, every few minutes, I suck in a breath and my entire body shudders.
Axel—I guess Hawk’s making sure there aren’t any more fuck-ups—glances at me indifferently in the rear-view mirror.
Did he hear, I wonder?
Does he know what just happened?
Heat burns my face. I’m humiliated and hurt, and everything is falling apart.
And Hawk’s too close. Too close to finding out everything. And being here, as much as I’m safest from Sean, if Hawk finds out, I don’t know what I’ll do.
When we get to the casino, I’m relieved that Axel just walks me to the elevator and barely looks at me as we ride up in awkward silence. Only once we’re inside the penthouse does he speak.
“You’ll stay here until Hawk’s back. The elevator will be locked. If you need something, you dial the lobby. They’ll help you.”
“Where is he?” I ask, my voice so small, and my face, I feel it twisting again. I don’t want to cry, not in front of him. I don’t want to be so pathetic.
Axel studies me, really studies me and he looks like he wants to say something.
All I want to do right now is disappear. I want for him to leave and for me to go into the bedroom and lock the door and sleep under the covers, buried beneath them. Sleep and forget. Just please God for a little bit, let me forget.
“Questions?” he finally asks.
I shake my head and before he’s gone, I’ve already turned and am going into the bedroom.
There’s no lock on the door. I never noticed that before. Only the bathroom door has one. But I’m too tired to do anything other than crawl into the bed. His bed.
I’m so, so tired.
I push the button to darken the glass to black. But before I can go to sleep, I remember Deirdre. She’s expecting me to return. I get my phone from my bag and send her a text telling her I won’t be back and to close up early.
That’s when I realize my bracelet is missing.
Panicked, I look around, but then I remember. I remember during my whipping that it caught on the blankets. I remember when it snapped but I forgot all about it. I forgot to get it.
