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I stare up at him through wide eyes, but I can’t find my voice to say no. I should. There are a million reasons I shouldn’t allow him to do this to me, and the scars he’ll find are only the beginning of them, but for some reason I can’t help but nod. Something in his eyes tells me he needs this, and maybe I do too.
18
Everett
Even as I watch Wynter strip for me, I know there’s a reason she turned white as a ghost the first time I mentioned her punishment. Her hands are shaking, her entire body trembling as she pulls the knit sweater dress from her body, followed closely by the knee-high boots and stockings until she’s in nothing but a black lace bra and matching panties that barely cover her pussy.
Her eyes meet mine and the fear behind the ice blue makes my stomach lurch. She’s scared of me.
“Come here.” I motion toward the edge of the bed where I’m perched and she comes to me immediately, not hesitating for even a second. The moment she’s within arm’s length, I tug her until she’s perched on my lap. “You’re afraid.”
Wynter lets out a shaky breath before nodding once, her eyes looking anywhere but me.
“I would never do anything that would really hurt you, dove. I just want to make sure you think twice the next time you think about running away from your security in the middle of a war.” I wrap my arms around her waist and hold her close to me. The way her body shivers under my touch worries me. Is there something she isn’t telling me? “If this is too much for you and you can’t handle it, I want you to tell me straight away, okay? It’s meant to hurt but not so much so you can’t stand it.”
“I know,” she whispers.
“What do you mean, you know?” I gently pull her face around to meet mine.
“This isn’t my first punishment.”
I stare at her for long moments as I try to wrap my head around those words. How can that be the case? I’ve tracked her for every moment of every day for the last eight years, there is no way she had someone punishing her and I didn’t know about it. But the way her lip wobbles under my gaze, tells me she’s telling the truth. “What aren’t you telling me, Wynter?”
“You’ll see.” Her eyes drop from mine as she tries to climb from my lap, but I tighten my hold on her. “Everett, just let me show you,” she whispers, her voice breaking under the weight of the words.
I hold on to her for another moment before finally allowing her to climb off my lap. For some reason the moment feels charged and as she slips her panties down her legs and reaches back to unclip her bra, I can’t help but stare at her perfect body.
It’s not until she bends over the edge of the bed that I see what she was talking about. White and silver lines cover the soft skin of her ass and the top of her thighs, unmistakable marks that must have been made with a belt. The air leaves my lungs as my legs shake beneath me so violently I almost lose them from beneath me.
“Wynter…” I can’t find the words to ask the question I need to ask. I scramble to put the pieces together, to understand how this could have happened if I never had my eyes off her, but I come up short every time.
Her body shakes as a gentle sob racks through it. Her quiet cries mingle with the sound of my racing heart. I reach out to brush my fingers over the scars smattered across her backside but she flinches under my touch, something that’s never happened before.
“You’ve been punished before,” I say. It’s not a question, more so repeating the words she spoke not too long ago.
“Yes.” Wynter chokes on the word and I almost pull her back into my arms. Almost.
“When did this happen?”
“When I was at college.”
“What were you being punished for?” I should be asking who did this, but the chances of her telling me seem so slim that I decide to make it one of the last questions I’m going to ask.
Wynter barely manages to keep her feet beneath her as another violent sob threatens to pull her over. “Does it matter?”
I take a deep breath to push down the thunder raging through my veins and move back to where I was perched on the edge of the bed before, quickly bundling Wynter in my arms until she’s cradled against my chest. The anger trying to break through the surface is only magnified by how upset she is.
“Of course it matters, dove. Someone hurt you and I want to know why.” I brush my fingers down her back gently, hoping it will soothe the onslaught of tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Stop,” she whispers, pressing her hands into my chest in an attempt to get away. “Now you can see I’m used up goods, just let me go.”
It’s long moments before I process her words enough to understand the meaning behind them. Used up goods. Wynter is a lot of things, but she’ll never be that. She could have fucked every guy in Chicago in the last eight years but she’d always be mine. “You are not used goods, Wynter. Why the fuck would you say that?” I growl. Barely controlled violent rage simmers under the surface, but I channel it all into making sure she’s okay.
“Because that’s what he said,” Wynter sobs, burying her face into my chest as hot tears roll down her cheeks.
Seeing her cry has always been the hardest thing for me. When she was a teenager and broke her ankle right before a big ballet recital, I held her for hours as she sobbed, and every single moment was pure torture for me. A man like me doesn’t usually have a heart, not one that hurts for other people, but mine beats for Wynter, it always has, and it always will.
I take a deep breath to steady my racing heart. “Who said that to you, Wynter?”
