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His hair was brushed back that morning. The tufts above his ears curled, at odds with the rest of his thick, straight rows of ebony. He opted for another outfit from the neutral side of the closet. Light gray sweater and black pants. Behind those thick frames, steely eyes watched me watch him. He was likely used to scrutiny. Gorgeous and a prodigy. People never took their eyes off him.
“That’s how many times you’ve broken the rules.”
“How? You started me at seven.”
“You framed us for murder,” he shot back.
“Fair enough. But still, after you guys went to bed, you couldn’t have expected me to sleep in a bikini in a doghouse. Now that we’re up, I’ll continue playing your humiliation game until you get bored of it.”
“You will tell me why that is,” he said. “Your willingness to play our humiliation game.”
I tugged the pink sheath dress over my head. The lingerie underneath shone stark in its revealing glory.
“Did Jacques buy me shoes too? Show mercy and do not make me wear heels. I grew up on a farm. The only use for them is hammering a tilted post for the goat pen when I’m too far from the toolbox.
“Collar,” he said.
Dutifully, I slipped it around my neck, flicking my name tag against its neighbors. Cairo saw fit to stamp the name of my owners on metal pieces to hang next to mine.
“What’s for breakfast?” I asked.
“Hands and knees. Face the doghouse.”
“Why? What’s this punishment, Jacques?”
“Hands. Knees. Doghouse.”
I was slow to move, so he stepped out from the kitchen.
I didn’t know Jacques. I couldn’t say if the Artic chill that frosted his glasses and put a shiver up my spine whenever he looked at me was an effect he had on everyone, or if it was just me who set him on edge.
“What are you going to do, Jacques?” I whispered.
The first real smile curled his lips. “Reason dictates you’ll soon find out.”
Swallowing hard, I dropped to my hands and knees and crawled to the doghouse.
A metal ring was screwed in the wall by the entrance. Jacques looped the leash through my collar and secured it to the ring. I wasn’t going anywhere.
I quivered as his shadow fell over me. I had a sense of Cairo and what made him tick. Jacques, on the other hand, was a silent unknown, counting down to a punishment I didn’t know if I could handle.
I tried to hold on to my resolution as metal clinked behind me. The Bedlam Boys choose my punishment. They hold me to the fire so I can breathe again. I can handle what they throw at me, but maybe it’s okay if some things I can’t.
“Stone, if you’re trying to torture me with anticipation—”
Thwap!
Stinging pain erupted from my left cheek.
I jerked, crying out, then choked on it as the right lit on fire to match.
“Two,” said Jacques.
I twisted to see the leather belt fall. I shrieked over the sound of flesh on flesh.
“Three.”
Oh no, please don’t let him be counting to thirteen.
He belted me again.
“Ah,” I cried. “Jacques, no, p-please, don’t—”
Thwap!
“Five.”
I clenched my teeth, viciously penning in a whimper. It burst out with the next hit.
“Six,” he purred. “What are the rules, de Souza?”
“I— I don’t remember.”
Thwap!
I spasmed—rocked by a burst of heat in my core. I felt my folds slickening, and in this getup, Jacques would see everything.
“Seven. What are the rules?”
“I don’t fucking remember!”
Thwap!
“Oh, Jacques. Holy shit,” I breathed.
Thwap!
My back arched. Trapped by my collar, it held me fast, branding its possession in the marks left on my neck.
“Tell me the rules,” Jacques said. He ripped my thong off, tossing the fabric on my back. I whined at his belt pressed to my pussy—the leather sliding over the wet, engorged flesh. “Now. You won’t like it if I ask again.”
I searched my mind for the speech he gave that day in Cairo’s room. I lost most of it around his statement that everyone on this planet was cattle.
What did he say?
“No... disrespect.”
Thwap!
“Jacques, please—”
“I still haven’t given you permission to use my name. That’s fourteen.”
I bit my lip, both so frustrated and sore I could cry, and so turned on I might explode with the next hit.
“No talking back,” I rasped. “No—”
The conversation came back to me. I glared in his eyes, and slowly, pointedly, trailed down to the bulge straining his zipper. “No false bravado unless I want my bluff called,” I said. “But what’s the rule on calling yours? I remember a certain cattle wrangler saying he had no interest in my body.”
“This isn’t sex, Rainey.” My name was sinful on his lips. “It’s punishment.”
A light slap hit my clit, pulling out a moan.
“Fifteen.”
“Fifteen?” I spread my legs, resting my cheek on the floor, rocking side to side as his belt was made intimately familiar with me. “What did I do?”
