He picked up the cane, and she swung her head left and right. She couldn’t do this. No more pain. Please, Matias!
Like the paddle, he didn’t ease in. The cane flew through the air and landed on the front of her thigh.
“Noooo” ripped from her throat in a keening, indistinguishable wail.
The cutting stripe seared a trail of heat across her skin, followed by another and another.
Her chin dropped to her chest with the weight of her head, and she watched with horror as each new welt bloomed on her thighs. The cane never slowed. Ladder-like cuts formed, some of them torn and bleeding on the surface. It was if he were trying to mark every inch of skin between her groin and knees.
She’d rarely cried after those first few days in Van’s attic, and she hadn’t intended to now. Except this was Matias, her childhood best friend, beating her body to a pulp.
Tears coursed down her cheeks, and a heavy, helpless feeling settled in her chest. But amid the heartache throbbed something sharper, darker. Something so very wrong.
Her gaze lifted to the zipper of his pants, where the long, hard outline of his erection strained against the fabric. She looked up at his eyes and found a smoldering flicker had chased his coldness away.
His breathing lost rhythm, and his hand shook as he lowered the cane. He was turned on by this, by her responses, her body? Whatever it was, his arousal fed hers, awakening the nerve-endings in her pussy and soaking her with heat as images of him coming on her abused body flashed through her mind.
Her stomach cramped with disgust and shame. Why was she so fucked up in her head?
If he were any other man, she would’ve vomited against the gag. The only reactions Van had stirred in her were raw fear and rage. But Matias was deep beneath her skin, his gaze touching her everywhere, heating her from the inside out.
He dropped the cane, and it clattered across the floor.
She sagged in relief, wobbling on her knees as every welt on her body pulsed with the beat of her heart. When she caught her breath, she dragged her gaze to his.
“You’re a fucking feast for the eyes, Camila.” He stared down at her, no smile, but his dimples flashed.
While life seemed to be returning to his face, she could feel the last trickle of energy draining from her limbs. He caressed her cheek, and she didn’t have the strength to pull away. Until his other hand opened his zipper.
Eyes wide, she made a groaning noise against the rubber ball.
His blood-soaked pants slipped down his thighs as he freed his cock. He fisted the length, gliding his hand up and down. A vein bulged along the shaft, the crown swollen and wet with precum. He tilted his head back, and his jaw looked so fucking strong, so powerful shadowed in stubble and clenching harder and harder with each vigorous stroke.
“No teeth, Camila.” He pinned her with an intractable glare and released the buckle on the gag.
The instant it fell from her mouth, he thrust past her lips and hit the back of her throat.
She gagged, convulsing and drooling, but he didn’t pause or slow.
“Oh fuck.” Tremors skated across his thighs as he dragged his length over her tongue. “So fucking good.” He circled his hips and gripped the post with one hand while holding on to her head with the other. “Goddamn, I missed your mouth.”
Tears blinded her eyes. She choked and sucked air, her hands twisting in the cuffs. She had nowhere to go, couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. She sure as hell didn’t roll her tongue or do anything to increase his pleasure. She was just a hole pinned to post, a face to brutally fuck.
And he did, every slam of his hips adding another fissure in her memories until the rot seeped out. Van’s musky scent. The coarseness of his hair against her nose. The ruthless hammer of his dick in her mouth.
“Stay with me, mi vida.” Matias gripped her jaw with both hands and forced her eyes to his. “I know what he did to you, and that’s not what this is.”
Yes, it was! Only so much worse. Van had beaten and tormented her to terrify her into obedience. He’d made her powerless in her pain and humiliated by her pleasure. With Matias, her depraved desires came from a completely different place, the part of her that had never stopped loving him.
He stared at her like he could feel her anguish, as if he longed to take it away. His expression softened, his eyes watchful. Thoughtful. So unlike the man who just caned her. Jesus, what the hell was happening?
At least with Van, she’d known he was the enemy every harrowing hour she spent in his attic. But this man? He was the criminal who petrified her and the lover she longed to lay beneath while he did all manner of dirty things to her. It threw her off balance and made her want to lash back with burning revulsion.
Without looking away, he widened his stance, his breaths quickening and fingers tightening against her cheeks. He was close. Please hurry.
His body became a piston, flexing and jerking as he found his release. The next thrust sent a shock wave down his thighs. He pulled out then sank deeply, his hands shaking as he shouted to the ceiling. “Fuuuuuck!”
Salty come shot down her throat, and his cock slid free from her lips. She vibrated with a full-body shiver, her lips tingling with his taste and her pussy aching to be touched, filled, pounded.
It had been twelve years since she’d taken him in her mouth. She struggled to make sense of the man staring down at her while her mind clung to the boy who used to guide her lips to him, slowly ease his girth in and out, and encourage her with softly whispered words. The boy who never orgasmed without seeing to her pleasure first.
Now he simply stared down at her as her ass throbbed and her thighs lit with pain, with no relief in sight.
He kicked off his shoes and made fast work of stripping his bloody clothes. Fully nude and partially erect, he removed her cuffs, unlocked the chain from the collar, and lifted her off the floor.
Cradled against the damp skin on his chest, she let her head loll against his shoulder. Every shift against him made the welts on her thighs throb with heat. She couldn’t bring herself to do anything but droop in his arms.
He carried her into the bathroom and set her on the toilet. Her bladder released immediately, and a wave of vertigo sent her canting sideways.
His hands caught her shoulders, his broad body crouching in front of her. “You need to eat.”
“I need anslers…answers. Shit, I’m slurring.” She couldn’t make her mind work, every part of her over-stimulated. Lost to sensations.
“It’s the intensity of the pain.” Something slipped behind his eyes, there and gone before she could identify it. He scratched at the blood on his neck. “The adrenaline burns off quickly, but the endorphins linger, creating a crash.”
Rage powered through her spent muscles. “How many torture sessions did it take for
you to learn that?”
He stared her down as if trying to frighten her. She wanted to smack that look right off his fucking face, but she couldn’t summon the strength. So she stared right back, despite the tremble in her chin.
Rather than giving her time to wipe and flush, he scooped her off the toilet and stood her on her feet in the shower.
Soap in hand, he scrubbed them both with clinical efficiency, his expression tight with concentration.
She leaned against his chest, hating that she needed his support to stand, but the floor was tilting. The room darkened. Too dark. She couldn’t see. She didn’t care.
A towel wrapped around her, then his arms, and she floated.
She must’ve passed out, because her eyes blinked open to a fully-dressed Matias. He wore a charcoal suit and a gold button-up that he’d left open at the neck. His dry hair spiked in chaotic strands that fell over his brow.
Lying face up on the bed, she was dressed, too…partly. A stiff, silver corset strangled her torso, and lacy black panties rode high on her ass. She looked around the room. Where were the rest of her clothes?
“I need you to get through the next few hours.” His hands slid over her thighs, working a glob of ointment into the cuts.
Dread simmered in her empty stomach. “What’s the next few hours?”
“Dinner.” He capped the tube of ointment and grabbed her hand, guiding her to the full-length mirror propped in the corner.
“Dinner with who? Where? What am I supposed to wear?” She met his eyes in the mirror.
Standing behind her, he combed fingers through her hair, arranging the length to fall in waves around her shoulders. She’d always considered her hair black, but even semi-damp, it wasn’t as dark as his. Same for her complexion. By no means was she pale, but she looked straight-up white next to him.
His frame dwarfed her, twice as wide and a head taller, and now she knew what it felt like to be on the receiving end of that strength. As if his size wasn’t intimidating enough, the way he raked his sharp focus over her reflection made her want to retreat to the floor in a fetal position.