Though the impromptu shower had been shocking in the extreme, Mara had to admit she felt better with the urine and sweat washed from her skin, her internal temperature cooled by the spray. She shook her head in an effort to get the wet hair out of her eyes. Watching her, Alex stepped closer. Reaching for her face, he tucked wet strands of hair behind her ears.
“Please,” she whispered, tears springing unbidden to her eyes at the sudden, unexpected tenderness of his touch. “I’m sorry, sir. Please let me down. I’ll be good. So, so good. I promise.”
He stepped away from her, reaching behind his back and pulling the whip from where he must have tucked it into the waist of his jeans. “You will,” he agreed. “I am going to break you down, Mara. I am going to take you apart, piece by piece, and then put you back together again. When I am done with you, you will never, ever even think of talking to a guest as you did today. You will, once again, be my star pupil, my model submissive, my perfect, obedient girl.”
“Yes,” Mara said, frightened by his words, but more frightened at the prospect of being left alone again in this hut for who knew how long. “I promise to behave. Please, please, sir. Let me down?”
“All in good time.” He flicked the handle of the whip, unfurling the long tail of dark braided leather and snapping it with a crack in the air. “First, you need a whipping. A very thorough whipping.”
Chapter 7
The tip of the whip struck with a searing bite, like a snake’s tongue darting over her flesh. It made a small popping sound at impact, and a second later Mara felt its awful burning sting. It snapped again, catching her at the same spot on the other side. Snap, pop, burn. Explosions of pain stippled her ass and back. Sweat mingled with the water still dripping from her body as she danced and twisted on her toes.
She screamed when the whip arced over her right breast, its razor-sharp tip catching her nipple. Wincing, she peered through the slits of her eyelids to see Alex in front of her. He struck her other breast, moving with a slow, languid grace, his wrist flicking with seemingly effortless ease, his face a mask of concentration. Mara screamed again.
The whip moved down her body, curling around her ribcage, bisecting her stomach, stinging like an angry wasp on the insides of her thighs. “Please,” Mara begged, panting, tears rolling down her cheeks. “No more. No more. I can’t. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t…”
Her pleas fell on deaf ears. Alex didn’t look at her face, his focus entirely on the trajectory and savage impact of the whip. The braided leather whipped across her back, painting stripes of pain between her shoulder blades. There was no escape, no way out. All she could do was endure. Mara’s eyes fluttered shut, her head falling back as she gave in, as she gave up.
The dark cloak of fear that had fallen over her senses lifted, if just a little. There was light coming through tears in the fabric of her suffering. She could almost smell the salt tang of the ocean. A breeze lifted her hair and all at once she was flying—skimming parallel just above the water, her body powerful, light and free.
She was vaguely aware of the continued snap, pop and burn of the leather but somehow it mattered less now. It seemed far away, overridden by the soothing lull of waves lapping gently beneath her and the sound of the air whistling in her ears as she flew, her arms outstretched like powerful wings, her legs like a bird’s long tail behind her.
She was free.
Mara’s eyes burned as if bits of sand were lodged beneath her eyelids. The room was dark, the floorboards hard beneath her. She pushed painfully up onto one elbow. As she came more fully awake, so, too, did her skin, which pulsed and ached in a thousand places. Gingerly she touched an especially painful cut on her right thigh. It was ridged and tender but the skin appeared intact.
She didn’t remember when or how the whipping had ended or being released from the cuffs. She did remember waking once earlier, when it was still daylight outside the box. She was curled into a ball on the ground in the center of the room. When she’d tried to sit up, dizziness had overcome her and she had lain back down, welcoming oblivion once more.
Now she sat again, carefully, slowly, and drew in a deep breath of the stale air. Her stomach was clenched into a hard, empty knot. Her mouth was dry, the lining of her throat parched, a bitter taste on her tongue. She looked around the small space. The ambient light of the moon shining through the cracks allowed her to see the bucket in the corner, though she was too dehydrated to need it.