He led me to a room that had to be his bedroom, with more heavy, classically designed furniture, chests and an armoire, and an iron poster bed covered in smooth gray-blue sheets. As soon as I saw what he’d lined up on that bed—mask, ball gag, cane, Lucite paddle, a tangle of black rope, condoms, lube—I deeply regretted my decision to come here, and turned immediately to leave. “I’m not ready for surren—”
He silenced me with a hand over my mouth and used the other hand to shut the door behind us. I shook my head, meeting his intent gaze, pleading in the only way I could, with my eyes.
“You earned this,” he said. “You need this.”
“I don’t. I can’t.” I babbled behind his hand, anything I could think of as he dragged me to the bed. He took his hand off my mouth. “Please, no,” I cried. “Please.”
He held my chin hard. “You don’t just need a lesson in surrender. You also need to be punished for running your mouth at me. Say it. I need you to punish me.”
“I can’t say that!”
“Say it.”
He waited. I balked.
“I need you to punish me,” I finally admitted. Tears rose, along with my anxiety level. “But I’m afraid.”
His fingers brushed across my cheek. “Do you deserve this?”
One of my tears fell, coursing down the same cheek he stroked. “Yes. Probably. But—”
“Say it, then. Admit it. I deserve to be punished. Ask for it.”
“I—” I knew the words he wanted, but it was so hard to say them. “P-please punish me, Sir. I deserve it.”
A spark of satisfied mayhem glinted in his eyes. “That was very nicely done. Maybe I’ll go softer on you because of it. But probably not.”
He put the mask on me first, so I wouldn’t keep panicking over the things he’d spread out on the bed. The gag came next. I tried to close my lips against it and got a slap for my efforts.
“Open your fucking hole,” he said. “You’re supposed to be learning a lesson.”
All I was learning was how terrifying he could be and how stupid I was to repeatedly place myself at his mercy. It’s okay, it’s okay. I tried to think of Andrew, tried to think about submission as a high. I usually felt pretty high by the time Price was done with me, but tonight…with the mask and gag, and the scary black rope…
“Take off your clothes,” he said.
I kicked off my shoes, then scrabbled for my skirt’s zipper by feel. I took off my blouse and panties next, and then my adulterated bra, fumbling with the clasp. I couldn’t see where to put them, so I just dropped everything on the floor. I hated being blindfolded. I hated that I couldn’t see, but I didn’t dare reach up and take the mask off. During our first date, yes, I would have done it if my hands weren’t zip-tied behind me. But now, I knew better.
He put me on the bed, face down, and pulled my arms over my head. I felt the scratch of rope around each wrist, and pictured the jet black color against my skin. He worked in silence to secure me hand and foot, and then shoved pillows under my hips to raise my ass. He drew the ropes tight so I was spread eagle with hardly any slack.
I wish I could say I endured all this in stoic submission to his will. I didn’t. I whined behind the ball gag each time he encircled one of my limbs with the rope, and full-on panicked when he tried to secure my left ankle. I kicked him hard enough—once—to hear a grunt. A moment later I felt a searing explosion of pain across my ass. It had to have been the clear Lucite paddle with the holes. To get whacked full blast, without a warm up, almost made me piss myself.
“Surrender,” he reminded me sternly. “You’d better start trying to figure it out.”
After that, I cried softly into the gag, but refrained from any more kicking. Jesus, he hadn’t even started on me yet and I was terrified to endure any more of that paddle.
You allowed him to bring you here, Chere. You knew it would be bad.
I squirmed my pelvis against the pillows as he moved around the room doing God knew what. I heard only rustles and his faint breath. I pulled at the rope but he was a Boy Scout with the knots. I turned my head with a jerky movement when he finally spoke.
“Relax,” he said in an even, soothing voice. “You can’t get away. You can only surrender to me. You want to surrender to me, and we both know it. It’s time to stop fucking around.”
I heard a whoosh, a whisper through the air, and then the slicing heat of a cane stroke before I had time to brace. I meant to say no, to say stop, but all that came out was a long, ragged shriek.