Chapter Twelve
Plum was so horny she might die. Had anyone ever died of arousal? Maybe from being so wet they got dehydrated and wilted away? If that happened to her, Gideon would have only himself to blame. Wicked man.
He was good. Very good. She had played with a lot of people, and it wasn’t always a matter of skill although that helped. There was also some level of chemistry, pieces fitting together in a particular way, and it just so happened the priest had her number.
Gideon finished licking her arousal from his fingers and then took the few steps to where he’d stood before to cane her. He was deliciously, annoyingly, painfully good at this, and she ached for more even as her ass throbbed. That was part of the fun, wasn’t it?
From how thorough he was being, she knew she wouldn’t have a little color that would fade by this afternoon, leaving her to wonder if all this hadn’t been a fever dream by the time she went to work tomorrow morning. No, she was going to have marks for days if not weeks, and she was going to feel this, feelhim, every time she sat down or took a shower or laid in her bed for the next several days. Yeah, she’d be getting herself off to the memories of this scene for quite some time. Hall of Wank Fame material right here.
And he wasn’t done yet.
“Ready for your penance, little girl?” he asked as he ran the cane over the marks he’d already laid down on her skin.
“Yes, Daddy,” she said, her voice all soft and breathy and desperate.
“Good. You’ll count and thank me.”
Then there was a stripe of fire across her ass, the pain coming a split-second later than the impact. He held the rattan to where he’d struck her and sawed it lightly across her skin, making her feel every inch, every second of pain. It was exquisite agony as she choked out, “One. Thank you, Daddy.”
The next was the same, an inch lower and the tears stung the backs of her eyes. It was the hardest he’d hit her yet and the break hadn’t done her any favors.
“Two,” she said between gritted teeth. “Thank you, Daddy.”
On the third, Plum cried out before she could form any words, her brain momentarily stunned into wordless protest.
At ten, she started to cry. At first it was one drop that managed to work its way between her squeezed shut lids. That crack in the dam led to a flood of full-on bawling.
Some tops would’ve given in at that point, or hurried to finish. Not Gideon, and she simultaneously loved him and loathed him for it. He trusted her to safe out if it had become too much, but she’d told him she wanted to cry and he was giving it to her. Plus keeping his word. He’d said twelve, so she was going to get twelve.
“You need to count, love,” he reminded her, using that cursed instrument to saw across her welted skin.
Gideon didn’t give in at her keening so she mustered the few functioning brain cells she had left to say it: “Ten.”
Her voice was a squeezed out croak between sobs and Plum felt almost as though she was outside herself. That wasn’t her voice, those weren’t her sobs, except that was most definitely her ass that he laid another stripe of the cane across. How glorious to be simultaneously so grounded and yet so free.
“’Leven,” she whimpered. “Daddy, thank you. Please, Daddy.”
She was nearly incoherent but she felt how he trailed fingertips over her blazing backside and the way he poked at the welts he’d brought up, listening to which elicited the loudest sound, the most heaving sob, the deepest shiver of her worn-out muscles.
Apparently having found a satisfactory target, he tapped the cane lightly across her buttocks while she tried to at once brace herself for the coming pain but also relax because tensed muscles never did a bottom any favors.
The pain when he finally hit her one last time left her breathless and blinking for a second before she could even process how fucking badly it hurt. And it did. He’d thrashed her but good, and while she could tell he hadn’t broken the skin, with a few more swats he could have.
Plum prided herself on being able to take a lot—hello, food service worker who wore fashionable pumps and towering wedges on a regular basis—but Gideon had pushed. And pushed. She’d gotten exactly what she was after. Falling apart so completely she couldn’t put herself back together.
She wanted to say “twelve,” wanted to thank him for what he’d done, but she couldn’t stop crying. Her keening was uncontrollable and it was a gift.
As she wept into the bedcovers, she felt Gideon gently pry her fingers from around the cane she’d forgotten she was clutching.
“There’s my good girl. You were marvelous, darling. All done for now. You were so good for me. I’m so pleased with you.”
She couldn’t see anything through her tears, but she could feel him roll her onto her side and off the pillows and then he was next to her. Before she could clutch at him, bury herself into his side, he gathered her up and set her in a straddle on top of himself and wrapped his arms around her, rubbed her back and cradled the back of her head as he held her against him.
“There you go, love. Cry for Daddy. I love your pretty tears.”
So she did, her chest heaving against him as she buried her face in his neck. She was disgusting, she was sure of it, all running mascara, smudged eyeliner, and snot, but Gideon didn’t seem to mind as he held her, murmured the sweetest things in her ear.
When she could finally find her words she nuzzled his jaw right below his ear and whispered against his sandpaper skin, “Twelve, Daddy. Thank you. Thank you.”