“You will do as I say.” He lashes me again, holding me still when I fight to get away. “You will do exactly as you’re told.”
He strikes again and again and again, and it’s too fast, and I don’t have time to catch my breath or process as pain sears my ass and thighs.
I’m sobbing, the scarf-gag is drenched, and he’s not done yet. Not even when I lose count. Only when I stop fighting, only when my body droops onto the bed, and I take it, take his punishment does he finally stop. Only then do I finally hear the clang of the belt buckle as it lands on the floor, and my wrists are free, and I feel myself slide down over the edge of the bed to my knees, my hands still behind me as if he’s still holding them.
I press my face into the blanket and sob and I feel him behind me, feel him kneel at my back. He’s close enough that I can feel his hardness.
He’s aroused.
Whipping me aroused him.
I make a sound into the gag, into the blanket because if this isn’t over, if he touches me now, I’ll die. I will die.
But then the gag is gone, and he cups the back of my head, and when he turns my face into his chest, I let him.
“I don’t like hurting you,” he says, and his voice is choked and tight.
I hear his heart. Listen to the rapid beating against his warm chest.
He’s rubbing my punished ass, and his touch is soft, so opposite of the violence of moments ago. But this is him, isn’t it? The dichotomy of Lev.
Violence and tenderness, they’re interchangeable.
He is capable of both to an extreme.
He sits on the floor beside me, pulls my underwear and jeans up, then tugs me into his lap. I rub my face and wipe my nose with my sleeve.
I look up at him, and he’s watching me with sad eyes, not angry ones, not anymore.
Without a word, he wipes my face, pushes the hair that’s sticking to my face back and he kisses my forehead, kisses the lids of my eyes when I close them. Kisses my cheeks, then my mouth and I hate myself for not fighting him. For not wanting him to stop.
16
Lev
“What are you doing?” she whispers as I assault her throat with my lips.
“I’m taking back what’s mine,” I murmur against her. “Get used to it.”
“You hurt me.” She sniffs.
“Did I?” I mock her. “What did you suppose would happen when you pulled that trigger, Katya? Were you prepared to watch my blood splatter across your bedroom floor?”
“I didn’t want to do it.” She squeezes her eyes shut and shakes her head. “You forced my hand.”
“And now you’ve forced mine,” I echo.
“You repeatedly told me you were bad for me,” she reminds me. “You warned me away. And now you’re here holding me hostage like this is exactly what you wanted all along.”
“This is the last thing I wanted for you,” I tell her. “And I meant everything I said before. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t want it. You were supposed to forget me and have a normal life. And maybe I would have actually let you, who the fuck knows. Regardless of that, we have a kid now. Whatever intentions I may have had in the past are irrelevant in the face of that. Like it or not, Kat, you’ve chained yourself to me for life now.”
Her body quakes in silent grief as she curls into herself, accepting the facts she can’t deny. She may not like the truth, but I’m done handling her with kid gloves.
“You don’t get to kill me,” I murmur against her. “You don’t get to leave me again.”
She doesn’t respond. All of her fight has abandoned her, and she will remember this day every time she sits down for the next week. Still, when I take the opportunity to reacquaint myself with her body, she doesn’t protest. Touching her curves, breathing her in, tasting the salt of her skin. And this time, when I slip my fingers between her thighs and rub her through her jeans, she whimpers.
“Did you miss this?” I ask her roughly. “Did you miss my hands on your body?”
She doesn’t answer, but her body is doing enough talking. Her nipples are so hard they are scraping against the thin fabric of her shirt. And between her legs, her jeans are damp with want.
“Tell me you hate it.” I bite at her collarbone as my other hand palms her breast. “But only if you mean it.”
Again, she doesn’t answer. And this time, when I unzip her jeans and slip my fingers between her thighs, there’s no denying she’s soaked for me.
“I can’t tell you what this does to me.” I bury two fingers into her wetness, and she jerks against the intrusion.