“Keep your pretty whore mouth shut.” Ares grabs my face, his large hand squishing my cheeks together. Electricity sparks between us as his lips hover over mine. I hiss. He releases me and trails his fingertips over my body, except we’re not touching, and all I can feel are sparks. I see them too, purple arcs of lightning pricking my flesh with their bite. “We’re electric, you and I.”
He grins and takes a step back, nodding toward the device tucked into his waistband. “I’m conducting electricity through my body. I touch you, and Israel feels it. I touch him when his mouth is on you, and you’ll be the one feeling the bite.”
Ares’ tongue darts out and licks my breast, causing me to cry out with the electric shock as he trails it over my breast and collarbone and up my neck to the shell of my ear.
He reaches out and grabs Israel’s hair, thrusting his long fingers into the younger man’s dark curls, forcing his head toward my pussy. Electricity arcs from Ares into Israel and onto me. The breath leaves my lungs in a rush. I feel the heat and bite of the burn all over my body, in random places where the wire wraps around my skin with his rope. “Oh, God.”
Ares’ wicked grin flays me. “Israel, put your fingers inside her sweet cunt and fuck her.”
“Yes, Sir.” He does as he’s asked, and Ares’ fingers almost trail over my side. He’s sure never to touch me, but when he does, my whole body goes electric. Israel’s fingers pump in and out, rough and fast, and my orgasm builds to the point of no return. His tongue darts out and zaps my clit. I scream. He moans as Ares moves and trails his fingers over the slave’s back. Israel jumps. The electricity arcs through my body, sending shock waves through my blood, my limbs, sinew, bone, and tissue alike. I come harder than I ever have, and if it weren’t for the restraints holding me to the cross, I would have collapsed into a puddle of tears and boneless body parts.
The buzzing stops. Ares tells Israel to stand. Sir grabs the slave by the nape and forces his lips down onto Israel’s.His little Achilles. I sob as I watch them, fat tears streaming down my face and dripping off my chin. I wonder if I’ll be just like him one day. If Ares will grow tired of me and sell me off to the highest bidder. If Master Texas will be the one to buy me, and parade me around his estate like a fucking pony. I wonder if I’ll watch Ares bring in a new slave girl, one who he’ll use me to punish.
“You’re a monster,” I sob at Ares. He ends the kiss, and turns to glare at me.
“Am I now?”
“Fuck you. Can’t you see he’s in love with you?”
Ares shoots me a strange look. I can’t read it, but his gaze darts back and forth between me and Israel. “Do tell us, Pet, how exactly does any of this make me a monster? All of it was for your pleasure, was it not? Did you not just come on Israel’s mouth? Is it not your pussy I can taste?”
“He loves you!” I accuse again, because it’s not lost on me that he chose to avoid the question.
“Israel, do you love me?”
The man looks anguished. His gaze snaps to his current Master Texas, and back to Ares. “I love what you do to me, Sir.”
He’s not your Sir. I don’t say it out loud because that would likely earn me another beating. Not to mention Ares seems to take great delight in mocking me over my jealousy of Israel.
“Why do you hate Israel, Pet?”
I frown. I have no desire to answer the question, but the flogger gripped tightly in his hand tells me I won’t be evading it as easily as he evaded mine. “I don’t know, Sir.”
“Don’t fucking lie to me. You’re jealous. Why?”
I swallow hard as he turns his back. “Because I see myself in him. I see what I’ll be when you discard me like trash. I hate you. I hate what you’ve made me. I hate what you do to me, but I love it too. I . . . I love you.”
A terrifying stillness creeps over him. His eyes are darker than I’ve ever seen them, angry, wanting, and full of poisonous hatred.For me. “Out! Get out!”
For a heartbeat, I’d forgotten that anyone else was in the room. “But it’s just getting interesting,” Texas says.
“Now!”
Texas makes a disapproving sound in the back of his throat. “Come, Israel. You can finish me off upstairs.”
“Yes, Sir,” he murmurs. I keep my eyes focused on Ares, but it’s too much. I can’t hold his gaze when all I see in it is . . . disappointment and rage. He circles his wrist, snapping the leather flogger in the air between us.
“What.” He cracks his wrist back so fast and lets the tendrils fly. White-hot pain lashes my breast and stomach. “Did.”Slap. “You.”slap. “Say.”
Slap, slap, slap.
He peppers my body with blows, my skin coming alive and just as electrified as it was when he was the conduit. I take a trembling breath. “You heard me.”
Slap, slap, slap.
When he’s done, there isn’t a single inch of my body left unscathed. I don’t know how long it lasts, but the beating is vicious. It’s pain mixed with pleasure, and I both crave and abhor it all at once. Over and over he lashes me, over and over he asks that one sentence “what did you say”, and again and again I ignore it until I can’t take anymore.
“I love you!” I scream through a throat as hoarse and broken as my spirit.