“Are you worried about him?” The air brushed my cheek as he leaned close. “You should be. He’s playing a dangerous game. One wrong move, and he’ll end up dead. But you don’t want that to happen, do you? Do you think you can save him?”
His broad hand cupped the inside of my thigh. Sparks radiated from his hand, sending small shocks through my leg, tensing my stomach. And there, I felt a strange and undignified heat begin to form. Physical awareness. Proximity. The body’s natural defense to an encroaching threat. A woman’s natural response to ten thousand fucking years of male dominance. I made excuses for myself, but in the end, I still felt guilty for the clenching of my cunt.
The term survivor’s guilt had never felt more appropriate than now. This was how I would survive. By preparing myself for him. By wanting it. And why shouldn’t I feel guilty for that? It was sick, and so was I. But as long as I was good for him, no one would get hurt.
Hennessey wouldn’t get hurt.
“The skin here is paler than anywhere else on the body. Do you agree?”
The muscles of my thigh bunched. God. I wished he’d do something extreme. Just beat me or whip me. Just get it over with. The waiting was torture. The gentle touching.
“So easy to mark,” he said, but before I could register the words, a blinding pain racked my body. I gasped, unable to breathe or think. Even when I felt the pressure ease, pain sang a red-haze song through my blood.
He touched the hot points of flesh where his fingers had dug in. “One, two, three. They’re red now, but I think they’ll turn black and blue before this is over. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? To prove how hard you worked for it. You’d press them when I wasn’t here and get wet for me.”
You’re sick, I wanted to say. “Mmmf!” A line of drool leaked from the corner of my mouth and ran down my cheek.
His fingers roamed upward, probing the lips of my cunt. Without preamble, they slid inside. I gasped, sucking in my own spit and swallowing to clear it. His fingers were blunt and unkind and knowledgeable. They knew the angle of a woman and the place deep inside to seek out. He finger-fucked me until I bit down around the gag and stiffened my body against the oncoming tension. Physical awareness. Proximity. The body’s natural defense. That was all it was.
He pulled out just as suddenly as he’d started, and my flesh closed around the space left behind. His fingers walked up my quivering belly, leaving wet dots from his fingertips, my own body’s response in humiliating points. Past my belly button. My anxiety rose with each small step, as his fingers dried on my skin. He walked his fingers until they reached the curve between my breasts.
I breathed so hard and so fast that I panted. I struggled to suck in air through my nose and around the gag. The world went hazy and dim. I was going to faint…but I didn’t. That would be too damn easy. Instead, I just lay there, having a nervous breakdown while he touched me in a single place. My breastbone, like pointing at someone, like accusing them.
Stop, I wanted to say. “Mmmf…” A muffled plea, like a sheep bleating on its way to the slaughter.
“Yes, you’re right. Enough of that. We have things to do. Very busy.”
He stepped away, and I heard rustling. Dread sank in my gut. Whatever was coming next, it would be much worse.
In that hollow minute of uncertainty, an image of Hennessey flashed through my mind. What would he do in this situation? I couldn’t imagine him tied up or beaten, but he could have been, just as easily. If the timing were a little different. If Laguardia still wanted to torture a man instead of a woman. I had no doubt that he had tortured his share of men, turned them into Mr. Hydes against their will. Like the good, misguided doctor in the story, we’d drunk the potion, trying to protect mankind from the monsters within us. And created a new monster instead.
A sharp pain sank into my breast, and a sound of surprise escaped me. Surprise and anguish. And relief. God. Finally. It hurt worse than I was expecting, but then it was supposed to. That was what made it punishment. The second strike drew a gasp from me. The third, a soft whine.
I tried to distract myself by imagining what it was. A whip of some kind? No, it wasn’t long enough. A flogger, maybe. I could just picture one, with a blunt leather tip.
He worked his way over my breasts. Like a lover would, I realized. Kissing over the tops and working his way inside. Along the tender underside, making me squirm. Saving the tip for last. But there, he paused to caress the hardening nub with cruel heat-filled lashes. The stunted sounds of my pain filled my ears, a high note above the rapid beat of my pounding blood.
He moved down my belly, not pausing there, just slapping my tender flesh to mark the passage. I jerked against my bonds. There? No. God no. It would hurt so fucking bad…
But that was what made it a punishment.