And he was touching me. Stroking my hair and running his hands down my back. Lightly, like calming a wild animal. Which was crazy, since he was the animal. So why was I panting, nostrils flared? Why did an uncontrollable keening sound escape me, a cross between pleasure and despair? With just a gentle touch he could reduce me to my basest state. He could turn me from Jekyll to Hyde. He was my poison.
I sighed, relaxing against the warm padded bench. Relaxing into him, because he pressed me more firmly now, seeking out the knots in my shoulders and rubbing them away. God, he was good at that. We could have been any ordinary couple, the man giving a back rub to the woman. The gentle clink of metal where the cuffs rubbed against their base reminded me that we were different. The pleasure would soon turn to pain.
“Did you miss me?” he asked, speaking low. His words always hovered just above a breath, sharpened by that faint accent. I couldn’t even imagine how it would feel for him to speak normally, how much it would cut me open.
Anyone could miss company when they were left alone in the dark.
He chuckled softly. “You’re so tense when you’re angry.”
I stiffened further at his words. But he wouldn’t let even that small rebellion go. He pushed the fierceness out of my body with firm strokes. God. All the questions I had bunched up in my hands. Why are you doing this? Will you ever let me go? But he’d never tell me the answers to them, and he’d saved us both the trouble by making it so I couldn’t ask. I opened my palm, and the questions drifted away, over the wind and out to sea.
You only have this moment, the restraint told me. You only have what you feel.
It changed the synapses of my brain. Instead of escape, I wanted to take whatever comfort I could find. Instead of cold professionalism, I wanted to understand where he was coming from. I already did understand, deep inside. We were both trapped here. His handcuffs weren’t visible, but they kept him bound to me as much as I was trapped against this bench. A man this powerful, this wealthy, this skilled at bringing pleasure to a woman didn’t need to force one. I was a hassle he didn’t need. However unlikely, I might one day escape. Might one day testify against him. Much easier just to pay a woman, to seduce her. And this wasn’t a man who took unnecessary risks. But here we were.
Reluctance. Coercion. They strummed through my body—and his.
“Don’t worry. I’ll start slow.” He sounded almost concerned. I could have believed he cared, but for the sting that hit my ass. I gasped against the shock and braced myself for another. His palm landed on my other ass cheek, waking every nerve ending in my body. I recognized the sensation from last time, a tingling warmth. I’d thought I was awake, walking around and going through the motions. But then he spanked me, he whipped me, and I realized that had all been a dream. This was real.
He switched to a flogger, covering my ass cheeks and then working his way up my back. This was new territory, a parallel of what he’d done to the front side of my body. I gritted my teeth and tried not to cry out.
A pause.
This new implement whistled in the air before it landed across my shoulders. Oh God. The strands were long and thick. They covered me from spine to shoulder before flicking off again. The pain felt almost less than before. Certainly there was less of a sting. But more of an impact. I felt the thud ripple across my skin and reverberate in my bones. My fear faded under his onslaught, turning into something murkier. Something gray and reflective. Something good.
I understood now what his massage had been. To show me what would come. It felt like a hundred hands pressing into my skin, a thousand minute corrections across my back until my muscles melted into puddles. I was hugging the bench, grateful it could hold me up. Even my brain had turned to mush, entering a strange twilight hour when the sky turned hazy and stars glittered.
My spit pooled behind the ball gag. When I didn’t swallow fast enough, a drop leaked from the corner of my mouth. I didn’t care. I couldn’t, not when I’d found some higher plane, a place where I could float. This wasn’t a base place, an animal incarnation. This was strangely spiritual. A perversion, no doubt. Maybe even blasphemy. But so sweet I would want to come here again anyway. I’d sell my soul for this feeling, but then, maybe I already had.
He stopped striking me, but the sensations continued, racing each other over my skin. This felt amazing, and I wanted to ask him why he’d force a woman to take this. He seemed handsome enough, especially if you ignored the crazy dead look in his eyes I’d glimpsed in secret. He had plenty of money. Why not find a woman and make her feel like this? Unless forcing a woman was half the fun.
My job is to put them in handcuffs, not care how they got there.
That was what Hennessey had told me, but he wasn’t here now. Not caring how they get there had been a luxury reserved solely for the free. He could put in his hours, make his arrests, and go home at the end of the day.