I hear him move around the room, and then he kneels down in front of me to tie my wrists together with one of his ties.
“Tell me why I’m punishing you.”
I crane my neck to look at him, and answer, “Because I snuck off and took the control away from you.”
“Do you know what that did to me?”
“Yes.”
He then stands and moves behind me.
“Keep your eyes on the floor,” he commands, and I hear something rattling before being set on the ground. “Spread your knees.”
I do, and I’m instantly greeted by the piercing pain of an ice cube being shoved into my *. And then another and another and another and another.
I cry out in blistering pain and then he begins to spank my ass with a force so great I have to tense my whole body up to keep myself from falling over. The ice feels like I’m being sliced with razors from the inside, and I know I should be focusing on the pain that’s radiating from my ass because it’s so minimal compared to what’s happening inside my *.
With each welting blow he delivers, I scream out as the ice begins to melt and the water spills out of me and runs down my thighs.
“Tell me you’re my property,” he grits, and I instantly respond, “I’m your property.”
THWACK!
“Tell me who owns you.”
“You own me.”
THWACK!
“Tell me you love me.”
“I love you, Declan.”
THWACK!
“On your elbows,” he barks, and the moment I lower myself, his mouth is on my *, sucking out the melted ice from inside me.
His hot tongue is an erotic contrast to the freezing shards, and I let go of a heady moan while he buries his face between my legs. My mind rushes in waves of mania at the infliction of a multitude of sensations that I didn’t even notice that he’s now fucking me with his cock.
I close my eyes when the whole world blurs, and all that matters is this moment—having our two bodies blended as one—and it’s only together that we’re whole.
THE ICE BUCKET and tie still remain on the floor from earlier. Declan has refused to let me clean myself up, so I sit and wait for him to finish his shower. I decide to log onto the laptop and search to see if Hailey has any social media accounts. When no hits come up, I move on to search her brother, Steve, which brings me to a link for a Steve Corre in Gig Harbor, Washington.
Clicking the link, I pull up his page. His profile picture is of him and a few of his buddies. I start clicking on different tabs on his page, but there’s no real information aside from his birthday, which lets me know he’s thirteen years old.
It’s not until I open one of his photo albums that the vile hate from earlier resurfaces. I scroll through picture after picture of family photos, my dad being in most of them. Photos of family vacations, birthday parties, holidays fill the albums—all the things I never got a chance to experience.
Once I was in Posen with Pike, I never got a birthday party, and most holidays I’d find myself locked in the closet so Carl and Bobbie wouldn’t have to deal with me. Pike would always manage to steal or use his drug money to buy me something small, but aside from those private gift exchanges in my bedroom, we never celebrated anything.
I despise these kids for the life my dad has given them, the life I never had. I look at their smiles, and I want to slit their throats. And then there’s my dad. Enlarging a photo with him in it, I zoom in on his face. His eyes are still the same, even though the crinkles in the corners from when he smiles have deepened. He no longer has the scruff of a beard, exchanging it for a clean-shaven face. When I close my eyes, I can see the younger him in vivid color. I can hear his laughter. I can smell his cologne.
God, I miss him so much.
Opening my eyes, I’m greeted by this stranger who wears the same face. I don’t know this man—Asher Corre. My heart double beats in love and anger. I love my dad, the man who danced with me, sang to me, and laughed with me. But I hate this man on the computer screen. I hate him for wearing the mask of my father, because he’s nothing like my dad. My dad loved me beyond love, and this man, I don’t even exist in his world. I’m nothing but an evaporated memory.
“What are you looking at?” Declan questions when he walks into the room, fresh from the shower dressed in navy slacks, a fitted light blue button-down, and the same black belt he used to restrain me a few days ago.
“Looking at family portraits,” I respond, and he tilts his head in curiosity.
When he sits next to me, I can smell the cardamom from his shampoo. Even in the midst of everything going on around us and our quarrel this morning, I feel the need to be close to him.
He is already sliding the computer from my lap when he asks, “Where did you find these?”
“It’s his son’s social media page.”
“His son? How did you even know how to find this?”
“Because I followed them. I got his name from his sister, Hailey.”