"Count for me,” he said. "Starting at a hundred.”
He stood behind her and she braced herself. What was he waiting for? Was he torturing her with suspense? Taking his aim?
"Admiring the view,” he said as if reading her thoughts. She blushed hot at the flattery and smiled. Then he wiped the smile off her face with one quick crack of the crop. It struck high on her thigh in a spot she’d never associated with agony before. It burned like Greek fire.
She cried out in shock and Malcolm laughed.
The bastard laughed at her.
"Count, dear,” he said, his voice chiding.
"One hundred.”
"Did it hurt?” he asked, tenderly touching the burning welt on her thigh.
"Yes,” she said.
"I’m sorry, darling.” He kissed his fingertips and touched them to the welt. "So very sorry.”
Then he kissed her lips softly and massaged her nipples. She moaned in the back of her throat. Her body was a carnival of sensations—the stinging pain, the swelling of her breasts, the tingling of her lips as he kissed her. Her head spun. Did he want to hurt her? If so, then why apologize and kiss her to make up for it?
"There we go, love,” he said. "Only ninety-nine to go. Don’t feel too bad. When I was fifteen, I was caught buggering my neighbor’s lady wife. I would have traded my left ball for a punishment like this.”
"Were you beaten?”
"I was.”
"With a crop?”
"A bullwhip.”
She gasped.
"Like I said, it could be worse. So count your blessings when you count my kisses.”
He struck her again with the crop, kissing her hip this time.
"Ninety-nine,” she said through the pain.
"Such a good girl,” Malcolm said, hitting the side of her neck over the pulse point. "Beautiful and brave. You can’t know how much you please me…”
He struck her again, out of nowhere, right on the back of the calf. Her leg almost buckled from the shock and the pain.
"Malcolm—”
"It’s all right…” He put his arm around her to hold her up. He cupped her chin in his hand, tilted her face up to his and kissed the tip of her nose. "It’s not so bad, is it?”
"No,” she said. In his arms, it wasn’t so bad. It wasn’t so bad at all.
He struck her again. Mona closed her eyes as the pain washed through her. It wasn’t unbearable, but it wasn’t pleasant either. After a few dozen strikes, it might very well become unbearable, however.
Yet nothing would allow her to break before she’d earned what she wanted and what she wanted was him.
He walked around her body, striking her with the crop high and low—on her thighs, on her stomach, on her breasts, on her backside, so often and so hard she knew she’d hardly be able to sit in a chair tomorrow. But what did tomorrow mean to her when she wasn’t certain she’d survive tonight?
The crop didn’t sting like a bee. It bit like a snake. Its fangs were sharp and burning and left sharp and burning bite marks all over her body. Malcolm was the snake-charmer and she was mesmerized by how he made the crop dance. He would twirl it in his fingers, casual, playful. Then he’d catch it quick, so fast she couldn’t see where the blow would come from and where it would land.
It would have been easier for her to close her eyes tight and pretend it wasn’t happening, wait it out, hide inside her mind. But she couldn’t. Malcolm wouldn’t allow that. After each strike he paused to kiss her, to fondle her breasts and nipples, to massage her hips and quivering belly. After each strike he’d tell her how beautiful she was. He’d tell her what a brave, brave girl she was. He’d tell her how aroused she made him with her submission to his crop. He’d kiss her on the mouth, before suddenly stepping back to strike her once more. Then the cycle would begin again. The crop, the pain, the tender words and tender kisses. Soon she was craving the crop because each strike meant a kiss.
Before he’d begun, a hundred hits sounded like a hundred too many. But each strike earned such affection from Malcolm, such compassion, such sympathy that she was starting to think one hundred wasn’t nearly enough. He was forcing her to fall in love—not with him, but with the crop.
She was in love with the crop. The crop, and Malcolm’s tender sadism.
And Malcolm too, of course. How could she not? He was inhumanly attractive. His eyes were so black and the room so dark she couldn’t tell the iris apart from the pupil. As he shifted this way and that to keep her guessing, the muscles in his thighs tensed and shone through his breeches. His boots sported gold buttons at the tops and she wanted to kiss them for some reason. The thought wouldn’t leave her head. She trained her eyes on them, on the glinting gold coins, and let them anchor her into the moment.
"You’re staring at my boots, love. Tell me why,” he said. He took her in his arms and held her close against him. The crop dangled from his wrist as he ran the flat of his hand down her brutalized back.
"I like them.” She panted between the words. Pain suffused her body. Her flesh smoldered like a hot sidewalk in the rain.
"I’m very glad you do. What do you like about them?”
"The gold buttons,” she said. "I can’t stop looking at them.”
"I’ll tell you what, my darling girl,” he said. "If you can take ten strikes in a row without me stopping, I’ll let you kiss those buttons on my boots. What do you think? Would you like that?”
"Very much,” she said.
"What do you say to me?”
"Thank you, Malcolm.”
"That’s very nice, yes. Could you call me sir? I think I’d like to hear it from you. Everything you say sounds so pretty.”
"I’ll say anything you want, sir.”
"Oh, that is even better than I thought it would be. Excellent. You’ve made me so very happy tonight.” He pressed a soft kiss to her lips once more. She would never tire of his kisses or his words of affection or his pride in her. How had she ever lived without this in her life? Without the crop and the counting and the pain that earned her such rewards, would she have eagerly signed up for a thousand strikes of the crop for the next thousand years?
"Are you ready, dear? Only ten. I know you can do it. I know you will do it—for me, won’t you?”
"Of course, sir,” she said, and her heart welled and she could have wept with love for him. What wouldn’t she do for him? Nothing. The answer was nothing. She would take his English kisses over French kisses any day.
She took a breath in and braced herself. Her hands were still on her head. Her arms ached but she didn’t care.
When the strike came she was ready. It hit her on an unmarked patch of flesh on the side of her hip. The second strike came right after, in the very same spot. And the third. And the fourth. It was agony by the fifth, terrible agony by the sixth, screaming agony by the seventh. And the eighth and the ninth and the tenth passed in a haze as she wept and shook.
Malcolm caught her in his arms again as she swayed on her feet. "I’ve got you,” he said. "You’re safe. You’re with me.”