Part 53 (1/2)
He struck her again. Breath exploded from her lungs. Then again and again the flogger landed, sometimes in the same spot over and over again until tears filled her eyes. She could never guess where the next blow would fall. After fifty she stopped trying to guess. After a hundred she didn't even care. It stung brutally, and her skin burned like fire. More, she wanted. More. Let him burn her to the ground. Let her rise again from the ashes.
The flogging ceased and S0ren pressed his chest into her bare back. She cried out as his heat scalded her raw skin.
”Too much?” He slid his hands up her sides and cupped her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. He teased her nipples and now she groaned in pleasure. He'd become the master of her body already. Tied up like this she could give herself neither pleasure nor pain, nor any sort of release or relief. All sensation came from him and him alone.
”No, sir.”
”You want more pain?”
”I want all the pain you want to give me, sir.”
With her arms tied to the bedpost she could only see in front of her. S0ren pulled something else from his trunk. She couldn't see it, but she could guess from the sound of the air being sliced in two. When the cane contacted with the back of her thighs, she screamed. She didn't mean to, but the pain pushed the sound out of her. S0ren paused as if waiting for her to object, to ask him to stop. If he waited for her to ask him to stop he'd be waiting all night.
He struck her again.
A third time.
A fourth.
She'd never known pain like this pain. She'd never known strength like the strength she summoned to endure it. And soon she no longer endured it, she enjoyed it. The pain became a game to her. How much could she take? How much could S0ren give? He enslaved her with the pain. No one would suffer this willingly, so if she suffered it, it must be because he owned her and could hurt her like this. And yet she'd come here of her own volition. And a single word could stop him. He owned her for the same reason. It made no sense, none at all, and yet her body understood. She knew her body understood because S0ren dropped the cane onto the floor and wrapped a hand around her hips. He pressed two fingers into her and sank deep into her wetness. She'd never been this intensely aroused in her life.
With one hand still inside her, S0ren reached up and unknotted the ropes. He turned her and pressed her back to the bedpost. With an arm under her left knee, he lifted her leg, opening her up so he could explore inside her more easily. She felt nothing but pleasure as he probed her with two fingers, moving in and out of her slowly. Her wetness eased his pa.s.sage as he pushed deep into all her hidden places. When he pushed a third finger into her, she winced.
”I know it hurts, Little One,” S0ren whispered as he kissed her and pushed into the band of tissue at the entrance of her v.a.g.i.n.a. ”Let me do this. It'll be better this way.”
”Not with your fingers, please,” she begged.
”It will hurt less this way. I'll have more control.”
She shook her head.
”Please ...” she begged and S0ren pressed his forehead to hers. ”It's how I dreamed of it. Please ...”
”You do beg beautifully.”
”I'll beg more if you want me to.” She wanted him to break her hymen not with his fingers but when he penetrated her the first time. It had to be that way. She needed it that way.
”You'll beg for mercy when I'm inside you the first time.”
”I don't want mercy. I want you.”
He kissed her mouth as he lowered her leg to the floor. The entire back of her body from her knees to her shoulders throbbed from the beating. Why did people flee from pain and avoid it like the plague? Yes, it hurt, but so did everything that mattered. Love hurt, life hurt, birth hurt, changing hurt, growing hurt. The dead didn't hurt, only the living. She had never felt so alive.
S0ren kissed her again, but only long enough to wet her lips. When S0ren gripped the back of her neck, she had an idea of what might be coming next. It didn't surprise her when he forced her onto her knees. She opened his pants and remembered that she'd fantasized about doing this to him since she was fifteen years old. But she wasn't fifteen. She was twenty now. A grown woman. No reason to be nervous. He'd grown hard while beating her and she licked her lips in antic.i.p.ation. Wrapping her mouth around him, she sucked deep, relis.h.i.+ng the taste of him. S0ren dug his hand into the back of her neck with bruising strength. From his lips escaped the slightest of groans. The sound of his pleasure emboldened Eleanor. She sucked harder, deeper, licked him from the base to the tip over and over again.
This was what she'd wanted since the day they met. She'd wanted to serve him, to kneel before him, to offer herself to be used by him. Every day he sacrificed himself on the altar of the Catholic Church-gave up his time, his wealth, his freedom. That she could give this one thing to him, the pleasure of using her, and she would give it with all her heart, body and soul.
She winced as S0ren dug his fingers even deeper into her skin. She knew she'd have a black bruise from his fingers tomorrow.
”Stop,” he ordered and Eleanor sat back on her knees.
S0ren cupped her chin and ran his thumb over her lips.
”I think you enjoyed that.”
She smiled up at him.
”I live to serve.”
”You do now.”
With his hand on her chin, he guided her off the floor and back onto her feet.
”Wait by the bed.”
S0ren left her standing at the bedpost while he pulled the top sheet of the bed down. He took more rope and another set of cuffs and laid them on the bed.
As he prepared the bed, Eleanor stared at the winegla.s.s on the table. She walked to it and drank the last few drops of wine. She took a step back and then another.
When S0ren turned back to her she held the gla.s.s out in front of her.
”Eleanor?”
She dropped the gla.s.s and it shattered on the floor at her feet ... her bare feet.
”Eleanor-”
Before he could order her to do otherwise, she took a step forward onto the broken gla.s.s.
”You said nothing pleases you more than someone who will bleed for you.” She took another step. The gla.s.s cut into her heel, into her toes. S0ren inhaled sharply as she walked to him-bare feet on shattered gla.s.s. She hardly felt a thing. The only sign that gla.s.s had cut her were the b.l.o.o.d.y footprints she left behind her. She looked into S0ren's eyes. His pupils had widened hugely and his bare chest moved in shallow pants. She crossed the four feet to the bed.
”If it had been fire, I would have walked through fire,” she whispered.
”If it had been fire, I would have carried you through it.” He lifted her and laid her in the center of the bed.
She wound her arms around his neck and he dug his fingers deep into her hair, bending her body back, baring her neck. He kissed the hollow of her throat, bit her collarbone and shoulder. With his knees he forced her thighs apart. He grasped her c.l.i.toris between his thumb and forefinger and she flinched from the marriage of pain with pleasure. He pried the lips of her v.a.g.i.n.a wide open and hooked his fingers over her pubic bone, pus.h.i.+ng the tips into that soft hollow an inch inside her. Low moans escaped her lips as he took possession of her body. The pain in her feet was long forgotten as her inner muscles pulsed around his fingers. Before she could come, however, he released her from his grasp and pushed her hard and fast onto her back. In seconds he had her wrists and ankles cuffed to the bedposts, and left her lying there as she breathed and waited and wanted. She closed her eyes as he returned to her, a wet cloth in his hand. He wiped blood and gla.s.s off her feet, a move so careful and tender she could scarcely believe that he was the same man who moments earlier had nearly ripped her open with his fingers.
You have only seen him by day. She remembered Kingsley's words. All light and shadow. But the night will come and you will see the darkness.
So this was the darkness? Then may she live the rest of her life by night.
After binding her to the bed with leather cuffs and black rope, S0ren stared down at her helpless body.
”Mine,” he said and met her eyes.
”Yours, sir.”