Page 109

By the fifth, my breath was ragged.

By the sixth, my thighs were shaking.

Holy fuck, did thishurt.

More than I thought it would.

I’d imagined this moment, fantasized about it. In my head, it had been fire and lust and control. Not this relentless burn. Not this agony that bloomed wider and deeper with every stroke.

He didn’t count and neither did I because I didn’t know how many were coming. That was the worst part, the uncertainty.

I squeezed my eyes shut as another lash hit the curve of my ass, then the top of my thigh. I whimpered. My knees buckled slightly.

I thought I could take it.

But now?

I didn’t want to admit it to myself, but I was beginning to think that I didn’t know if I could.

Another lash. Harder this time.

I yelped, voice breaking, fingers tangled in the sheets like they could anchor me. My eyes blurred. My ass was scalded. There was no teasing left in me. No sass. Only the sharp, sinking realization that this was way more than I bargained for.

I was slowly realizing that this was arealpunishment, and I was only just starting to understand what that meant.

The next strike landed just above the last, and this time I cried out loud, sharp and ragged.

My voice broke, and my pride cracked with it. Tears burned at the edges of my eyes, and the sting on my ass was no longer some beautiful ache I could twist into arousal, it waspain.Real. Blistering. Unforgiving.

I tried to breathe through it and tell myself I could still control this. But when the belt came down again, harder yet—low,across both cheeks, right where it already throbbed—my breath hitched, and the sob caught in my throat.

I couldn’t take much more, but he wasn’t done.

“Does it sting, baby girl?” he asked, his voice terrifyingly sedate. “Is Daddy’s belt reminding you who you belong to?”

My face flushed, shame and arousal tangling in my chest like vines.

“Yes, Daddy,” I whispered, voice shaking. “It hurts.”

“Good,” he said. “It’ssupposedto hurt.”

Another lash. This one angled, across both cheeks at once. I cried out again, my control broken, and the tears fell, hot and fast.

“You disobeyed me,” he said, stepping closer, his hand pressing between my shoulder blades to keep me down. “You looked me in the eyes and lied to Daddy.”

“I’m sorry,” I choked out. “I’m—I’m sorry.I didn’t mean to?—”

He cut me off with another strike, then leaned over my back, his breath warm against my ear.

“No,” he growled. “You don’t get to cry your way out of this. Your punishment is just beginning.”

I whimpered, hands fisting on the bed. I was trembling and openly sobbing now, my ass on fire, every inch of me exposed and broken by him.

The next strike came fast. It tore across my skin like a blaze to kindling, licking up along the tender curve of my ass, already welted and stinging. I screamed into the sheets, the soundswallowed by the silk and the weight of it all—his presence behind me, the sting in every nerve, the way my body trembled from the inside out.

My breath came in broken gasps.

I couldn’t keep track of how many times the belt had lashed against my bare ass. I’d lost count. Maybe a dozen. Maybe twice that. I didn’t know. I didn’t care because it wasn’t about the number anymore. It was about what he was doing to me. What I was becoming beneath him.