Page 6 of Beneath the Burn

The scent of freshly oiled leather, the creak of bolts twisting in wood, and the sour taste of vomit coaxed Charlee awake. Cold metal rings collared her wrists, ankles, and neck, locking her to three horizontal bars. Each support hung from various heights, suspending her face down, staring at her knees, naked.

Sixty floors up. Down a long corridor. Last door on the left. Roy’s stockroom.

Shadows clung to the walls on all sides and concealed the contraptions she knew intimately. She was confined in Roy’s favorite restraint.

The steel bars connected to the ceiling by chains. The shackles locked her head and hands to one bar. Another bar hung near the floor, spreading her legs at the ankles beneath her bent waist, her feet bound to the ends. The third supported her hips, higher than her head, forcing her butt skyward and vulnerable to the movement behind her.

A heavy palm settled on the arch of one spread cheek. Violent shudders bombarded her body, making the chains groan against the wood beam above as she swayed.

“I missed you, Charlee.” The voice, oily and pungent like octane, produced a rush of saliva over her tongue. She gagged, retching up water, stringy with spit, on the ebony hardwoods.

His touch vanished.

Slap.

A sting rippled over her butt. It was nothing. He was just warming up.

Anguish gripped her insides. Any semblance of hope she’d held onto shriveled with that first strike. It was only the beginning of the pain she would endure for the next few hours, perhaps for the rest of her life.

The palm returned to her hip, fevered and sweaty, sliding over her back, her shoulders, and dipped to cup her breast. “You’ve kept yourself beautiful for me, Charlee, my good girl.”

She narrowed all thoughts on building her armor. She’d created the mental barrier at sixteen, and over the two years that followed, she thickened her skin with it, layer after layer, training her subconscious to unleash it. If she could figure out how to hold it through the worst parts, perhaps nothing would penetrate it. Not his words, nor his eyes. Not even the cut of his cane.

The stroking continued, down her breastbone, along her ribs, and backtracked to capture each nipple. Goosebumps trailed the path.

Her shield sparked in her mind’s eye and shaped an ethereal coat over her body. The invading hand was still there, but the notional space beneath it buffered the sensation.

Oh God, she didn’t want to be there. She trembled to be back in St. Louis with Noah, at his house, in his bed, just like they’d planned. He’d be wrapped around her, protecting her.

Her stomach bucked. Did he live? Was he angry at her for lying to him? Would she ever feel the tenderness of his touch again?

Finality coiled around her, constricting and choking. Her life with Noah was over, an unanswered wish. She couldn’t think of him. Not in this place, where no one would be looking for her. Longing for him would destroy her.

“I’m talking to you. I expect an acknowledgement.”

Smack. Smack.

“Unh.” Fuck. Her armor shuddered beneath the sturdier strike, the lingering bite. The fucking paddle. She flexed the muscles in her backside, longing to rub out the sting. “Y-yes, Sir.”

Smack. “Yes, Sir, what?”

He wanted her to say she missed him. Not just reciprocate but put her heart in the words. She could do it. She could look into his vile eyes and impart the words. She coughed, tried to clear the panic amassing in her throat. “May I…may I look at you, Sir?”

Einstein claimed that physical concepts were creations of the mind. The brain was power. She tried to focus on that, on her shield, and not on his shadow moving over her, around her.

Then he was there, nude from the belt up with his wool-stretching arousal an inch from her face. She’d watched clueless fucking women stare at his beauty, flock to him with ignorant desire. They wouldn’t salivate over his strength if they were trapped beneath it.

The musculature in his torso stretched as he crouched to eye level. Despite the brawn on display, the pasty complexion gave him a sickly appearance. His eyes, violet in daylight, were as dark as the energy emanating off him.

Her armor rose from her skin and outlined her body. She kept herself safe beneath it where he couldn’t see her or hurt her. On the outside, she arranged her mouth into a smile, her cheeks shaking with the effort, and held his gaze. “I missed you, Sir.”

His pupils dilated, and his hands swung up, caging her face, fingers pressing into her temples. Then his mouth was on her, tongue knifing its way in, slashing, impaling. She held stock-still, mouth agape, and let his teeth scrape and pierce, his lips suck and yank. Puncturing her shield. Stealing her breath. Taking, always taking.

The kiss broke and his chest panted. “I own you. Say it.”

Rehearsed and executed endlessly, she delivered. “You own me, Sir.”

He jumped to his feet, hands tackling his belt buckle. Oh God, she wasn’t ready. The shield. Harden the shield. It wavered around her, clinging, but not thick enough.

How had Jay survived his pain? If he were hanging in irons, what would he have done to guard his mind from splintering apart? How resilient he must’ve been to carry the weight of so many wounds. She wanted to borrow his strength, imagined it plated over her skin.

Roy’s pants dropped. Boxers followed. His inflamed erection grazed her lips. Rigid fingers raked over the crown of her head, twisting and yanking the short strands. “I love this length.”

She would never cut it again.

The fist in her hair tightened. The metal collar around her neck held her immobile. He punched his hips forward and slammed the head of his penis to the back of her throat.

Deep breath. No air. She gasped. Shit! No air. Relax the throat. Stretch the tongue. Swallow the thrusts. Not working. Her eyes burned and her gagging was loud and sharp.

His pelvis rotated, burrowing in. Wiry hair scrubbed her face. “Oooh…Hot damn, Charlee. Mother…fuuuuck.” Then the pounding began.

Tears clogged her nose and spasmodic bursts of air, noisy and wet, escaped her lips between pumps. She swallowed, slackened her throat, and fought for every shallow breath. Please hurry. Oh Jesus, be done already .

“Do you know how long it’s been?” He panted and plunged.

No, no. Stop talking and finish . She shook her head, as much as his stabbing allowed. The metal bands around her ankles, wrists, and neck dug in, suffocating. Tears flooded her vision and seared her cheeks.

His pace intensified. “Four years.” Thrust. “Two months.” Thrust. “Seventeen days.” He drove into her and held fast. His head fell back, and he roared to the ceiling, erupting down her throat. She choked, swallowed the bitterness of his release mixed with the salt of her snot and tears.

He pulled out, and she felt the relief in the sag of her body. He kicked off his shoes, the clothes at his ankles, and squatted to capture her eyes. “Last time I fucked you was in the backseat of the Expedition outside of Benu. Do you remember it, Charlee? Yeah, of course you do.”

The restaurant. The night she escaped. Dread crept over her and raised bumps on her skin.

“I trusted you. I gave you that unsupervised moment. A gift.”

And she’d seized it. Excused herself to the restroom, slipped through the kitchen, and escaped out the backdoor. She ran to the nearest motorist. She ran for four years.

“And you used it against me. Never again, Charlee.” His anger was palpable, pelting her face in a mist of spit. “You won’t leave the tower. Every action supervised. Every. Single. Breath.” He twirled a finger above his head, indicating the walls, the ceiling, and the cameras. “Now, you owe me four years’ atonement, but I promise”—his smile was diseased and more painful than what she’d just endured—”I’ll go easy on you tonight.”

From one rapid heartbeat to the next, he was behind her. He spread her cheeks and attacked her with his mouth, tongue digging and scooping between her labia. He shifted to her rectum and continued the assault. He spat, and the logy landed there, crawled down her crack, and clung to her inner thigh. The only lubrication he’d grant her.

It wouldn’t be as painful as the first time, the night he took her virginity. She wasn’t that sixteen-year-old girl anymore.

She put on her magic shield, pushed her arms through the sleeves, and wrapped it around her legs. The self-hypnosis prepared her, but when he impaled her ass, the shock of unbearable pain broke through her armor. She yelped, bit her tongue.

His teeth landed on her back, gnawing as he pounded into her backside. The shield absorbed some of it, but she still felt. Damn him, she felt it, and the realism was hell on her body.

He gripped her waist and punched his hips, in and out, again and again. “Did you fuck him?”

Her defensive haze convulsed. “What?”

The invasion in her body disappeared as he pulled out, but the relief was short lived.

Whack.

Agony annihilated the back of her thigh. Acute, localized, like a bolt of fire to the bone. Only one implement could do that.

“I do not repeat myself.”

Whack.

Skin swelled beneath the cut of rattan.

Whack. Whack.

Sweat stung her eyes, and her limbs shook through the blows. No more. No more .

Whack. Whack.

What was the question? Sweet mother, make it stop . “Y-yes, Sir.” She licked cracked lips. “Yes, I fucked him.” She didn’t even try to hide the self-loathing in her voice.

The cane clattered to the floor, and he plowed into her vagina, fierce and punishing. Pound after pound, he took from her. Flesh. Blood. Tears. It was disgusting. She was disgusting. Why did he want her? Why?

He grabbed her hair, yanked her head back, shooting pain down her back. “Your body was created for my pleasure.”

She shuddered. Had she asked that out loud?

“No one bends to my cane or takes my dick like you do. No one feels as good as you do. I own you.”

Tears clogged her throat, and he shoved her head away. Minutes blurred into hours. He violated every orifice, over and over without pause, and somewhere in the haze of anguish she panicked over his possible use of Viagra. He could go for hours on that horrible pill.

When her armor eventually crumbled, she tried to crawl away from her body, tried to project her mind and all its nerve endings to the corners of the room where the darkness stood still.

He spanked and caned, licked and bit, and spared no surface. Then he fucked her again.

Her breath wheezed through a parched throat. Dried stripes of tears burned her cheeks. When the blaze from his penetration dulled, she sunk into a listless fog of acceptance. The shadows crept in from the walls and guttered the lights until there was nothing. Nothing but the echo of his painful smile and the promise it imparted.

I’ll go easy on you tonight.