Page 49 of Bottoms Up (Mythic Beast #4)

Silver

Julian does this, sometimes. Gives me something to dread, a big painful thing coming the following day. I thought we were finished after the blowjob, and then thought I’d earned a reprieve when he’d let me finally stop orgasming, but I should’ve known better.

“Handjob, Silver,” he said, that high-pitched voice I’ve come to love deceptively soft. “Abuse your dick again.”

I was still bent over the bed, recovering, but I immediately sat up and fisted my cock, yelping a little because it was so fucking tender.

He walked to Atlas and unfastened his cuffs. Helped him stand. “Bend over the bed, and give Silver a blowjob when she moves under you. She likes heat and friction, but wrap your lips around your teeth. Her dick’s a little raw.”

“Not as raw as his,” I muttered, my voice hoarse.

Atlas obeyed, I moved under him, and fuck , he’s good with his mouth.

Too good. I was already overstimulated, and he brought a level of frantic energy like he needed to prove something with every suck.

I yanked on the nipple clamps Julian had clipped to him earlier—both to keep control and to ground myself. I still didn’t come.

Not until Julian leaned over Atlas’s back and bit me.

It hit like lightning — the first time I’d had a penile orgasm since… Vegas? Fuck .

Release. Relief . The flood of whatever chemicals my body manufactured left me shaking, my legs weak, eyes stinging. Even after it’d felt like I’d orgasmed all the way down to my motherfucking toenails, my cock pulsed, still flushed and aching.

And Atlas drank down every drop of me.

Part of Marco’s deal with Atlas is that he gets to play with him once a quarter, or anytime he needs powering up to defend the coterie or Homewood.

I didn’t know it until we got back to Homewood around three in the morning, but Marco had seen what we’d planned for Atlas, and he wanted to play with him while he was circumcised. He hadn’t fed that day, so he could partake of our pain-toy.

Atlas had only thought his ordeal was over.

Julian rose four hours earlier than expected the next afternoon. Playing with Atlas really powers him up.

This meant my date with the silicone whip came earlier than expected, and damn , it was hell.

My dick already felt like hamburger meat on the inside, and yeah, that’s an exaggeration, but fuck , I didn’t want another twenty-four strikes.

Julian bound me to the cross in the downstairs playroom, and I tried to negotiate while he fastened my wrists and ankles.

“Is there something else we can do, Sir? A whip to my back? Or maybe one of the canes to the backs of my legs and my ass?”

“We’re going to do everything you suggest, once I finish with your dick, so keep negotiating, little Silver.”

My heart stalled in my chest. “Please don’t, Sir! I take it all back!”

He laughed at me. Laughed .

Two steps closer, his hand cradling my cheek, gaze holding me hostage. “Oh, my little stellina. I do love playing with all your fun parts.”

He looked down, dragged a finger along my shaft from root to tip. Featherlight. “Tell me, how many times is your dick going to feel the evil silicone whip today?”

“Twenty-four, Sir.”

“That’s right. Three groups of eight. It’s going to be hell, mon trésor .”

I was already hard — of course I was — but he bit me anyway, just to be sure. The cocktail slammed through me like a shot of lightning, and suddenly my cock was the center of the universe, too big for my skin, every throb a fucking shout-from-the-rooftops in my bloodstream.

The first eight felt like a hundred strikes, as if they would never end — slow and measured, and yet, each followed to soon after the one before.

The harsh silicone lands like a fucking cane, so you feel it twice, the initial sharp, blazing insult to the surface, but then the secondary insult, the fire and compression under the skin. Pain that blooms in the meat of your dick.

I sobbed after the first three. By the eighth, my knees buckled against the restraints.

Julian leaned over and took my dick in his mouth, and I gasped like I’d been dunked in spring water. Cool lips on overheated skin, and every nerve ending lit up at once. I’d expected comfort and been jolted by the opposite of mercy.

My chest heaved with my sobs, and he worked my dick until my breathing was at least a little under control before he straightened and wrapped a hairband around the head — and he hooked it to line attached to the floor that I hadn’t noticed.

The length of my dick was pulled down until it was horizontal, and I couldn’t lean forward to relieve the strain.

“Won’t be on long enough to worry about cutting circulation off,” he told me, and then proceeded to beat the top side of my dick.

I screamed into the room with each cruel blow. Tears blurred my vision. Eight times, and he probably took two minutes to deliver them all, but the next devastating lash always arrived before I could handle it.

As promised, the hairband came off as soon as he finished, and my dick once again stood proud, throbbing like fuck, red and trembling, while tears flowed down my face.

I couldn’t even begin to imagine surviving another round.

* * * *

Julian

Silver needs this, sometimes. She so rarely needs to be punished, but a prearranged ordeal slides into the energy of discipline, where dread simmers quietly, long before the first strike arrives, when you just have to survive it because there’s no escape.

The best part of it, for me, is helping her through the hellscape, loving her through it, and then caring for her after.

This last group would be unbearable — exquisite in its cruelty, and it was my job to empathize and love her while simultaneously increasing her levels of dread and terror.

I cupped her tearstained cheek in my palm. “Poor, poor Silver. Paying the price for all those lovely orgasms. You’re beautiful when you cry, amore mio . Breathe in for me.”

She only managed a shallow inhale, so I changed my tone to leave no doubt it was an order. “Deep breath.”

In between talking her through more deep breaths, I told her how much I love her pain, her anguish, her gasps, her trembles.

And I kept telling her how much more this last set would hurt, given over the top of the first set. And unspoken, the fact she knows the final group is always given with harder strikes.

Her scent told me her fear levels, and I kept talking until I reached my goal.

I wanted her to dread it down to the marrow.

Five minutes later, the room was filled with the scent of her pain, dread, and fear, and I stepped back, took aim, and delivered the final eight.

Clean, brutal, spaced just far enough apart to let each blow echo in her body, her mind, before the next landed.

She sagged in her restraints, sobbing. I didn’t linger.

I released her arms and legs, scooped her into my arms, and carried her to the bondage table. The same one she’d used to roll my balls flat. It’s ours in a way nothing else can ever be.

She wanted to curl into a ball, but I connected her wrists over her head, straightened her body, and stretched out beside her. Held her. Pet her.

Her body shook, her sobs and gasps racking her small frame. I stroked her hair. “What is it about pain, il mio sole ?”

“Affection, Sir,” she managed. “Pain equals affection, Sir.”

“That’s right, amore mio bellissimo .”

My sun , the warmth I lost when my maker took my humanity. My beautiful love . My Silver is all of that, and more.

But our evening wasn’t over. Trying to negotiate her way out of consequences isn’t part of our deal. I make the rules, she follows them.

I didn’t carry her back to the cross, but held her hand and walked her. She didn’t want to go, but didn’t protest. The lesson was there, acknowledged, but now I had to make it stick.

A lesson in why we don’t negotiate with sadists while in a scene.

I bound her to the cross facing it and delivered the exact chastisement she’d offered — a whip to her back, followed by the cane on her ass and then to the backs of her thighs — thirty-six for each location, given twelve at a time.

I gave her little breaks between sets, but my poor girl was wrecked when I finally gathered her up and carried her to our suite.

I lowered her into a tub laced with Epsom salts, with music I knew would soothe her, and I let her float in her head for an hour while I hovered near in case her eyes opened, in case she needed physical contact. She didn’t, but I watched the tension drain from her frame, minute by minute.

And then I carried her to the shower and examined every inch of skin as I cleaned and rinsed it. She was bruised to hell and back, but everything would heal.

A soft towel to dry her, and I rubbed healing oils all over her body — seated at first, and then I carried her to bed and laid her face down in the center of the mattress to work on her ass and the backs of her legs.

And then rolled her over and made love to her — slow, deep, devastating — until she was spent in every way, and slipped into sleep, boneless and safe.

* * * *

Silver

I awoke the following day in better shape than I expected.

The best way to work soreness out is with exercise, so I left Julian a note and headed to the T-Wall.

How lucky am I that one of the best places to climb in this part of the world is a five-minute drive from my house?

Someday, I’ll bring Benji and show him all my favorite routes.

Sometimes, Atlas climbs with me, other times he stands at the bottom and keeps watch. Today, he stood at the bottom, probably because there were so many people on the wall.

On the short drive home, I said, “Just checking in. I know everything gets fixed when you change , but it still feels as if I should make sure you’re good.”

“Better than good. You are the perfect sadist, you know? You never apologize for hurting me. You don’t negate my pain with stupid words.”

Was he telling me he didn’t want to talk about it?

Or thanking me for the way I handled the scene?

I wasn’t sure, but I figured it was probably best not to stay on the subject too long, either way.

Part of our deal is that what happens behind closed doors stays there.

We don’t talk about it when he’s guarding us.

“Any issues I need to know about? Everything good with the hawks and the wolves?” He was part of the Homewood security team when Julian and I were both on the property, and our personal guard when either or both of us left.

“I work well under highly organized people and processes, and I’m pleased with my new home and job. Thank you for checking in with me.”

I was exhausted when we returned, but I forced myself to swim laps in the pool before I went inside to eat and then play video games.

I didn’t know when Julian would rise, but I figured it would be at least an hour later than the day before, which meant I still had some time on my own before we were due to go furniture shopping.