Page 51 of House of Cards

My body racks under a relieved sob as I try to catch a breath in lungs as fiery as my backside.

God, I’m so fucking sore.

It feels like I sat on super-heated metal chair. My entire body is quaking as I struggle to handle the pain. I don’t know if I’m sobbing or panting or both. I’ve never felt pain this intense. It’s worse than when I broke my arm at nine.

“Please!” I fail to choke down a sob of panic. “Please!” The last is a shrill, breathless shriek.

But I’ve offended this client past the point of negotiation, it seems. He’s not even speaking to me anymore. My chaotic mind tries to think of something I can bribe him with, but I can’t stand the thought of him touching me again with his coarse, rough hands.

Something cool and firm touches the inside of my thigh. My aching backside is rerouting all the nerves in my body, leaving the rest of me feeling so numb I’m not sure what’s running over my skin.

Is it…is it the handle of whatever he just used on me?

I jolt, trying to close my legs, but with my ankles cuffed, that’s literally impossible.

“No, no, no, no,” I whimper.

There’s a throaty rumble behind me, and every hair on my body stands up.

Despite the low key horror working its way through my mind, I force myself not to move away from his touch. Anything’s better than the all-out beating he was giving me.

The pain is still there. But it’s moved deeper now, from stinging skin to throbbing, aching flesh. I grit my teeth, clench my jaw, and at first with reluctance, then determination, force myself to stop hiccuping like a three year old at the end of a meltdown.

You got this, Zoey. He’s given you his all, and you’re still standing. Soon as you can talk without blubbering, you’re going to cuss him so bad, he’ll?—

He lays a stinging slap to my pussy that stops the world in its tracks.

A single hit with his hand. Just one.

That’s all it takes for my thighs to start quaking.

Not because of the pain this time.

Pain would have been so much better.

The slow, dizzying heat that crawls between my legs and up my spine is more awful than every burning whip lash combined.

Because I fuckinglikeit.

He lets out another deep rumble. And I’m flipped into another moment where I feel like I’ve just fallen through Alice’s rabbit hole. My imagination refines its sketch of Howler, transforming him from a pudgy, broad-faced butcher psycho into…

An image of Smith.

Oh, God, not him.

Why did it have to be him?

Smith stands behind me with a whip in his hand, head tilted and dark eyes gleaming as he considers his next move.

A second slap to my pussy turns my thoughts to mush.

Not because it was harder than the first—although it stings a hell of a lot more because of how wet I am—but because he never took his hand away.

And he doesn’t just squeeze my pussy. He claims it. Steady, unrelenting, like it’s his property and he can do whatever the fuck he wants with it.

I don’t want this.

I swear to God, I don’t want this.