Shockingly, Ryker was still asleep next to me when I woke up on Christmas morning. My thigh was sore, but it was a pleasant reminder of the man beside me.
It felt almost surreal that Ryker liked me as more than just his best friend. I knew it was insane to think that he was in love with me. Ryker wasn’t that kind of guy. He didn’t hold on to girls for long, and I knew that just because I was his best friend, I wouldn’t be an exception.
A cold feeling settled in my chest at the thought of him going back to school while I went home, back to the house I had been left by my parents, back to that darkness.
I squeezed my eyes shut, biting back my tears. That darkness was lurking at the corners of my mind, ready to swallow me whole again as soon as Ryker left me behind.
I drew in a deep, shuddering breath, but it didn’t calm me. Tears burned in my eyes. I felt like I was suffocating, already drowning.
“Hey,” Ryker’s deep voice rumbled next to my ear. He wrapped his arm around me, tugging me against him. “Breathe, little star. It’s alright.”
A tear slid down my cheek. I shook my head. It wasn’t alright. I was never going to be alright again and thinking I ever would be had been a joke.
Ryker suddenly got off the bed and lifted me into his arms, carrying me from the room. “Ryker?” I questioned.
“I’m not letting you get lost inside of your head, baby girl. There are consequences when you do.”
My breath hitched in my throat. He pushed open the door to the basement and strode down the stairs before setting me on my feet in front of the chains hanging down from the ceiling.
Without a word, he grabbed one wrist and locked the chain around it before doing the same to the other one. Then, he tightened the chain until I was standing on the very tips of my toes, my body stretched to the point it hurt.
He gripped my chin, forcing my eyes to lock on his. “I own you, Brandy.” I fisted my hands around the chains, my body screaming in protest at the pain, but it blocked those darker thoughts from my mind. “That means if I don’t want you thinking dark thoughts, you fucking won’t. Am I clear?”
My lips trembled. “I can’t help them, Ryker,” I whispered. My eyes fluttered closed. “They consume me.”
He gently shook me. I groaned in pain. “I can make them disappear, little star, and you know that. They start creeping in, you fucking tell me. Or this kind of shit will happen.”
He backed off from me and moved somewhere behind me. “What kind of shit?” I demanded to know. My breath hitched in my throat. I could hear him doing something behind me, but I couldn’t see him. I swallowed thickly when he didn’t answer. “Ryker?”
I shrieked in pain when something leather snapped across my ass cheeks. Another lash came across my ass cheeks again right after. I tightened my hands around the chains, pain and lust flowing through me all at once. Ryker kept lashing me with whatever he was using. I knew he broke the skin at some point because blood trickled down the backs of my thighs.
Then, he moved up my back. Pain ripped through me, but it was welcomed. I flinched with each strike, moans of need and whimpers of pain ripping from my throat all at once. He moved around to the front of my body, the whip in his hand cracking across my upper thighs. His eyes stayed on my face. Tears were running down my cheeks, but the pain was better than the shit going on in my head.
How fucked up was that?
He dropped the whip once my body was covered in welts. I moaned when he gripped the backs of my thighs and slid inside of me. He started fucking me slowly, and then, he increased his tempo, pounding in and out of me, squeezing my tender flesh as he did so.
“I don’t like causing you pain, little star,” he told me. I trembled in his hold. “I want to keep you happy and outside of your head with pleasure, not pain.”
“The pain feels good, though.” I moaned when he rubbed my clit with his pelvic bone.
“I know it does, but I don’t like marring your body, baby girl. I need you to be open with me. Even if I’m sleeping, wake me up. I don’t care what the fuck I’m doing. I’ll reward you for telling me.”
I was so close. “And if it’s pain I crave?” I whispered.
His lips brushed mine. “Then I’ll please you so fucking much it hurts.”
With that, I came hard around him.