“Easy.” With a hand curled around her nape, I help her sit up and give her the bottle of water from my nightstand. “Drink.”
She takes a sip and flinches. She groans. She cries. “Why did you wake me up? I was good where I was.”
“Drink more.”
“Not thirsty.”
“Try. You need to hydrate.”
“Hurts.”
“I know.”
She manages a few more sips before I roll her onto her stomach and fetch an anesthetic cream from the bathroom. When I put a blob on my palm and reach for her, she says through gritted teeth, “Don’t touch me.”
“I need to rub this into you.”
“Get Anne or Jana.”
“It’s me you’re stuck with. Take it or leave it.”
She winces. Her pride takes a knock, but her pain won’t let her decline the promised relief of the medicine. I rub it over her back, ass, and thighs. She’s a portrait of red welts, and a couple of spots where the knots have left small bruises, but no skin is broken.
“I hate you,” she mumbles when I recap the tube, tears dripping from the corners of her eyes onto the pillow.
“I’m sorry you feel that way. I’d rather we get on.”
“Go to hell.”
I smile. Ruined, but far from broken. That’s my girl. That’s the woman I sensed in the library. Strong. Resilient.
“You should’ve just beaten me to death,” she says, staring non-seeing at the far wall.
I chuckle. “It’ll take a lot more to beat a person to death. Your brain cut out. It’s a normal reaction to an overload of sensory stimulation.”
“Pain, you mean.”
“Yes, pain in this instance. You chose, Lina. I told you, it’s always in your hands.”
“I didn’t choose this. I didn’t choose you.” Her voice rises steadily. “I didn’t choose—” She grapples for words like a fish would grapple for air. “I didn’t choose any of this.”
“Shh.” I sit down on the edge of the bed and stroke her hair. “You need to save your energy to recover. It won’t help to get upset.”
“I am upset. I’m not a doll with a button you can push to control my moods.”
“I’m very aware of the fact that you’re not a doll.” I drag a palm up her inner thigh to the junction of her legs. She’s dry. This kind of pain doesn’t turn her on. Sad as it is, wrong and depraved, her pain makes me hard, and I’m not going to apologize for it. This is who I am. She made me, together with Dalton, and this is what she gets.
“Don’t touch me,” she says, but she doesn’t push my hand away when my fingers probe and play, teasing her clit to make her slick.
“You need this, believe me.”
“I need nothing from you.”
“You disobeyed me. I punished you. Now I’m going to please you.”
“I don’t want you to please me.”
I slide a finger inside, slow and easy. She’s already wet. She gasps. Her back bows.
“Tell me this doesn’t feel good,” I challenge with a few shallow pumps.
She cries out. I go faster. Her whole body pulls tight.
“You get to choose. Tongue, fingers, or cock.”
“Nothing,” she moans into the pillow.
“Bad girl.” I smack her ass.
She yelps.
“You know how I feel about nothing.”
“Damian, please.”
“Please what?”
“Just let me hate you.”
“As much as you want. You have my permission. You also have my permission to come as hard as you like, whenever you’re ready.”
“I’m not a sex slave who comes on demand.”
Enough of the defiance. “If you won’t choose, I’ll choose for you.”
Spreading her legs, I kneel between them. She hisses when I trace a welt on her ass with my tongue.
Burying my face between her legs, I say, “Oral it’ll be.”
It’s not that I’m worried about getting her pregnant. On the contrary, tying her to me in blood is an excellent idea. There’s nothing I would’ve liked more than to sink my dick into her and make her come several times on my cock, but I’m too close to breaking. I don’t want to be rough with her. I want to be sweet, gentle, and slow until her pussy clenches and she utters that little distressed sound when she comes.
The effect of the cream should be kicking in by now. Most of the pain should be gone, enough for her to focus on the tongue I bury deep in her pussy. She squirms, rubbing her thighs over my cheeks. I give a gently bite to remind her to keep still. Using my thumbs, I peel her soaked lips open and eat her out like a fruit, like a beautiful, bruised fruit. That’s what she tastes like. Her arousal is strong, her honey plentiful. Her senses are heightened. She’ll feel the orgasm all the way to her toes.
It’s over quickly, but the intensity of her release leaves her heaving and panting. Bending her arm, she puts her head in the crook and hides her face from me. It’s only late morning, but I undress and lie down next to her.