“Or maybe something as simple as will they use lube?”
He chuckled at that, but there was no joy in his tone. In fact, he grew more and more despondent with each comment he made, his tugs on my hair working out the knots, becoming slightly rougher each time as if he paid less and less attention.
He left me to ponder that last one for a while, and when he was able to pull the brush through without a snag, he lay me back down and stood.
I shifted and rolled onto my side, the sedative slowly loosening its hold on me. The tingling in my limbs told me it was almost over. I’d be free of it soon.
But not soon enough.
“Maybe something more imminent, like what punishment can I expect for my earlier transgression?”
Punishment.
He rolled me onto my belly and pulled me toward the foot of the bed until my legs hung over the edge.
I tried to push myself over or off the bed, but that proved too difficult. When he saw my attempt, he snickered.
“You want to see my face?” he asked, his voice quiet.
He came around to where I lay, my right cheek pressed against the bed.
“I guess it doesn’t matter.”
He seemed to say that more to himself than to me. He squatted down so he came to eye level.
“Will it make any difference for you?”
He brushed a wet strand of hair off my forehead, the touch of his finger making me shiver.
“For me?”
His voice, his tone—it sounded so utterly hopeless, as if truly, it made no difference at all. As if nothing mattered at all.
“No, not really, not for you. And not really for me.” He reached up to tug the mask off his head.
I watched, my eyes widening, and gasped.
Short dark-blond hair stood on end, static taking hold of it, making me think of a kid with a balloon, a boy giggling as his hair fanned out in all directions.
What had I expected? A monster. A terrible, horribly scarred monster. Maybe some deformity? What?
Whatever it was, it wasn’t this.
Certainly not this.
He was…beautiful. Beyond beautiful. His face—it belied an innocence that did not belong to him. That I knew in my gut had never belonged to him.
Blue-gray eyes the color of coldest steel softened by the thickest lashes were set in the face of an angel carved in solid, unbending stone. Too beautiful. Too unbearably beautiful. Thick, blond scruff darker than his hair and spotted with gray dusted his hard, square jaw. His lips were full, as if swollen from kissing.
Kissing.
He had the face of a man who’d just stepped out of a magazine. But it wasn’t only that—that cool, easy, deceptive beauty. There was more. So much more. And it hid behind his eyes, in that bottomless abyss of blue-gray. Looking at them now sent a shiver racing down my spine, making every hair on my body stand on end. He had the eyes of a man who’d taken more and who’d lost more than any one human being should. A man who’d learned terrible things. Who’d seen the worst mankind had to offer one another. A man who’d hurt.
No. Much more than hurt.
A man who’d done unspeakable evil.
I shuddered.
And he smiled.
He smiled a smile of pure evil, and the dimple in his right cheek disarmed me, or would have, had I not seen the darkness, the depravity, the cold, cold emptiness inside those steely, beautiful eyes, and I wished—and I knew he knew I wished it in that moment—I wished I could take it back. I wished he had never taken the mask of death from his face. I wished he’d never shown me this, this perfect evil, this perfect, cold beauty.
“You want to know my name?” he asked, rising, breaking into my thoughts.
I shook my head. He patted my hair as if he were a proud parent. He then unbuckled his belt and whipped it out of its loops. The sound made me gasp. He doubled it over, watching me as he set the buckle in the palm of his hand.
He moved behind me.
“I underestimated you.”
The first lash of the belt seared my ass, making me scream.3DominicI have no delusions about the darkness inside my soul. It is a black abyss, a hole so deep and so dark, it could consume me.
It could swallow me whole. It will if I have anything to say about it.
After leaving Gia’s room, I locked the door and set the mask on the kitchen table. I opened the fridge and took out a beer, popping the bottle cap off and drinking half of it down on my way to my bedroom. After whipping Gia’s ass, I needed a drink. And a shower. Whipping was hard work. A workout, really.
And it made my dick hard.
Sick fuck.
In my bedroom, I stripped off my boots, jeans, and briefs, finished the rest of the beer, and switched on the shower. I stepped into the icy flow before the water even warmed, the cold not doing anything to alleviate my rock-hard erection.