“Maybe I need to feel it first. Feel what it’s like.” My voice came out tight, and it was hard to swallow. It took a long time before I said the last part. “Maybe I need to hurt someone first.”
Her eyes searched mine, and tears like two delicate crystal drops slid down her cheeks.
“Turn around and hug the post, Sofia.”
Her teeth began to chatter, and more tears followed. My cock ached. In one step, I was on her, gripping the back of her head, taking a handful of hair, and tugging it back to force her face up. I crushed my mouth over hers. She whimpered, kissing me back, weeping fully now, almost frantically, the kiss desperate as if with her lips alone, she would cling to me.
I slid the whip handle between her legs, and she let out a scream. But when I squeezed her cunt, it was wet, her clit swollen. I looked down at her, exhaling before taking her mouth again.
“You’re wet,” I groaned, grinding myself against her.
“I want you,” she said, leaning her face forward when I pulled back. “Make love to me.”
No. Now wasn’t the time for lovemaking. And I didn’t like her using sex to manipulate me.
I turned her roughly so she faced the pole, then pushed my briefs down and off. She pushed her ass into me.
I groaned with need, burying my face in her hair, imagining her tight pussy around my cock, smelling her scent, her skin so close. “I wasn’t the only one,” I said like it was a confession, pinching her nipple before gripping that handful of hair again and turning her head, kissing her tearstained cheek, finding her mouth.
“Raphael—”
“He whipped my mother too. I don’t know how long he’d been doing it.”
She shook her head.
“How long she kept it a secret.”
I pressed the whip against Sofia’s cunt. I wanted to fuck her. God, I wanted to bury my fucking cock inside her, but I couldn’t. Not yet. “If I’d just let him beat me…if I hadn’t fought back, maybe he wouldn’t have hurt her.”
She craned her neck and looked at me, hearing me. And maybe I heard myself for the first time, because to say it out loud, to hear it, fuck. I knew the guilt I felt. It wasn’t new. It wasn’t something I buried. But to say it out loud? To another human being? To Sofia?
I shook my head, pulling back, gripping the whip hard. “Hug the post, Sofia.”
“It’s not your fault.”
She tugged frantically at her restraints. They’d hold her tight, though. I knew that.
“What he did, Raphael, it’s not your fault.”
“Hug the fucking post!” I roared, raising the whip.
She screamed and turned, wrapping her forearms and legs around the thing as best she could, and she wept and begged and fuck, God knows what she said. What words she muttered, because I couldn’t hear them. Not anymore. All I could do was watch her cling to the post, watch her trembling body as she waited for me to whip her. All I could do was see her.
See myself in her.
See fear.
Feel it.
Feel her terror.
And it reminded me, took me back so many years.
And it made me falter, and I hated that it made me fucking falter.
I couldn’t be weak.
I wouldn’t.
A sound came from me, something foreign and full, like glass breaking into a thousand shards. Shattering. Damaged beyond repair.
That was me. That was what I was. A wrecked monster. A killer. A hateful, vengeful beast.
Sofia craned her neck, her wet eyes meeting mine, the terror inside them slicing me again. As if that were even possible anymore. There wasn’t anything left to hurt.
My throat tight, I went to her, hugging her back, prying her from the post.
“I’m sorry,” I said, turning her, holding her. I buried my face in her hair and kept saying it, kept repeating the words, holding her so tight, so fucking tight.
I reached up, my hands fumbling as I undid the restraints. I expected her to pull away. To run from me. It’s what she should have done. But instead, her arms wrapped around my neck and, still weeping, her tears salty on my lips, she kissed me, hugging me with all her strength, clinging to me like she had that post when I’d scared the fuck out of her. When I’d been moments from lashing her back, hurting her like I’d been hurt, scarring her like I was scarred.
“I’m sorry,” I said again. “I’m so sorry.”
“Make love to me,” she said against my lips, our bodies never separating, never apart.
I lifted her, using the post at her back as I slid her onto my cock, still fucking hard after all this.
Our eyes locked, our lips touched, and I thrust into her.
She sucked in a breath, and I knew it hurt her. She was too tight. Too small to take me. But I wanted it. I wanted her. Like this. Fuck. I needed it.