Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 121310 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 607(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121310 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 607(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
The other room.
The dungeon.
It's not in the basement in this house, in case there were any bad memories left over, and I made it bright in here instead of dark. With one flick of a light switch, the gray walls are lit with warm, yellow glowing sconces at intervals all along the wall, highlighting the equipment like works of art.
My stomach clenches, having Madison here with me, collared.
"Has Anna seen it yet?" she asks.
But I won't play that game.
She clicks her teeth at me. "So protective."
When I glance down, she's looking up at me again. "But I don't want to be protected tonight. I want you to hurt me."
I feel myself frown. She's so beautiful and so vulnerable there on the ground. I can't be the completely cold, sadistic bastard I once was. I see that now.
Which, again, she must read on my face because I hear her exhale. "Wow. We really have changed you, haven't we?"
"At least make me cry," she amends, voice softer. "Loving you hurts too much without the pain to balance it out."
My jaw clenches. She's the only person in the world who makes me feel so vulnerable and can call me out on my shit. But maybe it's only fair. For once, she's baring herself to me. Wasn't that what always made me fall for her? Because, as good a liar as she is, I believe her right now.
The next words out of her mouth only cement all the reasons I love her.
"Without some bitter to balance the sweet," she whispers, "it starts to not feel real."
She searches my face. "But you already know that, don't you?"
I swallow hard and nod. I do.
My eyes lock on her dark ones, and like always, I feel the arcing energy spark between us.
I reach down and cup her jaw—
But not sweetly.
My voice is husky, thick with promise.
"Stand," I command. "Hands above your head."
She rises in one fluid motion, and I quickly lock her wrists in the hanging cuffs I had installed on the ceiling in the center of the room. She has to go up on her tiptoes to have any contact with the floor, and her eyes go bright as she drops her head back, giggling and lifting her legs off the floor.
So that she's dangling completely from the ceiling.
My ready sacrifice.
NINE
DOMHNALL
I start slow, working her ass with my softest floggers, then up her back in an X pattern. And she barely writhes or responds. This is definitely Madison. She's far less reactive than when I had her in my last dungeon. But things were different then, weren't they? Mads was mostly repressed when Anna had amnesia.
I've blindfolded her, but she still looks over her shoulder at me, as if mocking me.
"Will you be done with the feathers soon, Sir?" she asks. Definitely mocking.
"Do you want to be caned?" I quip.
My cock immediately fills with blood at the thought. I was already stiff, but now? I'm fully hard at the thought of all the ways I'll be able to play with her.
What will it take for her to really give me a reaction?
Drawing blood?
She'd love that, I bet. But I can't mark the body she shares with Anna. Not without Anna's consent.
As it is, I stare at the skin of her back that's lightly pinkened from the flogger, fascinated. I don't want to look away. My breath gets shorter, and my blood starts to heat in my veins in anticipation of what comes next.
I'd say I don't know why I'm like this. But of course, I fucking do. It's not like I haven't read up on sadism. What happened to me as a teenager should have been too late to have caused it, although you never know.
But they say it's shit that happens in early childhood that makes for personality disorders. And I believe it.
Because the truth is, I always loved inflicting pain.
In brawls at school, I kept hitting after a fucker was down.
I liked the blood. I liked the way bastards got scared when they looked at me, eyes full of agony and terror, so scared I'd do more. It gave me such a goddamn rush.
I loved the way it felt when my fist hit flesh, all that fury in my body finally finding a target. A target that was allowed. Not—
All the men who used my mother at home.
I walk back to the wall of implements, my fingers gliding over the more dangerous whips and the cane that would definitely wipe that smirk off Mads's face.
But then—
My eyes land on something even more wicked. One that won't leave marks behind. At least, not when wielded by someone who knows what the fuck he's doing. Which I do. And I'd be more careful than ever, considering whose sweet flesh I'll be using it on.
I grin, my breathing uneven as I pick up the violet wand.