“How?” Her question was breathless and soft.
“I’m going to show you pain. You’ll suffer your
penance under my hand.” He tipped her face and lowered
his until their noses were only inches apart. “Are you
afraid?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” He let his thumb outline her mouth. “If it’s too
much, if you can’t handle it, you say ‘white’ and we’re all
done for the night. Understood?” She nodded dutifully.
Vicious lowered his mouth and kissed her deeply. She
lifted up to meet his searching tongue. When she trembled,
he pulled back and rubbed her cheek. “Let’s get started.”
Hallie shivered under his intense gaze. Fear rattled her
belly. The slight quiver of panic made her chest hurt.
Pain? Punishment? Could she really go through with this?
Vicious would never really harm her. That she believed
more than anything. Whatever they were going to do was
going to hurt, yes, but it wouldn’t inflict lasting harm or
damage. As she gazed into his blue eyes, she realized he
understood what she needed. The guilt of having taken a
life, even a rotten one, was too much for her to move past
without some kind of punishment. To receive that under
his loving hand was exactly what she needed.
“Come here.” Vicious patted his lap. “Hands on the
floor. Head down.”
She followed his instructions and draped herself across
his lap. He was so tall and she so short that it was a
stretch to put her hands on the floor. He shifted her a little
on his lap, tilting her forward enough that she felt off
balance. His big arm clamped down across her shoulders
and held her in place. She flinched when his hand
caressed her bottom. He’d smacked her backside before,
that evening he’d brought home the cat getup, but that was
playful. This wouldn’t be.
“Ow!” She cried out and twisted as his massive palm
cracked her right butt cheek. His hand quickly descended
on the other side and then returned to the right. “Ow! Oh!
No!”
“Hush.” Vicious spoke sternly as he delivered the
unending smacks. “You deserve this. You need to be
punished.”
He was right. She’d done a bad thing. A burning sting
blossomed across her bottom. The uncomfortable heat
spread as his hand whacked her again and again. She’d
never been spanked like this. Ten whacks was the usual
around her house for bad behavior. This? This was
ceaseless and sharp and so much worse because she was
naked across Vicious’ lap.
“Please,” she begged and tried to wiggle off him.
“Please, Vicious.”
“No.” His hand fisted in her hair. He didn’t pull or yank
or cause her pain but the knowledge that he could kept her
still. “Take it, Hallie. Accept your punishment.”
She lowered her gaze to the floor as he beat her ass. As
the humiliation and embarrassment of having her husband
spank her started to fade, something new took hold. It felt
almost…right.
All the guilt she’d carried the last few days welled up
inside her. She choked on the ugliness of it. The memory
of what she’d done, the way she’d stabbed that man in the
neck and then helped Terror get rid of the body, to dispose
of it like so much garbage, made her ill. She sobbed
against Vicious’ thigh. Each painful pull of air stretched
her lungs and made her stomach burn. She’d done a
terrible thing. She needed to suffer for it.
Her bottom was on fire now but Vicious showed no
signs of letting up. She cried and pleaded but he didn’t
show mercy. His big hand found a rhythm that tormented
her. Still, the pain and guilt of what she’d done raged
inside her.
His hand stilled on her backside. He caressed her lower
back and the space between her shoulders. “Are we done?
Have you forgiven yourself yet?”
“No.” The answer tore from her throat on a nasty sob.
“Punish me, Vicious. Make me hurt.”
He went rigid beneath her. In the next instant, he stood
and tossed her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
Her bottom hurt but it wasn’t enough. The guilt clogged
her throat, made it difficult to breathe.
Vicious set her on her feet and made quick work of
securing her arms overhead in some kind of device.
Leather cuffs like the ones she’d worn the first night
squeezed her wrists. They were hooked to a large ring
dangling from a chain mounted to the ceiling. He adjusted
the slack on the chain and forced her onto her very tiptoes.
Still, he wasn’t done. Vicious put cuffs around her
ankles and spread her thighs wide. He fixed chains to the
cuffs and hooked those into small rings protruding from the
floor. She balanced precariously now. Panic momentarily
overrode the guilt.
He stepped away and returned with a towel. Even in
this frightening moment, he showed such tenderness as he
wiped away the saliva and tears and snot from her sobbing
session. The towel was discarded as he walked to a tall,
thin metal chest on wheels. It reminded her of a toolbox.
He opened a drawer and removed two shiny silver clips
attached to a chain.
She gulped at the sight of them. That night at the
general’s party, she’d seen women wearing those.
“No!” She tried to pull back but there was no escape.
“Vicious, please, not that.”
He silenced her with a punishing kiss. “You asked for
this. I’m giving you what you need.”
He bent low and swiped her left nipple with his tongue.
He sucked it gently, forcing it into a stiff peak, and then
clamped one of the clips onto it. She hissed and tried to
jerk away but his mouth had already descended to her right
breast. He performed the same procedure there.
Breasts aching and nipples pinched, she inhaled a
shuddery breath. He picked up the chain dangling between
the two clamps and lifted it to her neck. There was still
enough slack that the clamps didn’t pull. Vicious quickly
remedied that when he opened the ring on the front of her
collar and hooked the chain there. Instantly, her nipples
were tugged and buzzing.
“Oh! Oh no!”
“Sh.” He kissed her cheek. “Learn to accept the pain,
Hallie. Feel it.”
She gulped as his words penetrated her confused mind.
He moved around behind her now. She wanted to turn to
watch him but the slightest movement of her neck pulled
on the clamps. The sharp bite was too much so she stayed
stock still.
Another drawer opened behind her. He retrieved
something. Whatever it was, it made a strange whirring
sound as he moved his arm. The first thud of the
thing
landed on her backside and she gasped. “Ah!”
“It’s a flogger, Hallie.”
Knowing what it was didn’t make it any easier to
accept. The first few whacks were soft but heavy. The
weight of the material impacted her bottom with enough
force to make her cringe. It wasn’t bad so much as
different.
Until Vicious increased the power behind each smack
of the leathery tendrils, that is.
Her gasps turned into cries as the flogger hit her bottom
again and again. Her tissues, already sore from that
spanking, now protested the sharp, heavy thud of the
flogger tongues. She rose even higher on tiptoes, her
calves burning and arms tensing, and tried to escape. It
was no use. She was caught and forced to endure her
punishment.
Her mind turned to another time she’d been forced to
receive a punishment. Then it had been about humiliation.
Having her head shaved in front of her village had marked
her as a law breaker and a criminal. Even worse, it was
the same punishment reserved for the prostitutes
discovered by the village police. Anyone who saw her
after that immediately believed her to be a whore. She’d
learned then to ignore the disdainful looks or the pitying
gazes. She’d learned to move beyond what people thought
and be content in what she knew to be the truth.
In some way, this experience was the same. The pain
Vicious produced with his hand and that flogger began to
surpass the pain of her guilt. She still felt so twisted up
inside. The flashbacks of that night tortured her. The hot
blood spilling over her hand, the gurgling death rattle as
the man finally expired. She could feel the cloth in her
hand as it wiped away the congealed blood on that hotel
room floor. She closed her eyes as hot tears poured down
her cheeks.
She sobbed loud and rough. It was an ugly cry that
racked her body with spasms. Behind her, Vicious tossed
the flogger to the floor. It hit with a noisy thump. He
wasn’t finished with her. She knew because she wasn’t
finished with herself. The catharsis he’d promised still
hadn’t arrived.
His hand tangled in her hair. He tugged her head back,
forcing her chin up and the collar around her neck to pull
taut the chain attached to those awful clamps. She gasped
in pain but Vicious soothed her with his mouth. His lips
followed the curve of her neck and touched her jaw. His
mouth against her ear, he whispered, “I love you, Hallie.”
Before she could answer him, he stepped back and
popped her bottom with something hard and unforgiving.
A cane, she realized a second later.
“
AHH!
”Hallie screamed as the sharp, angry pain striped
her backside. “No! No! Oh.”
He gave her a short reprieve before popping her again.
This time, the pain of the cane blistering across her bottom
surpassed the ugly guilt clawing at her chest. It burst
through and obliterated that torment. Another smack of the
cane and Hallie sagged in her bonds. She cried pitifully
now but felt the strangest sense of relief.
Something warm and bright surged through her. The
pain no longer gripped her. She’d moved beyond it to
something new and different. The knowledge that she’d
taken a life would never leave. The guilt at having made
the choice to save a friend at the cost of another man faded
and vanished.
However awful the choice, she’d done the right thing.
Vicious popped her again, the unyielding snap of the
cane searing her bottom. She cried out but finally found
her voice. “Wh-white.
White
!”
The cane clattered as it hit the ground. She still sobbed
but the tears came from a different place now. Vicious
unhooked her arms and ankles. She fell forward onto him.
He swept her into his strong arms and carried her out of
there. She closed her eyes and reveled in his heat.
When he placed her in their bed, she gazed up at him.
Surprise punched her in the gut. His blue eyes glistened
with tears. Obviously, she wasn’t the only one who had
been moved by the strangely intimate and beautifully
brutal experience they’d just shared.
She slid her arms around his neck and pulled him down
for a kiss. “Make love to me, Vicious.”
Chapter Eighteen
Taking a cane to Hallie’s perfect little ass had been the
hardest thing he’d ever done, but he’d pushed through and
done it for her. He’d known the second she’d forgiven
herself. Guilt had a nasty way of twisting a soul. If it took
a few pops of a cane to bring Hallie to a place of agony
that allowed her to come to terms with what she’d done
and accept forgiveness, then so be it.
Vicious kissed her gently, his mouth moving across hers
with such love. He stroked her arms and ribs before using
a corner of the bed sheet to wipe her face. His lips glided
down her chin to her chest. He hated to cause her even
more discomfort but the clamps had to come off now. He
quickly unclipped the clamp pinching her left nipple.
She hissed and thrashed under him. “It hurts. Oh! Ow!”
“I’m sorry, Kitten.” He licked the nipple and kissed it
tenderly. His fingertips moved to the other clamp but she
smacked his hand away.
“No. Leave it, Vicious.”
“I can’t. It has to come off or you risk injury.” He didn’t
let her argue any further. He squeezed the ends and
removed the clamp. She cried out and twisted her hips. He
hurriedly tongued the throbbing peak and suckled it lightly.