Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 90075 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 450(@200wpm)___ 360(@250wpm)___ 300(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90075 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 450(@200wpm)___ 360(@250wpm)___ 300(@300wpm)
Tears immediately sprang to my eyes as the sharp smack of the wooden spoon across my ass echoed in the living room.
“Ow!” I moaned behind my gag.
“Ten will be your punishment, Ella. Ten strikes for the ten infractions you’ve made against me.”
Infractions?
What the hell did I do?
I’ve been a saint.
A darling.
A—
“Ah!” I groaned, fighting against my restraints as the second one landed. My ass cheek smarted, blazing in a throbbing hot line where the spoon struck.
“The first was for being exactly what Hunter called you. You’re a witch, Ella. A succubus who stole my heart right from my chest and have ruled it ever since.”
Running the edge of the spoon down my crack, he murmured, “The second is for being a dream come true when I didn’t even dare to dream.”
I braced.
I balled my hands.
I still wasn’t prepared for the wallop.
“Ow!” My hips bucked against the wall as he hit me. Short and sharp, a perfectly delivered whack that coated me with heat, misery, and mortification.
“The third is for turning me into this...this beast. This hungry, thirsty beast who longs to drink up all your tears and feast on all your screams.”
I sobbed as he delivered the fourth.
My body boycotted.
My heart hated.
Every instinct told me to shout the safe word and tell him to get the hell away from me. But then the fifth landed and rationality flew out of my swimming, drowning mind.
“Four for making me share you. Five for making me watch another man fuck you.” His voice hitched as if the pain of that truly undid him.
I wanted to see him.
I wanted to let him know I’d never request that ever again.
He was who I wanted.
Only him.
Another lash. Another bruising chastisement.
“Six for finding me jerking off in the shower the morning after the circus. Seven for kneeling at my feet and opening your mouth for me to fuck.”
I groaned as images of him towering over me and driving his hardness over my tongue tangled with my current vulnerability.
That morning, I’d offered myself completely.
Right now, I was tied and trapped for his pleasure.
Both times, I’d been totally at his mercy.
And that knowledge did something to me.
It cracked open a gushing floodgate. It turned the key on whatever chemicals switched pain to pleasure within my naughty, demented blood.
The lessons Hunter had given me about surrendering to agony instead of resisting it flowed through my bones. I floated. I flew. I settled on a cloud of abdication and gave myself entirely to the man I’d chosen.
Nick noticed.
Of course, he noticed.
He let loose a savage snarl as I sagged in my binds and whimpered with every longing, every lusting chaos within me.
“Fucking hell, Ella.” The TV reflection showed him fisting himself. His cock speared up like a deadly weapon, his hand pumping hard flesh, granting a tenth of the pain he’d delivered to me with the spoon. “You’ve undone me, woman. You’re all I ever think about, and you’re all I ever see as I jerk off. I wish I’d snapped one night and broken down your door. I wish I’d found you with your legs spread and your greedy pussy waiting for me. I wish I’d fucked you when we were both half-asleep and barely aware, so I never had to watch another man pleasure you.”
Tears poured down my cheeks and soaked into the tie gagging me.
With a roar, Nick whacked my ass with the spoon. Once. Twice. Together. Apart.
I surrendered to all of it.
To the night we’d shared with Hunter and the future where it would just be us.
To the days we’d ignored our true feelings and the nights where we would be our true selves.
I gave myself over to this and then and before and after and when Nick’s harsh breath panted over my shoulder blade, I sobbed at the beauty of letting go.
At trusting him to put me back together again.
At knowing he might hurt me, but he’d been hurting for months, and now we were even.
“Eight for making me beg to become immortal to keep you. Nine for terrifying me that forever might not be enough. And ten...”
Rearing back, he palmed my ass, squeezed the branding fire he’d painted, then delivered the final crack without warning.
I screamed. Loudly. Incoherently.
The strike ricocheted through flesh and muscle and bone. It echoed through my entire body as Nick threw the spoon onto the couch, dropped to his knees, and shoved his face between my legs.
“And ten...” he said against my clit, his lips teasing me, feeding the words directly into my core. “Ten is for making me yours, just as you are mine. Ten is for forcing me to chase after you, forcing me to claim you for my own, forcing me to put aside my fears of death and dying all because...you never forced me. Not at all. You made me wake up. You made me see. You made me be honest with myself, and in return...I’m free.”