Page 5 of Marked for Redemption

It.

Wasn’t.

Real.

Fury drawn from jealousy erupted. I growled loudly, stormed into the main room, and grabbed the pair of floggers from the wall. I went over to the hanging man and began walloping him with all of my pent-up aggression. Angry, I lay my fears against his skin as I fought my undeserving needs. This was real. The way he swayed and groaned as I attacked his innocent flesh with my demons. What he was guilty of had nothing to do with my frustration, but understand that I didn’t care. Instead, I needed a place to lay my insecurities the only way that I knew how. I had to let out the things that ate at me without saying a word.

This was my safe place. This was how I communicated what I wanted, needed, and desired. There were no flowers or kind words for me. I had foes I needed to reform to fulfill the queen's requests. I’d given up on the fanciful words that women adorned. This is what I’d traded it for. His pain. It reflected the shit that stirred inside me. The redness in his skin displayed the internal wounds that I hid deep inside. His panic was a feeling that I could never display. When the leather sliced his back and the wounds healed slower than the earlier ones did, it gave me satisfaction. He was weakening. Tired, hungry, and almost where I needed him. Victimized.

I’d get back to torturing him for information after my therapy session was complete. This was about me letting go of the questions raised from that fucking dream. It grounded my place back into reality. Each swing proved I was still me and not that girl who wished that her life was different. I couldn’t have happily ever afters. Just battles, wars, and torturing those who fell ploy to whatever tactics we used to help Kiara reign supreme. This was my life, and those dreams were just distractions. No more of that. I had work to do.

“Fuck!” He swore at the height of my rhythm.

I swung harder, ignoring the pleas in his voice. The pattern of a figure eight, I continued working him over. Changing course, I used an over and underhand method that allowed one flogger to his ass at the same time that it marked the top of his back. The cracks against his skin fed my truth. Drawing my attention to the marks on his skin. I moved down to his thighs, striking them like targets. I exhaled when my floggers touched his skin, inhaled as I moved my arms, and relaxed for a beat between each cycle until I worked myself up into a controlled mad woman.

My skin buzzed with excitement. I became in tune with the sway of his body, using it to my advantage. I moved around to the front of him to see his dick standing at attention and dripping with anticipation. Interesting. This time, I focused on his chest. Inflicting pain so intense that it rocked him away from me. As he came back, he connected with the tails of the leather. Sharp bites on the skin. His head lagged backward, unable to hold it upright anymore. The endorphins had to be affecting him too. Damn, he was marvelous. He held my attention in a way that fed my inner desires. He became aroused by the pain I issued. Submitting to me extraordinarily. A rare find. He also dominated me with the same enthusiasm. I understood that I forced the submission from him with pain. When he did embrace it, he reveled in it.

Here he was, aroused, and enjoying this as much as I did. One fool for another. I worked up and down his chest, dropped the strands of the flogger against his hard-on every other swing, and he thrust his hips for more contact. He fucked the air while I teased him into another kind of torture, one sweeter than he deserved, but having him come for me while I beat it out of him was too delicious to walk away from.

I switched the combination, flogging him softer, striping his dick harder. His thrusts became wilder, bringing him closer to the end. Rearing back, I struck harder on his chest. He growled in frustration, needing more to get him there. I thought of touching him, but my rules prevented me. It couldn’t happen here in this room. If he got off, it’d be on his own. He didn’t disappoint me when I changed things up again, and it focused the pain between his legs. I flogged him until he was red and swollen. He was on the edge, his hips pumped into the air wildly searching for relief. I met each thrust with leather strands and he grunted his frustrations until the right speed and intensity struck a cord. He came on the floor, panting like a madman. When he calmed, he sighed in defeat hanging his head. I’d won another round. He was much closer to being where I needed him to be. Defenseless.

I didn’t clean him up or acknowledge him with words. I left him alone with his remorse. It exposed him to me in a way that removed more of his power, handing it to me on a silver platter. I received the gift with a smile on my face and a reason to go into my room to find relief. Soaked, I covered my face with a pillow and caressed myself to thoughts of him. The way he responded under my thumb. The melodic sound of his moans and the way he couldn’t deny the desire I’d invoked. I’d driven him to uncontrolled desire and it made me feel supreme. Powerful.

We would do this again. I needed to get him used to doing what I wanted regardless of if I took control or if he freely gave it. From here on, he was my toy to do as I chose. Realizing that he was mine for the taking, threw me headfirst into an orgasm so intense that I screamed into the pillow. I panted into it, hoping that he couldn’t hear a sound. If he did, he’d never know the reason. He couldn’t. The thought of owning something so spectacular was an aphrodisiac, I wanted to indulge in it repeatedly. I needed more.

That was good for me.

Bad for him.

COLTON

I guessed that the reason that I was dreaming about lying in bed was that I was tired. I’d endured another hell session from my tormentor and she’d gotten me off to her demented pain. Laying here on my back, I wondered what exactly she wanted from me. She never spoke to me. Instead, she unleashed pain until I passed out. What tactics was she using? Why was she so angry? She better hope that I never got free. I’d never wanted to hurt a woman so badly and it stirred restless thoughts. She was getting under my skin.

Beside me, the woman appeared wearing a red dress that seemed to wrap her from her breasts to her knees. Too modest for the bedroom, it gave me the opposite response. The longer it covered her, the more I wanted to reveal her. The more covered she was, the ache to touch her all over intensified, perhaps because I was still aroused from the scene before.

“Tell me what you’re thinking.” She said to me.

“I need to know your name.” I blurted. There was no way that I could leave her again and be completely clueless about who she was. I needed more from her since she’d proven to be a place where my brain liked to spend my time recuperating. May as well lean into it.

She hesitated before she responded in kind. “Zendaya. You are?”

“Colton.”

“Nice to meet you.” She nodded.

“My dreams with you seem different from others I’ve had. I can control my actions, but none of yours. If you’re a figment of my imagination, it would seem that you’d do whatever I want you to.”

“Do you want to be in control, Colton?”

“I’m always in control. Why should this be any different?”

“All the time?”

“Yes.”

“How do you like being in control? Maybe you need a break from it.”

A break? My life didn’t allow me to consider what I needed. I had to follow the rules and do my part up in the mountains. We weren’t a massive group with endless supplies. Up here, we worked for everything we had. Training and working to build something that maintained our lives. There weren’t any governing bodies here. All the men operated off one another’s words and dedication. Very different from what happened in areas that were controlled.

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