Page 41 of Vicious

“We aren’t!” I shout back, struggling as he flips me onto my belly. “Fucking let go of me!” I pull against the manacle and even try to reach up to unhook it, but Chase grabs my other hand tightly.

He gets my other hand into the manacle on the opposite end of the bed, forcing me to lie with my arms spread wide.

Chase spanks my ass briefly. “There. Just calm down.”

The light blow startles me into going still for a moment, but I don’t let it stop me from fighting. I grit my teeth and struggle harder, trying to pull against the cuffs. It hurts. They’re just leather, but they’re still tight, and they’re still holding me in place. I’m going to have so many bruises from this—bruises to touch and press on, bruises to remind me of the pain when my thoughts turn dark—and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.

“I’m not… going… to calm… down!” I pant out as I try to kick at him.

Chase huffs and tries to hold down one of my legs, but I continue to struggle. He drags my leg straight, and I sob when I realize he’s going to put the ankle cuff around it.

“Ah-May, you only need to ask if you want more intense bondage,” Chase says as he pulls the cuff tight around my ankle. He shifts on the bed and goes for my other leg.

“No!” I shriek.

I really don’t know why the panic is overtaking me like this. He’s done worse than this to me. But after a few days of kindness, I guess I’ve grown complacent—and I don’t want to go back to this. I don’t want to feel these things again, confusion and arousal and terror, and I kick hard with my free leg.

It, as I should have expected from the results of the rest of my flailing, does nothing.

When Chase backs away, I’m completely helpless on the bed. I feel a strange fuzziness behind my eyes, my breath coming quickly, but I focus on my anger and annoyance instead.

“You screwed up,” I say, trying to sound triumphant instead of scared. “You forgot to strip me naked.”

Chase laughs. “You know what? You’re right. I should have done that first.” He sits down next to me and rubs the small of my back. “I guess I’ll have to work with what I’ve got.” He rubs his thumb along the flimsy waistband of my hand-sewn pajamas. I tense, bracing myself for what comes next.

He pulls the pants down my ass. I expect him to go further, but he leaves them there, with just my ass exposed.

I think it’s more humiliating than just being naked.

“I think this is all the canvas I need,” Chase murmurs, stroking my ass cheeks.

I shake my head, a sob coming from deep in my throat even as I try to fight through this chaotic flux of emotions to figure out what the hell I’m even feeling. “Please no,” I beg.

I feel so fragile, and I’m not sure I can handle another experience like this.

Chase pushes my short hair aside and kisses the back of my neck. “You’ll love it.”

I won’t.

He picks up the flogger again and runs the leather tails over my ass. “I can already see how red—and how wet—you’ll be after this.”

“I’m not going to be… to be…” I whisper, blinking back tears because I can’t bring myself to say the word wet. I’m so pathetic. He hasn’t even taken the flogger to me once yet, and I’m already panicking… and not because I think this is going to hurt too much. That’s the part that scares me the most.

“You will.” Chase gets up, and I bury my face into the mattress because I don’t want to see what he’s about to do.

I hear it first, the flogger cutting through the air, before I feel it snap across my ass. It isn’t as bad as the whip had been, I think, but it’s spread across more of my skin. It sends heat rushing through me, and along with that slight pain is an answering throb in my cunt.

The second blow is nearly as light as the first, and it really only hurts a little.

I don’t know what to make of my disappointment.

He teases me with short, shallow lashes, the tails landing in crisscross patterns across my bare ass. I should be grateful it isn’t painful, but I’m unable to feel anything but that terrible need to feel something more.

The whip had been more of a stinging sensation, and each strike of it—paired with the foreboding crack in the air—had hurt.

This is more of a thudding sensation, something I feel I could almost get used to… which is ridiculous.

“Not making much noise,” Chase notes, trailing the tails of the flogger over the slight damage he’s done to my ass. “Do I need to do it harder, sweet May?”

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