Page 21 of The Taker

“What did you say?”

“Nothing,” I lie.

“You don’t stay above ground and out of an urn for thirty four years in the life without a keen sense of hearing, toy.Repeat what you said.”

This fucking man, I swear to God.

The urge to push him to his breaking point rages inside me. Iwantto fight, to see him reach his boiling point and bubble over. “I said,of course this stab-happy maniac drinks iced coffee in the middle of the winter.”

“Stab-happy maniac…” he repeats.

“Did you forget about that man you shot in the alley outside the club? Or that fact that you’re fucking unhinged?” I snap. As soon as I see the tightness to his jaw and the pointed expression on his face, I know I fucked up–but I can’t stop myself. “Did you not stalk me, get me fired from my job, and evicted from my apartment so you could corner me into being your personal little fucktoy?”

He corners me into the kitchen island, cutting board in hand. I can feel the danger rolling off him, filling me with a foreign, twisted anticipation I’ve never felt before. We’re standing in an open concept kitchen where any of his guards can walk in on us, but I don’t care—my cock is so hard, it’s painful.

I just want to feel that cutting board crack against my skin.

“The red flush on your chest and cheeks are nothing compared to how red your ass is going to be after I spank that fucking sass out of your mouth,” he promises me as he picks up the handle of the board. “I was just going to spank you a few times, then make you choke on my cock for being late. Now I’m going to edge you until your brain’s more scrambled than the eggs you cooked for me.”

“My brain cells died the day I took this job. I’d like to see you try,” I goad him.

He grabs the back of my neck, turns me around, and pushes me into the countertop. My hips dig into the edge, but instead of struggling to get away, I revel in the pain. The way his fingers dig into the sides of my neck only turn me on more, and I moan.

“Oh that’s nothing compared to what’s coming next. Do you know why you’re being punished?” he asks me.

“Because you’re a monster who enjoys inflicting emotional and physical pain?” I quip, still riding my anger from earlier.

“You don’t even know what pain is, toy. Tell me why you’re here, and I’ll try not to get too carried away.”

“I was late, and I told some truths you didn’t want to hear,” I answer honestly. He’s obviously bothered by the fact that I’m calling him out on how deranged he is.

“Almost there.I told you what time to be here and that lateness would result in consequences. You agreed to be mine—practically handed yourself over on a silver platter to me—and you’re not acting like it.” He arranges me so my ass is sticking out.

The first blow to my right cheek is quick and hard. I hear the thwack of the wood against my skin, but my reaction is delayed. Seconds later, the sting seeps.

“What the fuck?!” I shout.

“Your sass isn’t the issue. I enjoy taming a brat and breaking them down piece by piece,” he lectures me as he lands another hit on my opposite cheek. “Your denial of your place is why you’re bent over a countertop, naked. You need to know your place.”

He spanks me a few more times, each harder than the last. Every time the grain of the wood connects with my skin, the fire left in its wake burns me. Tears well in my eyes, but I refuse to cry in front of him.

This monster probably drinks tears, and I refuse to sustain him.

“Youaremine, Leo, and I expect you to act as such.”Spank.“That means you show up at the time I tell you to.”Spank.“You follow the rules I set for you.”Spank.“You don’t offer what’s mine to random, disgusting scumbags at a nightclub because the moment you threw yourself in the way of a bullet for me, you sealed your fate.”Spank, spank, spank.

Each spank sends equal measures of pain and pleasure through my body, overloading my nervous system until I fade away to a place I’ve never been to before. Where every touch feels like that moment right before I lose control—but better. Myshouts melt into moans and groans, the feral noises serving as pleas for more.

“It means showing gratitude that I gave you a shiny new apartment over four times the size of your old one with unlimited funding to live a charmed life.” He reaches around, giving my length a hard pump and laughing to himself. “You’re a little pain slut, moaning for more like the little whore I knew you were deep down. A true glutton for punishment.”

I look over my shoulder, and see him flip the cutting board over in his hand. I can’t see the engraving on the other side in detail, but I feel its wrath on my skin. The final two blows knock the wind out of me, to the point where I’m gasping for air, desperately trying not to come. My bodyknowsnot to cross that line without his permission.

And I don’t even hate myself for it.

He cups my face in his hand, swiping the tear from my eye with his thumb and popping it in his mouth. He licks his lips, then gives me an electric smile that highlights the angles of his perfect face. My stomach swoops at how powerful he looks as he stands above me.

“I didn’t get to taste your tears the last time you cried for me, toy. They’re delicious.Addictive.” His hands knead my ass, and I gasp as a throbbing sensation radiates through me. “Now I want to taste more of you.”

He grips my ass cheeks and bends over, sinking his teeth into the flesh of my abused skin. Right over where the last spank landed. His beard scrapes over the smarting skin as his teeth sink into the opposite cheek in the same spot, and he litters my skin with teeth marks, each one more blissfully painful than the last.

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