Page 217 of Ride With Me

He unties my hands, then points at the bidet. “Do whatever business you need to and then clean yourself up for me.”

I flush with hot shame as he pushes me into the room and closes the door. I think he’s still standing on the other side, and I don’t know what my problem is. I’ve cleaned myself for myDaddy plenty of times. But something about preparing myself for my own degradation feels…well, degrading.

There’s a sharp rap on the door. “I don’t hear anything, boy. Get to it. You do not want me coming in there.”

No, I don’t. I get to it.

CHAPTER 6

When I comeout of the bathroom, scrubbed clean for my captor to abuse me however he wants, he’s back in the cabin’s main room, adjusting two more chains hanging from the ceiling. He beckons me over to him.

I don’t bother dragging my feet just to prolong the inevitable but walk right over to him. He positions me where he wants me, in between the pair of chains. “Shoes off.”

I bend to untie my sneakers and kick them off, then peel my socks off without being told. When I straighten up, he assesses me. “Spread your legs a little more. Wide enough that you can stand comfortably without locking your knees.” I do as he says, until my feet are a little wider than hip-width and he nods.

He squats down and fits a spreader bar between my feet. On each end is a leather cuff that he wraps around my ankles. The snaps closing the cuffs sound like gunshots in the quiet room.

He stands and fastens a leather cuff around each of my wrists, then hooks the cuffs to the chains. Another yank of the pulley ropes and he’s got my arms stretched out and lifted, my wrists higher than my shoulders, but not quite as high as before. I imagine I look a bit like da Vinci’sVitruvian Mandrawing andwhen Sir stands back to look at me, there’s a slight smile on his face that suggests he’s thinking the same thing.

TheVitruvian Manis naked, though, and I’m still wearing my cutoff jeans and cropped T-shirt. Until Sir brings that freaking knife forward. He sets the blade at the center of the neckline and draws it slowly down my chest. The fabric doesn’t part cleanly, and the blade doesn’t cut through to my skin, but oh my god, the action of him using a knife on me and the hard intent on his face while he does so cranks the fear and arousal way past what I’ve experienced so far.

“No,” I moan. “Please.”

“No?” he mocks. “You’re saying ‘no’ to me?” He saws competently at the holes he’s made in my shirt with the knife, until the fabric separates and hangs open, exposing my chest, which has a red scratch running down the center, from just below my collarbones to my navel.

I maybe should say ‘no’ to him. Who wouldn’t say ‘no’ to a man wielding a knife before them with the confidence of a predator while they’re tied up and helpless?

He nudges the fabric out of the way with the back of the knife, then slips the tip under a nipple ring and lifts it off my skin. “You let someone stick needles into your skin, but you think a knife is going to hurt more?”

This idiot, I guess. Me.

“No,” I gasp. “I mean, I don’t know. Sir,” I add quickly when he looks up from my nipple to my face. He uses the knife tip to tug at my nipple ring and I am hot all over, a prickle of sweat springing up on my skin.

“Well, let’s find out.” He cuts my shirt into ribbons and lets the pieces fall around my feet. Then he places the blade next to my right nipple and rocks it from tip to base, cutting a fine vertical line into my skin.

“Oh, fuck,” I moan. It’s a flash of lightning licking over my skin, and a tiny line of blood wells up in the cut. He bends his head and licks the blood away. My chest arches, I rise up on my toes and strain against the chains holding my arms wide. “Please, Sir. Please.”

“Please what? More?” He slices a series of sinful lines in my skin, barely cutting me, and I am on fire, the pain whispering over me, making me feel more alive than I’ve been.

He licks at each cut after he makes them, then angles the knife in a diagonal and makes more cuts—I kind of lose track how of many more. When he finishes, he licks the welling blood away, and stands back to assess his handiwork.

“Yeah,” he says and it’s a dark, satisfied, sort of growl that makes my knees buckle a little bit. Thank goodness for the chains suspending me and the spreader bar bracing my legs or I’d be sprawled on the floor.

I look down at my chest but my vision is a little wonky. Plus, it’s hard to read upside down. But I blink the sweat that’s dripping from my forehead out of my eyes and try to focus on the pattern of the cuts.

M.

I.

N.

E.

He carved the wordMINEinto my chest.

Not deep enough to scar. Barely deep enough to make out the word, even. A twinge of disappointment flits through me—that, instead of a lasting reminder, these are just thin red lines, hardly more than scratches.

They’re not even bleeding anymore, though when he catches me around the waist and sucks at first my left nipple, then my right, there’s a smear of red on his cheek right above his close beard.

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