Page 77 of The Club

He holds me against him. I’ve already agreed to it, but he wants my acknowledgement. I don’t understand why he’s setting this rule, but I have to accept it. I nod against him.

“Okay,” he says and reaches past me to hit the floor button. Then he kisses the side of my head.

It sends a stab of worry through me. “You’re not gonna be—”

“Soft with you? Hell no. You’re in a lot of fucking trouble, Angel.”

The name makes me shiver. With pleasure. With revulsion. It fucks me up so much that when the elevator stops and Dominic backs me into the room, I don’t know which room we’re in until the chandelier glows to life.

He’s brought me to the play room.

He walks me to the center of the room near the couch, turns me to face away from him, and says, “Undress. Don’t turn.”

The space is neutral. I don’t know what he intends.

My hands shake as I do what he says. I struggle with it. I want to turn around. I want to refuse. The urge to defy him is visceral.

I think this is my punishment, that I’ve been denied the right to fight him.

It takes me a while to get my clothes off. Dominic doesn’t rush me. He doesn’t do anything at all, not until I’ve bared myself completely. Then I hear a rustle of cloth. He leans past me and drapes his suitcoat over the arm of the couch. Then he withdraws. Then—

I suck in a breath at the sound of his belt hissing through his beltloops as he pulls it free.

“Bend over. Hands on the back of the couch.”

I close my eyes, choking down my need to fight him, to make him force me. I do what he says.

“Aaah!” I cry out as the belt cracks across my ass.

“Do you know what that was for?”

“Lying,” I gasp. Fuck, that hurt.

“No. It was for this.”

He holds his phone in front of my face, showing me a picture of myself, the picture that Moretti took.

“I don’t understand,” I tell him.

He draws back. There’s enough of a pause that I know what’s coming. My hands clench on the back of the couch. I brace.

“It was for endangering yourself.”

I’m ready for the flash of pain, so I don’t cry out this time as the belt cracks across my ass.

“And for accepting that he was going to kill you.”

“I didn’t—ow! Fuck!”

The belt snaps me across my ass three more times.

“I didn’t have a choice!” I shout when he finally relents. I’m hanging over the back of the couch now.

Dominic grabs my hair and hauls me up. “You had a choice,” he snarls. “And the choice you made was to keep shit from me.”

“I’m sorry,” I gasp.

He shoves me away. “That’s not what I want. Get up. Go to the x-beam.”

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