Page 45 of The Cartographer

So I take the opportunity to check in, sliding up behind him, wrapping the flogger around so the hilt is against the side of his neck and the falls flow down his back. I can feel the climbing heat of his beaten skin though my clothes and his shallow breathing. When I hold him tight against me, he automatically starts to breathe as I am, picking up my exaggerated breaths with no prompting.

My chin hooks neatly over his shoulder, and I rest my other hand at his hip, pulling him flush against me before I start to speak. Softly—so softly he has to concentrate to hear me because I want him focused on me and nothing else—I talk to him. Tell him how beautifully he’s doing and how gorgeous he looks.

“Was I right?” I prod.

His cheek swells against my temple with his smile, and it makes me smile back, happiness and not a small amount of relief coursing through me. “About me liking this? Yeah, you were right.”

“Want some more?”

“Yeah. A lot more.”

I nip his earlobe and grind my hardness into his ass, making my approval so blatant he won’t be able to ignore it.

“Then I’ll give it to you.”

After nuzzling into his neck more, a few bites interspersed with licks and kisses, I hold him extra hard and then let go, dragging the flogger over his chest and around his back as I go. Then it’s time to hit him again, and oh does that feel good. The falls thwacking against his rippling muscles, against the ink and memories carved into his skin.I’ll make you new ones.

I work him up again, starting softer than I left off, but I don’t give him as much of a lead up this time. He asked for a lot more, and I’m going to give it to him. The sound of the tails landing on his back and his muted gasps, combined with the smell of the leather and the light sweat he’s working up, are intoxicating. Along with the exquisitely indecent portrait of his nude body, it all adds up to make an all-consuming and exhilarating cocktail.

This is what I love: the give and take, the attention to detail paying off in spades of reaction. I want to provoke him, make him give up more to me. More soft cries, more clenching of his hands around the chains holding him fast, more of him needing me for both comfort and pain. I want to be his whole world.

This flogger’s served me well, but it can only do so much. It’s not built for the level of pain I want to inflict, so I drape it over his shoulder to give him something to focus on while I grab the next weapon in my arsenal off the bed. As I draw the first one over his skin, I reach back with the other, preparing to strike. The first flogger hits the floor at the same time as the oiled-leather falls strike his skin, resulting in a startled yelp.

Yeah, that’s going to hurt more. I listen closely for his safewords, but he doesn’t say a word. If anything, he’s straining toward me, asking for more. So I hit him again and again, the thicker falls making a satisfying, dull thwack against him, and when I strike him over and over, he starts to let out a muffled grunt with every blow. That’s not good enough. My Hart’s a tough nut to crack, but that will make it all the more satisfying when his shell shatters.

With the next strike, a purposefully vicious lash, he cries out, and the sound is music to my ears—makes stars shoot through the darkening sky of my brain. Everything is going midnight black except for him. His reactions beckon me and become the only light in my world.

It’s at times like these that I feel superhuman. My senses are all on high alert, and any change draws my attention. It feels as though I can absorb more, my gaze skating over his body and latching onto every detail. His posture, his breathing, how the cuffs are putting pressure on his wrists. All of it. After a few minutes of driving the cries from his lungs, I press into him again and relish the heat radiating from him, the way he drops his head to rest on my shoulder, the comfort he’s seeking from me.

“Tell me how you’re feeling—” I bite back theboyI want to say. We haven’t discussed that, and I don’t want to startle him out of the space he’s in. Plus, that word is racially charged, and I need to be careful, sensitive. I want that from him, though—not that the word itself matters quite so much, but what it means. I want to possess him in another way, label him as mine. Cherish him and hold him dear.

He huffs a laugh, which I’m not expecting. Seconds ago, he was a shade away from yelling. Now he’slaughing,and the sound makes more stars fly around my skull, lighting up the night of my mind. “Alive. I feel alive.”

There’s hardly a better compliment. The hoarse wonder in his voice confirms it, and I want to record the words, play them over and over. Have them etched on a plaque I’ll hang in my office. These are the things I treasure, that make my life worth living when I sometimes wonder why I’m still here.

I want to beat him more, but I don’t want to make him sorry tomorrow. It’s his first time, and I want it to be a good one because goddamn do I want to do this to him again. And again and again for that matter…

“Good. Have you had enough?”

“No,” he says, his laugh making the word more of a croak. “Never enough.”

“That’s not something you should tell a sadist.” My admonishment earns me another rasping laugh, but I hope he remembers it. Some people will take his word, but not me. “You can have a little more, and then I’ve got something else for you.”

I wish I could see his face, but the way he stiffens against me will have to do. For now.

So one more time, I retreat and then lay into him again, driving him higher and higher, making his shouts louder and louder until I hear it.

“Yellow. Fuck all, yellow.”

His head is pressed against the wall, and I’m victorious. I’ve taken him higher than he’s ever been, and now I’m going to ease him back down. I do by grabbing a kinder flogger, one that’s still going to make him feel something but shouldn’t hurt. It should remind him of what he’s been through, of what he’s accomplished. I hope he’s proud. He ought to be. I am.

With consistent and measured strokes, I pull him back from the precipice he was about to fall over, and I study the way his head rolls against his arm, the way he seeks out the support of the wall because the high is over and he’s starting to feel the exhaustion, the exertion. When I’ve softened and spaced the blows sufficiently, I drop the flogger for the final time and lean against his back, stroking his arms up to his wrists. I warn him before unbuckling them, bracing him against the wall in case he sags. I’m stronger than I look, but I’m under no illusion I’d actually be able to carry Allie to bed, though I’d like to. He’ll need to get there partially under his own power.

He leans against me, his hands still on the wall, but letting his head roll to the side. His breath is warm against the side of my neck, and every particle of me is tuned into him. While he stands, I stroke him from his hips to his hands, lacing my fingers with his and prying them off the wall, folding them across his chest and holding on tight.

Sometimes bottoms find it quite alarming to be unrestrained after having counted on the support and limits of chains, leather, or rope. Totally got a black eye when I first started out because one of my first partners wasn’t prepared and started to flail around like mad. Lesson learned. Hart doesn’t seem freaked out, though, more…cuddly. It’s freaking adorable, and something I’d very much like to indulge him in. So I unwrap one of his arms to sling around my neck and hold him about the waist.

He staggers when I turn him away from the wall, but not in a way that makes me think he’ll actually fall over. I guide him nonetheless, slow and steady, over to the bed where he collapses in a heap. His eyes are closed, and he’s got a dreamy smile on his face I kind of want to lick. First things first. I help him sit up a bit more and pour a glass of water I usher into his hand. His limbs are so limp I think he might spill it, but he doesn’t. How much he’s affected, though, by this simple and relatively mild scene, affects me too.

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