Page 57 of Vengeful Rotten Casualties

I wait for more, but when there’s nothing—no smacks, no spanks. When he doesn’t give them to me, I lift my head and meet his expectant gaze in the reflection of the mirror. “I know,” I breathe, answering what I thought was a statement rather than a question.

“I’m sure they used more than hands on you,” he says. “What else?”

“B-belts,” I stutter out.

“And?”

I want to close my eyes, but I force them to remain open. To remain on him. “Riding crops. Ropes. Canes. Paddles. If you can buy it, they used it.”

In the reflection of the mirror, Luc shakes his head, scoffing. “Howoriginal.” His tone and the wary twist of his lips are so sardonic that it’s ridiculous.

A snort escapes my nose and I blink at my reflection in shock.Did I just … laugh? At my own rape?That’s not … no one does that. But hearing his words makes me realize how right he is. Riding crops and canes? Paddles? It makes me think of the men who used me as petulant children. Unoriginal and mimicking someone else’s desires. The kind of basic power-driven kinks they’ve been spoon fed by the media. The surface level of what people are led to believe is … deviant. Different.

They were nothing like this. Those men—their version of giving pain just … hurt. There wasn’t anything actually sexual about it. Not for me and certainly not for them. What they got off on was power. Pinning down someone weaker, at their mercy and exerting their control, proving to themselves that they were big and bad and amazing. Gods in the modern world. What else could it have possibly been?

Gods don’t need to feel powerful. They just are.

As my thoughts consume me, Luc’s hand slowly releases my hair and moves down my spine. He traces each bone that presses against my skin, lingering on my flesh as if he can’t bring himself to let go. The silk blouse I’m wearing is lifted away and pushed up until the heat of his palm is against my spine. “I want this off,” he mutters.

He pulls me up and practically rips it off of me in his haste, buttons pinging as they’re torn away. As if the second he verbalizes his desire, he has to see it through. Luc’s fingers graze the back clasp of my bra and for a second, the band around my middle contracts, tightening as the clips holding it shut are released, but instead of dropping the bra to the floor along with my shirt, he holds it up and urges me to bend back over the counter.

“Luc?” I look up.

Ocean blue eyes watch me in the mirror, roving over every inch of my face, searching. Gently, his hands touch my wrists. He pulls them back, crossing them at the base of my spine and deftly tying them with my own bra. I tug lightly, but the knots are secured. They’re tight enough to keep me in place but not so tight that they cut off my circulation. Another difference in Luc’s power versus the men of my past. Once he’s done, he grips the makeshift bindings and uses them to pull me back up.

His fingers grip my jaw and force my eyes back to my reflection. “I asked you earlier what you saw in the mirror,” he says. “And I told you that I saw someone strong. What do you see now?”

I bite down on my lip as my gaze moves over my front. My breasts are bare, my nipples tight and pebbled—dark roses against my skin as they strain outward, begging for his touch. Every breath makes my stomach suck inward and tremble ever so slightly in anticipation. My skirt covers my pussy, but at the side, I see the tuck of the hem at the back into my waistband. My ass is still on display and I know it won’t last long. I won’t be in this skirt for much longer at all.

When I look into my eyes, though, I don’t see the hollow emptiness that I’m familiar with. Instead, I see heat. I see hunger. It’s twisted—wanting something that I’d been forced to take. But it’s who I want it from.

I want it fromhim.

I want everything he’s willing to give me.

As if Luc can sense my internal thoughts, he doesn’t make me say it aloud. He doesn’t push for a verbal answer. Instead, he releases me, and like a doll on a string that’s been cut, my upper body falls back to the counter. My nipples scrape against the cool marble. Shivers chase down my spine.

I’m open and bare. Old feelings resurface. Disgust. Pain. Fear. I breathe through my teeth, hissing as Luc’s fingers grip the sides of my skirt, sliding into the edges of my thong with it, and he strips both of them down my thighs and then my legs until I’m completely naked before him.

“Ownership, Micki,” he says, “starts with a contract. Maybe you signed one with my father. Hell, maybe you inadvertently signed one with each fucker who took you, but you never gave them your soul, did you, baby?” I don’t have to answer. He knows. “You reserved it for me.” It’s not a question, but a fact that he’s infinitely confident in.

Under the harsh bathroom light, I’m on display for him. Legs spread. Ass aching. And I like it. I want it. He makes the memories fall away. The old feelings disperse because this doesn’t feel like that ugly house in Plexton. This bathroom is far nicer. It smells of expensive soap, not bleach and mold. It separates me from the past, and I’ve never been more grateful for my own stubbornness. This is the present. This is Luc. This is me.

Luc steps back, and in the mirror, I watch him strip off his jersey, revealing the lines of sharp, wiry muscle underneath. There’s a bruise on his side—probably from the game tonight. It doesn’t detract from the beauty of him, though I do wish I’d paid more attention to truly know what made it happen.

“I should shower,” he murmurs and I’m not sure if he’s talking to himself or me, “but I want to make you dirty. I want to smear myself all over you. Make you fucking filthy inside and out. Mark you in my scent.” His hands disappear and I can’t see it with how I’m bent over, but I know he’s stripping off his football pants too. Releasing his cock for what he’s about to do.

This—the beat of breaths between us—feels like a game. It feels like we’re both walking a tightrope edge into something neither of us expected. Sure, as teenagers—practically children—we felt the shadows, the beginnings of the type of obsession this could turn into. Knowing my own secret plans, I should stand up and turn him away. I should slip free from his bindings. I should refuse to let him take control this way. I should free him from this relationship neither of us expected.

But if not now, then when? Will there ever be a chance to truly feel the reality of Luc like now? To know what he wants, what he craves.

My whole life has been spent in anticipation of others’ actions—their emotions, their needs, their desires. No one has ever spent the time or effort to get to know me the way Luc does. He steps up behind me and once again, his hands drift over my ass, cupping it and lifting the sore flesh.

“Still pink…” he says quietly. “So fucking pretty.” His hand arches back and this time, instead of spanking the top side, he strikes the sensitive spot between my thigh and asscheek. It hurts far worse. I arch up on my tiptoes as the burn spreads through me.

Luc doesn’t even look at me in the mirror as he delivers more.

Smack.

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