Page 19 of Marked
The sun shining brightly through the open blinds in my window woke me up the next morning. I groaned as I stretched, whimpering quietly as my muscles protested against the subtle movements of my body. Why was I so tired? I felt like I had slept well. I furrowed my brow and tried to grapple with the deep lethargy that I felt in my bones, but when I finally opened my eyes, I blinked in confusion.
I was in my own bed. In my own apartment. Not only that, I was completely naked.
Was last night just a dream? If it wasn’t, how did I get here?
How could Alaric have brought me all the way here without waking me up? I was a light sleeper. It simply wasn’t possible. I tried to tell myself that this whole fantasy must be just a twisted figment of my imagination, but I knew there was no way that it could be. My throat was sore. My pussy was even more so, and my asshole hurt the most. I slid the tips of my fingers down mybelly and tentatively touched my pussy. It was probably still pink from being spanked and belted so very thoroughly.
I rolled onto my side and traced the surface of my bottom. I sucked in a breath as I touched my tender skin and discovered the welts that his belt had left behind. It had been real. The evidence on my body said it had to be.
I had to see the damage. I wanted to see what he’d left behind.
With as much effort as I could muster, I pushed myself out of bed and slowly padded over to the full body mirror I had in my closet.
As I walked, I could feel the stickiness of his seed on my thighs, and even worse, I could feel it on the inner cheeks of my ass. I lifted my head to look in the mirror, sucking in a breath as I took in my very well-used state. My hair was mussed and incredibly tangled. It was going to be a job just getting through it. His cum had dried and smeared across my cheeks. It was all over my thighs as well as my ass too. There was so much dried on my skin that I questioned just how long it would take me to wash it off.
I turned around and stared at the pink welts striped across my ass. He’d said he’d wanted to mark me, and he had in more ways than one. I could see a great many of them all over my body, but there was one other place he’d marked. Only those marks weren’t visible…
He’d touched my heart, just the tiniest bit. I could feel it. I didn’t want to, but it was there all the same.
Even in all his harsh cruelty, the moments that burned into my memory the most were the ones where he’d offered me kindness. When his tender touch had wiped my tears from my cheeks even as I fought him. When he’d pulled me into his armsand comforted me as I cried. When he’d called me a good girl, stroked my hair, and held me until I’d fallen asleep.
I should hate that he’d left me like this, but I didn’t. I tried to, but I couldn’t. Each pink welt was a reminder of last night that would stay with me for some time, and a small part of me hoped they would for several days to come. I touched them again and shivered hard, one image after another of last night’s raunchy activities racing through my mind.
I felt like a different person than I had been last night, and there was a certain sense of sadness that washed over me as I wondered if I would ever see him again. I hoped that I would, feared that I wouldn’t, and not knowing made me want to cry.
But sadness didn’t pay the bills. Work did and I still didn’t have any. Rent was still due in the next few days. I had to find a job.
With an exhausted sigh, I ambled into the bathroom and turned on the shower. Once the water heated, I stepped inside, whimpering as the scalding hot water rained down on my skin. For a long moment, I just stood there and let it burn me. When it was finally too much to take, I reached for the knob and dialed back the temperature to a more manageable degree. I very slowly washed my hair and my body, taking extra care to cleanse every inch of my skin from the remnants of our mixed fluids. I sucked in a breath as I ran a washcloth over the welts on my backside and over the very sore places between my legs.
I must have been in the shower for an hour, diligently washing my body until my skin was pinkened from my efforts. Finally done, I shut off the water and grabbed a soft gray towel. Wrapping myself up in the massive softness, I meandered back into my bedroom and took a seat on the bed. My phone pingedand I yawned as I reached for it. The screen lit up with a notification, and my stomach dropped to my toes when I saw it.
Fuck. It was a bank alert. That never boded well for me.
Tapping the screen of my phone, I tentatively opened my bank app, expecting to see overdraft fees or a bounced check or some bill company zonking me for a late payment, but that wasn’t what I found.
I blinked, positive I was seeing things. No. That couldn’t be right.
Somehow, there was fifty thousand dollars in my account. I stared at the number for a long time. Surely there was a decimal in the wrong spot or someone had made a terrible mistake. There was no way.
This morning, though, there had been a single deposit in my account. There weren’t any details other than a single line that referenced something called ‘The LupeniiFund.’
What the fuck was that?
I sat down at my desk and opened my laptop. After entering in my password and clicking on a browser, I Googled the company name and came up with nothing. The word didn’t even seem to exist because even my autocorrect didn’t know what to do with it. I couldn’t find a single clue, no matter how many different search engines I tried.
I thought that it might just be an error in the app, so I logged into my bank account on my computer. It wasn’t the app; it was still the same number when I logged in there, too.
I was still fifty thousand dollars richer than yesterday by some weird stroke of luck. I could pay my rent for two years with that kind of money. My debts could be paid off. All of them! I couldgo on vacation for the first time since I was a little girl and still make sure everything was paid and up to date.
I sat there in just my towel and stared. Just over an hour ago, I had pushed myself out of bed in order to pull my life together so that I wasn’t living out on the streets in less than a week. Only… Someone had done it for me, someone associated with the LupeniiFund, whatever that was. I didn’t need to go out and take the first job I could scrounge up. I wouldn’t have to wait tables or serve drunk men beer or strip for money.
I could take a break and find work that I might actually enjoy.
I hadn’t ever been put in this kind of situation before. It was as scary as it was comforting, and for a moment, I just allowed myself to breathe and soak it in. After the initial shock wore off, I decided to take a mental health day. Hopping back into bed and switching on the television, I got comfortable, curled up in a soft blanket, and turned on Netflix.
Brewing myself a pot of coffee was the only thing that got me up again. I didn’t even get dressed until the sun went down, and then only because I had to open the door of my apartment and tip the delivery man who brought me a pizza for dinner.
It was hands down the best day off I had ever given myself. I refreshed my bank account page at least three dozen times throughout the day, but the balance remained the same. I poured myself a glass of wine to celebrate and picked another sappy love movie to watch, and then another, until I fell asleep that night. When I woke up the next morning, I felt rejuvenated and hopeful. Paying off all of my bills, including this month’s and next month’s rent, was the best feeling I could recall in a long, long time.
