Page 34 of Lies like Rubies, Part One

I raised my hand and brought it down hard on her right cheek. She cried out with surprise and pain, and I was gratified to see my handprint blooming on her skin.

“One,” she whispered.

I tapped the sensitive spot at the top of her thigh. “One, sir,” she repeated, her voice unsteady as she buried her face in the couch and clenched her fists at her sides.

I spanked her again, this time on the other side, eliciting another cry of pain. “Two, sir,” she said, her voice steady and strong once again.

I sped up the pace of the spanking, rapidly smacking her, making sure to cover every inch of her exposed bottom and upper thighs. She cried and struggled, even as she counted each one. After yelling, “Nine, sir,” she reached her hands back to cover herself.

“Stop, please, enough,” she begged, jerking away from me. I grabbed at her, holding her against me. I maneuvered her body until I trapped her legs under one of mine, draping her over my other thigh and wrenching her arms behind her back. I held them there, saying nothing, letting her stew in my trap, until the fight went out of her all at once, as if I’d flipped a switch.

“Stupid fucking slut, thinks if she asks nicely, she can avoid her punishment.” I laughed cruelly as I traced my free hand over the welts I’d left on her bottom. She’d wake up with bruises tomorrow and relive her humiliation whenever she sat.

Sofia whimpered, but slowly relaxed as I stroked her hot skin. Noting the sheen on her pussy, I calculated how to use her growing need against her. Only six swats left to elicit tears. Would she break so easily?

“Are you ready, slut?”

Her bark of bitter laughter pleased me greatly. Not nearly broken, then.

I raised my hand and spanked her. She tensed but didn’t cry out. “Ten, sir,” she whispered.

When I dragged out a reluctant “Fifteen, sir,” she dropped her face into my cushions, trembling so hard the flesh of her reddened ass shook delightfully under my gaze. I released her hands from behind her back and tugged on her hair until she lifted her head to look at me.

Her expression remained fierce, not a single tear to be seen. Perhaps I’d misjudged her. Perhaps breaking her would be more of a challenge, more of a delight, than I expected.

“Kneel by your plate,” I instructed her. She scooted off my lap and stood. “Crawl,” I reminded her.

Sofia grimaced but lowered herself to her hands and knees and crawled to the plate, where she knelt behind it. I reheated her food, contemplating her furious silence. I hadn’t expected her to be so turned on by the humiliation or the pain. Figuring out which of the two it was, or if it was both, would be my joy over the coming weeks.

When the microwave beeped, I took the plate back into the common area and set it in front of her. “Finish it.”

Sofia closed her eyes for a moment, and her mask of composure dropped over her face once again. Carefully, she lowered herself until she could reach the food with her lips, and she finished the plate bite by bite.

She managed to avoid the sauce on everything but the tip of her nose.

“Come here,” I said.

She crawled to me, one hand in front of the other, her breasts swaying beneath her as she moved, breathtaking in her sensuality.

I took a handkerchief out of my pocket, spit on it, and swiped at her nose. She flushed but allowed me to clean her face. “Beautiful,” I murmured, and her eyes shot to mine, wide and tremulous. I smiled, overjoyed to discover praise discomfited her more than the degradation. It’d be that much sweeter when I humiliated her later on.

I wasn’t done with Sofia yet.

14

SOFIA

I kneltat Dante’s feet as he wiped my face with a spit-covered cloth. I hated how much that one whispered word,beautiful, warmed me from the inside out. I hated how my body reacted to the humiliation, to being treated like an object rather than a person, as if I didn’t deserve the privacy of clothing when the hotel staff dropped off dinner.

He tucked the cloth away in a pocket and stood, gesturing for me to follow. When his eyes cut over my breasts and the curve of my bottom, they darkened. He wantedme, not just to humiliate me. I tucked that away for future Sofia to use. For now, I had to survive this night.

I crawled into the bedroom, self-conscious and flushing as I passed him, feeling the heat of his gaze on my exposed center. I knew he could see I was wet. More than anything else, my arousal infuriated me as I waited for his next command by the bed, quiet and docile but not beaten, not by a long shot.

Dante patted the bed. “Up. Belly on the bed, feet on the floor.” I climbed onto the bed and bent at the waist, letting the weight of my upper body rest on the soft coverlet. “Spread your legs.” I slid my feet apart, my entire body flushing as I realized how exposed I was—my center, my bottom, everything—as I lay there, struggling to breathe evenly.

“There’s the beautiful slut I knew I’d see eventually,” Dante murmured, almost to himself. “Ready to do anything for her daughter, even bare herself to a man she barely knows, let him humiliate and degrade her, put her in a cage, treat her like the worthless fucktoy she is.”

I closed my eyes against the pain of his words.Lizzie is worth it, I repeated to myself, over and over again. He ran his fingers up my spine, the rough pads sending skitters of electricity dancing over my skin.

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