Her shoulders tremble as she forces the words between clenched teeth. “After everything you made me do already… I just couldn’t. Not that.”
“I think you will discover the lengths you are willing to go in order to please me will surprise you over time.” I smile down at her coldly. “But for now, you may repent by giving me three Hail Marys.”
She seems disoriented by my request but follows through regardless. Bringing her hands together in a prayer position, she watches with curious eyes as I weave the rosary beads between her palms. She bows her head before me and recites the words in Latin with a mastered perfection.
“Good girl.” I praise her as I step closer. So close, her cheek brushes against the aching throb pressing the fabric of my trousers.
When Ivy feels it, her eyes fly open, and everything else seems to disappear. I’m lost and bewildered as I stare into her strange eyes, and she seems to be aware of this as she sucks in a breath.
Abruptly, I sever the odd connection by turning away and stalking to the nightstand, where I have left the items required for tonight’s ritual. When I return with the blind mask I ordered especially for her, Ivy gives the tiniest shake of her head, but she should know her pleas are useless.
I secure the heavy silver mask over her face, obscuring her vision from the world around her. Her chest heaves as she draws in a breath, her nipples crying out as they poke upward. For a moment, I can’t do anything else but stand there and admire her. She can’t see me now, and I have been waiting all night to indulge.
Her body has all the qualities I admire in a woman’s flesh. Soft skin. Perfectly rounded breasts. Curved hips. They are not anything I haven’t seen before, yet those features look more enticing on her than any other woman I have ever had the pleasure to look upon.
Perhaps, it is simply because I know she will only ever be mine.
I lean down and help her to her feet again. Her fingers wrap around my arm, clinging to me as her guide when I lead her toward the bed. It’s the strangest sign of trust I don’t expect, and I find that disarms me too. But her trust wavers when I pull her arms up over her head to secure them to the rope around the bedpost.
“Santiago.” Her voice is pleading.
The undercurrent of fear in her tone hardens me like nothing else ever has. I have to take a moment, closing my eyes to resume control of the situation before I give in to my baser desires and ravage her without forethought.
I resume the task of securing her wrists and then step back to admire the art of her body. She’s arched at the hips, slightly bent forward, arms straining upward. Her nerves are a powerful aphrodisiac, and already, I can smell the arousal between her thighs. She thinks she knows what comes next, but the uncertainty makes her shiver.
When my fingers caress the length of her spine, she curves into me like a cat arches into its master’s palm. I don’t even think she’s consciously aware of the fact that she’s doing it. And it’s a shame that she should hope to find a protector in me when I can only ever be her tormentor.
I grab a handful of the soft flesh around her hip and squeeze, and her back bows even farther, thighs parted so enticingly. She’s aching for something she doesn’t even understand.
Taking my time, I dispense of my jacket and waistcoat and then slowly unbutton my dress shirt. Despite the fact she can’t see, my wife is turning toward me, her ornate mask staring down the scars on my torso as my shirt drifts to the floor. It’s unnerving, and it isn’t logical, but I feel her gaze on me regardless. As if she possesses the ability to see through the layers of metal. As if she can see me for who I really am.
“Turn around,” I command.
She jumps at the harshness of my voice but then settles back into her position once my hands are upon her again. This time, I’m stroking, caressing the length of her body. Getting a feel for my most interesting acquisition. She makes a soft sound of pleasure as my palms come around her waist and skate up over her tits. Her nipples are so hard she whimpers when they scrape against my skin, and I would bet all the money in my bank account her pussy is swollen for me too.
“Do you like this?” My lips hover over her ear, nipping at the lobe before they trail down her throat.
She makes a sound of protest that gets caught in her throat, but it ejects when I remove one of my hands and smack her ass so hard my fingers are imprinted on it.
“Santi—” My name dies on her lips as I repeat the action, slapping her ass again.
She tries to arch away as she shrieks, but my arm curves around her waist, forcing her to stay still and bear it.
Three. Four. Five. Six times I slap her, and her skin glows cherry red as the blood rushes to the surface. She’s panting, heaving, twisting in my grasp when I slide my fingers down between her thighs to feel her soaking want.
“Please,” she starts to beg as I stroke her. “I need… I can’t…”
I’m not in the business of giving my enemies what they want. But her voice sounds so sweet. So full of loathing for her own request, I can only reason that she will hate me all the more for being able to control her this way.
I dip two fingertips inside her and then swirl them around her clit. She widens her legs for me without realizing it, opening her body as if to welcome me inside. I stifle the groan building in my throat by biting her shoulder, and Ivy screams at the same time her body releases, a gush of warmth sliding over my fingers. Spasms rock her core as her breath hisses between her teeth. She’s still coming back down from her high when I smear the evidence of her own body’s betrayal over her lips.
She jerks in my arms, and I breathe against her skin, relaxing the grip on her waist as I resume the long, exacting strokes over the expanse of her body. I’m studying her. Taking in all the details of this unfamiliar landscape. The freckles on her shoulder. The dip in her lower spine. The way her ribs press against my fingers when she leans into my touch. I want to memorize them all, filing them away like the data on my computer. I don’t understand why, and I don’t want to examine the reasons too carefully just yet.
Before I can give it much more thought, I notice some bruising on her arm. I investigate it thoroughly, pressing my fingertips into the purple ovals as undiluted rage boils inside me.
“Who did this to you?” I demand.
She sucks in a breath but doesn’t answer. I’m tempted to shake her. Choke her. Force the words from her lips. But my eyes are already roaming the rest of her, scanning every inch for an injustice that hasn’t quite formed in my mind.
There are additional bruises on her thigh, knee, and calf. And I know they must be from someone because she has stiffened in my arms. She’s hiding something from me, and I won’t accept it.
“Who did this?” I repeat.
When she doesn’t answer, I wrap the length of the rosary around her neck until it bites into her skin. She strains against the rope to lean back into me, fighting the tightening of my fist.
“Who, Ivy?”
“Perhaps it was your doctor,” she snarls at me with such vehemence, it shocks me into loosening my grip.
The beads cascade back over her breasts, settling between the mounds.
“Doctor,” I echo, my mind coming back to Abel’s hand-delivered purity test.
“The nightmare of a doctor you sent me to!” She hurls the words out with a bitterness that catches me off guard.