I gulped down the heaviness his words caused and managed a smile, but what I really wanted was to take him aside and ask if he meant all that.
“Congratulations!” someone hollered from the crowd.
Reese grinned and pressed a kiss to my temple, then addressed the others again. “It feels good to have your own personal punching bag, doesn’t it?”
I snorted and hid my amusement behind my hand, and…no one else hid their laughter.
“All right, enough chitchat,” Reese said. “I’m gonna get my boy attached to the cross, and Walker’s gonna tell y’all about the tools I’ll be using for warm-up.”
In other words, I was going to enjoy myself before the suffering began, sort of like this whole day had gone so far. Enjoyment first, torture later. Wonderful. I wasn’t dreading this one bit.
When Reese turned me toward the X-cross, I spotted River standing next to it, holding up a pair of headphones.
I furrowed my brow.
“You didn’t think I’d let Reese have all the fun, did you?” River pointed to the spot on the floor directly in front of the cross, and I walked over there. They both liked playfulness and bratting, I’d learned, but not during scenes. For this, they wanted obedience.
Together they restrained me to the cross using the multiple straps attached to the leather-covered contraption. Around my wrists, around my ankles, around my calves, and one strap around my midsection. I wasn’t going anywhere. I wouldn’t even be able to writhe when the pain rained down on me.
River walked behind the cross so he could look me in the eye, and he produced a blindfold from his jeans. “There’s a time and a place for the kind of degradation you undoubtedly wanted when your only goal was to be punished. You’ll receive that kind from me too—with the difference that we won’t let you forget who will be there to pick up the pieces afterward.”
I didn’t know how he could command every fiber of my being so easily, including my focus, but everything else just fell away. When he spoke, I listened.
“You’ll get a taste of another type of degradation tonight.” He slipped the blindfold over my head but left it at my forehead for now. “I’ll be in your head the whole time.” He snatched up the headphones from the floor next. He’d left them there earlier, I presumed. “See the chair out there?”
I followed his nod toward the tinted patio doors and saw he’d placed one of the lawn chairs right outside. Another pair of headphones hung over the armrest, along with a pack of Marlboros and a lighter. If he was going to “be in my head,” I assumed there was a microphone function on his headphones. A glass of whiskey sat on the floorboards.
“That’s where I’ll be,” he told me.
I shuddered and felt Reese come up behind me, pressing his chest to my back, and he attached something near my hand. A buzzer of some sort with an adhesive back to it. It had a digital display, not that I’d see it when the blindfold was lowered, and a big button at the center.
“You won’t be able to hear much with those headphones on,” he murmured in my ear. “If giving your safeword verbally doesn’t feel like it’s enough, you can press this button, and it’ll send vibrations to a device in my pocket. Understand?”
I nodded quickly. “Yes, Sir.”
“Good boy.” He smacked my ass before taking a step back.
River stole my attention back by clearing his throat, and he held up the headphones for me. “You ready?”
“Yes, Owner,” I repeated. I was as ready as I could be for something I couldn’t predict.
“Enjoy and let us control you.” He smiled and put the headphones on me. Holy shit. They blocked out virtually all sound. They sat firmly too. I wouldn’t be able to shake them off. Next, he slid down the blindfold, and everything went dark. Welp. I startled slightly when he pressed a kiss to my lips, but I quickly returned it.
Okay, then. Not at all what I had expected. Pitch black and silence. Would Reese give me a warning of any kind before he struck me?
Fuck, I hoped he wouldn’t surprise me by using the coconut flogger first. Like some sadistic version of a “warm-up.” Using the worst thing first. No, I couldn’t see him doing that. Mainly because the fun would be over too quickly.
I’d only been beaten with something made of coconut fibers once before. The material was scratchy and irritated the skin; it felt like being scraped up by tiny little needles. And those tiny little needles could create tiny little wounds that were invisible to the eye, except, after a severe beating, when you took a step back and watched the result. While the tiny little wounds remained unseen, it looked like your skin was crying blood, but it was pink and clear because it mingled with sweat. My God, that shit hurt. And Reese was going there tonight, wasn’t he? Of course he was.
This was how the mindfucking began. They hadn’t even touched me, and I was already questioning when the first strike was going to come, what Reese was going to use, if there would be a warning, when I’d hear River’s voice…
Oh, motherfff—I gritted my teeth against the fire that spread across my back. No warning. Understood. Oh my God, no warning whatsoever. Flogger, definitely. Leather, not suede. Suede had a more muted, thuddy, softer touch. This was sharp, cold, and unforgiving. And Reese packed plenty of force behind each blow.
I gripped the leather straps my wrists were attached to, and I held on tightly.
Adrenaline coursed through me
