Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 91847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
“I’m sorry. I’m…”
“I found your diary under the floorboards in your room, did you know that?” he asks, no lash follows the still-burning first.
“What?” I’m confused by this turn in conversation. I look back at him, afraid of what I’ll see, but needing to at the same time.
“I didn’t take it, though. Didn’t look through it. Because what’s inside it is not for me to take,” he says and I don’t know what I expect to see, but it’s not the face of a monster. Not at all. “Those are your secrets to keep or to tell as you choose. You don’t have the same respect for me though, do you?”
Guilt settles deep and heavy in my belly.
“I’m sorry. I am. I shouldn’t have done what I did.”
“Sorry is easy to say,” he says, tone strange, dark but also heavy with something else. Something that doesn’t have to do with me, with us. I feel it. He shakes his head, drops the belt and steps backward. When I sit up, he doesn’t stop me. “Question is, do you feel it, in here?” he asks, pressing one hand to the center of my chest, the other to my head. “Do you understand it here?” And even though he is right to be angry, he is gentle, and in his eyes, I see despair and betrayal.
I drop my head in shame.
“I’m not a monster, Madelena. And whether or not you believe it, I don’t like hurting you. The opposite. I’d do anything to protect you.”
He shakes his head and walks to the door.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Walking away.” He reaches for the doorknob and I don’t know what it is about those words that has me panicking. That has made my heartbeat irregular and twisted my stomach in knots.
“You can’t walk away!”
He doesn’t answer.
“Wait.” I swallow. Am I going to do this? “Don’t go. Please!”
He looks back at me. He’s waiting for me to make the next move. He won’t hurt me. I know that. I’ve always known that. He will go to great lengths to protect me.
And I betrayed him.
So, without another word, I pick up his discarded belt and cross the room to hand it to him.
He takes it, watching me wordlessly.
“You’re right. The only reason I stopped was because I was interrupted. Otherwise, I’d have opened that box and looked inside it. I would have taken your secret.” The words are a weight in my stomach. Guilt and dread. I’ve disappointed him. I feel my face fall, feel the tightening in my chest. “I don’t like hurting you either, whether or not you believe it. And I am sorry.”
I walk back to the bed and drape myself over it, my weight on my elbows, unable to look back at him, tense as I submit myself to his punishment.
It takes him an eternity to move. Or maybe that’s just my dread stretching time. But when I do hear his approach, my heartbeats accelerate. I brace myself for a lashing, one I deserve, but what I feel isn’t his belt. It’s his fingers on what I’m sure is a thick stripe of red across my ass. My nipples pebble as he traces it, and I take a ragged breath when I hear the belt drop to the floor. That’s when I turn my head to look at him and watch as he grips my ass and splays me open. When he drags his gaze to mine, his eyes are burning black coals.
Something rattles in his chest. I watch from my position as he strips off his vest, his shirt, eyes locked on me, before reaching to open the drawer on the bedside table and taking out a bottle of lotion.
“I’m not going to whip you,” he says, shifting his gaze momentarily to squeeze a generous amount of lotion onto my lower back. He meets my eyes again as the fingers of one hand begin to smear that lotion into the crack of my ass. Every muscle tenses and my anxiety builds as he circles the hole he hasn’t yet claimed and I understand what he means to do.
I swallow hard.
With this free hand, he undoes his slacks, takes himself out. He’s hard and I can’t help my glance at his cock as my mind tries to process how exactly I’m going to take him there.
“You’re not going to come,” he tells me as he smears lotion over his length, dragging his palm back and forth, back and forth. He shifts his focus to my ass, to spreading me wide and pushing his fingers inside me. To my surprise, I meet the intrusion with a moan even as my body tightens, every muscle tensing.
Santos is unrushed, lubricating me from the inside, readying me. By the time he removes his fingers and brings his cock to my ass, I’m not sure if I’m more aroused than scared.