Hurt Me So Good (27 page)

Patrick gave a little jerk on his pony girl’s reins. “Peppi, are you ready for the final challenge?”

The girl whinnied and nodded her head in a very horsey manner, which made Victor choke back a laugh. Mal wasn’t so lucky and actually snorted out loud.

“Are you ready for me to beat you like the dog you are, Beau?”

“Yes, Mistress.”

Victor stepped closer to Shiloh and used the tip of his crop to push her chin up higher, straining her neck, forcing her to meet his gaze even though she was bound. “What are you going to give me, Gift?”

“Everything I’ve got, Master.”

He took the ponytail holder out of his pocket and pulled his hair tight. He needed the familiar pain to focus him and keep him in control.

“Let the final challenge begin!” Georgia cried out triumphantly.

Mal and Patrick had performed together often enough that they had a back-and-forth, give-and-take rhythm. She landed a blow to Andy’s back, and then waited for the sharp crack of the whip against Patrick’s sub before giving hers another. Victor provided syncopation, beginning with the crop and using enough force to make an impression on the audience. These blows were foreplay, warm up for the main endurance test. He wanted Shiloh feeling good and flying as high as possible before he turned to the real fear he intended to wield against her.

He kept the blows concentrated to her ass and the backs of her thighs, determined not to cut the more tender and vulnerable skin of her back. No, this time he intended to leave a mark of a different sort on her flesh.

Patrick’s whip whistled through the air and made an impressive crack. His pony girl squealed and reared beneath his stroke, and like any skilled horse master, he used his voice and soothing touch to steady her. Andy was moaning and mumbling beneath his breath, but Mal had no kind words for him. In fact, by the whites showing in his eyes and the frantic babbling, she’d begun confronting him about where he spent his nights and how much he’d gotten for selling her show. Of course he’d deny it, but Victor had a feeling they’d know by the evening news for sure.

Tension coiled in the room. He knew cameras were rolling, capturing every whispered curse and grunting cry, every grimace, every tear, every plea. The lights made them all sweat even worse, and his shirt was already sticking to him. He swore he could smell the musky scent of Shiloh’s desire, her need growing with every single blow.

She needed to please him, even if it meant pain or fear or humiliation.
Him
, not Patrick or her old mentor or any other Dominant.

Flicking his gaze over her, noting her breathing, her skin color, and the way she kept her back arched and hips lifted for his blows, he judged it time to take her to the next level. He slipped the crop through his belt and tore open the simple linen shift to bare her back.

Georgia gasped. If the camera guy was paying attention, he’d zoomed in for a good shot. Bruises covered Shiloh’s back. His marks, her badges of honor.
Let everyone in Dallas see how much she loves me
.

He picked up a lit candle with melted wax pooled around the wick. Looking at the camera, he smiled, a heavy-lidded grin of anticipation as he slowly tipped the candle and allowed wax to drip onto her left shoulder.

Her breath hissed and she jerked, arcing up against the bonds and fighting like she’d never done before. Her breathing was loud in the room despite the rising sounds of weapons hitting flesh and the deeper guttural cries of submissives in the throes of punishment.

“Give me your pain, baby. Give it all to me.” Shaking, she let out a moan that winched him to a fevered pitch. The sharp edge of fear and true pain fed his lust like nothing else. “Remember what I want. It’s my will to hear your safeword tonight, but first, I want you to endure as long as possible.”

He dribbled a thin trail of hot wax down toward the small of her back, spacing each drop, each pain, with deliberate precision. Not too much wax—he didn’t want to hurt her too much, too quickly. But he built the pain into a simmering volcano.

She shook, she sweated, she cried, and yes, she screamed, but she didn’t beg him to stop.

Not his Gift.

“Mistress!” Andy howled in a shrill, high voice. “Forgive me! I’m innocent!”

Mal only whipped him harder, sliding her blows lower against the back of his legs. “If you’re innocent, then why do you need forgiveness, boy?”

Evidently he didn’t enjoy strikes to the backs of his knees at all. He bellowed out a word—
red
, Victor thought, but it was too guttural for him to know for sure. Mal lowered her arm and turned her back on him.

“Mistress M, your sub has surrendered,” Georgia said. “He will not be top sub.”

Mal bowed to the cameras and took her place on the lowest step of the dais.

Patrick commanded his pony girl to her feet, and she ran around him like a horse on a lunge line. He flashed a challenging grin toward Victor. “Are you willing to trade blow for blow?”

“Sure, as long as I can count pain as a blow.”

“Works for me.”

Victor stepped around in front of Shiloh and ran a critical eye over her. The slight pause had let her catch her breath. Her eyes had a glazed fuzziness of a pain-induced trance. He stroked her cheek and whispered her stage name until she focused on him. “Are you ready for round two?”

“Did you finish the V?”

He couldn’t help but smile. She’d known exactly what mark he was putting into her back, even though she couldn’t see it.

Her voice sounded hoarse, so he gave her another drink of water. Patrick took the opportunity to do the same, although he’d made his submissive kneel and drink out of a plastic bucket that Mama would have thrown out of her stables in disgust. “Not yet. I’ll do the second half now, mixed heavily with the crop. I’m going blow for blow with Master P, if you’re up for that.”

Sharply, she said, “I haven’t asked you to stop yet, have I?”

He saw through her bravado. Her chin trembled, her eyes rolled white, and her pulse thumped frantically in her throat. “I’m proud of you, baby. You’re so fucking hot I can’t stand it. I’d give anything to be far away from these cameras right about now.”

She lowered her voice. “So you’re enjoying it?”

Smiling, he pressed against her thigh, letting her feel exactly how turned on he was. She groaned out a deep pleading sigh that fisted around his heart and tugged so hard he couldn’t breathe.

“Will you do one thing for me?”

“Anything,” he said intently.

“Take out the ponytail.”

She knew very well what that pain in his scalp meant. It was a barrier, a reminder for him to keep his control, a lock he’d often placed on his darker urges. No wonder she’d want him to take it out, in this, their greatest challenge yet. Leaning over her, he pulled the holder out so she could feel his hair tumbling down against her cheek. “I expect to hear your safeword very soon, Gift.”

Why did he have to bring her down from the haze just to tell her what the next nightmare would be? Shiloh knew all too well. He wanted her aware. He wanted her to let him do this with full knowledge of the pain that was going to come. Her left shoulder blade felt like a blanket of molten lava had coated it, melting her skin and bones, her body just slipping away, falling off her like a hunk of meat. She knew the burns weren’t that bad—they just felt like she’d fallen into a stew pot.

Patrick tapped his pony girl on the shoulder and she went to all fours before him. Eyes bright with excitement, he called over to Victor. “Ready?”

“Are you ready, baby?” He slid his hand down her unmarred shoulder. At her nod, he whispered, “I want your safeword, baby. I want it so bad I can taste it.”

The crop descended on her sore backside, immediately shooting her body with endorphins. Instead of the vicious bite of the crop, she felt a buzzing heat that sent her soaring. Distantly, she heard him talking with Patrick, egging each other on. The sharp crack of the whip, followed by the slash of fire across her backside, back and forth, until she could swear that she felt both weapons. She remembered the feel of Patrick’s whip dancing along her back, licking at Victor’s bruises.

Fire puddled on her right shoulder, a searing glow of heat that blazed in the darkness of her mind. That fire tried to tug her back down, coiling around her like a molten snake of flame. Pain intruded, jagged glass slicing at her mind. Another blow thudded on her buttocks, warring against the wax on her shoulder, but the burn was winning.

The crop descended again and she could hear Victor’s breathing, deep and labored. She smelled his raw heat, the masculine scent of a warrior after battle. No, the muddy, battered quarterback leading his team to victory. Only she was the one who felt battered.

Merciless, he drove her closer to that end zone, the place he wanted her to be. A place of endless pain. A place where she needed him to simply stop. To make all the pain, all the darkness go away with just a gentle touch of his hand.

And, oh, God, it felt so good. Too good. She hurt all over, the soles of her feet, the strands of her hair. She couldn’t take any more.

She didn’t want it to stop.

“Give it to me,” Victor growled, punctuating the words with another glob of wax at the base of her spine.

His V had branded her, seared into her flesh.
His.
He’d made her his and it didn’t take a collar. It didn’t take a ring. All it took was the pain surging through her, tying her to him forever. He’d branded her with pain, addicted her with his crop, possessed her with his body. If she lost him now, she’d simply wither up and die. She wouldn’t know how to breathe.

“I’m your Master, Gift, and I want you to give me everything. Give it to me!”

She sank into the red-hot core of pain and let it dissolve her into nothing.

He gripped her chin, his fingers drilling into her skull. “Give it to me now!”

She let the last of the air spill from her lungs on the word he wanted to hear. “Christmas.”

Chapter Twenty Three

Shiloh didn’t have to open her eyes to know she was in Victor’s arms. His chest cradled her, his arms solid and safe about her, his body snug at her back. She was aware enough to know that she ought to hurt, but all she felt was heat. Perhaps because he held her, acting as a sort of soothing drug.

“You shouldn’t hold her like that,” Mal said in a low voice, tight and shaking. With worry? Still fogged in that secret world he’d taken her, Shiloh couldn’t understand why. “At least put some ice on her back.”

“I promised I would hold her.”

Shiloh fought to open her eyes, peeling back the layers of exhaustion. Moving her head hurt, but she craned her neck, trying to see his face. “No, you didn’t.”

“I promised Mama.” He cupped her face and eased her away from his chest. Air hit her back and her eyes flared open wide. She felt blistered from her neck to her ass. Quickly, he brought her down to lie on her stomach across his lap.

Mal dropped cool cloths and ice packs on her back, but Shiloh still fought back tears. Her breath hissed between her teeth on a long, shaking, “Shit.”

“I’m so sorry, baby.” Victor smoothed her hair, probably the only body part that wasn’t swollen and sore. His voice roughened, his thighs tensing beneath her, transmitting his anguish to her. She knew he had to have enjoyed the scene as much as she had, but just as she was suffering with the after effects, so was he, only his was internal guilt. “Do you regret it?”

“That depends.”

His hand stilled, heavy on her head and unmoving. He didn’t breathe, waiting for her answer.

“Did we win?”

“Girl, do you honestly have to ask that question?” Mal snorted. “Of course
the
Victor won the challenge. He always wins.” She stood and headed for the door. “I’m sending everyone home. We can tape the final award session later.”

“Actually, hold that thought,” Victor ordered. “Keep everyone on hand until KDSX news runs. Gather everyone in the main room to watch and keep Andy close.”

“Oh, he’ll be close all right. Beneath my boot.”

The door shut. Victor shifted the ice packs so he could examine her back. Somber, he traced the V he’d burned into her skin.

She felt his fingers trembling. “Don’t start—”

“I’m not,” he broke in. “I don’t have a single regret. You were incredible, Shiloh. You took everything I dished out and kept begging for more. You should have seen Patrick limping off set, his arm practically dragging the ground and his pony girl with her tail between her legs.”

She had to see his face. Sitting up carefully, she shifted on his lap and draped her arms around his shoulders. “
You
were incredible. No one has ever been able to make me phase out like that. You kept me high on pain with the crop, and then balanced it with the wax, dragging me back down enough where it hurt and I knew it hurt and I still didn’t want it to stop. I admit, though, if you hadn’t kept using your crop, I wouldn’t have been able to endure the whole V.”

A slow, toe-curling smile curved his lips. “Now that is something I never dreamed to hear. Are you honestly saying my crop kept you from giving your safeword earlier?”

She nodded with a sheepish shrug. “After protesting that I didn’t need one at all, I certainly learned the value of a safeword tonight. I can take your crop as long as you want to give it, but wax…” She shuddered and pressed closer to him. Every little movement made her skin scream with pain, but she didn’t care. She needed to be close to him, feel him, touch him. He’d given the pain. Only he could take it away. “It was hard, V. Harder than I expected.”

He cupped the back of her head, mindful of the tender skin on her back. “And that’s why it meant so much to me.”

She shifted her weight to her knees so her ass didn’t throb. She didn’t think about the implications, until she felt one of his hands settle on her backside while the other…

“Mmm, you’re still wet. Were you this wet while I was whipping you?”

“No,” she whispered against his mouth. “I was wetter.”

He slid a finger inside her, while his other hand lightly danced across the welts still burning in her flesh. Her muscles clamped down on him so savagely and suddenly that she cried out against his mouth, her fingers clutching at his shoulders.