Judgment II: Mercy (13 page)

Her bottom tingled with dread, she wanted to tuck it in and cover it with her hands.

"Call it," Hutch said, and she heard a thin flicking sound.

"Heads."

There was a brisk slap, then Deaton grunted. "Damn it. All right, go ahead."

Master Hutch took hold of her arm. Her stomach sank as she was dragged back to the display of canes.

Behind her Sub-Master Tettel dutifully recorded, "Sixty. By hand. Twenty to bottom, forty to thighs." He put the pen down and closed the heavy book with a 'whump'. "Do you need me to hold her?"

"Oh, I shouldn't think so." While Deaton put both their chosen rods away, Hutch took hold of one of the chairs and pulled it out from the wall. "All right, you misbehaving minx."

He drew her down across his lap, chuckling when she cried 115

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out because the position forced her battered muscles to stretch as she toppled into place. "I haven't even started yet!"

Master Deaton pulled a second chair out from the wall and sat down a short distance away. Unsmiling, he stretched out his long legs and folded his arms across his chest to wait. "No doubt the anticipation has her anxious to get this all over with."

"Nonsense! She ought to be grateful," Hutch said as he heaved her bottom until it was fully centered across his lap.

"There's not a Lesser in this mountain who wouldn't rather have sixty by my hand rather than the smallest count of three with the Demerit Cane."

"Not that she won't feel it just as intensely," Deaton added when Hutch raised her tunic to the small of her back. "She's so well and truly marked, she's going to suffer no matter what we do."

"What a sweet little bottom." Hutch tsked and shook his head. "Too bad it's been so soundly spanked."

She stifled a moan as he settled his warm palm over the summits of both cheeks. He had a large hand, square and, against her raw skin, it felt very, very capable.

"I love my job." He gave his target a gentle pat. "There's no other profession in the world that can claim carpotunnel from spanking naughty women as a health risk."

That won a snort of laughter from Deaton, and Mercy grabbed the legs of the chair to keep from reaching back to protect herself.

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"Keep your toes on the floor," Hutch said. "Any excessive kicking and I'll start over, do you understand?"

Mercy jerked her head in a rapid nod. "Yes, sir."

The shock of the first swat jolted her up on his lap, and she let go of the chair's legs to grab a hold of his pant instead. Shipe had spanked her much, much harder, but there was no part of her bottom that Hutch could strike that wasn't already mottled with bruises and welts. For Mercy, the ordeal was sheer hell. There was no swallowing her involuntary sounds or holding back the tears. She cried out from the very first, and then she just plain cried, loud and lusty sobs that wracked her shoulders and filled the room.

Master Hutch ended up scissoring her legs between his while she wept garbled apologies between her shrieks because she couldn't seem to make herself hold still. He spanked all the way down to her knees. But while the final volley of ten were particularly hard, he never did start the count over.

Deaton wasn't anywhere near as merciful. The minute Hutch finally released her from his lap, Deaton had hold of her arm and she toppled down across his knees.

"Ah! OW! OWIEOWIEOWIE!" she shrieked, dissolving into fresh sobs as it started all over again. Deaton's hand was significantly harder and his swats a good deal more forceful than Hutch's. Her cries escalated into wordless sobs as he spanked her beyond coherancy.

"If left up to me, I'd have caned you," he said over her cries. He made her bottom dance over his knee, and when her feet snapped up in sad defense of her thighs, he spanked 117

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the soles and the backs of her shins until she put them down again. "You were warned. Tettel, record that she took the second half of her spanking badly and the count was restarted."

"NOOO!" she wailed, then her screams took over her voice as the rapid rise and fall of his hand attacked the summits of her aching buttocks all over again. "PLEEEEAAASSSSSSE!

OW!"

The ten to her bottom felt as though administered by a hot iron. The twenty down the backs of her thighs felt as though he were skinning her flesh away.

Hutch caught her legs when she desperately tried again to cover her bottom.

"Let her go," Deaton said. "She can take her whipping properly, or she can take the consequences."

"She's not even hearing you anymore," Hutch argued.

"You may as well beat a dumb animal."

Deaton snorted. "You're going soft, Hutch."

The dark master finished his count just above her knees, and Mercy finally fell limp across his lap, too exhausted by the hurt to even notice that the spanking had stopped. Not bothering to hold her while she cried, he dumped her unceremoniously onto the floor. Grabbing her bottom in both hands, she curled into a ball on her side. She turned her face into the floor, and sobbed until she felt wrung out and dry of all tears.

"You're a hard man," Hutch said, but there was little censor in his tone.

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"It's not mercy she wants," Deaton replied, his dark eyes glittering down on her crumpled form. Leaving her where she'd fallen, he picked up his tunic.

"Thanks for the help."

"Anytime," Deaton said, and walked out of the room.

Hutch reached down, gently laying a hand on her back.

While she sniffed and gasped for breath, he softly rubbed her shoulders. "If I know Shipe, he's going to be waiting for you back in his quarters. You'd better pull yourself together, little one, and head on home before he comes looking for you."

* * * *

She lifted her head from the pillow, still lying on her stomach, nude, covered by the blankets only to her knees since even the lightest touch of fabric against her bottom and thighs was unendurable. She rubbed her eyes and blearily looked back over her shoulder at the open door. The light was blinding, and she blinked several times to clear her sight as she rolled onto her side.

Haloed by light, Shipe stared back at her, his face an emotionless mask. His eyes moved once over her body, and her nipples instantly responded by tightening into peaks.

"Get up," he said, and limped back out of the doorway.

Still blinking, at first Mercy didn't move. Then, panting through the pain of pushing to her feet, she shuffled gingerly after him, her hands clasped just under her chin, both to hide the stiffening of her nipples and to muffle her yawns.

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Leaning on his crutch, moving slowly as if he hadn't yet made up his mind, he crossed the room to his bed. He never looked back in her direction. He just took both his pillows and lay them one on top of the other on the edge of the bed. He sat down next to them and lay his crutch on the floor.

"Come here." Still without looking at her, he pulled his tunic up over his head. Hard muscle played across his chest as he tossed it aside.

A twitch of awareness tickled down through her womb. Her hands clasped and unclasped; her feet moved as though they were someone else's, carrying her to the sleigh-styled king-sized bed. When he reached for his belt, her breath caught and her feet hesitated. But he merely took it off and dropped it, too, on the floor. Swallowing a soft, giddy sound, she stepped in front of him.

"Put your hands down," he said, still without looking up.

Her eyes fell to his lap as he began to unfasten his pants.

She gradually lowered her hands, folding her fingers into nervous little fists as the buttons of his pants came apart and the thin line of hair leading down his chiseled abdomen widened into a thatch of springy black curls.

Between the hair and the equally dark pants, Mercy could only glimpse a sliver of pink flesh, but as she looked, it burgeoned and thickened under her gaze. A languid heat flared between her thighs and her eyes snapped up to find Shipe watching her, the intensity of his stare sending the warmth surging up to her belly, tangling her stomach into nervous knots and igniting every fiber of her being into sparks of anticipation.

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He reached for her breast and her eyes closed. She whimpered when his fingers closed over one taut peak, firmly, the pressure just shy of being painful, and pulled her to stand between his thighs.

"Down on your knees," he said huskily. He let go of her tender nipple and her back tried to arch as if wanting to push her breast back into his palm.

Mercy looked down into the open 'v' of his pants. There was a definite mound there, his arousal swelling the front until she could see the stiff outline of his manhood pushing against the dark cloth. She went down on her knees, her tongue darting out to moisten her lips.

Leaning back on one arm, he lifted his hips and shucked his pants down his legs. He bent to pull them all the way off, and the cock that sprang stiffly free of its confinement was as hard and as solid as the rest of him, and very thick. Her sex quivered deliciously. She drew a heady breath as he lay his hand on top of her head, weaving his fingers through her hair to get a good grip.

"Richard," she squeaked, "h-he didn't like it when I—"

"I could give a goddamn what he liked," Shipe growled.

"Don't mention his name to me again."

Mercy licked her lips again. She couldn't make herself look away from the mushroom head of him. It was so swollen, it seemed to throb before her eyes. Sheepishly, she admitted,

"I'm not very good at this."

"Then you'll learn." Shipe pushed her head into his lap.

She saw his eyes drift shut when the heat of her mouth closed around him and a tiny thrill of delight raced through 121

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her. His hand in her hair set the rhythm, showing her what he liked. It didn't take long for her jaw to start hurting, but when he moaned, she happily redoubled her efforts. His hips began to thrust, and to steady herself, she caught hold of his knees.

Or at least one of them. The stump of his leg within her palm felt smooth and hard, rippled at the end from the scars of amputation.

Shipe released her hair instantly and grabbed her hand, yanking it from the end of his stump. His cock left her mouth with a wet sucking pop, and she sat up, breathing raggedly, unsure if he was angry or if she should stop. They stared at one another, neither moving until he took her offending hand and shifted it between his legs instead.

"Gently," he said, as she caressed the smooth pouch of his balls. He reached for her head again, and she willingly took him back into her mouth. Her whole body rocked as she bobbed upon the length of him, his gasps, grunts, and moans encouraging her to go faster, slower, to fondle with her hand, and even to squeeze just a little, which caused the barest salty taste of him to spill across her tongue.

Her jaw hurt as much as her bottom before he finally panted, "Enough. Enough, goddamn it!"

And Mercy reluctantly raised her head. She stroked him one a final time, the thick length like satin over steel in her hand. She licked her lips, savoring the taste that lingered in her mouth.

Eyes closed, head tipped back on his shoulders, Shipe struggled for control. The cords in his neck were straining and 122

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his groan was more of a growl when he eventually raised his head and said, "Get your ass over the pillows."

Mercy scrambled to obey, throwing herself face down on the bed and spreading her legs wide. That languid sensual heat was rolling inside her. Already her clit was throbbing, as though he were caressing her there. An involuntary cry of eagerness spilled past her lips when he stood up, and she wiggled as he leaned over her, tilting her hips back into the cradle of his and stifling a moan when she felt that thick shaft nudge up against her sex.

He lifted her left knee all the way onto the bed, pushing it up until it was parallel to her chest. The warmth of his thigh settled behind hers as he leaned his weight on the edge, forcing her to remain so vulnerably laid open.

"Hands," he ordered, his voice husky and low, as rough as his touch when he took her wrists and pinned them together in one hand behind her back. The fingers of his other hand slid down between the folds of labia, parting them.

There was no need for any extra lubrication; she was already wet for him. And whether or not he would have paused to ease his entry into her was highly unlikely. The blankets swallowed her cries as, with a single hard thrust, he shoved himself deep inside her.

He held onto her as though she fought against him, wrenching her arms back up between her shoulder blades until she cried out. It ached where her wrists pressed together in his grip. He grabbed a fistful of her hair, hurting as he yanked her back upon him, thrusting and pounding furiously against her wealed buttocks. A spanking would have 123

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been easier to bear. Yet her body sang, and her cries held more ecstacy than agony.

His vigor and his force felt good. She loved his guttural roar of pleasure as he came, his hips jerking as jettisons of creamy-white seed splashed up against her womb. Even his weight felt good when he fell down on top of her, crushing her into the soft mattress, his forehead sweating against her shoulder, his hot breath panting behind her ear. The only thing she didn't like, was the feel of him slipping out of her when he rolled over, flopping onto his back beside her.

"I'm not going to call you out of the closet each time I want to fuck," he growled. "You'll sleep out here tonight."