Mona slipped the other strap of her gown off her shoulder and lowered the bodice. She gathered the fabric in her hands at her waist and pushed it all the way to her ankles. Naked but for the red high heeled shoes she wore, she stepped out of the dress and onto the floor.
"A blank canvas,” Malcolm said as he walked a circuit around her naked body. "I’ll enjoy painting you red and blue.”
She quaked in her shoes with fear and arousal. She’d never been with a man as beautiful as Malcolm and she would have walked barefoot across a pit of red coals to please him tonight…but he was right. Reason called to her, telling her to run from the pain.
She ignored its voice. It sounded too much like her own. She’d far rather listen to Malcolm’s.
"Put your arms behind your head,” he said. "Clasp your fingers and keep your elbows open. Like a butterfly’s wings.”
She did as she was told. The move made her arch her back, thrust her breasts forward. Malcolm stood before her, inspecting her.
"Legs wider,” he said. He touched the floor with the tip of the riding crop in two places—here and there, showing her where to place her feet. She moved her feet wider apart, a foot and a half, and stood quivering in place.
"Very nice.” Malcolm raised the crop and tapped her left nipple with it. Then her right. He caressed the underside of each breast with the triangle of leather on the crop’s end. He ran the shaft of the crop down the sides of her body from each elbow to each ankle and back up again. It tickled and made her shiver. She would have given anything to feel Malcolm’s body against her right now. She craved it and with every passing second she craved it more. No doubt this was the intention.
He stepped close again. It was torture to be so close without touching. He brought the crop up between them and pressed the flat side of the tip to his lips. Then he pressed the opposite side to her lips.
"Think of it as a kiss,” he said when the leather lay against her mouth. "That’s all it is. Just a kiss from me to you.”
"Most kisses don’t leave welts,” she said. "I prefer French kissing.”
"Well, I’m English. This is English kissing.”
Then stepping back again, he brought the crop’s leather tip between her legs and lightly tapped her sex. He turned it on its side and used the edge of the tip to pry her apart along the seam of her vulva. She felt the stiff leather corner against the entrance of her body.
"It stings more if it’s wet,” he said with his devil’s grin and for a split second she wondered…what if Malcolm was the devil? With a riding crop in her cunt, she could almost believe it.
So what if he was? She wanted him all the same.
He dipped the riding crop’s tip into her sex again, wetting it with her own fluids.
"Insult to injury,” she said.
He held his arms wide, smiled, and bowed. "The name of the game, my darling.”
She nodded her acquiescence.
"Here are the rules,” he said. "You survive my crop, you earn my cock. A hundred strikes of this.” He lifted the crop into the air. "For a hundred strokes of this.” He pointed casually at his crotch and she could see the outline of his erection through the pale breeches. The trousers adhered so tightly to his body she could even see one long vein running from the base along to the shaft to the tip. She knew that vein. She’d licked it with her own tongue.
A hundred strokes of his cock? She’d come after the first ten, if not on the very first.
"Count for me,” he said. "Starting at a hundred.”
He stood behind her and she braced herself. What was he waiting for? Was he torturing her with suspense? Taking his aim?
"Admiring the view,” he said as if reading her thoughts. She blushed hot at the flattery and smiled. Then he wiped the smile off her face with one quick crack of the crop. It struck high on her thigh in a spot she’d never associated with agony before. It burned like Greek fire.
She cried out in shock and Malcolm laughed.
The bastard laughed at her.
"Count, dear,” he said, his voice chiding.
"One hundred.”
"Did it hurt?” he asked, tenderly touching the burning welt on her thigh.
"Yes,” she said.
"I’m sorry, darling.” He kissed his fingertips and touched them to the welt. "So very sorry.”
Then he kissed her lips softly and massaged her nipples. She moaned in the back of her throat. Her body was a carnival of sensations—the stinging pain, the swelling of her breasts, the tingling of her lips as he kissed her. Her head spun. Did he want to hurt her? If so, then why apologize and kiss her to make up for it?
"There we go, love,” he said. "Only ninety-nine to go. Don’t feel too bad. When I was fifteen, I was caught buggering my neighbor’s lady wife. I would have traded my left ball for a punishment like this.”
"Were you beaten?”
"I was.”
"With a crop?”
"A bullwhip.”
She gasped.
"Like I said, it could be worse. So count your blessings when you count my kisses.”
He struck her again with the crop, kissing her hip this time.
"Ninety-nine,” she said through the pain.
"Such a good girl,” Malcolm said, hitting the side of her neck over the pulse point. "Beautiful and brave. You can’t know how much you please me…”
He struck her again, out of nowhere, right on the back of the calf. Her leg almost buckled from the shock and the pain.
"Malcolm—”
"It’s all right…” He put his arm around her to hold her up. He cupped her chin in his hand, tilted her face up to his and kissed the tip of her nose. "It’s not so bad, is it?”
"No,” she said. In his arms, it wasn’t so bad. It wasn’t so bad at all.
He struck her again. Mona closed her eyes as the pain washed through her. It wasn’t unbearable, but it wasn’t pleasant either. After a few dozen strikes, it might very well become unbearable, however.
Yet nothing would allow her to break before she’d earned what she wanted and what she wanted was him.
He walked around her body, striking her with the crop high and low—on her thighs, on her stomach, on her breasts, on her backside, so often and so hard she knew she’d hardly be able to sit in a chair tomorrow. But what did tomorrow mean to her when she wasn’t certain she’d survive tonight?
The crop didn’t sting like a bee. It bit like a snake. Its fangs were sharp and burning and left sharp and burning bite marks all over her body. Malcolm was the snake-charmer and she was mesmerized by how he made the crop dance. He would twirl it in his fingers, casual, playful. Then he’d catch it quick, so fast she couldn’t see where the blow would come from and where it would land.
It would have been easier for her to close her eyes tight and pretend it wasn’t happening, wait it out, hide inside her mind. But she couldn’t. Malcolm wouldn’t allow that. After each strike he paused to kiss her, to fondle her breasts and nipples, to massage her hips and quivering belly. After each strike he’d tell her how beautiful she was. He’d tell her what a brave, brave girl she was. He’d tell her how aroused she made him with her submission to his crop. He’d kiss her on the mouth, before suddenly stepping back to strike her once more. Then the cycle would begin again. The crop, the pain, the tender words and tender kisses. Soon she was craving the crop because each strike meant a kiss.
Before he’d begun, a hundred hits sounded like a hundred too many. But each strike earned such affection from Malcolm, such compassion, such sympathy that she was starting to think one hundred wasn’t nearly enough. He was forcing her to fall in love—not with him, but with the crop.
She was in love with the crop. The crop, and Malcolm’s tender sadism.
And Malcolm too, of course. How could she not? He was inhumanly attractive. His eyes were so black and the room so dark she couldn’t tell the iris apart from the pupil. As he shifted this way and that to keep her guessing, the muscles in his thighs tensed and shone through his breeches. His boots sported gold buttons at the tops and she wanted to kiss them for some reason. The thought wouldn’t leave her head. She trained her eyes on them, on the glinting gold coins, and let them anchor her into the moment.