Page 57 of Vicious

Chase steps closer, the whip still menacing in his hand. “Hold her hands while I tie her down.” He tucks the handle into his pocket and takes rope out of his back pocket. I struggle while he winds it tightly around my arms and the railings.

No matter what I do, I can’t stop it from happening. This isn’t like before, when Chase had been smiling with dark amusement. This… this is something else entirely.

When they’re done, my forearms are well and truly bound to the railings. It’s all I can do to squirm, and it doesn’t loosen the ropes at all.

I try to beg, but I don’t think they’re listening at all.

Well.

Drake is, but he’s just enjoying my pleas.

Chase steps away from me. He doesn’t even touch my back the way he’d usually done before he hurt me the previous times. The panic rises in me again, no matter how much I try to tell myself to calm the fuck down.

“This is actually going to hurt, May,” Chase says. “You’re going to see just how much I’ve been holding back for your sake.”

Just May, no adjective or nickname at all.

“Chase—” I choke out, but there’s no use. He’s not listening to me—or if he is listening, he just doesn’t care.

I don’t have much time to think about it, though, because the men go from crowding me to standing at a distance.

Then there’s another crack of that whip, and the tips of the tails flick across my back.

It’s just a touch—just a taste—but it’s enough for me to realize there’s so much more pain he has to give me, so much more that I can’t possibly enjoy. Because this? This is going to be too much, but there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.

“How many do you think I should give her?” Chase asks Drake casually. Cruelly. He doesn’t wait for an answer before cracking the whip again, and pain blossoms across my back.

My own scream drowns out Drake’s answer, and I have no idea how many of these lashes I can expect. I’m all too aware of the fact that people have used these for so damn long to punish and control people.

Or to destroy them.

By the fifth lash of the tails against my back, I’m already hoarse from screaming, but something strange has started to happen. There’s pain, absolutely—but there’s something more, too, something I can’t recognize or understand.

It takes me a moment to put a word to it.

Anticipation.

I grip the stair railing and relax my body against the wall, right in time for the next snap against my back. The pain is sharp, spread across my back, and heat races through me. I make a noise that I think might be a scream, but it’s raw in my throat.

It’s all lost in this mix of pain and… and this blinding sensation I think might be something like pleasure, though that’s impossible. No. It can’t be pleasure. Adrenaline, maybe, or something more, but I wouldn’t go as far as to say it feels good.

I scream and scream until I can’t scream anymore. I’m so aware of my body now, of how the rope is squeezing my arms, of my breasts rubbing against the wall, of the plug moving in my ass, and of how my cunt throbs with every new round of pain. When the lashing finally stops, my body slumps against the stair railing. The only thing holding me up is the ropes; without them, I’d fall easily.

“Damn,” Drake is saying, his voice full of awe. “You’re fucking good with that thing, Chase.”

“I practice when I’m stressed,” Chase answers. There’s something strange about the quality of his voice too, interspersed with heavy breathing. “Drake, get out of here.”

Drake murmurs something I can’t hear, then his steps retreat.

I squeeze my eyes closed, waiting for more even as I can finally feel something trickling down my back.

Blood.

I feel Chase’s warmth when he steps in close. He places his hands on my hips and brushes his lips against the back of my neck. “Fuck, May. You can’t moan like that if you don’t mean it.”

I shudder, swallowing thickly. “I didn’t mean to,” I whisper, but even I don’t know what I’m talking about. What I said to Stef, what happened after, the sounds I’d made that could’ve been moans instead of screams? I don’t even know anymore.

His hands trail up my side, stopping to push against the cuts—but my entire back is one large cut now, and every touch makes me whimper.