The slide of Van’s hands up the back of her thighs pushed her skirt to her waist and revealed her panty-less backside. The profile of their hips pressed together and Van’s grinding and groping sent Josh’s pulse careening, his heartbeat pounding, and every muscle in his body tensing. He tried to shake off the anger. It was just a game, a psychological torment meant to break him.

Van freed the button at his waistband, shoved his jeans to his bare feet, and kicked the material away. Naked from the waist down, he grabbed her hand and curled her fingers around his erection.

The chains held Josh to the floor, but it was the heaviness in his chest that pulled him down and squeezed his lungs. Would Van rape her? Was it rape if she wasn’t struggling?

She captured Josh’s eyes and pierced him with a look so cruel, it struck harder and deeper than any implement she’d used on him.

He dropped his head, eyes burning and arms hanging numbly at his sides. What was the purpose of this?

“Watch us.” The snap of her voice splintered through his spinning world.

His neck ached with tension as he raised his head.

The manifestation of her sudden smile seemed forced, blanching along the seam despite the glaring curls at the corners. She angled her chin away, and Van caught her mouth.

He attacked her lips, licking and sucking. With a hand in her hair, the other wrapped around her fingers, stroking his fully aroused length.

Josh’s throat thickened, and a guttural roar burst from his throat. “I’ll do it. I’ll kiss you. Just…” He trembled with the violent need to bash Van’s face in. “Just get away from her.”

Why did he care? She’d whipped him for days. He should hate her. Yet the pain of watching her with another man eviscerated his insides and destroyed his ability to see a future beyond that room.

Van released her lips, his arm pinning her against him, and cocked his head. “Maybe next time.” He returned to her mouth, his tongue whipping aggressively, dominating the movement of her jaw. He lifted her, hooked her legs around his waist, and backed her into the wall a couple feet away.

When Van’s hand shoved between their hips, Josh barreled forward, the strain of his body caught by the web of chains. He jerked and yanked, the cuffs on his wrists scraping along his skin. “Mistress? Mistress, don’t let him do this.”

Her glassy eyes peered at him over Van’s shoulder. She lay her palms flat on his back, her shoes dangling from her toes where they hung behind Van’s flexing thighs.

A vicious force of nausea spun through his gut. Why was this affecting him so furiously? There was no love between him and that woman. He sucked in a breath, his mouth thick with salvia. Wasn’t this possessiveness he felt for her a method of control? Maybe he was supposed to feel sorry for her. Sympathy was more effective than hating her. The proof was in the painful collapse of his chest as Van thrust his hips, sinking inside her and grunting his pleasure.

His ears burned with the sound of his heart ripping, bleeding with loss and crushing into the shape of betrayal. Why the hell did he feel betrayed? Because she didn’t fight? But the skin around her mouth blanched and strained. When he snagged her eyes, she looked away.

The hammering of Van’s hips accelerated. The color drained from her face, and she pressed her grimace against Van’s shoulder. Josh aged ten years as he watched beneath the weight of his chains, his perceptions grinding into a jaded palate of anguish, helplessness, and jealousy.

The fact that she wasn’t struggling snarled and thrashed through his head. If he thought about it, really pushed past the shock and fury of his emotions, the truth was painfully obvious. She couldn’t control him with punches and whips, but this…this would leave a permanent mark. She was doing her job by any means possible. His lungs constricted, his mind a mess of twisted conflict.

As Van pummeled into her limp body and pawed at her breasts through the bodice, a wet sheen glazed her eyes. When a lonely tear escaped, she looked at Josh, startled. She quickly brushed it away on her shoulder and averted her gaze.

His chest hitched. She didn’t want this. His belief in that didn’t mute the pain as Van buried himself deep inside her and released with a revolting groan. But it renewed his faith in his ability to expose her goodness and gave him the strength to keep fighting. For her.

Two days later, he lay on his stomach, stretched over her mattress, his nose burrowed in her sheets. Her familiar womanly scent warmed his inhales as the strikes of her cane pommeled his backside.

The passing of time had warped into an ugly mass of emotions, the intensity and direction of his thoughts changing as frequently as her masks. He flailed between hating her, wanting her, fighting her, and praying for her. And through it all was the incessant urge to screw her. The latter formed a knot of guilt in his stomach. After witnessing Van’s treatment of her, his arousing thoughts were selfish.

The air whistled. Crack.

Burning pain stole through his thigh and cut his breath. He held tighter to the chains connected to the wall.

Crack.

His tender skin flinched, shuddering away from the hurt. But the warmth that remained spread tendrils of heat to his groin. When her footsteps clicked over the floor, he loosened his muscles, anticipating her next hit.

Crack.

The impact stabbed his backside, flexing and quivering his gluts. His lungs labored. He relaxed into the lingering twinge, and his arousal mounted.

Crack.

He ground his pelvis against the mattress, seeking relief. He tried to muster the shame in it and failed. He’d reached that place in his head where the pain transformed into a lofty phenomenon, his body floating through an immersion of sensations, every nerve ending devouring her attention. He rocked his hips.

Her knee pressed between his spread legs, and her hand wedged beneath his groin. She gripped his erection and stabbed her fingernails into the throbbing, sensitive skin. “Slave will not rub Master’s property against the mattress in a sexual way.” Her tone was as cold as the absence of her hand as she stepped away.

Crack.

Fire seeped into his bones and smoldered in his joints. He thrust his arousal against the bed, wanting more. It was strange how badly he longed for her full focus on him, only him, whether or not that attention came with pain.

Her fingers grabbed the hair on the back of his head and yanked, exposing his neck. Her lips caressed his ear, and his penis throbbed. “Stop. Grinding. Your dick.” She released him with a shove. “Kinky fucker.”

Crack.

Ahhh. He melted into the heat of her strike. He couldn’t remember what the infraction was that led to the current punishment. Couldn’t recall what day it was. Didn’t care. It was during these highs that he trusted her implicitly. And ignorantly. The flow of his thoughts whispered in jumbled bursts of nonsense, his give-a-crap drifting beyond reach.

The mattress dipped as she knelt on the edge.

Time passed. He might’ve dozed. Somewhere along the edges of his drowsiness, her phone beeped. When he opened his eyes, her knees hadn’t moved.

He licked dry lips. It would’ve been delusional to expect leniency from her after every punishment, but sometimes, while the pain ebbed, she gave him a small window of sympathy. Sometimes, during these moments, he tested her. “Come here.”

She sighed, and it was sexy, soft. His lips floated into a smile. At least he thought they did. Her gentle response surprised him as much as it had the first time he’d given her the same order. In those rare moments when she came to him tenderly, it didn’t last long before the detached Mistress appeared again. Still, he wanted her, craved her body against his, and this time she obliged.