Beth hated the concrete room. Despised it. He called it the punishment room, but that wasn’t it. The shit he was doing to her wasn’t punishment, it was torture. From the first night he’d put her in there, she had known it was a room meant for terrible things, but the cold, the water, the chain, and the fucking shocks were only the beginning.

She had seen the metal fixtures on the walls and ceiling that night, but she’d refused to dwell on them.

Now, she knew first-hand what many of them were for.

The ones in the ceiling let him attach hooks that he could loop rope onto, winding it over her limbs in intricate patterns until she was finally lifted completely off the floor. Held up like an insect in a painful web where bulging knots dug into delicate flesh, where muscles cramped, where the cold sank deep with no opportunity to escape from it. To escape from him.

More a spider than a person.

It was an apt description.

Today was the second time he’d strung her up like that, and today she hadn’t fought him. All he’d had to do was show her the little zapping baton and she had knelt gracelessly on the cold concrete, eyes down.

What are you supposed to call me?

His voice was inside her. Echoing in her thoughts like ghosts wandering an empty house, and she wanted him out. Exorcised. Wanted to be free of him, but just when she would manage to focus on something else — a song, a story, a memory — he would appear. Like he could feel when she was escaping from his influence. He would hurt her, rape her, and then speak to her in that infuriatingly calm tone.

What do you say, slave?

Everything was inverted. How many times had she said ‘thank you’ for the things he’d done to her? How many times had he demanded she finish the gratitude properly? And then how many times had he hurt her again to punish her?

No. It was torture. Not punishment.

This was as much psychological as it was physical. Beth still had enough sense of reality to know that. Even when her world had narrowed to the concrete room, the empty hallway, and the pretty bedroom with all its own horrors… she knew what he was doing. Trying to condition her to follow his ridiculous poster of rules.

She wouldn’t follow them. At least, not all of them.

She was still a person. Still real.

But two things had become clear in her time with him. The bedroom was his version of a reward — a soft bed, sheets, a bathroom. The concrete one was punishment — cold, discomfort, and only a drain when she needed to relieve herself.

But in both places he hurt her.

He had taken her against the concrete floor just as viciously as he’d taken her in the bed on the first night. Had chained her to concrete walls just as effectively as he’d bound her to wooden bedposts.

You will learn to crave this.

Another echo of his voice in her head, and she covered her ears like she could block it out. Twisting in the sheets, she buried her face in the pillow, still waiting for him to return.

This was just a new game for him.

Taking her down from the ropes? Feeding her warm soup and cold juice? Bringing her to this room and telling her to sleep? It wasn’t real. She had never apologized for ripping all of the terrifying things from the walls in this room, for tearing his poster to pieces with the aid of some of those things. Had never expressed regret for pulling apart his cabinet of tools and dildos and gags and cuffs.

And that meant this room could not be a reward.

It was just a different vista for her torture.

He had cleaned up the room. Put everything back in its place. Replaced the poster with a pristine one. Erased the violence of the morning like it had never existed. She had wanted to destroy it all, but even the broken drawers were somehow back in the cabinet. It was a false sheen of perfection, just like his suits. And just like him… underneath the pretty veneer it was all rotting. Corrupted. Evil.

This is not a reward, she reminded herself. Said it again, and again, and again in her mind so that the softness of the mattress wouldn’t lull her into comfort.

Not like the reminder was necessary, Beth was terrified to sleep. Terrified she might wake up to a new horror, a fresh creation from his devious mind as he tried his best to make her obedient. To make her a thing.

Turning over again, she focused on the pale light spilling from the open bathroom door. He had turned off all of the lights when he had left her on the bed, pulling the sheets over her as if he were tucking her in, but as soon as the door had closed she had walked to it. Tested the handle and found it locked. Always locked. So, she had turned on the bathroom light, angled the door so she could see, and crawled back under the sheets.

The glinting glass from the cameras caught the light, but they had faded into the background of her mind. If she thought too much about them she would worry again about how comfortable she had grown in her nakedness — so she didn’t.

She refused to think about them and the faceless monsters behind them.

Refused to look at the spotless room, at the pristine linens that were free of the reddish stains she’d left on them. Instead, she focused on her wrists. The bruises, the dark spots where she had rubbed the skin raw against rope and leather, the places where she had bled in pinprick dots. Her ankles matched. Her knees and shins were mottled with bruises. Those were things he couldn’t erase. Couldn’t clean up.

How much can you take before you snap?

His voice again. A question he had asked her the day before, just before he’d spread the bar between her legs a little wider, forcing her pussy against the thin beam of wood she straddled. Pelvic bone crushing sensitive flesh as her body weight rested on it, arms bound behind her back, toes aching as she tried to lift herself the tiniest amount. It had hurt, and then hurt worse. There always seemed to be worse.

Pain. Always more pain.

The torment on the wood had been in this room, as had so many other terrible things. Soft bed or not, he planned to give her more of the same. Every single day.

She had no idea how much time had passed since he had taken her. How many days. No clocks, no windows, no daylight, no night. Just lights, on or off. Just the erratic meals, or hollow hunger. Just time spent alone, or time with him.

How much can you take before you snap?

How much can you take?

How much?

She didn’t know. The questions spiraled inside her, edged like sharp knives, piercing her with tiny nicks. Death by a thousand cuts. She didn’t know how much more of this she could take, how many more hours, days… but she wasn’t broken yet. Wouldn’t stop fighting until she couldn’t anymore.

To stop fighting, to give in, that would be the worst thing of all — and she wouldn’t do it.

* * *

The bed shifted, her arm tugged out from under the pillow, and Beth groaned as she fought to stay asleep. In sleep there had been an endless peace, like sinking to the bottom of a warm, dark pool. Serene and quiet. But she felt strong fingers press her wrist against something, and then the crackling rip of velcro tore her eyes open.

A dark shape above her, backlit by the light from the bathroom, but when he lifted his head he looked wrong. Shoulders too broad, hair too short.

“You’re awake. Good.”

No. His voice was wrong too. Panic flared to life inside her, finding new fuel as he pressed a knee to the bed to lean forward and wrap a black strip around her thigh. “Stop,” she half-demanded, half-begged the stranger above her.

Because that’s what he was, a stranger. A new threat.

She tried to raise her hands, but found that one was tethered to the thigh closest to him by a matching black strip. Her confusion allowed him to stretch the velcro and attach it to her thigh. “NO!” she shouted, desperate, sitting up to rip at the slick fabric around her other wrist, but he pulled her hand away, grip too strong to fight.

Had he sold her already? Was this it?

“Please, don’t…” she begged as he forced her arm to her thigh, joining it to the wide strap by the attached cuff, leaving her defenseless. No matter how she twisted her hands, she couldn’t break free, couldn’t bend her fingers enough to get a grip on the velcro to pull it open.

The man walked away from her towards the door, and for a moment she thought he might leave, but then the lights came on. Vicious, too bright. She flinched away from them, dropped back on the bed, clenching her eyes tight.

“Beth.” It was the surprising use of her name that made her look at him again. Stunned by the sound of it, because there had been so many degrading names spoken by the other one in the days he’d had her, but never her name. Only once, that first night, in this bed.

“Please…” She didn’t even know why she whispered it, why the word escaped her lips so soft and pathetic — it was ridiculous to think he would help her, he had just tethered her wrists to her thighs — but she still looked up at him with foolish hope.

“Do you know who I am?” he asked. Attractive like the other one, but more warm. More human. There was a subtle smile on his lips, a curve to his mouth that rang true as his eyes roamed over her skin.

She shook her head slowly, hoping to delay whatever was coming next.

“Interesting.” He pulled off his jacket and tossed it onto the chair in the corner. Then his shirt followed, and she held her breath. Carved abs, a sculpted chest, broad shoulders, and strong arms. The flicker of attraction to his body was short-lived, because he stepped forward to brush his fingers over the strap holding her right wrist down. “You have not submitted.”

Her body jolted, fire filling her mind with purpose. “I won’t.”

A chuckle rumbled up from his chest. “You will.”

“No,” she hissed.

“Are you sure?” he asked as he slid his hand under her head, threading his fingers through her hair until he slowly formed a fist. Sparks of pain lit up across her scalp as he used his grip to pull her into a sitting position.

She felt like a doll. Poseable and vacant, arms trapped at her sides. But she had already made up her mind — one monster or another — she wasn’t giving in. “I’m sure,” she answered, prepared for pain, but his fist in her hair only leaned her forward a little further… and then he climbed onto the bed behind her.

His knees rose up on either side as he settled against the headboard, and then he pulled her back against his firm chest. Hot skin on skin. It was the first time she’d felt it here. The other one always kept his clothes on, only unzipping his pants when he wanted to use her, but this one had his bare chest to her back, and… it was strangely comforting.

Which was wrong.

Nothing about this was okay.

“Don’t hurt me,” she mumbled. Almost a question, almost a plea.

“Don’t make me hurt you, Beth. You have so many decisions to make, so many options…” His strong hands brushed up her arms, squeezing occasionally as if he were casually massaging her.

“About what?” she whispered, shuddering as his hands slid to the front of her shoulders, pressing her back to his front.

The man’s lips were against her ear when he answered, the barest hint of scruff on his cheek scratching her skin. “About what happens to you next.”

Fear trickled down her spine, ice-cold despite his body heat — and he was so warm. Even his voice was filled with heat, hunger, as his hands slid lower, tracing the outsides of her breasts before moving to her arms to follow them down. Then, he started the path over.

Squeezing, brushing, tickling when his touch grew too light.

Finally, she swallowed and made herself speak. “What happens next?”

“Up to you.”

“I want to leave.”

He laughed quietly, his chest shaking behind her, the low sound of his voice against her neck. “That is not one of the options.”

Jerking at the sleek, soft cuffs attached to her thighs, she spat, “Then what are my fucking options?”

His fingers tightened painfully on one nipple, twisting hard as the shocking pain of it made her back arch against him, useless cries escaping between clenched teeth. When he finally let go she was panting, fists clenched tight — and then he pressed a kiss to her neck. Brushing her hair out of the way, he did it again, and again. Licking, teasing nips of his teeth at the side of her throat as his thumb rubbed soothing circles over her tortured bud. “Don’t make me hurt you. Be respectful and I can make it so much easier.”

Beth was stiff, tense, trapped against his body, and her muscles locked even further when he wound an arm under hers and slipped his hand between her thighs. “Don’t…” she pleaded, but quickly bit her lip, hoping to avoid more pain.

“Tell me the truth…” His fingers delved lower, parting her lips to seek out her clit, teasing with delicate touches. “Has he ever made you come?”

“No.” Shaking her head, she leaned away when he started to trail kisses from her shoulder up her throat. It was too intimate, too gentle, too much like an actual lover.

Well, except for the cuffs, and the poster of rules hanging directly across from them like a fucking taunt from the other one.

Tell me the rules.

His voice was back in her head, but this one had his fingers moving with sinister precision over the bundle of nerves between her legs. Rubbing in small circles. Her hips twitched and she flinched, pressing her eyes shut like she could block out the sensations as easily as she could the sight of the damn poster.

It was impossible.

Impossible that anything could feel good in this nightmare, and impossible to ignore the wetness he gathered with one sinful sweep of his middle finger over her entrance.

Tracing her damnation back up to her clit, he used her own wetness to ease his movements. As he settled into an easy pattern, two fingers moving incessantly, he spoke softly. “I said you have options, Beth, would you like to know what they are?”

Something brittle inside her was spider-webbing with cracks. Each flicker of sensation from his touch was confirmation that she wasn’t damaged beyond repair, that she could still feel — and yet it was somehow worse than anything the other one had done. “I don’t care,” she answered, clenching her jaw and breathing deep to push back the low thrum.

“I think you do.” The pressure of his fingers increased, tempo building with it, and she pressed back into his chest on instinct trying to escape. It was his quiet laugh that froze her once more. “This feels nice, doesn’t it? Don’t you want me to keep going?”

He kissed her neck again and she jerked away, but he grabbed her hair in his free hand and wrenched her head to the other side.

“Beth, you’re not behaving.” It was a warning, coupled with the sharper nip of his teeth against her bared shoulder, but she wasn’t going to submit just because he had heat pooling between her thighs and tremors of pleasure battling it out with the fear already buzzing in her veins.

“I’m not obedient, or didn’t your buddy mention that?”

“He is not my friend.” His fist tightened in her hair, sparks of pain radiating across her scalp as he increased the fervor of his fingers on her clit.

Fuck, why does it feel good? It shouldn’t feel good.

“He is my partner in this enterprise, but it doesn’t matter. I can make you be obedient. I can make you do so many things… wouldn’t it be easier if you just gave in?” Nibbling on her neck, he focused on her clit with confident swirls of his fingers, her wetness growing, inner walls clenching around nothing. “You can choose to obey me, and I will make you feel good. Choose to submit, to be a good girl. Everything will be easier for you… I promise.”

“I don’t want to,” she whispered, voice breaking. Straining against the urge to slip into what he offered, to submerge herself in the waves of pleasure between her thighs, the devious touch that had her hips subtly rocking.

“You know what disobedience brings you, Beth.” Lips to her ear, his arm wrapped around her waist to pull her tighter against him, erection pressed into her spine. “Don’t make me hurt you,” he whispered quietly, just for her.

So much emotion in his voice, in him.

The other one was solid ice, animated stone, an empty shell.

This one was full color. There was hunger in him, warmth in his body and his touch. He was good at this, her body relaxing despite her best efforts to stay apart. To stay strong. To ignore the potential for delirium that he teased from her.

“Ask for permission before you come, Beth.” Those words jarred her, made her whimper, struggle, but he held her tight to his body.

“I won’t come.”

I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.

What would it mean to orgasm here? In this place?

Would it feel like an orgasm anywhere else? Would it be a momentary gasp of freedom?

Or would it drive her further into this hell… leave her emptier than when he’d begun, than when the other one had raped her the first night.

“I don’t want this,” she said softly, but his laughter came again, shaking against her back as he slid one finger inside. The invasion made tears prick her eyes, wrists pulling uselessly at the cuffs that didn’t hurt but were no less effective.

“Are you sore?” he asked, sliding a second finger inside to stretch her, waking up the ache his partner had left behind in the early hours of the morning. “I know he likes to fuck you hard, that’s the only way he knows… but I can make you like it, enjoy it.”

“Please don’t—”

“Open your legs. Now.” The anger in his voice made her open her eyes, only to see his wrist trapped between her thighs. When she hesitated he reached forward and pulled one knee to the side while he used his feet to pull hers wide. “Every time you try to close your legs that’s another belt stroke. Understand?”

“No!”

His grip tightened on the skin above her knee, two fingers thrusting hard. “I will take my belt to your ass, your thighs, so that you remember that closing your legs to me, or my partner, is unacceptable. Does that make things clear?”

“Please… just stop…” she begged, legs shaking as he slid her wetness back to her clit and focused on it for an excruciatingly long minute of forced pleasure. Warmth and lust moving through her body like a heady buzz. Muting the fear in her nerves, quelling the panic in her veins, until all that existed was the steady thrum of his touch. Each swirl over her clit another confusing crack in the brittle barrier she’d formed against reality.

“Am I clear?” he asked again, slipping his fingers inside her, curving his fingers to stroke her g-spot and make her body jolt forward, legs jerking inward. “That counts.”

“Please don’t make me—” She couldn’t say it aloud. Don’t make me do this. Don’t make me come. Don’t make me enjoy this for even a moment. Stop, stop, stop…

Laughter. Real, low, male laughter behind her that made the tears roll down her cheeks as his arm tightened across her ribs and held her against his chest even as she struggled to writhe. Hips wanton and desperate to meet the next sinful sweep of his fingers. To feel something nice, something good, no matter the price.

She opened her eyes to see his hand moving, digits buried inside her. Unwelcome, yet bringing her the only comfort she’d received here.

Threats and pleasure.

“Do you want me to make you like it? Is that what you need, Beth?” His voice was a purr, directly against her ear, and it fed down her spine like a rumble. Vibrating the space between her thighs as he stroked expertly, teasing her to the edge as she struggled to keep her legs apart. To fight back the orgasm.

I can’t do this. I won’t do this. I won’t enjoy this.

“No.”

“You’re so wet. Has he ever made you wet like this?” The sound of him thrusting his fingers in and out of her made her flinch. Soaked, squelching sounds that made her shudder in shame and embarrassing pleasure.

Beth drew her lip between her teeth and bit down hard, feeling the burning ache spread across her jaw as she fought it. Fought against her own body as it betrayed her, spilling liquid heat down to the bedding beneath her, cloaking his fingers in her dripping duplicity. There was a new tension tightening like a knot at the bottom of her spine, wrapping taut, coiling with each new slip of his touch inside her. Cracking the brittle barrier even further every time he slid free to torment her clit with a new wave of pleasure. Forcing her body to respond, react.

“Just call me Master and you can come, Beth.” His voice against her ear was harried. He was breathing harder, aroused, tainted with lust and need — things his rigid partner was not capable of — but humanity didn’t make him good. It just made his requests all the more monstrous.

He knew exactly what he was devouring.

“No,” she refused again. Holding onto the only power they’d left her. They could take what they wanted, they had made that painfully clear, but this? Her permission? Her submission? Her agreement?

That she would never give.

“You better ask permission then, or I’m really going to hurt you.” His fingers started to move in earnest, aggressive thrusts, strong strokes inside that pressed her g-spot and made her body buckle no matter how much she fought.

“I won’t come,” she swore.

“Yes, you will.” And then he did his best to bend her to his will, to break her, playing her body with an expertise that had her whining, whimpering — and, fuck, she was even moaning softly — as her foolish body collapsed under the onslaught of pleasure. The teasing of nerves. Delirious lightning crackled over her skin, plaguing her veins with an urge to dive into oblivion… escape.

Why did it have to feel this good? This tempting?

She wanted to believe this tingling ferocity was the same as the electric shocks in the frigid room his partner had chained her down to. Wanted to equate the two in her mind so she could push the ecstasy away, remove herself from it, destroy it.

But it wasn’t the same.

It was a new torture, and as much as she wanted to pretend it wasn’t affecting her, she could feel the sweat on her skin, the delirious buzz that had her breaths shortening — and his lips on her throat were not helping.

Too personal. Too real.

Too not like the man he called his partner.

Creeping like implacable vines over all of her barriers, tearing them to pieces, holding the shreds of her sanity so she wouldn’t feel them hit the earth, so she couldn’t scream at the void of what used to be her pride.

Beth was shaking, shivering, so close to an orgasm that her muscles were nothing more than tremors and heat. Warmth. For once, she was sweating, not shivering, and there was no pain. Only pleasure, corrupting satisfaction that beckoned her to the edge of darkness like a van with candy that promised a permanent escape from everything — but it was poisoned. Every blissful inch of his fingers sliding inside her traitorous wetness was tainted. By this room, by him, by his actions, his partner’s.

Nothing was real.

And, yet, it didn’t matter, because the physical response was unavoidable.

“Say it. Call me Master.” A sinful growl against her ear, delectable. So easy to lean against his hard, muscular chest and give in. So tempting.

So close.

“NO!” she screamed. Beth pulled desperately against the soft cuffs that tethered her arms to her thighs, focusing on the hot tears rolling down her cheeks instead of the heat pulsing between her thighs.

Ignore the pleasure. Ignore it. Fight it. Please.

The man slid his fingers deep, curving, tapping at the crucial spot at her core that had her body bowing forward, unable to argue biology — and then she came all over his hand. Light exploded at the ends of her nerve endings, mind blissfully empty for a moment, so drowned in biochemical pleasure that she forgot everything. The room, the man, the poster of rules, and the wall of twisted torture devices. It was a mental escape, a trapdoor out of hell, but as it faded she tumbled into something so much worse.

Slick and wet as the tears on her cheeks, but equally as pointless.

Gently, he pulled his fingers from her and forced them into her gasping mouth, pushing in as he caught her jaw in the other hand. Smarter than his partner, unable to bite down as he held her still and slid the damning taste of her arousal over her tongue. Then he pushed too far, gagging her, and she choked around the flavor of her shame. “Say it,” he demanded again from behind her, skull trapped against his collarbone with his fingers buried deep.

“Nyyoo—” Beth tried her best to refuse past his hand, accepting the pain that was to come. Welcoming it on the discordant edge of her forced orgasm, and his growl accompanied by his next words only confirmed it.

“Oh, I’m going to hurt you, whore.” Tearing his fingers from her mouth, he shoved her forward on the bed. Weakly landing on her side as he moved away, left the bed, but she had no misconception that he was done with her. This pleasurable, horrible interlude was only the beginning.

With a jerk, he flipped her to her stomach, unstrapping her wrists from her thighs. She heard the crackling as he pressed them together behind her back. Again, they were wrapped tight, but just as she tried to worm her fingers under the velcro he wound a strip all the way around.

No chance.

Hands under her thighs, he yanked her to the edge of the bed, hips bent, and then she heard the rattling fastenings of his belt. The whisper of leather leaving the dark pants he wore terrified her, and then — CRACK!

White hot pain in a vicious stripe across her ass, too shocked to scream with the first one, but the next loud snap of leather landed on her thighs and she managed it. Voice breaking as she screamed, begged into the sheet that smelled of her arousal as the lines of fire blistered her ass and thighs.

Over and over and over.

Agony crashed in on the heels of too much pleasure, suffocated the memory of her orgasm, drowning it along with her hopes of ever getting out.

“SAY IT! CALL ME MASTER!” he roared behind her, but her ears were buzzing from the pain, body shaking as she tried to process the feel of her heartbeat in the flesh he’d brutalized. Tears and drool soaked the sheet beneath her cheek, but she stayed silent.

Giving in won’t make this stop. It won’t.

It’s a lie, a fucking lie, it’s always a lie.

“Bitch.” The vulgar growl, and the tinkling sound of metal fixtures, overwhelmed her ragged breaths for the brief moment before he struck again. Excruciating, so much worse than the electricity. It didn’t end, didn’t stop, and left more than sore muscles behind.

He was hitting her harder now, the pain rising to some place inside where it could go no further, blurring into white noise in her head that silenced her screams, her cries, her incoherent pleading. Everything vibrated with the same tone, the same peak of suffering that he was now drawing out into a plateau meant for her destruction.

Thoughts were born and died before she could process them, catching only bits and pieces. Hints of her dissolving hope, her boiling hatred for them both, her psychotic temptation to give in and be whatever doll they wanted if only it would make him drop the fucking belt.

It was for the best that she couldn’t think straight. Couldn’t make her voice form more than low grunts on the heels of each new lash over already destroyed flesh.

When he stopped again, her head swam. Barely reacting as he wound his fist in her hair and bowed her backwards, a gurgle of strain slipping out as his knees created a place between hers. “Last chance for mercy, slut.”

Mercy?

Her brain was useless, but that one word was written in blood on the inside of it.

There would be no mercy here.

I am not merciful.

The other one’s voice made it through the fog in her head even though he wasn’t in this room. Both of them torturing her simultaneously, but there was only one with his hands on her at the moment.

When he laughed, her body twitched, an autonomic surge of useless fight or flight… and then he was inside her. Still miserably wet, the stroke stretched her open until he bottomed out, hips slamming hard against her bruised and welted ass. Pinprick spikes of pain inside the white noise, another inelegant grunt from her throat as he wrapped his hands around her hips and slid almost completely out, only to force himself deep again.

It was pure aggression. Animalistic as he thrust over and over, making her ache inside as well as out, pressing finger-shaped bruises into her hips. She tried not to react to the pounding of his cock, the way his hard flesh pushed against her inner walls, but he was at the perfect angle to punish her g-spot with pleasure — and there was no doubt that this was punishment. The slow burn of arousal was breaking through the white noise, bringing her back to her body, connecting her to the aches and sinful tremors in equal measure.

Beth whimpered, digging her nails into her palms, biting the inside of her cheek, anything to stop this from happening again. She hated herself for squeezing him inside her, for groaning into the bedding, trapped on some kind of terrible autopilot that clung to the rising tide of lust in her veins.

“See?” he gloated, jerking her backwards onto his cock. “I can hurt you, or I can make you like it, slave.”

Clenching her eyes tight, she prayed for the detachment to return, for the white noise to fill her once more, but it was his fingers that came back. Pressed against her clit as he leaned over her, the heat of his breath on her back, and then there was only pleasure. It stormed down the aches and pains in her muscles and skin, making her hips buck as he made each stroke count. Hard, powerful, forcing her to accept him and every tremor that threatened an orgasm.

Jagged cuts of lightning through her mind, pure bliss and ecstasy.

This was so much better. So much better than the pain, than the cold, than the other one’s icy emptiness.

“Just call me Master and I can make you feel like this every day.” Heavy, panted words, and as he focused his touch on her clit again she felt her resolve crumbling. That pathetic barrier she had constructed ground to dust, blown away by the next tempting drive of his cock.

Master.

Such a simple word, a simple thing. She didn’t even have to mean it. She never had to mean it. Never had to pretend this was who she really was.

He pushed inside her and held deep, still teasingly rubbing her clit, holding her on the edge, but it was when his other hand slipped through the collar at the back of her neck that everything shuddered.

It was a wake-up call. She wore a collar.

This would never be okay. She would never submit. She would never call either of these bastards Master. No matter how good they made her feel. No matter how much they made her hurt.

I’m a person. I’m still me. Fuck. I’m going to come.

The orgasm had crept past the ruins of her self-control as she’d focused on the collar, on reminding herself of her promises, but now it was threatening in blinding colors. Thighs trembling, body tense, she tried to stop it, but he swiveled his hips and thrust hard just as he pinched her clit — and she was gone.

Moaning into the bed as molten light careened through her nervous system and washed away reality once more. It felt good, too incredible after he’d hurt her so much. Her body was desperate for the pleasure, devouring it like it was starving and he was still thrusting as her pussy clenched and squeezed in waves, dragging out the orgasm until she was limp and sweating. Gasping, mewling, heart hammering a staccato on the inside of her ribs.

He slid from the soaking mess between her thighs — all her, because she had never felt him come. A hard slap on her ass woke up the welts, pain making the orgasm stutter. “What did I say about asking permission?”

I’m sorry.

That was what the other one would want to hear, even if she didn’t mean it. This one? He only wanted one word from her.

“Greedy little whore.” His large palms squeezed her backside, making her whimper as the welts protested and he pulled her cheeks apart. “You like it, don’t you… you wanna take it? You wanna take my cock some more?”

Beth arched as he pressed against her ass, shaking her head, but his hands found her hips again and he ripped her open in one vicious stroke. She screamed against the bed, pleading for him to stop, but he pulled back and it felt like a hot knife being drawn out, and then re-sheathed as he thrust forward. An impossible pain.

“Oh, fuck, yes.” He groaned as he tore her apart, hips pistoning with unrelenting strokes. “Take it, slut. This is all you’re meant for, all you’re good for. Just a set of fucking holes.”

Sobbing, back muscles spasming, Beth tried to stop herself from screaming again, but it was useless. She screamed for him, again and again.

Pain, panic, all pleasure gone like smoke.

Nothing but agony.

And then he forced himself deep, teeth clamping down on the flesh over her ribs as he came. Squirming, she tried not to tighten down because it only hurt worse, sobbing as the torment of his bite refused to let her dissolve, pass out, escape.

He pulled out, ripping her head up by her hair, and she saw the rage still simmering in his eyes, even with the manic smile on his lips. “Was it good for you?” he asked, and then he spat into her face.

She felt something crumple inside just before he dropped her back to the bed. The dull sounds of him gathering his clothes faded into the background noise of her pain, and when the door finally shut Beth let the tremors in her body takeover.

It took a few tries, a few weak screams into the sheet, but she finally lifted one knee onto the bed and managed to shift her body completely onto it. Arms still behind her back, she ignored the meager throb of her shoulder as she curled into a ball on her side. This was definitely hell, and there were two devils, not one.

And each day she was discovering a new level of suffering. A new low.

Accepting a new thought as an absolute truth…

I’m going to die here.