“Bear!” I exclaimed. “I was just getting a drink of water.” I held up my water glass, realizing how surprised I was that I hadn’t dropped it yet at the same time.

“The kitchen’s back there,” he pointed behind him and I searched his eyes, trying to see what he was thinking. The darkness of the room prevented me from getting a good look at his eyes. I put one foot in front of the other, breathlessly closing the distance between us.

“I know,” I whispered, finally standing in front of him. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come in here.”

“That’s right, you shouldn’t have,” he said. “I wasn’t planning on showing you this just yet.”

“I’m sorry, Bear,” I said, hanging my head. “Let’s just pretend I didn’t see anything.” I moved to walk around him and he reached out a hand, grabbing my arm. I froze, looking into his eyes, searching the dark storm that was beginning to churn in them.

“It’s too late for that,” he said. “I don’t play pretend.”

“Okay, well,” I replied, my voice quivering. I don’t know why I was so nervous, but something in his voice, in his eyes, was unnerving. “We don’t have to talk about it. Whatever you want, Bear.”

“That’s not how this works,” he growled.

“Wh-what do you mean?” I asked, looking down at his hand as he gripped my arm tighter

“You have to be punished, Chloe,” he whispered. He was naked, too and his cock was hard as rock, throbbing between his legs.

“Punished?” I asked, my voice high with excitement. I didn’t know if I should be turned on or go rushing from the apartment. Adrenaline rushed through my veins as I lifted my chin defiantly.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” I said. “I don’t need to be punished.”

His eyes smoldered, his pupils dilating as he breathed heavily, his hot breath searing my lips as he came within millimeters of my mouth. A slow smile spread across his face and he shook his head.

“I think you’ve forgotten where you are, Beauty,” he reached up, grabbing a fistful of my hair and roughly pulling it back. “You’ve forgotten who you’re talking to, haven’t you?”

I gasped, the pain ripping through my skull and sending shocks of pleasure straight to my clit.

“How will you punish me?” I asked, my eyes wide, as a slow trickle of desire began rushing through me. If he wanted to play this game, well I could play, too. I was a little intimidated by the whips hanging on the wall but I was trying not to think about them.

“However I damned well please,” he growled, his eyes flashing with anger. “I didn’t tell you that you could leave the bed, did I?”

I shook my head, biting my lip as I waited for whatever he was going to do to me.

“No, I didn’t. The first thing I’m going to do is restrain you, so you don’t take it upon yourself to go wherever you please.”

I nodded, his fingers still tangled in my hair. He let go slowly, then grabbed my arm and pulled me across the room.

“Move!” he yelled.

I jumped into motion, walking along with him as he brought me over to the huge contraption in the middle of the room. I stood in front of it, desperately trying to meet his eyes. I needed something, some sort of reassurance that Bear was still in there, that he hadn’t been replaced with someone—something—else.

He must have sensed it.

He took a deep breath then looked me square in the eye.

“What’s your safe word?” he asked, his voice a deep guttural growl.

“Peaches,” I whispered.

“Good girl,” he said. “You probably weren’t expecting all of this. But now that we’re here, it’s good that you’ve seen it. Now you can see me for who I really am, Chloe,” he nodded slowly, gesturing to the scene around us. “This is me. Take me or leave me. This is your chance to walk away, right now.” He motioned towards the door. “You can leave right now, you can leave anytime. It’s always your choice, you need to know that and understand that. It’s up to you to decide what to do.”

I let his words sink in, and his eyes seemed to pierce so deeply into my soul that I felt it. It was like he’d crawled inside of me and he wasn’t even touching me any more. His hands had fallen to his sides and I yearned for him to touch my skin, but it was as if he’d found a way to look into the darkest corners of my heart and mind, turning over rocks and lighting up the secrets that I’d kept from myself.

Slowly, I lifted my arm in the air, holding it next to the leather cuff behind me.

“I’m staying,” I whispered.

He nodded solemnly, a glimmer of light appearing in his eyes before fading away into the savage darkness that overcame him. It was fast and sudden, too fast, too sudden. His hands fastened the cuff on my raised hand, then the other. My ankles were next, the cuffs tight against my skin. Suspended and restrained, I watched as he stood back to inspect his work.

His stormy eyes raked across my naked body as he nodded slowly.

“You’re fucking beautiful,” he said. “I knew you would be.” My hair hung in waves around my face and I stared back at him. He was so present, so fucking intense and for the first time I felt a surge of fear. There was something so savage about him right now, even more than before, like a predator toying with his prey.

He grabbed something from the wall behind me and I braced myself for the pain of the blow, but instead a wispy softness floated over my skin and I looked down to see a handful of soft leather straps hanging loose around my thigh. He trailed the whip higher up my leg and over my right hip, my skin tingling from the sensual slide of the leather.

He was close, so close I could feel the warmth of his body, smell the lingering scent of our sex from earlier. He brought his mouth to my ear, his voice a thick whisper of lust.

“Your skin is going to turn such a lovely shade of pink.”

I trembled as he ran the leather over my hard nipples, goosebumps forming on my arms.

He stepped away and pulled his arm back, taking the straps with him. I braced myself again as he brought it forward once more, sliding it between my legs, the leather running between my pussy lips like a snake.

I quivered with desire.

He pulled it away again, then lightly hit my thigh with it. He hit it again, harder this time. I bit my lip, holding my breath for the pain that I knew was surely coming.

But it didn’t.

The harder he hit, the better it felt.

The pain was a rush of heat to my skin, as if the blow was waking me up with each increase of force. I melted into them, his blows becoming harder and harder until he was raining blows down on me so fast and furiously that they became a blur. My thighs, my belly, my breasts were all tingling with the sensation of being woken up until even the quick rush of air that each blow delivered was like a chorus of pleasure coursing through my veins.

When he stopped, I cried out.

He smiled, a slow approving, proud smile.

“Most people cry when it’s happening, not when it stops, Chloe,” he whispered, sliding the whip along my trembling skin again. “Tell me, Beauty. Do you like this?” He slipped the leather between my legs, pushing it against my pussy.

I nodded, gasping for breath.

“Good girl,” he moaned, reaching down and wrapping his fingers around his cock. “Come down from there.”

He unfastened the cuffs on my feet and then my hands. I hadn’t realized how weak I was and I sank to the ground, my knees buckling beneath me. I looked back at up him through a curtain of hair. He towered over me, the whip in his hand, his cock pulsing and throbbing between his legs like some sort of virile god of sex.

I’d never wanted to be fucked so badly in my life. I licked my lips, my eyes meeting his, hoping like hell he could see the desire there.

I lifted myself on all fours, crawling towards him, craving the feel of him in my mouth, in my pussy, anywhere and everywhere he could reach.

“Stop!” he commanded. I froze, waiting, a plea of unbridled lust on the tip of my tongue. “Turn around!”

I did as he asked. Walking on my hands and feet in a circle, until my ass was pointed at him. He stepped between my feet, slapping the inside of my thighs with his whip until I opened my thighs wider, my ass and pussy on full display for him.

I pushed away a twinge of shyness, focusing instead on the sweet anticipation. It hit me that this was part of the game. The waiting. The wondering. The imagining.

He walked around to my head and leaned down, staring into my eyes.

His piercing gaze ripped right through me. When he raised his hands, I saw the blindfold. I cringed, the thought of being plunged into darkness, of not being able to see him, to see what he was doing terrified me. I hadn’t even imagined he would do that.

When he slipped it over my eyes, I whimpered. Everything turned black and I was left all alone. There was nothing to think about but the darkness and what was coming next.

The fear I’d felt earlier was back. The tiny twinge of anxiety I’d felt before rushed through me, filling my veins, filling every inch of my heart and every dark corner of my mind with white-hot fear.

I waited, relying on my other senses now, to find him, to anticipate what was coming. But suddenly, there was nothing. I couldn’t hear him breathing. I couldn’t smell him.

Accessing anything but the darkness was impossible.

Was he gone?

Was this part of the game?

A huge mind-fuck of fear?

“Bear?” I called, my voice echoing back to me. I was still on all-fours and I contemplated standing up and feeling my way around. But, still I waited, my ragged breathing the only sound in the room.

“Bear?” I called again, rotating my head. I took another deep breath and reached an arm out in front of me, hitting his abs.

“Oh!” I cried, my finger sliding across his rippling skin.

“I didn’t tell you to move,” he growled. My hand fell back to the ground and I swallowed hard, letting my head hang down between my arms.

“I thought you left,” I whispered.

A hard slap landed on my ass and I jumped and let out a loud yelp.

“Does that feel like I’m gone?” he asked.

“No!” I cried, as he hit me again. His cock brushed against my thigh as his palm landed on my ass cheeks over and over again, until I was whimpering and writhing, my hips dipping down to lessen the blows.

“Stop moving,” he said, grabbing me by my waist. He sat down on the nearby chaise and pulled me over his lap, his hard, naked cock pressed against my belly. The spanking began again, harder this time and with nowhere else to go, no way to decrease the impact, I had no choice but to sink into it, just as I had before with the whip.

His hand turned red hot, my ass burning hotter and hotter with each firm slap.

Over and over, the stinging blows echoed through the room. Skin on skin, our bodies sliding together as he kept hitting me. My legs flailed uncontrollably as he continued. Hot tears stung my eyes, sliding from under the blindfold and down my face as I whimpered below him.

“Bear, Bear…” I cried, shaking my head.

He stopped and my stomach flipped.

“Do you want me to stop?” he growled.

“No,” I cried. “I want—I want you to fuck me!”

“I’m not ready to fuck you,” he said, his cock throbbing hotly against my navel. “You haven’t earned that yet, you little slut.”

I whimpered again as the purest, strongest desire I’d ever felt rushed through me. To be told no, to be refused his cock when I needed it the most, hurt like nothing I’d felt before. It only made everything worse. It flipped something inside of me and the tears began to flow freely now.

“Please, Bear!” I begged. I didn’t care anymore.

“No!” he yelled, his hand landing hard on my ass once more. I hung my head again, falling limp against his lap, taking whatever punishment he thought was best, just wanting him to get it over with so I could feel his cock inside of me again.

I stopped resisting. I let him hit my ass, and after a second, he switched back to the whip. The crack of the leather echoed in the room, mingling with my cries as he hit my thighs, my ass, the whip occasionally falling against my pussy, the blows sending electricity straight to my clit. My juices flowed freely, the wetness seeping onto his thighs, as I lay there, melting into my punishment, taking it like a good girl.

I wanted to please him.

I wanted to hear him call me that again.

It was as if his approval had become my drug, intoxicating me with his game. He hit me again and again, and then he said it, stopping and rubbing his hot hand over the burning stinging flesh of my ass.

“Good girl,” he growled. “You take it like a good girl, Chloe…I’m proud of you.”

I came in a fit of raw pleasure, my body seized by waves of hot heavenly pain that sent me crashing over the edge of consciousness. His fingers slipped deep inside of me, transporting me into a blissful eden of blackness, ripping my body from this universe and sending me to a starry explosion of lust.

“Bear!” I screamed, his fingers delving deeper as I spasmed around him, my juices bursting forth like a damn had broken loose. He growled above me, pulling his fingers away and then laying me on the chaise on my back.

He shoved his cock inside my spasming pussy, slamming inside of me smoothly, my juices covering us both. My body exploded again, a massive, sweeping wave that left me limp below him as he fucked into me savagely, his hands digging into my hips as he held me in place, his hips flying in the air as he fucked me so hard, so fast, so fucking deep.

I reached up, clawing at the blindfold, desperately wanting to see him.

He slapped my hands away, growled and kept fucking me. Harder and harder his cock slammed into my pussy, fucking me with such precision and strength and intention that every nerve in my body was alive. Harder and harder, faster and faster, until I heard him panting, his breath growing ragged and deep until he stiffened, his cock throbbing and exploding inside of me, his hot wetness filling my pussy as my body seized once more, spasming around him as I cried out his name over and over and over.

“Bear, Bear, Bear…” I cried, tears running down my face.

“Shh, Beauty, shh,” he cooed, holding me close, his arms wrapped tightly around me as he kissed my forehead. “You’re okay, baby…”