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He reached around me from behind, took my left nipple between thumb and forefinger and twisted and squeezed so hard I jerked against all my bonds and screamed.
"Oh, good, you are still with me. Annie, do not go dark. Stay alert. You're not going to be allowed to go under during this."
I nodded, temporarily incapable of speech. Stars careened in front of my eyes. Had he ever hurt me that badly? And that was just to jolt me awake.
He didn't seem to require an answer. While I panted he continued. "You've agreed to stay without a contract. That doesn't mean the terms of the contracts have changed. I am responsible for your health and welfare, for your wellbeing. That means having healthy food available for you and having someone prepare it and feeding you things that are good for you. It means taking you in hand where your physical fitness is involved and your mental fitness."
I mentally growled at that.
"It means that you obey me to the letter the instant I ask something of you, command something of you. You answer me, you tell me what I need to know. You bend over when told, you accept your punishments and you thank me for them. You understand that this is a process. You are growing and changing and becoming something other and if that other is something that I want, so be it."
I felt tears start to prickle and blinked them away furiously. This was my life. mine. He was invited into it. For a lark. As a game.
The anger was rising again. That's where the tears were coming from. Not from guilt or shame. Other than the shame of hanging naked before him.
"We are not equals, Annie. I respect the fuck out of what you can do. I respect the career you've had and I believe with my whole heart in the career you're going to have. But we are only on an equal footing when I say we are. I love the fight in you. But I will not accept the anger and the fight you exhibited at the table and definitely not the idea that you can call me Cole, or look me in the eye, argue with me as you see fit, refuse to eat what I give you, refuse to grab your ankles or strip when ordered to."
"Sir." My voice was halting. "We were outside. It's hard when we're outside." He fucking knew this.
There was a tense pause when I wondered if I'd just made everything worse. Then he said, "I know that. Annie. It's one of the reasons you're ordered to strip outside. You're my sub, Annie Knox. You're in my care. Do you really believe I'd let anything happen to you?"
And I remembered knowing if a car came and he ordered me to stop running before I noticed it that his next move would be to shield my body from sight with his own while I dressed.
"No, Sir. I know you wouldn't."
Long pause and the skin on my back seemed to crawl, as if at least some part of me might escape what was coming.
"Do you believe you should be punished?"
God, damn it, Cole, don't ask me that! Don't make me complicit. Don't humiliate me and make me see what I am! Just do it!
Please, please do it!
"Yes, Sir. I believe you should punish me."
"For …?"
I drew in a breath. "For not obeying on the trail the second you told me to. For my behavior at breakfast. For not eating – " the fucking – "the fish. For assuming that we were on the same equal footing when you hadn't allowed it and for being angry."
Cole had moved around to the side of the bed, standing where I could see him if I raised my eyes. I carefully did not.
"This is going to be long, and very hard and very painful," he said and if there was anything in him now feeling sorry for that, he hid it well. "But just maybe after this we'll have a more – thorough understanding."
Without thinking, without my permission, my fingers scrambled for the leather straps that held the cuffs. If I could shove myself up high enough, maybe I could unsnap just one of the cords form the wrist restraint and get that hand free.
Impossible, of course. The tension in the way I was tied was specifically to keep me from even the idea I could do that.
I subsided.
I waited.
My heart pounded and my breath didn't go deep enough.
"Are you ready?"
"I'm ready, sir."
"Do you want me to punish you?"
