Page 66 of Redline Baby

"Yeah?"

"I want to take your jeans and underwear down and continue on bare skin."

My face goes nuclear. He waits.

"Still something you want?"

I swallow.

"Yes."

His hand stays still. I know exactly what he's waiting for.

"Yes, Daddy."

"Good boy."

He lowers them only after that. And when his hand lands again, the difference makes my breath catch hard.

"Fuck."

Soren doesn't comment. Of course he doesn't. The next one lands. Then another. And another, and another. I try to breathe through it. The pain is sharper. Hotter. But the sounds coming out of me are smaller too. Wetter. Coming from somewhere behind my ribs that I sealed off so long ago I'd almost forgotten anything lived there.

My grip on the cushion loosens. My fingers, clamped white-knuckle tight around the fabric edge, simply... let go.

The spanking genuinely hurts. Soren's rhythm never becomes erratic or angry, but the heat builds in layers until every new impact lands over skin already sensitized by the last. My forehead drops toward the cushion.

The rigidity is gone. What's left is something softer. I stop trying to pretend none of this is affecting me because pretending requires energy I no longer have. My breathing turns ragged. Short, wet inhales through my nose. Every exhale carries some small sound I would ordinarily kill before anybody heard it.

Soren hears all of them. His pace stays controlled. His other hand stays steady. My whole body is intensely ware of him, of the position, of the vulnerability of it. But something else is happening too.

Something bigger than the arousal. Something inside me is finally giving way. Then I'm crying. Actually crying. Not the kind I perform when a moment calls for it. The kind that comes from somewhere I sealed off after Charles. It shakes my shoulders. My chest. My hands. My face presses into the rough weave of the couch cushion because I have nowhere else to put it.

Soren's hand stops. The steady hand on my back doesn't move.

"Kit."

I drag in a breath.

"Still with me?"

I nod automatically.

His palm presses a little more firmly into my back.

"Words, baby boy."

"Yes." My voice cracks. "I'm here."

"Do you want me to keep going?"

I don't answer right away. That's the strange part. I actually check. Not what I think I'm supposed to say. Not what would make me good at this. What I want. My chest heaves. My face is wet. Everything hurts.

"No," I whisper. Then, because I need him to know: "I think I'm done."

Soren doesn't hesitate.

"Then we're done."