Page 45 of Brave
“Please, Sir, punishments are always worse when you have to wait for them.” The leather grip of the handle hurt her hands, she twisted it so hard. “What if I can’t take it?” she stammered. “What if I get scared? I can handle being scared of everyone else. I d-don’t w-want to be scared of you too.”
Pushing off the door, he unfolded his arms. She lifted the cane again, offering it to him, but he ignored it. Hooking his thumbs in his pants pockets, his eyes narrowed slightly. Sounding more speculative than angry, he said, “I don’t want you to be scared of me either, that’s not what this is about.”
“I know.” She twisted the cane between her hands again.
“I’m glad.” He nodded. “So, okay. Tell me. What is this about?”
It would have been very easy to just tell him she had lied. Ultimately, that was the reason she was standing here, holding this cane. She couldn’t remember exactly what she’d said that had landed her on the magical number of ten, but she did know it was her lies that had put her here.
Except, not really.
“I don’t like to think or talk about painful things,” she admitted. “I’ve tried to avoid them, and I did that with you. It’s hurtful to do that, and I’m sorry.”
“How is it hurtful?” he asked, his countenance softening just a little.
“Because you’re my Sir. Y-you—” she swallowed hard, needle-jabs of conscious pricking at her as she admitted out loud to them both what she had come to feel. “I don’t want to lie to you, and I’m sorry I did. It’s become a defense mechanism, I guess. It comes out without my thinking about it. You… you’re the only one I don’t want to lie to. Y-you’re the only one who doesn’t use the truth against me.”
Stepping in out of the doorway, he stopped in front of her. That tic of muscle still pulsed along his jaw, but he was gazing down on her more softly now and she liked that look. It was protective. She didn’t have a lot of experience with loving, but she thought it might even be that. Whatever he felt, whatever happened next, she lost herself in memorizing this softness. In that moment, it made her feel cherished.
“Put that cane away,” he finally told her. “Bring me the thinnest Delran. You might still mark, but it won’t leave bruises anywhere near like that one will.”
Considering this was punishment, she’d have thought he’d want the most severe implement he had, but she was glad to put it away. Not that she hadn’t told the truth when she said she could take a hard caning. She could. She’d done it—and worse—many times before. But it wasn’t until he sent her back to the closet to fetch the far less fearsome Delran that she realized how truly scared she’d been with that crimson acrylic rod in her hand.
And she was still afraid. That was the strange part, too. Her palms were sweating. She had to pause in the middle of exchanging the canes to wipe them on her pants. She wiped them again on her slow way back to stand before him, the slender black Delran held out for him to take. It was switch-like in its flexibility. Just watching as he fit the handle in his palm, bending it once to reacquaint himself with the length and give, was enough to make her shiver.
“Remove your clothes,” he finally ordered. “Hands on my desk, bend all the way over. You’re going to count each stroke. I’m going to make the last three memorable, because those were the lies you told yourself.”
Puppy turned to face the desk, her knees unsteady, nothing but dread crawling up the backs of her legs and across her ass. Stepping out of her shoes, she stripped down, removing pants and socks, her underwear, shirt, and bra. Was he going to hit her back or her butt?
“Jesus Christ,” he breathed, just as she began searching for the best place to put her hands without fear of disturbing what few things he had on top—his lamp, container for pens and paperclips, the small stack of mail he had yet to open and sort through.
Fearing she’d done something wrong, she stepped back again, but stopped when she felt the heat of his hand come to rest on her shoulder.
This was the second time she’d been naked before him. The first time, he and his clothespins had been entirely preoccupied with her front. He was seeing far more of her now than he had then, and certainly more than he’d seen in the bathroom at the Old Ebbitt Grill. He was seeing her completely naked.
He was seeing her scars.
Chapter 13
Pale lines crisscrossed her shoulders, snaking in arcs down her back, etching the flesh of her hips, ass and even the backs of her legs in the telltale remnants of cuts that had long-since healed. In the poor lighting of the bathroom at Old Ebbitt’s, he’d mistaken them for stretchmarks. Women had growth spurts too, after all. But in this room, under these lights, there was no mistaking what he was seeing.
He was absolutely going to kill Ethen O’Dowell.
He touched her, his hand coming to rest on her shoulder, holding her still until he’d looked his fill. She held herself so stiff and still; her head bowed, a slow flush of shame rising to stain her face.
“Jesus Christ,” he said again, because he knew he was staring, he knew he was botching this, and he knew if he didn’t shake himself out of this he would just as brutally etch every one of these scars into herself along with the firm belief that he found her somehow ruined by them.
She wasn’t ruined. She wasn’t ugly.
She was his, and he was determined: no one else would ever get the chance to do something like this to her again.
Not without going through him first.
He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her back into the cradle of his chest. He didn’t even put the cane down first; his need to hold her took precedence.
“These are the arms of a man who cares for you,” he said, low against the softness of her hair. He held her tighter as she began to shake. “These are the hands of a man who won’t ever let anyone hurt you again. These are also the hands of a dom who doesn’t care about counting anymore, but I have to ask you a question, honey.”
Her body felt every inch as tense as a steel rod against him. Even her voice trembled when she replied, “I promise I won’t lie.”
