Page 76 of Hideaway

Kara blushed as she pushed through the embarrassment to be more descriptive.“You know, standard sex stuff—light spanking, playful biting, hair pulling. Nothing quite so professional as this.”

“I see,”Cade said with a smile. His sweet, vanilla girl was about to get an education.“How would you rate your pain tolerance?”

Kara thought back to that night with Jace. Even with everything he put her through, it was almost as though she had disappeared from her body. She could hardly feel a thing until after he had left the room. That was when she allowed herself to acknowledge the pain, when her tears would belong to no one but her. The only other time she had experienced pain like that was after the car accident. Kara had used the pain from her injuries to keep herself from going numb after the loss of her parents. The doctors had been baffled by her ability to persevere and recover without the use of pain medication. Kara supposed she had always treated pain as a mental obstacle; she could revel in it when she wanted to feel its power or she could overcome it to keep from breaking.

“High,”she answered after a moment of self-reflection.

Cade’s brows lifted in surprise.“High? Are you certain?”

“I’m sure, sir.”

“Well, you are full of surprises this evening. How far do you want me to take you?”

Kara bit her lip as she contemplated his words. How far did she want to go?“To the point where all I feel is you on my body. Erase the memory of him on my skin. Write over the pain he left, the marks he made. Make them yours. Make me yours. Please,”she begged almost desperately.

Cade had to wonder if she knew what she was asking for with such determination, such trust. He moved his hand to tenderly caress the smoothness of Kara’s bruised cheek.“Are you completely certain that you want your entire body—every mark—to belong to me?”

“Yes, sir,” Kara answered with finality.

Before she had a moment to reconsider her decision, Cade drew back his hand and slapped her across the face. Hard. Hard enough to bruise. Kara’s wide eyes filled with tears of shock and pain at the brutality of the act as she pressed her burning cheek into the cool skin of her shoulder. She couldn’t believe that he hadhither. Kara understood the irony of her infuriation, considering Cade had merely met her demands, but there was something inherently degrading, something intrinsically barbaric about hitting a woman in the face. Embarrassed and confused, Kara kept her eyes lowered as she reconsidered what the hell she was doing.

Cade read the tension in Kara’s body as he held himself at a distance, allowing her to process exactly what the session with him would entail. He hadn’t wanted to hurt her, especially in a way so lacking in pleasure, but it was what she needed. She deserved to own her body once again, and he intended to give it back into her possession one piece at a time. Tentatively grasping her chin and raising her head up to face him, Cade searched her eyes as fresh tears pooled and spilled down her flushed cheeks. She was breathtaking, perhaps more so than ever before, as she slowly shattered into lovely, fractured pieces in front of him. Cade lowered his mouth to her bright red cheek and softly brushed his lips over the dark mark of his hand marring her pale skin. His tongue found a trail of her tears and licked her from chin to cheek bone, savoring the saltiness mingled with the sweet taste of her.

“Mine,” Cadedeclared roughly, looking deeply into her eyes and willing the truth of his statement to penetrate the farthest recesses of her mind. She had asked him to erase the memory of Jace from her mind and body. Cade planned to be meticulously accommodating.

Kara looked at him incredulously as her conflicting emotions incited inner turmoil. The burn of his blow mingled with the warmth of his kiss, barbarism tempered with tenderness. The contrasting combination of the two sent the blood in her veins singing with the sweetest sensation that could only be likened to euphoria. Cade read the realization in her face and couldn’t help but smile.

“Would you like more?”he asked knowingly.

“Yes, please, sir,”Kara answered, startled by how much she did.

Cade circled her, appraising the extent of the damage left behind by Jace. The bastard had marked her thoroughly. Kara would have to withstand a considerable amount of blows if Cade was to reclaim her body completely. He contemplated the best choice of implement with a professional prudence.“I think we can find something with a little more finesse than my belt,”Cade remarked playfully as he walked around the room to survey his vast collection.

Kara followed his movements in suspense, growing a little anxious as he disappeared beyond her sight. Considering it was Kara’s first time and the application would cover much of her body, Cade needed something light. Though he rarely used such a low impact tool in a typical scene, Cade decided a flogger would best suit Kara’s needs in their particular situation. Lifting the unthreatening instrument from where it hung on the wall, Cade presented the item almost ceremoniously before Kara.

“A flogger,”he announced by definition, correctly assuming that Kara would be unacquainted with its name.

As she eyed the mild looking tool in Cade’s hands, her face distorted into an expression reminiscent of disappointment. From her unconventional tour of Cade’s room, Kara remembered the feel of the flogger, soft strands that emulated caresses. But a caress was not the sensation Kara ached for; she needed more and was slightly hurt that Cade had determined she only had the strength to endure softness.

“Is something wrong?” Cade asked in confusion, noticing the furrow of her brow as she looked at the flogger in distaste.

“It’s just…well…I suppose I had been expecting something a little more menacing thanthat,”Kara answered, gesturing with her head to the flogger in his hands.

“I see,”Cade remarked dangerously.“So you take issue with my choice of implement? Or perhaps with my ability to wield it?”

Shit.

As she heard the darkening of his tone, Kara felt the chill of panic wash over her.“I am sure you are more than capable, sir,” Kara placated hastily. “I just think I can handle something that hurts more than a flogger.”

“Kara, I am skilled enough to inflict pain with even the most mundane of objects. With an instrument that is specifically designed for both pleasure and pain, I assure you, I canmakeit hurt.”

She believed him wholeheartedly, but she was willing to further risk his displeasure with one more question. There was a single thing she hoped most to gain from their endeavor, and she seriously doubted the flogger had the potential to satisfy her desires.“Will it leave a lasting mark, sir?”

The question caught Cade off guard. He hadn’t chosen the flogger with the intention of leaving a lasting imprint on her skin, and he hadn’t considered that she would care. In his world, it was typically masochists who relished the marks left by their Dominants, a way to savor and remember the pain they’d received after a scene was finished. From their previous encounters, Cade could safely assume that Kara was not a masochist—at least not entirely—but he had failed to remember that she had been intimately acquainted with a sadist in the worst possible way. With slow, dawning awareness, Cade realized that Kara had been literal in her request that he write over the pain Jace had left, and, in some singular way, her need for physical proof that Jace was not the last person to touch her made sense.

“You want me to mark you, Kara? Like he did?”

“Yes, sir,”she answered, aware that she sounded marginally insane.

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