Penance (Long Slow Tease, #2) (15 page)

“I love you,” she whispered into the darkness and snuggled closer.

“I love you,” he murmured back and placed a kiss on her shoulder. “Get some sleep.”

She tensed for a moment. “I’m going to a spa in the morning. Think you’ll be all right on your own?”

“Sure, I can hang out with James or just laze around the hotel room like a spoiled kept man.”

The tension left her and she gently bit his wrist. “I should be back by lunchtime.”

“Mmmm.” His heartbeat slowed and he nuzzled his face against the back of her head, inhaling her scent. “G’night.”

Her voice held a trace of laughter as she whispered, “Goodnight, Wyatt.”

Michelle knocked on the door to Petrov’s apartment above the dungeon and nervously put her hands into the pockets of her dark pink jacket. When she’d left Wyatt sleeping this morning she almost woke him up to confess where she was going and what she was doing, but she knew he would have stopped her. She couldn’t allow that. If she was ever going to be able to be happy with him she needed this, had to have it. Only after atoning for her past could she move on with her future.

She had to pay
for her failure to be everything he deserved, for betraying Owen’s memory, for never being good enough, for letting all those men and women die in a foreign land because of her inability to save them after an attack.

No matter how hard she tried, she was never good enough.

A few moments later Petrov’s wife, Maya, opened the door with a gentle smile. Though Maya was a black woman in her early fifties, she had the kind of timeless beauty that made her look like she was only in her early thirties. She kept her hair short, almost shaved to the skull, and that displayed her exquisite cheekbones and exotic dark eyes. Dressed today in a flowing pale green dress that accented her deep chocolate skin, Maya stepped back and motioned Michelle inside before drawing her into a hug.

“It
’s so good to see you again.” She held Michelle at arm’s length and studied her with a critical eye. “Are you sure about this?”

Swallowing hard, Michelle nodded. “You know I need this.”

With a soft sigh Maya cupped Michelle’s cheek. “I don’t claim to understand it, but I know you do. I take it your submissive didn’t want to come with you?”

She looked away, towards the stairs leading to Petrov’s personal dungeon. Her heart rate tripled and a strange, disconnected feeling started to come over her. “No, he can’t stand to see women being hurt.”

“But you explained to him why you need this, right?”

“Yeah.” She shrugged out of her coat and hung it on the antique coat rack next to the door. “Is he upstairs?”

“Yes. And he wants you to come to him naked.” Maya gave her a gentle smile. “If you don’t mind, I’ll be there just to make sure you don’t get accidentally hurt. When you’re in the zone you can take some fierce punishment, not even realizing you’ve gone too far. Might as well put my medical degree to some use.”

Normally
, Michelle would have laughed and enjoyed talking with Maya, they’d known each other for years and Michelle had even Topped the other woman a time or two, but today her mind was totally focused on the beating. A cleansing punishment that would redeem her sins in pain and blood, leaving her soul clean in the way that only performing an act of true penance could. She would pay for her sins to both Wyatt and Owen’s memory, leaving behind those demons that threatened to tear her apart and giving her the freedom to love Wyatt fully.

Once she’d removed her clothing,
a loose fitting skirt and a baggy shirt as well as panties and bra, she followed Maya up the circular black wrought iron stairs to the attic. She paused at the threshold, taking in the scent of leather, sex, and something she could only describe as Petrov. It was as if the man’s very essence had sunk into the exposed timbers of this space and she felt at once comforted and nervous. She could feel her dear friend and trainer watching her from the corner of the room but she wasn’t quite ready to face him yet.

Instead
, she wandered around the room, touching the various pieces of BDSM equipment illuminated by the skylight above. Instead of the usual dark and dreary dungeon vibe, this space was light and open, reminding her almost of a yoga studio with its pale wood floors and cream painted walls – if one could look past the far wall that held a variety of whips, floggers, canes, and paddles displayed like one might showcase samurai swords.

She wandered over to that wall, both drawn to it and repulsed by the objects of pain and pleasure. But she didn’t want pleasure, she wanted soul
-cleansing burn. The path leading to her happily ever after with Wyatt was paved with her suffering and she was ready to walk it.

She felt
Petrov’s energy against her back a moment before he asked, “What do you need?”

He was such a good Dominant, knowing the key to her sinful heart. Not what she wanted, but what she needed.

Right away, she dismissed the whips and floggers, moving past the paddles to finally settle on the canes and the sharp, burning lines of pain they would create on her body, sizzling paths of redemption for her wounded soul, just as they had during the other two beatings he’d given her. The first, after Owen’s death when she’d lost her will to live, and the second after she returned from her first deployment into a combat zone and was suffering terrible guilt from the people who she hadn’t been able to save. Both times she’d been close to slipping into a deep depression, the kind that would have resulted in hospitalization, but the whippings seemed to somehow reset her brain, to tear her from the impenetrable darkness that nearly smothered her. She knew,
knew
with every beat of her wounded heart, that she needed another reset that would enable her to get on with her life and be the woman Wyatt deserved.

If that meant taking an extraordinary amount of physical pain, she would do it ten thousand times i
f the end result was that she could love Wyatt without guilt. Part of her mind screamed out a warning that Wyatt would be horrified when he found out what she’d done, but the part of her that was staring at the canes like a junkie looking at a display case full of free drugs didn’t give a shit.

Her fix was here, right here, and she was going to take it.

“
Denial isn’t just a river in Egypt,” said the chorus girl to the bishop
.

With a trembling hand she selected a
Governess cane roughly twenty inches long and three-sixteenths of an inch in diameter. It tapered at the point to provide a harsh sting if the Dominant wished. The grip was wrapped in black leather and the cane itself was made of fiberglass. She gave it a few practice flicks, the sound of the cane cutting through the air making her break out into a sweat. She held the implement of her punishment for a long moment, her mind struggling between the natural inclination to avoid pain and her stained soul crying out for its cleansing fire.

You’re doing this for Wyatt
, she reminded herself and found the courage to turn and kneel before Petrov, her head down and her arms raised in offering, presenting him with the cane.

“What do you need
?” he asked her again.

“I need to be punished, Master.”

“What is it you seek?”

“Forgiveness for my sins.”

“What is your safeword?”

She wanted to say Wyatt because he embodied everything safe and good, but during a beating she would talk, confess her sins, and would
probably say his name quite often because she’d sinned against him the most.

“Blue.”

“Maya, prepare her for her punishment.”

With a gentle, but firm touch
Maya helped her stand and walk over to the big St. Andrew’s cross in the center of the room. It was made of a pale wood and had a series of straps on each portion for submissives of different heights and sizes. As Maya strapped Michelle’s ankles and wrists to the pale wood she examined deep gouges in its surface where the wood had been clawed by those receiving their pleasure and agony on its hard frame. With a practiced hand Maya gathered Michelle’s hair up and secured it in place, then gave each of her shoulders a gentle kiss.

“Are you ready, darling?”

She nodded, then flinched as Maya stepped back and the high whine of Petrov warming up with the cane rent the air.

For a moment she was transported back in time, to her days at the Catholic
junior high she’d attended where she’d learned the real meaning of penance. That particular day she’d been called to the office of the mother superior for starting a fight with one of the other girls. Michelle couldn’t even remember now what the fight had been about, only the result of the other girl breaking down into heartbreaking sobs, leaving Michelle stunned. When she’d learned that the other girl’s father was dying of cancer, and Michelle had insulted him during their fight, she felt terrible. No, beyond terrible. She’d felt ashamed and disgusted with herself, hating that she’d been so cruel.

The mother superior had punished her with a paddling
, and as her tears fell, she felt an odd lightening of her shame and self-disgust, as if the more pain she endured the more the burden on her soul lightened.

“Brace yourself,” Petrov said in a low voice and she did, firming her stance and closing her eyes.

The first strike hit her perfectly across her buttocks and she sucked in a harsh breath, tears springing immediately to her eyes. This wasn’t a caning for pleasure, so Petrov didn’t bother warming her up, instead giving her three more strikes, each hurting more than the last. She trembled at the onslaught of the painful sensations, her body urging her to flee, to get away, to run from whatever it was that was harming her. Instead, she gripped the edges of the cross and squeezed her eyes tight.

Another sharp hit, then Petrov said, “Breathe.”

She took in a huge gasp of air, not even realizing that she’d been holding her breath. “Thank you, Sir.”

With the precision of a true Master he worked her thighs over, laying a row of welts that would be perfectly spaced. By the time he reached the sensitive skin where her bottom and thighs met she was crying out, writhing against the wood as she fought the bonds holding
her. Mother of God it hurt! So much so that even as part of her embraced the pain another portion of her mind seemed to oddly settle as the dopamine and endorphins flooded into her system, her body’s natural defense against the overwhelming hurt she had chosen to endure.

“Why are you here
?” Petrov asked in his low, deep voice, raining a series of light blows along her already abused flesh.

“Penance,” she gasped out.

“Who did you sin against?”

“Wyatt…Owen…” She sobbed as grief filled her, the
anguish in her heart more intense than anything her body could ever endure.

“How
so?”

Her mind drifted, hazy and she sagged against her bonds. Petrov made a low, growling sound and particularly harsh blow landed on her ass, a strike so agonizing she screamed as the
searing heat of the cane tore through her body, straight to her heart. “I love Wyatt more than I ever loved Owen.”

She went limp again, nothing moving through her thoughts except how much she hurt, how every inch of her thighs and buttocks was one
solid mass of white hot agony.

“Why is that a sin, Michelle?”

“I swore…” her mind drifted and she felt disconnected from her words, as if someone else was speaking them. “Swore on his grave I would never love another.”

The next blow caught her unaware and threw her screaming right out of her mind. She drifted on
excruciating waves, caught in a strong current of complete and utter surrender. Petrov then began to tap the cane lightly over her thighs. She shuddered, crying out and jerking against her bonds, throwing herself on his mercy despite her mind’s insistence that she stop. Her mind was lost now, all rational thought gone, leaving her as bare and exposed as she could possibly be. But she trusted Petrov completely, and finally allowed herself the gift of letting go.

His harsh voice came from right next to her ear, but she couldn’t open her eyes to look at him, instead sucking in deep
breaths tinged with Petrov’s unique scent as she sobbed. “Do you think Owen wants you to be miserable, you stupid girl? He would never, ever want to see you like this. I know, he was like my brother and I loved the little bastard almost as much as I love you. Let him go, Michelle, because Owen is dead and you are still alive.”

“Wish I died,” she sobbed.

“No, you don’t because if you had, you would never have met Wyatt.”

The mention of
Wyatt’s name made her scream out in agony, her heart breaking in two. “He’ll hate me.”

“No he won’
t, he loves you.”

“Not worthy.”

“Darling, you are worthy of his love.”

Shame collided with her pain, mixing in her stomach until she thought she might puke. She didn’t deserve Wyatt’s love, anyone’s love. “Lied to him.”

Soft and gentle, yet with a core of steel, Petrov demanded her confession. “How did you lie to him?”