Page 84 of Bitter Burn
“Do you remember the night after our wedding, at Lyonesse?” I ask, posing the question to Tristan rather than to Isolde. “Do you remember why she said she liked pain?”
Tristan has been stroking the backs of her thighs, completely entranced. His fingers are lingering over the crease behind a knee when he says, “Because she thinks she deserves it.”
“You have to be careful with people who think they deserve pain,” I say softly, still stroking the hair away from Isolde’s face, still looking into her aquamarine eyes. “Because sometimes they don’t think they deserve for the pain to stop. Sometimes it feels too good to want to stop. Sometimes it feels so awful that even wanting to stop feels like proof that they’re the weak and miserable creatures they thought they were. Sometimes they might think they deserve pain so unequivocally that they begin wanting to hurt themselves rather than having someone else do it. Isn’t that right, Isolde?”
A pause, and then a small dip of her chin.
“And that’s not kink anymore, is it?” I ask kindly.
She closes her eyes. “No,” she whispers.
I press my lips to her temple. “No,” I echo. And then I look up to Tristan, who’s looking down at Isolde with a troubled expression. “When you love someone who feels better with pain, you have to be careful, especially with someone like Isolde, who can handle rather a lot of it. Her body won’t lie—you’ll be watching her skin, checking her pulse, her responsiveness—and there are ways to make the same amount of pain feel like so much more.”
“Like with the trial by iron,” comments Tristan quietly.
“Yes,” I say, kissing Isolde’s temple again before I stand up. I’d rather not talk about the trial by iron. Agony is one thing, but agony on display is another—and in front of a callow and vicious audience that doesn’t deserve anything like what Isolde gave them that night. “You’re going to spank her until her ass is red—not pink but red. You’ll hit this spot here too,” I add, indicating the crease where her thighs meet her cheeks. “That’ll be enough for light bruising. If you really want things to hurt, you’ll have her on her feet but bent over clutching her ankles. It’ll tense the muscles and give each strike less cushion. Feel free to hold her legs down if she gets too kicky.”
Tristan’s flush has spilled down his cheeks to his neck, and his lower lip shines from licking it. “I—I don’t know. It’s not something I’ve ever imagined doing.” He places a wide hand on the small of Isolde’s back, right over the twin dimples there. “I know I’ve hurt you a little before, when you’re close to coming, but…”
Isolde twists to look back at him. “It’s okay,” she says gently. “I want you to.”
I don’t know that I’ve ever seen someone as conflicted and also as superhumanly aroused as Tristan Thomas in this moment. His green eyes have gone black, and his shoes are shifting restlessly on the floor.
But his frown and the protective hand on her back speak volumes.
“You can still make her come,” I coax. “That’s the point of this—her release. And you’ll have given her something she needs, given it safely and responsibly. You like taking care of her, right? Serving her? This is just another way to serve.”
He runs a hand thoughtfully over the curve of her backside and then gives it an experimental slap. Hard enough to move the flesh, gently enough that I’d consider it more flirting than spanking.
“I just lectured you about safety so you would know there’s a difference between being safe and being a fucking gentleman about it. You’ve seen me with her. You’ve sparred with her. Give her what she can take.”
He pauses, chest moving hard, and then brings his hand down on the other cheek with an air-splitting crack.
Isolde makes an involuntary noise, erotic enough that I briefly forget what I’m doing. Tristan is staring at the back of her head in wonder.
“Again, puppy. Harder.” My voice is a little rough at the edges now. “You want her red by the end.”
He spanks her again and then another time, enthralled by the way her bottom moves with each strike, and then the next time, when Isolde starts wriggling in his lap, he looks up at me with a helpless expression that I could commission a hundred oil paintings of and never get tired of looking at.
“I could have told you there were advantages to not being a gentleman if you’d only asked,” I say with some amusement. “Get the spot at the top of her thighs a few times, and then give her a little reward. Your choice.”
“A reward,” Tristan says, mostly to himself, and I can tell he likes the idea. He would. He’s not a natural sadist any more than I’m an angel, and pain will always make the most sense to him with pleasure wrapped around it. It’s not a bad thing. It gives me hope that he’ll take care with her, rather than a demon like me, who will always be drawn to the furthest edge of a person’s soul.
He delivers four quick smacks to the sensitive creases below her ass, and while she’s still squirming in his lap, he reaches between her legs and cups all the needy flesh there. She squirms even harder but with a goal in mind, chasing the friction. He lets her go at it for a moment or two, and then with excellent instincts, he pulls his hand free just as she gets a little too keen. She goes motionless, save for a shiver of frustration that she can’t seem to suppress.
“Well done,” I tell Tristan, and he tucks his lower lip under his teeth and nods, like he doesn’t trust himself to speak.
He repeats this pattern a few times—hard swats, followed by caresses between her thighs that have her wriggling in an entirely different way—and then seeing the effects of his labor, he warms to his task admirably, varying the depth and power of his strikes, soothing over the red splotches he’s made and running pleased fingers under her sweatshirt to stroke her waist and spine. I watch from above, idly rolling my palm against the front of my sweatpants, enjoying both the power of Tristan’s arm and the glimpses of needy cunt that appear every time Isolde squirms. I watch his hands a moment more, hands that are so lovely and yet have done such violence. It is a small corruption in my soul that I can adore them as much as I do.
She’s crying out with every swat now, her legs starting to kick up reflexively. “Don’t let her kick,” I advise. “Use your leg if you can’t use an arm—good, yes, exactly.”
Tristan has hooked one leg over both of hers now so that she’s pinned behind her knees but still bent over his other leg, and then he delivers a flurry of spanks that would have any seasoned spanko beaming with joy. I take in the shade of red on her skin—bright, not yet magenta—and then squat down so I can see her face.
When I push the hair away and tuck it behind her ear, I see tears caught in her eyelashes like dew. They haven’t fallen yet, so they’re new, but the rest of her is a mess. Hair is caught in her mouth, the tip of her nose is as red as her ass, and there’s a little glisten of drool on the leather cushion where she’s been rolling her face.
Perfect.
I narrate this to Tristan and tell him to give her two or three more as a nice little coda. They have the effect of spanking the tears right out of her; they drop fatly onto the sofa, as audible as raindrops.
