It shouldn’t surprise me, after all we’ve done and gone through, but it still does—I’m wet. I’m so wet, with an apple in my mouth reminding me of my kidnapping, with my ass raised up for a spanking, with my body objectified by the only two people in the world I want to share it with.

“Keep that apple in your pretty little mouth, princess.”

Smack.

Heat blooms under his hand as he lifts it to smack me again. This time it’s harder, faster, the crack resounding through the room. I flinch, and the apple starts to slip, forcing me to bite down deeper. Embry, still on his knees, moves to the side of Ash’s legs so he can face me and take my hands in his. He presses his forehead to mine.

“Remember to breathe,” he advises, and I nod, even though it’s so hard with this fucking apple jammed between my teeth and—

Crack crack.

The apple muffles my cry, more juice spilling onto my tongue and running down my chin. I taste it, and taste Melwas, feel his breath on my neck—

Crack crack crack.

Embry squeezes my fingers. My teeth squeeze the apple.

Crack. Crack.

Crack.

On it goes, on and on, blows hard and deep sprinkled with blows light and fast until it doesn’t matter which ones are hard and which ones are light, they all hurt, they all burn. My skin is fire, my ass and thighs are fire, and all the while I’m gagging on a fucking piece of fruit.

My ass, Embry’s fingers, the apple. I don’t exist outside those three points, those three sensations. They are the points my existence is strung from, my only anchors to reality. It’s all I can do to keep breathing, to keep the apple in my mouth, the pain and fire of it driving out all thought. All memory. There’s only Ash’s punishing hands and Embry’s soothing ones, and the sweet juice on my tongue.

Ash rubs an appreciative hand over my ass, even the gentle caress burning against my skin. I’m just on the verge of gone, truly lost to myself—any more pain and I’d plunge headlong into subspace, which I almost crave. But Ash keeps me just at the brink of awareness, slowing the pain and my pulse.

A finger runs along my slit, teasing past the wet folds and sliding inside. “Who do you get wet for?”

“You, Sir,” I try to say around the apple. It comes out as a muffled wet sound.

“Mm. And who do you hurt for?”

“You, Sir.” Every time I attempt to speak, the apple comes precariously close to falling and I have to bite it deeper.

That finger, wet from the inside of me, traces up to tightly pleated entrance of my ass. It circles, not teasingly, but firmly, skillfully working the aperture open and then sliding inside. I arch, my hands squeezing Embry’s, trying to breathe. Ash’s fingers have been there before, several times, but every time feels new, just as elemental and dirty as the last.

“And who is this for?” Ash asks finally, pushing in to the knuckle.

“You, S—”

It finally happens. The apple falls from my mouth, thumping to the floor and rolling down to Embry’s ankle where it lands with the bitten side up.

“Oh, dear,” Ash tuts. “We dropped the apple.”

Eyes wide, I twist to look back at him and start to beg, “Please, I’ll put the apple back in, I’ll carry it in my mouth as long as you want, please—”

I stop. His silently arched eyebrow betrays nothing but mild amusement, the same amusement you might have picking up a squirming kitten or bunny, all the more adorable for its pointless thrashing. His hands and arms slide under me, and then I’m carried over to the bed, bent over it, and Embry lies on his stomach in front of me so he can hold my hands again. I don’t want the belt, I don’t want it, but I also do. I want to stop thinking, I want Ash’s ownership of me to be striped and branded on my body. I want the free fall of surrender, the stinging reminder of exactly how much I am able to choose and control. I can choose blinding pain for myself, I can choose blinding pleasure, I can choose sleep or kisses or space. My body belongs to me and me alone.

And for the first time since we came back to America, I believe it.

“Three’s the magic number,” Ash says, and I hear leather sliding through his fingers. “Count for her, little prince.”

The belt comes like fire, a sting and a snap so fierce that I don’t feel the full pain of it until it’s over. My ass already glows from the spanking, the warm-up both helping and making the belt hurt even more.

“One,” Embry whispers, holding my hands tighter. “Don’t forget to breathe.”

I always forget to breathe. I take in a deep breath right as the second blow comes, welting deep and mean a little lower on my ass. The air leaves my lungs in a rush, and Embry reaches out to rub my hair. “Two. One more, Greer. Last one.”

The last one is always the worst somehow, and this time is no exception, the leather biting into the tender skin where my thighs meet my ass. I let out yelp of pain, kicking my legs and pressing my face into the bed, hearing Embry croon, “Breathe, breathe, breathe.”

The belt is tossed up on the bed, and then Ash is kicking my legs apart and spearing me with his thick erection. Pleasure sings up my core, melody thrumming up to my fingertips and my scalp, my confused nerve endings converting everything into delicious sensation. “Jesus, you’re wet,” he grunts from behind me.

Embry groans from in front of me, still on his stomach, and I look up to see that he’s reached a hand underneath himself and is rubbing his cock as he watches Ash push deeper into me. “How does he feel?” Embry asks me, his eyes still on where Ash’s hips move against my ass.