HurtMeHealMe

  Hurt Me, Heal Me

  Sayara St. Clair

  Dante’s Purgatory, Book One

  After the death of her Master, Caitlin Bennett discovers years of sadistic cruelty at his hands have made her a slave to pain. To orgasm, Caitlin needs the type of extreme agony few responsible Doms are willing to inflict, especially Doms like Paul Nelson. Offering nearly everything she craves, Paul’s perfect—except for his aversion to the whip.

  Paul refuses to hurt Caitlin, instead attempting to retrain her with patience and trust. But the longer she suffers from a lack of release, the more she’s convinced her mind and body are irrevocably conditioned. And Paul has precious little time to convince her otherwise. Waiting in the wings is a newbie Dom determined to have Caitlin for his own…who’s learning the whip just for her.

  She’ll soon have to choose—the man who can give her what she wants? Or the man who can give her what she needs?

  Inside Scoop: Caitlin recalls scenes of abuse that could disturb the more tenderhearted.

  A Romantica® BDSM erotic romance from Ellora’s Cave

  Hurt Me, Heal Me

  Sayara St. Clair

  Chapter One

  Master was angry.

  And Master never got angry.

  In all the years Caitlin had spent with him, she had never seen him this way. Even with a bullwhip in his hand, when he was whipping her, punishing her, hurting her, he was always calm—eerily calm in fact.

  Those cold, flat, silver-gray eyes, always probing and assessing, delving into her soul to uncover all her fears, all her weaknesses. His almost monotone voice, giving definite but quiet commands. His thin lips, ever so slightly quirked up at one corner as she followed his every instruction to the letter.

  Already kneeling on the floor, Caitlin sat back on her heels. The contact of her feet with the welts on her behind stung and burned. She hunched over, naked and shivering as she tried to shrink into herself. Maybe she should just get out of his way? The thought was ridiculous. She never moved unless she was given permission.

  Master threw his whip to the ground in disgust. He grabbed her chin and roughly pulled her head up, forcing her to look into his eyes.

  “Are you listening to me, girl? Are you hearing what I’m saying to you?” He pulled her head up when she automatically tried to lower it again, forcing her to focus on his words.

  “You don’t look at me like that—with your heart in your eyes like I’m your fucking hero. I hurt you and I fuck you.

  “I. Use. You.”

  He moved his face so it was only inches away from hers. “You will not look at me like I’m your fucking savior—or the love of your goddamn life.” His lips twisted with distaste.

  Caitlin couldn’t stop the tears that started leaking out of the corners of her eyes, and with her hands tied behind her back she had no way to brush them away. They ran down the sides of her nose, into the corners of her mouth and dripped off her chin.

  Master sighed, and for the first time since their relationship began, she saw his eyes soften and he looked at her with something different.

  Kindness?

  Ivan stared at the frightened girl in front of him. She was twenty-five—definitely a woman, but to him she had always looked like a girl. Still did.

  She was beautiful. Jesus, she was beautiful, so petite and fragile-looking. With her heart-shaped face, porcelain skin and those huge brown eyes fringed with impossibly long, sooty lashes. Her full lips rosy, even with her face scrubbed clean of makeup, and that fall of thick, lustrous chocolate-brown hair that tumbled down to the middle of her back. She looked like a doll. An exquisitely formed, perfect china doll.

  He had always watched her so carefully during their sessions, attuned to everything she was thinking and feeling. He asked her questions, sure. But they were all about how much she was hurting, how afraid she was, how much she wanted to come. He never asked about other emotions—the ones he had no interest in. As though, if he didn’t care about her deeper feelings, they didn’t exist.

  Stupid, arrogant fool.

  Maybe if he’d actually spent some time observing her afterward he would have figured it out. But every time, immediately after it was all over, she would end up on her stomach on the bed while he rubbed lotion into her welts to help stop inflammation and scarring. Not because he was a nice, caring sort of a guy. No, definitely not that. He looked after everything he owned with extreme care. Just as he cleaned and maintained his whips and other toys, he looked after her.

  Maintenance—that’s all it was.

  And when he was done, he sent her away.

  Today when they had finished, he caught her looking at him. She had been trained to keep her eyes down, but before she could look away, he saw it. That look of pure adoration and something else. He couldn’t be sure since no one had ever looked at him that way, but could it be—love? God, that word that left a bad taste in his mouth.

  It fucking terrified him.

  “Caitlin,” he said quietly. A beautiful name but he hadn’t called her that in a long, long time. He had other names for her, ones that weren’t even remotely beautiful.

  She stared up at him with those huge, innocent eyes of hers. Jesus, how could she still look so innocent after all the things he’d done to her? He’d come to terms with himself and what he was a long time ago. But when she looked at him like the naïve girl she’d been when she’d first came to him…he hated her. Hated her for making him feel something, for making him despise himself. And that made him want to hurt her even more.

  God, he had to get her away from him.

  “Caitlin, you deserve more than this. You’re a young woman, and compared to you, I’m an old man.” He could see she disagreed with him but she dared not argue.

  “I’m fifty-six. You should have a chance to find a husband you can look at with your adoring eyes. A man who will go to sleep with you in your bed every night and wake up with you in the morning. A man who will take you out, show you the world. You should have babies—lots of babies. A family. A dog. A goddamn white picket fence if you want it.”

  He took a deep breath. “I want you to leave.” His voice cracked. Jesus, saying it was more difficult than he’d thought.

  “Should I…come back tomorrow?” she asked in a small voice.

  She wasn’t getting it. “No, little girl. I don’t want you anymore. It’s over. We’re done.”

  Her mouth opened in shock and she let out a sob, a high-pitched burst of air.

  She looked like a puppy that had been kicked too many times.

  God, that look drove him crazy.

  He could take it back. Tell her he was just messing with her. He could get out the cane and beat her for having feelings for him, for looking at him when she wasn’t supposed to. He could make some shit up—anything. He could punish her. He could punish her mercilessly and she would take it.

  And then he would free his rock-hard cock from his pants and feed it into her beautiful, hot, wet, waiting mouth. He could look down and see those perfect rosy lips wrapped around him as she licked and suckled greedily. Wordlessly begging his forgiveness with her mouth and tongue. And then he would grab her by the hair, tip her head back and drive into her, over and over, harder and deeper, until tears streamed down her face, until she gasped for air, until she choked, until she sobbed, until she cried.

  And she swallowed everything he gave her.

  Fuck, he would never get enough of her. And if he wasn’t very careful, he would end up fucking enslaved to her. And wasn’t that an interesting question? Who was enslaved to whom? He didn’t want to examine that too closely; afraid he might not like the answer.

  He pulled her to her feet and untied the bindings from her wrists. He turned her gently and stroked h
er face, cupped her cheek in his palm.

  When was the last time he’d done that? Maybe the first day she came to him, so lost, alone and confused. Yes, he was kind to her that day, but never since then.

  She was sobbing now, uncontrollably. It was obvious just how out of control she was, since she actually grabbed his hand and held it against her cheek. Under normal circumstances, such unheard of behavior would have resulted in a reprimand—No touching, you greedy little slut. No touching without my permission—along with a deliciously creative punishment. But oh, her skin, her perfect tear-streaked skin, was so soft and smooth. It was the last time he would touch her like this. His chest felt tight.

  Suddenly he wanted to take her in his arms and comfort her, his poor little girl. Hold her naked, trembling body in his lap as if she were a child, stroking her hair, brushing away her tears. Murmuring in her ear, telling her that everything would be all right.

  She continually threatened to break his control. If he let her, she would smash it until it was lying shattered around his feet like jagged shards of broken glass. And what would happen to him then?

  He used his Dom voice. The voice he used only with her. Always with her. “Turn around. Pick up your clothes. Leave. Now.”

  And good girl that she was, she did exactly what she was told. But she turned back just before she closed the door and looked at him. It was as if all the light had been extinguished from her gorgeous, expressive eyes. Christ, she looked—broken. After everything that had happened to her, after all the pain and misery he had inflicted, finally he had broken her.

  And for some reason, it was nothing he could savor.

  Ivan walked over to the bed on shaky legs, suddenly feeling weak. The tight feeling in his chest was like a fist squeezing his heart. He sat down heavily on the edge of the bed. Right where she’d been not long ago, facedown, ass up in the air, hands tied behind her as he fucked her—hard—until he came like a fucking freight train. And she didn’t.

  God, how long had it been since he let her come? Three weeks? Four? Yes, four weeks.

  He loved keeping her like that, squirming and desperate. Teasing her, bringing her to the brink and denying her—over and over and over. And she, his strong, brave girl, would beg. That was the one thing she would beg for. Beg and cry for his permission to come.

  And he wouldn’t let her.

  It was a beautiful thing.

  Ivan lay back on the bed, rubbing his chest. He remembered when she first arrived. Nineteen years old, untouched. She was like a piece of clay ready for the artist to mold, to create his vision. And he was that artist. He trained her, taught her, made her into his own spectacular creature. His own.

  If he was the kind of man who was capable of tears, Ivan would cry right now. But of course he wasn’t and he didn’t. However, that constricting feeling in his chest wasn’t going away. He rubbed harder, desperately wanting to get rid of the sharp ache.

  He had trained Caitlin to know release only through pain. The two feelings were so enmeshed in her now, she didn’t know how to separate them. And he had felt so clever, hadn’t he? Gotten high on the fact that he had corrupted her and felt so proud of what he had singlehandedly turned her into. He felt almost like a god.

  He had taken that little girl and used her to satisfy the sadist in him. Now lying here, he just felt like a sick. Fucking. Bastard.

  Nausea gripped him. Turning his head, he breathed in. He could smell her in his sheets. Her light, fresh-smelling perfume, her sweat, her delicious musk—the smell of strong, unfulfilled arousal and the faint metallic tang of her blood.

  He’d sent her away. He’d fucking sent her away.

  Jesus Christ! The pain in his chest hit him like a sledgehammer. A lightning bolt went down his arm and then back up to his heart.

  Fuck!

  The pain burned in his chest, his arm, his jaw. His vision tunneled. He had to move, had to get to his phone. But he wasn’t going anywhere. A ten-ton weight was on his chest. He couldn’t even breathe.

  Caitlin. Oh god, Caitlin. Help me.

  He was a boy again in Croatia. Five years old. The soldier with the scar running down one side of his face was holding him down in the other room, while the others beat his sweet majka. She said she would do anything if they let Ivan go. They laughed and told her she would do whatever they wanted anyway. The sounds she made were horrifying, but even worse was when she stopped screaming and crying, when she stopped making any sound at all. And the soldiers just laughed more callously.

  The pain Ivan endured at the hands of that soldier was nothing compared to what he felt at the sight of his mother’s lifeless body. He took that pain, held it inside, distilled it, added it to the rage and bitterness and stirred in a cup of misery, like some kind of terrible chemical experiment. Compressed it, forced it down, down, down within him, until it formed a heavy, black lump of coal that he kept in the space where his heart should be.

  He hated pain. He liked inflicting it upon others, yes. But he didn’t like being on the receiving end. And he despised feeling helpless. Which was what he felt right now. In spades.

  As he screwed his eyes shut even tighter against the pain consuming him, his mind filled with images of Caitlin. His beautiful Caitlin. Chained, stretched, spread open, up on her toes for his pleasure.

  Whip biting into her gorgeous, tender flesh. Her sounds, music to his ears, progressing like movements in his own glorious symphony.

  Low grunts of pain issuing through tightly clenched jaws, slowly building up along the crescendo to tortured cries, and inevitably the climax of terrified shrieking as he opened her skin.

  Tears pouring from her eyes in perfect harmony with the rivulets of blood seeping down her back.

  Tormented, brought to the brink of release over and over. Body rigid, seized to the breaking point, every muscle straining for release. Cock violating her dripping-wet, deliciously clenching cunt. Plaintive cries. Frantic words begging for completion.

  Savage, frenzied, brutal pounding. Beautiful, pure notes in the highest octave. Helpless keening. Wailing. Mercy, mercy, mercy. Deeply filled with jets of thick, scalding seed.

  And the last, most poignant movement—drawing slowly out of her quivering, needy clutch, her body’s futile grasping as it desperately tried to hold on to its callous invader. Broken sobs of utter despair and anguish. Empty, aching womb, clenching around an abandoned void. Howling. Incoherent wounded-animal sounds when the capacity for all speech is lost.

  Exquisitely beautiful, tormented creature.

  The final bar of Ivan’s symphony, the music slowing, softly fading—calando.

  The fist around his heart squeezed tighter. His vision tunneled down to nothing. That last haunting note hung, shimmering in the air.

  Fine.

  The end.

  Silence.

  Chapter Two

  Caitlin stood at the back of the room in a daze, watching the sea of strangers in black as they spoke to one another in hushed tones.

  A man wearing a suit that had to cost more than Caitlin earned in six months stepped in front of her. He had wavy black hair that was graying around the temples, his face was slightly weathered but still handsome and he had incredibly dark, almost black eyes.

  “How did you know Ivan?” he asked in a dignified English accent. He had the kind of rich, warm voice that should be narrating stories.

  Caitlin pushed her sunglasses up and perched them on top of her head. She wasn’t wearing them indoors because she wanted to be cool or because she was some kind of diehard Corey Hart fan. No, she was wearing them because her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen from crying solidly for three days.

  “Um…I’m a friend of his?” Geez, that sounded like a question, not an answer.

  The man raised one eyebrow and looked down his long, aristocratic nose at Caitlin as if he were waiting for the real answer. But what was the correct answer anyway? “Hi, I’m Caitlin. I’m Ivan’s longtime whipping girl.” Maybe, “Hi, nice t
o meet you, I’m Ivan’s submissive.” Perhaps sex slave? Nothing was really appropriate for mentioning in polite company.

  The man stuck out his hand and Caitlin shook it. He had strong hands and a nice firm handshake. He smiled, showing perfect, straight white teeth. “I’m Thomas. Thomas Carter.” And with his suave looks and that accent, Caitlin fully expected him to ask for a martini—shaken, not stirred. Instead he said, “I’m Ivan’s business partner and…friend.”

  Ah, Ivan’s partner in his law firm. The Carter from Carter and Zadrevec Attorneys at Law.

  Caitlin managed a small smile. “Hi, I’m Caitlin.”

  Thomas became very still and stared into Caitlin’s eyes, looking as if all of a sudden he wanted to delve into her soul and uncover every one of her secrets. Caitlin squirmed under his scrutiny and pulled her hand away from his.

  “Caitlin Bennett?” he asked.

  Oh god, what did he already know about her? “Yes?”

  Perfect—another question.

  Thomas stood transfixed, not moving a muscle. Lord, who was this woman and what was she to Ivan? She was so breathtakingly beautiful. So young.

  So utterly mysterious.

  Her hair was pulled up into a kind of artful arrangement at the back of her head and some tendrils had escaped, falling delicately around her face. The style left her long, graceful neck, almost too-bony shoulders and her exquisitely fragile collarbones bare. Her simple, sleeveless black sheath dress wasn’t clingy, it wasn’t too low-cut and it ended quite respectably just above her knees. However, it made Thomas yearn to know what was underneath.

  That flawless skin would most likely continue past the neckline of her dress. Would her nipples be as light as her skin or darker? Could go either way, considering her peaches-and-cream complexion and deep-brown hair.

  Bloody hell, he was thinking about this woman’s nipples. At his friend’s funeral. His friend, whom this woman had been important to in some way. And if it was the way he was thinking, Ivan was a right sodding bastard. God, this girl must be half Ivan’s age.