Caprice, he would never own. She wasn’t the kind of thing a man could own. Faith, on the other hand, was his. Even with his resistance to hurting her, she belonged to him and would never be able to walk out the door and out of his life. If he wanted to tie her down and whip her, he could do it. He could do any depraved thing to her that his mind could dream up. The only barrier was his conscience. If he didn’t do this with Caprice, if he didn’t take the edge off the hunger, he would end up losing control with Faith. Then he’d be the monster he’d always suspected he was.

Caprice didn’t resist when he took the gag from his bag and pushed the rubber ball into her mouth. The truth was, even being who she was, her words could still touch him. Without them, she was a mere thing, a masturbatory sleeve, a blow up doll, a punching bag. Without a voice she had no life or form to stop him or create uneasy guilt. The guilt would come later. With or without consent, it always did, and yet, he couldn’t stop himself from gorging on the hedonistic delight of a woman’s naked and bound body taking pain for his gratification.

Faith thought she was safe with him? She was a fool. If he couldn’t keep the beast in check, she’d find out how much of a fool she was soon enough. Wanting to be with him? She had no idea what she was asking. Neither woman did.

With the gag in place, it was safe to take his time to wring out every ounce of agony he could take from the woman who had stupidly put herself in his hands. Although it was lightweight, the steel cane was more harsh than the rattan. It would be dishonest to say he’d chosen the steel only because it was collapsible and fit easily into the bag.

The welts and bruises he’d left on her that morning with the rattan were more visible than before, so he moved on to her thighs. She screamed around the gag, as if she was dying with every stroke, the tears streaming down her face.

When he’d marked all of her he could safely mark, he collapsed the cane and returned it to the bag. He watched the relief fill her and then drain back out again when he pulled a whip from the bag.

“It’ll hurt more if you’re tense.”

She whimpered behind the rubber obstruction. The display was pitiful enough for him to show some mercy. What was more, it wasn’t a calculated act meant to control him. It was real begging. After the cane, when she was still overloaded from the soreness of earlier in the day, her distress was genuine.

Leo unsnapped the leather from the gag and pulled it from her mouth. “Tell me, what did John have to say about the welts and bruises on your ass? Do you think he realized it was me who put them there?”