“No, Sir. But I want to earn it,” Cara said as Robert bodily flipped her onto her back.

“Pleasure’s earned with pain. You ready to earn it? Don’t answer. I don’t care if you’re ready or not.”

The Mistress nodded her approval as Robert dragged Cara off the bed and pulled her to her feet. Back into her toy bag she dove and came out holding a set of dark leather wrist cuffs and a snap hook.

“I think you know what to do with these.”

Robert did. He took the cuffs and buckled them onto Cara’s wrists. Using the snap hook he locked her arms high above her head over the top bar of the canopy bed. Good thing Cara was nearly as tall as he. Still she had to strain to stay on her toes. It had to be uncomfortable for her. Good.

The Mistress handed Robert a light flogger. It would sting nicely but not cause too much of a shock. Better to break in a new sub slowly. She’d learned that lesson the hard way.

With a possessive hand, Robert caressed Cara’s unmarked back, her full hips and bottom, her long shapely thighs. He glanced at The Mistress once and she winked at him.

“Turn that white girl red,” she said by way of encouragement. It was all the encouragement he needed.

He took his stance behind Cara, raised the flogger over his head and hit clean and hard right at the center of her back. Cara gasped and flinched. Robert gave no quarter. Another hit followed on the heels of the first one. And another and another. He worked his way down her back and up again.

“Like riding a bike,” The Mistress said with an approving courtesy clap. The man might not have flogged a woman in ten years but he still had the chops for it.

He aimed lower and struck the sides of her hips, her bottom and the back of her thighs, before making the circuit again. Cara moaned in the back of her throat, cried out a time or two, but she never uttered her safe word or begged for mercy.

When a strike to her thigh unleashed an expletive-laden protest, Robert immediately ceased the flogging. The Mistress tensed. Pain was par for the course in S&M scenes. A Dominant couldn’t afford to have a weak stomach with a submissive who wanted the real deal. It hurt. Of course it hurt. That was the point, after all.

“Do you think you’ve had enough pain?” Robert asked, the flogger still aloft. “Answer me.”

“Yes, Sir,” Cara panted, trying to sag into her bonds but not able to.

“Really? Because I don’t.” Robert let one more strike fall hard and fast and right on her ass. The Mistress beamed with pride.

Then and only then did Robert drop the flogger. Once more he ran his hands over his wife’s body.

“You’re bright red from your neck to your knees,” he said into her ear. “You remember what bright red looks like, don’t you?”