My pulse filled my ears as I rushed up the stairs, too afraid to turn.

Oh God, oh God.

Why the hell did I do that?!

I was dead. He was going to kill me. I needed to call Stefan or 911 or the police!

Adrenaline pumped through me, making my feet tingle. Just as I was about to make a breakthrough to the zenith of the stairs, strong arms wrapped around my waist and hauled me back into an even harder body.

"And where do you think you're going?"

The vibrations of his deep snarl against my back made my stomach twist with a feeling I couldn't put a name to. Air rushed out of me. "Wait!" I wailed helplessly. "Please! I'm sorry!"

But he wrapped his arms around me tightly and yanked me with him down the stairs.

"Stop!" I screamed, struggling and wiggling against the hard heat of his body. "Let me go, please! I said I'm sorry!" Flailing blindly, I inadvertently slammed my elbow into his stomach and he released a deep grunt, his grip momentarily loosening. Taking the chance, I pushed myself free from him and tried to make a break for the foyer but he was fast and before I could get my steps in, he grabbed a fistful of my hair and wrenched me backward with it.

I shrieked, my vision instantly blurring with tears as my small hand clawed at his wrist, trying to dislodge him.

His grip tightened. "It seems I've been too lenient with you, Sienna," his hot breath on my ear made my nerves spark alive. "It's high time I showed you what happened to silly little girls who overstepped their boundaries."

My heart dropped to my stomach. "No please, please, don't-!"

"Come here." He released my hair and dragged me towards the couch and before my shattered senses could register what was happening, I found myself bent over it with my dress pulled up to my waist.

My cheeks flamed as the cold air caressed my exposed skin. I'd worn a black thong and it barely covered anything but the crevice of my ass. "What the hell are you doing?!" I shrieked in complete humiliation, trying to get up but he placed a hand on my back and pushed me down roughly, and as I opened my mouth to protest, the flat of his palm came down on my ass, the loud sound piercing the air.

My breath hitched at the spreading pain. "Tristan." I gasped, eyes going wide with shock.

I barely had time to process the pain before his hand came down hard on my skin again.

A hot sting of pain shot through my body, accompanied by a tingling sensation I couldn't quite describe. "Tristan, stop!" I screamed, trying to rise but he held me in place and did it again.

"Why am I doing this to you, Sienna?" He ground out behind me, anger radiating out of his question. He hit me again. "Tell me why, Sienna. Why am I doing this?"

"Because..." My eyes tightened shut. It hurt, God it hurt so bad but at the same time, my nerves hummed alive and my stomach warned. What was this?

"Answer me!" He snapped, slapping me again on the same spot.

The pulse in my clit pounded and my toes curled, lifting off the floor. "Because I was wrong!" I cried out. "Because I hit you!"

Another slap. "And what else did you do?"

"I almost sabotaged your plan!"

His other hand grabbed my hair and he yanked it back. "Do you deserve this?"

My back arched and when my ass brushed against his growing erection, instant chills ran through my body.

"Do you deserve more?" he asked, breathing hard.

"Yes!" I choked out. "Yes! Yes! I do!"

When he struck me again, I felt my sex growing moist and hot and it clenched on nothing.

This was madness.

My body's reaction to his assault was sick and twisted. I clenched my thighs together to try to stop whatever I was feeling but doing so only made it worse. The illicit pleasure intensified, catching me off guard. I gasped. "Please stop!"

But he didn't stop, he struck me again and again and again, continuing his brutal punishment in rapid succession on my ass and the back of my thighs. Each time, it was harder than the last, causing a blistering pain that I had never felt before in my life to engulf me from the inside out.

But it wasn't just the pain.

It was something else.

My nerve endings were lit on fire. I couldn't understand what was happening but the bittersweet phenomenon made a flood of arousal hit me. I was dizzy, so dizzy that I didn't realize it when I started to rub my clenched thighs together.

"Are you going to do it again?"

His husky words rang through my bleeding ears.

I shook my head. "No." I whimpered, gripping the couch. Pain and pleasure warred within me but pain was losing very fast, overtaken by the sudden tremor of need.

If he continued, I just might come.

He slapped me again and my ass arched up to meet him. "No what?"

I could feel his hard cock trying to poke through his pants. He was as aroused from this as I was. My pulse quickened. "No, Mr. Larsen." I gasped, waiting for another spank but it didn't come because at that precise moment, he stopped and somewhere past the pounding in my ears, he rambled something and abruptly spun me around.

Hot tears slid down my face. My nostrils flared. It hurt. It hurt so bad. I wanted to snap at him, I wanted to hit him and ask him who the hell he thought he was to humiliate me this way but I was weak and my knees betrayed me. I fell forward, right into his chest.

His arms came around me with a repressed groan and I moaned weakly in response, shutting my eyes.

The heat radiating off his body enshrouded me in a strange warmth. How was it possible that after everything he had just done to me, I felt safe and soothed in his arms?

You've lost it, Sienna.

This wasn't me. This was obviously an effect of the alcohol or some sort of insane Stockholm syndrome type shit.

"I can smell it all the way from here, Sienna." He suddenly whispered into my hair, and at his words, my eyes sprung open to look at him. There was a dark thrilling look on his face. He knew. My heart clenched. Was that why he stopped? Because I was enjoying my supposed punishment?

God, how could I have let this happen?

I placed my hand on his chest and tried to push away but his hold on me tightened and he growled.

"Are you trying to piss me off again?"

I immediately stopped and relented. He lifted me up in his arms and I remained silent as he carried me up the stairs. The door to my bedroom opened. He carried me over to my bed and I cringed and winced when he placed me on it. I was going to be bruised, I just knew it.

Towering over me, his gaze was fierce and unbending. "I am not one of those little boys you're used to playing around with, Sienna." His tone dripped acid a sharp contrast to his delicate touch as he pushed my hair out of my sweaty face and tucked it being my ear. "Next time you try what you did tonight, I won't go easy on you."

My heart constricted.

He was going easy on me?

"Do you understand?"

I nodded slowly. I understood perfectly. "Yes." My voice was so low and so cracked from screaming that I could barely hear myself.

"Good. Now go to bed and get as much sleep as you can. Tomorrow is going to be a busy day."

With that, he turned his back and walked away and as I swiped at the tears streaming down my swollen face, one thing became certain; I was never going to forget what Tristan Larsen had done to me tonight and I was never going to forget how it made me feel.