Free Brokered Submission by Claire Thompson

he warmed her skin, acquainting her with the feel of the flogger against her flesh. When he gauged she was ready, he delivered the first real stroke, catching both ass cheeks simultaneously. He loved the way the dark leather contrasted to the pale skin and the slight jiggle of supple flesh beneath its stroke.
    Zoë gasped, her shoulders tensing forward.
    “Relax,” Dylan reminded her. “Accept what is given to you.”
    He struck her ass again, a little harder than before. Again she gasped and jerked. He continued to flog her luscious bottom until she stopped gasping with each stroke, her hands finally relaxing their chokehold on the ropes.
    Encouraged, he let a blow land between her shoulder blades, though he modified the stroke to allow for less padding beneath the skin, and thus greater sensitivity. Again came the small, startled gasp, and her fingers tightened once more around the ropes. Dylan kept his focus on her shoulders and upper back until the skin turned pink, and her fear subsided into something more manageable.
    Stepping to the side, he drew back his arm and let the flogger fall hard against her ass, the blow pushing her slightly forward. She yelped, her breathy cry going straight to his cock. He delivered another stroke, just as hard, and then another. She began to dance on her toes in a vain effort to twist away from the lash, but Dylan easily followed her moves.
    “Zoë, you’re fighting the flogger. You’re resisting.”
    “It hurts!” she cried, as he delivered a hot stroke to the backs of her thighs.
    “It’s meant to,” he reminded her between lashes. “The pain is the entryway to where you need to go, to where you’ve always longed to go. Give in to it, Zoë. Let it wrap you in its arms.”
    He hit her harder. She twisted at the last second, which caused the tips of the flogger to wrap cruelly around her hip. Dylan, who believed in experiencing everything he gave to his subs, well knew how painful those leather tips could be when slamming against bone with sonic speed. “Stay in position,” he admonished. “Show me your grace.”
    He flogged her ass with rhythmic, steady blows. She was panting, small mewling whimpers pushed out between breaths. She was taking a pretty intense flogging, especially for her first time out, but Dylan sensed it wasn’t yet time to stop.
    As happened when he was doing it right, he could almost feel the strokes as if he were on the receiving end of the flogger. Her emotions—the fear, the desire, the passion, the need—were all moving over and through him as if they belonged to him. As a dominant friend had once said when trying to explain the sensation—it was like flying a kite in rough winds. She was the kite, and it was up to him to skillfully manage the spool and line, to not only keep her aloft, but to help her soar.
    Her yelps and whimpers had subsided into deep, guttural moans, and her head had fallen forward on her chest. She was close, but not there yet. A little more, a little harder — you can do it , he rooted silently, not wanting to distract her with words.
    He whipped her steadily, the flogger flying over her skin from thigh to shoulder and back again. He focused again on her ass, which was now a deep cherry red. She was a natural, already so close to that powerful, sacred place that some subs took years to find.
    Suddenly she grunted and jerked, as if coming out of a dream, and he felt the serenity subside like a wave falling back from the shore. “No,” she moaned. “No. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.” She began to twist and dance again, fighting the flogger once more.
    “It hurts, it hurts, it hurts!” she whined, her voice edging toward panic.
    “Fuck,” Dylan muttered in frustration, angry not at her, but at himself. He had pushed too hard, too fast. He had wanted this too much. He ached to continue, to force her through sheer will to let go, but he knew from long experience that the moment was gone. He needed to back off and