Chapter 19
Sienna sits in my bed propped up with pillows. A book rests against her bended knees. She’s wearing a pair of dark-rimmed glasses.
I’m usually covered in finger paint with my hair pulled up into a ponytail. Oh, and glasses. Sometimes I wear glasses.
The memory of the night we shared before we knew the truth about each other bursts into my mind. A simple night. One meant only for us. No obligations, no pressure, just making each other feel good.
She’d been so carefree, so sweet and innocent.
Much like she seems now, reading through a thick book. With the only light in the room coming from the small lamp on the nightstand, it casts her in a golden glow.
I shut the bedroom door behind me, and instantly her body goes rigid.
“You’re home.” She looks at me with her large round eyes, even from behind the frames I can still see the sweetness of her.
I lean a hip against the dresser. “You’re reading.”
When she says nothing in response, I gesture to the book. “I thought we were stating obvious things.”
Her mouth kicks up a little at the side. Not enough to claim it as a smile, but it’s a start.
“I wasn’t expecting you. I’ll move my stuff.” When she adjusts her position, I see the massive piles of papers taking up my side of the bed, along with her laptop.
“What is all that?” I grab at my tie, loosening it and pulling it from my collar.
“Old notes from when I was taking the New York teacher licensing test.” She scoops it all up into one pile and puts it on top of the laptop, then brings it all to the dresser.
I flip the cover of the book she was reading over. “You’re studying for the Illinois test?”
“Yeah.” She leans back against the dresser, arms folded loosely over her stomach.
She’s wearing a thin pair of pajamas bottoms and a shirt with long sleeves. It’s a messy combination, especially coupled with her hair wild in the ponytail.
She’s gorgeous.
“I can get some substitute jobs right now, but if I’m going to go through all the background testing and everything, I might as well just get my license transferred over.” She shrugs.
“You don’t have to work.” I close the book, move it to the nightstand. “If you want to that’s fine, but you don’t have to. I’m going to take care of you.”
“Well, maybe if you could phrase that in a less mafia-enforcer sort of way, I would have a better chance of believing you.”
Her expression doesn’t change when she says it, but there’s a light in her eyes that makes me understand she’s teasing me. At least a little.
“I just mean what’s mine is yours. That’s how marriages work.”
“Not all marriages,” she says and there’s a sadness to it that makes me wonder what she witnessed growing up in the DeAngelo home.
Her brothers were real bastards. Despite any awful things I or my brothers may do, we don’t hurt innocents. Her family preyed on them. How much of that had she seen, been a part of?
“Have you been staying at your club these past few nights?” She asks, but there’s another question just beneath that one.
She wants to know if I was fucking around, have I been with anyone else while I’ve been staying away from home?
“I thought you didn’t care where I spent my time.” I sink onto edge of the bed, pushing aside the fluffy pillows she has piled up against the headboard.
“I don’t.”
“Liar.” I rest my hands on my knees. “That’s strike one.”
“I’m not lying.” She stands straighter, even lifts her chin as if that will give her more credibility.
She’s not as complicated as she thinks. Not to me. I can see right through her bullshit screens.
“You are, and that’s strike two.” I hold up two fingers. “And do you remember what happens on strike three?”
The dim lighting isn’t enough to hide the blush that blooms on her cheeks. She lowers her eyelids and licks her lips.
“If I remember correctly, you’ll put me on the bed and lick me until I come unglued.” There’s a teasing smile pulling on her lips, but she’s fighting it.
I can’t blame her. We haven’t exactly gotten off on the right step. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have fun together.
In this room, at night, when all our enemies have gone to sleep, we can pretend they don’t exist. It can just be us. This room, these games, can be just for us.
Like the first night.
“No, sweetheart. If you get to strike three, I’m going to put you over my knee and spank you until your ass glows red.”
She bites the inside of her cheek.
“So, honesty time. If I was with another woman these past three nights, would you care?”
Her eyes flash hot. I don’t even need her to answer, but I want her to say the words.
“Were you?”
“Ah, dangerously close to the third strike. Answer me first.”
“How would I know if you’re lying?”
“I won’t lie to you. Ever. Even if the truth hurts, I will always give it to you.”
“Even better if it hurts, right?” Ah, there’s the snark she warned me about. She can be difficult, she’d told me.
The most difficult thing about her so far is my inability to stop craving her.
Spending the last three days away from her had nothing to do with work and everything to do with my insatiable appetite for her.
“We aren’t going to fight, Sienna. Not in here. This room is off limits for that, remember?”
“In here we’re just two people who make each other feel good.”
“Right. In here, it’s just us. Now, answer my question.”
She looks away, like she’s still not sure she should give me the truth.
“Yes. I wouldn’t like it if you were with another woman. But I did tell you that it was fine, so I can’t be mad.”
“I wasn’t with anyone else,” I say. “I can imagine what you think of me, but a cheater isn’t one of them.”
“Even if it would really piss off my family? I mean what better revenge than to humiliate me publicly. If my uncle allowed it, then he’s weak—” She stops when I put my hand up.
“Not in here, remember?”
She tucks a loose hair behind her ear. “Right. I’m sorry. Not in here.”
“I’ll answer your question, though. The answer is no. Humiliating you in that way isn’t something that interests me. I wouldn’t do it, and I expect you never to, either.”
“Of course I wouldn’t.” Her face scrunches up with indignation. I’ve offended her.
“Good.” I smile then pat my knee. “Now come over here.”
She narrows her eyes on my hand. “Why?”
“Because I said.” I tilt my head, daring her to defy me again.
Indecision plays across her features, but she doesn’t take long to see the rightness of obeying me. After all, I’ve proven how good she gets to feel when she’s a good girl for me.
Her footsteps fall silent against the carpeting as makes her way to me, stopping just outside of arms reach.
“Now, pull down your pants and your panties, and leave them at your ankles.”
She retreats one step, but I reach out and grab her hand, stilling her.
“Bad girl.” I squeeze her hand then release it, retaking my position on the bed. “Do what you’re told.”
“Can I ask why?” She hooks her thumbs into the elastic of her lavender pajama bottoms.
“Because spankings happen on bare asses, Sienna.” I explain without any emotion lacing my words.
“Spanking?” She drops her hands to her sides again. Can’t have that.
“Yes, you got three strikes.” I give a pointed look at her hands. “You’re still not listening.”
“But I was honest.”
“You were.” I nod, raising my eyes to meet hers. I want to see her expression. All of her emotions play out in real time for me in her eyes. “But you broke one of the rules.”
She thinks a moment. “The car?”
I chuckle. She’s got me there. “Okay, you’ve broken two rules.”
Her brow wrinkles while she tries to understand what she’s done wrong.
“Your panties. Are you allowed to wear them in my bed?”
“You weren’t home. You haven’t been home.”
“I don’t remember there being an exclusion to the rule. But maybe I’m wrong. Was there?” I raise my brows.
“No. I guess not.” Her fingers rub together at her sides, she makes no other movements.
“Sienna.” I rub my hands down my legs, gripping my knees. “I’m losing patience. And you don’t want that.”
“What if I don’t want you to spank me? What if I don’t want this at all?”
I lean back an inch. “What do you say if you want me to stop?”
“I say stop.” She scratches the back of her neck.
“That’s right.”
“Even now?”
I give a slow nod. It will kill me if I have to stop now. I’m so close to getting her sweet ass over my knee. But if she says the word, I’ll leave her to her book.
“Even now.”
“Okay.” She hooks her thumbs back into the elastic and shoves the pajamas and her panties to her ankles.
When she stands back up, she folds her hands in front of herself, hiding the small dark triangle of hair.
I offer my hand. “C’mon, over my lap, naughty girl.”
She stares at my hand for a brief moment, then shuffles forward until she’s close enough to my right leg that I’m able to tip her over.
She lands over my knee with a yelp, pressing her hands to the bed to right herself and find a good balance. I’m not paying any attention to that though. My full focus is on her round, soft ass exposed in front of me.
I grab hold of her clothing all bundled at her feet and pull them free, tossing them across the room where she won’t be able to reach for them. She flinches when I rest my open hand on her asscheek.
“Shhh, no need for all that.” I rub her skin, warming it for what’s to come. I want her ass red when I fuck her, so red that I’ll feel the heat with every fucking stroke of my cock.
“It’s going to hurt.”
“You like when it does.” I remind her as I move my hand to her thighs, warming her skin there too.
I like to be thorough.
“Is there anything I can say to change your mind?” She twists her torso so she can look up at me.
“Do you want to?”
Her cheeks flame with her answer.
“I didn’t think so. Grab hold of the bedding if you need. And don’t worry about the screaming. No one will be bothered by it.” I raise my hand and unleash the first dozen of spanks onto her unsuspecting ass.