21. Angelo
21
ANGELO
Ana padded out from my bedroom a few hours later with only a sheet wrapped around her. Her hair was a mess, her face still red and puffy from her earlier tears, and her eyes bright with uncertainty.
The thin white fabric did nothing to hide her gorgeous curves, or the teardrop shape of her pert tits, or the way her hips swayed with every step.
I clenched my fists to stop myself from gathering her to me and claiming her with my mouth, plundering my tongue between her lips until they were swollen and bruised and she was ready to beg for my cock. She hadn’t earned it yet.
“Drop the sheet,” Valentin said, the gravel in his voice betraying his casual calm. To my surprise, Ana released it and revealed her lush body to my hungry gaze.
Silently, Ana approached us. I offered her an espresso. She took it, then scrunched her nose. She opened her mouth to speak, then snapped it shut. Good girl. She was learning.
I took pity on her. “Sugar?”
“Yes, please,” she whispered, then added softly, “sir.”
I dropped a sugar cube into her espresso and stirred it.
“Thank you, sir,” she said, then sipped cautiously. She didn’t comment on the coffee but wasn’t drinking it quickly.
“Not sweet enough?”
She shook her head. “It’s fine, sir.”
Valentin and I shared a long look. We hadn’t broken her yet, but this docile, sweet Ana would be a joy while it lasted.
“How do you normally take it?” I asked her, keeping my voice bland.
“I said it’s fine, sir.”
“Slut,” Valentin snapped. “What are the rules?”
Ana took a shuddering breath and looked at me from under long lashes. “Perfect obedience, ma?tre ,” she breathed, holding her gaze on me, the hazy green of her eyes barely visible from where she hid her face with a sheet of long, blonde hair.
“That’s right,” he answered before she could continue. “Answer the fucking question.”
“With hazelnut syrup and oat milk,” she said, her voice so soft I had to strain to hear it. “ Ma?tre! ” she added quickly, her eyes widening with fear.
No, not broken yet, but doing her best not to get into any more trouble this morning. I bet her ass hurt something fierce after her earlier punishment. She’d let me hold her as she cried herself back to sleep, it had taken everything I had not to roll her over and take her like I’d wanted to for a decade, to bury my cock in her tight cunt and fuck her until she forgot about anything but the pleasure I’d force on her.
I swiped open my phone and called one of my men. Ana’s eyes widened when I ordered him to the nearest American coffee chain to get her order, and I couldn’t stop myself from dropping a tender kiss on her forehead. Her surprise was so fucking adorable. Did she not realize I would give her the moon and the stars in exchange for her obedience and submission? That now that I had her, I’d do anything to keep her?
Of course she didn’t. She couldn’t, not until we’d broken through her tough exterior to reveal the submissive begging to break free, who liked the pain, who thrived under strict boundaries, who needed us to tear down walls even higher than Valentin’s. And once we did, I’d spoil her rotten.
“Thank you, sir,” she whispered. Her eyes flicked to the espresso still in her hands, as if uncertain what to do with it. I saved her the awkwardness by taking it from her and setting it on the counter.
Valentin grunted his amusement, then turned back to the stove where he was making omelets.
She moved toward him, then froze, her hands twitching toward her chest and cunt.
“Don’t cover up, angel.” She flushed, the pink spreading outward from her cheeks and down her chest until her breasts were rosy.
Valentin ignored her, serving a vegetable filled omelet on a plate and handing it to me.
“Come,” I said to Ana, enjoying watching her cheeks darken with humiliation. She took a deep breath, as if she were about to protest, and then meekly walked over to the dining area.
“Go fetch a pillow from the sofa,” I instructed her, my eyes glued to her as she brushed past me, then bent over, her ass a perfect peach begging me to bite into it.
Valentin’s eyes followed her as she returned, the pillow clutched to her belly, as though she could hide from us.
“I said, don’t cover up,” I told her, yanking the pillow away from her and dropping it to the floor, annoyed that she’d defied me. I sprawled in one of the chairs at the dining table. “Kneel.”
Ana looked at me. She looked at Valentin. She looked at the pillow. And then she slowly shook her head, backing toward my bedroom, her hands in front of her as if she could ward me off.
“Slut,” Valentin snapped. “He said kneel.”
She froze, her eyes wide with shock.
Valentin snatched something from the counter beside him, then stalked over to our girl, predatory and furious. His wrist snapped out, and a short leather snake whip snapped across her breasts before slapping into her nipple and drawing away.
She screamed in pain, leaping backward. He followed. “Angelo told you to do something, slut. The only reason you’re here and not on your way back to Tchérnov to marry his asshole son is because I think Angelo will enjoy training you. So you’d better fucking obey when he tells you to do something.”
My heart clenched as he threatened her with Grégoire. I knew he didn’t mean it when he said he’d ship her back to the Tchérnovs, but did she know it? No, she couldn’t possibly.
Her chest shaking and shuddering, Ana stepped toward me, then dropped to the pillow, gasping for breath.
Valentin knelt in front of her. “Princess, what’s the first rule?”
“Obedience,” she whispered as her eyes flashed with anger.
“Good girl,” I murmured, stroking my fingers through her hair and tugging her head until she leaned it against my thigh, relishing the contact between us, and grateful to Valentin for driving her to me.
“Stay,” Valentin snapped at her, flicking his whip at her ass as he stood. She startled, but didn’t move, just sat there with her eyes closed, as I stroked her hair.
I tilted my face up, and he brushed his lips against mine, the gentle affection a marked contrast to the cruelty he’d shown Ana. A moment later, he slid another omelet onto the plate in front of me, along with a portion of salad, then sat down on the other side of the naked woman to dig into his own breakfast.
“Open your mouth, angel,” I murmured. After a long moment, Valentin fingered the whip, and she dropped her jaw obediently.
I held out a bite of eggs, and she wrapped her lips around the fork. Fuck, this was all I’d ever dreamed of—Ana at my feet and Valentin at my side.
“ Ouvre ta bouche ,” Valentin snapped at her a moment later. She turned toward him, her eyes wide. When she didn’t immediately open her mouth, I drew a finger over the red line where he’d whipped her breasts before.
When Ana gasped at the pain, he shoved his fork in her mouth.
“Let us feed you, angel,” I implored.
My phone buzzed. Her coffee was downstairs. Ana leaned her head on my thigh, her long blonde hair hiding her expression as she chewed.
“I’ll get it,” Valentin offered. A few moments later, he returned and set the coffee on the table. “You can have it when you’ve finished eating.”
“Bribing me with a treat because I’m a six-year-old who won’t eat her vegetables?” Ana said, her voice softly mocking.
“Because you’re a twenty-six-year-old who doesn’t appreciate how fucking lucky she is,” he answered her. “You have no responsibilities, no obligations, no requirement to do anything but submit, and you can’t even fucking do that.”
Bite by bite, we fed her. When I offered her a bite of buttered baguette in my fingers instead of a fork, she stared up at me, outrage sparkling in her eyes.
I raised an eyebrow and waited. The sooner she realized that she could have anything she wanted if she submitted, the better for all of us.
She pressed her lips together, then opened them a crack, and then took the baguette in her mouth, carefully avoiding my fingers.
The second bite, she had no choice, taking my thumb and forefinger between her lips with the bread.
My cock twitched as she flicked her tongue against my skin to clean off the butter. Ana’s endless eroticism would be the end of me. I ached to lift her up and lay her across the table, but I knew if I shoved my cock into her right now, I’d undo all the work we were doing to teach her she was safe enough to submit to us.
Finally, she rocked back on her heels. “I’m full,” she whispered. “Sir.”
Valentin shook his head sharply, indicating half an omelet still left on my plate. Ana hadn’t eaten her fill, and her weeks of galivanting through Europe had taken their toll on her curves.
“Two more bites,” I told her.
When Valentin held a forkful of salad in front of her, she took it, chewed, and swallowed without complaint, before turning to me for the same.
My breath caught at the flicker of trust in her eyes. I wanted it. I wanted more of it. I wanted her on her knees in front of me because she wanted to be, not because she was scared not to.
I wasn’t a fool. I knew how much work Valentin and I would have to put into breaking her first. But for a breathtaking moment, the future stretched out in front of me, beautiful and submissive, my perfect toy.
“You think she’s earned it?” I asked, picking up the paper cup filled with a dessert disguised as coffee.
Valentin looked down at our little captive, trembling, but obedient. “What do you think, princess? Did you earn your coffee?”
“ Oui, ma?tre ,” she murmured, looking up through her lashes.
I held the cup to her lips, and she inhaled the sweet nutty scent before sipping delicately. Her soft sigh of contentment lodged in my chest, an odd and unfamiliar pressure. I wanted more of those sighs, more of those sweet, secret smiles, more of her kneeling at my feet in the morning as I drank my coffee.
Cazzo.
We’d had her less than two days, and I already knew I could never let her go, no matter what Valentin was scheming.