Chapter 20
DAMIANO
In the elevator, I lean in close enough to smell his skin, stinking of the soaps and shampoos that I’ve provided for him. “Enjoy your little reunion?”
“Very much.” His eyes meet mine in the mirror. “It’s a pleasure to be reminded that there are still civilized people in New York.”
When the elevator reaches the basement, I place my hand on his lower back and push him forward—not rough, but not gentle, either. “Now you’re back where you belong, golden boy.”
“Indeed,” he says with a laugh. “Back in this sad attempt to own someone else’s legacy.”
It’s the amusement that gets to me. “Are you laughing at me?”
He turns and gives me a long, insolent stare. “Why, I’d never dare,” he drawls.
I step closer. “Did you enjoy your little performance up there? Playing prince for your precious Lorenzo while wearing my cage around your cock?”
“That’s the difference between us, Orsini. I don’t have to play at being anything. I am who I am. Nothing will change that, no matter how far into the gutter I fall.”
I want to drag him down to my level. Make him roll around in that gutter and enjoy it. “You think you impressed him with your good breeding and fancy fabric knowledge? All that tailor saw was a whore in chains desperate enough to spread his legs for someone like me.”
“I haven’t spread my legs for you, though, have I? Makes me wonder if you’re having a little trouble downstairs.”
I’ve got no hang-ups about that, so the arrow goes wide. “I don’t dip my dick in poison. But since you enjoyed performing for an audience so much, maybe I should invite the tailor back. Give him a real show. Let him see exactly what kind of services you provide these days. Give him a turn, too?”
He gives a theatrical sigh. “I’m sorry I wasn’t properly humiliated. I’ll try to grovel better next time. Can I go back to sleep now, or—”
I cross the room before he can finish, fast enough that he actually backs away—one step, two—before I seize his arm and drag him to the bed. I sit, haul him across my lap, and ignore his startled cry.
“We have unfinished business, Caligula Clemenza.”
“What the hell are you—”
“You heard what I said,” I tell him calmly, even as my hand comes down hard across his ass and his whole body jolts.
The shock of it travels through him into me, so that I feel it in my thighs, in my palm, in the pretty bloom of pink that spreads across his skin.
“That little toy between your legs belongs to me. Sometimes I might decorate it for company, like I did today.”
Another strike, harder, lower, catching the crease where his ass meets his thigh. He cries out, but his back arches, pushing into it even as he tries to squirm away.
“Sometimes I might even play with it myself.”
Another slap, this time across the backs of his thighs, where the skin is thinner and the sting much sharper. He hisses through his teeth.
“But whatever I choose to do with it, it’s still mine.
When you’re alone. When I’m showing you off.
It’s mine, and you don’t touch it without permission—like you did this morning.
” I give him the hardest spank yet, full palm across both cheeks, and he thrashes in my lap.
“You need to learn your lesson, golden boy.”
“Please—I’m sorry—I won’t—” His words dissolve into a moan as I strike again at his reddened flesh. Heat radiates from his skin, and his muscles tense and release with each blow. The sounds he makes are desperate as he writhes around in my lap.
I pause, running my palm over the hot skin of his ass, feeling him tremble. His breathing is fast and shallow, and when I flick hard at a particularly red spot, he whimpers.
“You want to do better, don’t you?” I tell him. “And you’re learning. Aren’t you? Learning to be sorry.”
Another sharp slap, and his whole body jolts. This time I don’t miss the way his hips grind down against my leg, seeking friction that he won’t be able to find, thanks to the cock cage.
“Yes,” he pants out. “I’m sorry!”
“Sorry. For. What?” I punctuate each word with another spank.
His skin is crimson now, hot to the touch, and each impact draws increasingly frantic sounds from his throat.
“For touching what’s mine without permission?
For showing off in front of Benedetti like you still matter?
For forgetting that you’re my property now? ”
His hips are moving now in a rhythm that has nothing to do with escape.
His ass pushes up to meet each blow, red and hot under my palm, and the sounds he’s making have changed.
Longer. Deeper. Sweat is glistening in the small of his back, and his hands twist in the bedsheet as another moan tears from his throat.
He goes rigid across my lap.
And I feel a hot flood soaking into my pants.
For one second, I think he’s pissed himself. But then a familiar and more welcome smell rises up…and I’m genuinely shocked. He came. From being spanked. While wearing a cage.
His body took all of that sensation and turned it into an orgasm.
And I’m so hard it’s painful.
This is not how it was supposed to go. But underneath the shock, something else rears up—hot, possessive, proud. I just pulled sounds out of Caligula Clemenza that no one else has ever heard. His orgasm happened under my hand. Whatever that reaction was, it belongs to me alone.
“Well,” I say, forcing my voice level as my cock begs for attention in my now-damp pants. “We’re making progress. You are learning your place, aren’t you? Even enjoying the lesson.” I run my palm over his hot skin as he shakes in my lap. “You should enjoy it, golden boy. It suits you.”
He scrambles away from me the instant I release him, flattening himself up against the wall. His shoulders heave as he sucks in air, and his eyes are closed.
Just as well. Gives me a second to pull myself together.
“Nothing to say?” I ask, standing and straightening my clothes, giving a tsk of disgust at the mess he’s made of my pants. “No clever comebacks?”
The Clemenza doesn’t respond, doesn’t even open his eyes.
“Look at me.”
A sliver of honey appears between cracked lids. His gaze slides over me, up to my face.
“You forgot your manners along with your place,” I say. “Now tell me: what are you?”
A long pause. “Your property,” he says at last, cold as ice.
“Good boy. And what do you say when someone teaches you a lesson in respect?”
Another pause, even longer this time. But his voice is steady when he finally speaks. “Thank you, Damiano. You’ve taught me a lesson I won’t soon forget.”
I should put that collar back around his neck, but there’s something dangerous in his eyes that gives me pause. And the smell of him is all over me, soap and sweat and sex, making my head swim. I need to get out of here.
I turn and walk toward the elevator, but each step feels like I’m moving through molasses. My reflection in the polished metal doors looks unfamiliar—disheveled, wild-eyed, my cock an all-too-visible hard line in my pants.
The elevator button is right there. All I have to do is push it. But my hand hovers over the controls.
What the fuck is wrong with me? I wanted to punish him. Bring him back into line, remind him of his place. And I did. But watching him fall apart, hearing him moan under my hands, feeling him spill in my lap—
He’s a virgin. Every experience he’s had so far has been a first for him. Maybe he doesn’t know that pain can turn into pleasure. Maybe he doesn’t know that what happened to him was perfectly—
No. I won’t be manipulated by his inexperience any more than I was by his attempts at seduction.
I punch the button, step into the elevator, and leave him alone.
Anything else would be an unacceptable loss of control.