Chapter 22
CALIGULA
I’m poking the bear.
I suspected it when Sal Rossi approached us and greeted me first, Damiano second. I confirmed it when he got annoyed at my talking to Ambassador DuPont’s wife, who gasped out my name with delight but didn’t even ask for his.
The Met’s chandeliers shine like captured stars above us, and the fabric of my brand-new tuxedo feels liquid against my skin. I haven’t felt like myself in years. But right now, surrounded by the glittering elite of New York, I feel…
Dangerous. Alive. Powerful.
And I am going to poke this bear until he roars.
Even if it means he’s going to spank me again. Even if it means I can’t sit comfortably for a week—and God knows the opera house seats aren’t exactly cushiony-soft against my still-smarting skin.
I’ve never been touched like that. And I shouldn’t have liked it. God, I really shouldn’t have liked it. Still can’t believe how I responded.
Self-preservation. That’s what I told myself it was.
I wish I could believe the lie. But when Damiano’s hand came down on my skin, telling me what I was, who I belonged to—something inside me just…broke open. Or maybe broke apart.
Either way, I came from being spanked like a misbehaving child, and the humiliation of that should have eaten me alive.
Should have.
Instead, all I could think about for hours after he left was the weight of his hand, the heat in his voice, the way he seemed genuinely shocked that my body had responded to him like that.
Which is fucked up on about seventeen different levels.
And the really twisted part is, I want him to do it again. I want to push him until that control cracks, until he puts his hands on me and—
“Caligula, how wonderful to see you,” a Vanderbilt widow coos, appearing at my elbow with champagne and curiosity. “We heard such terrible rumors. Thank God you’re alive!”
Next to me, Damiano’s presence is difficult to ignore—but I do my best. I feel his fury burning through his clothes as he glares at the white-haired woman, and she smiles at me and me alone, like he doesn’t even exist.
These people see my social worth. Half of them see him as some hired bodyguard. The ones in the know? They just see the beast who bought me.
And I plan to relish every second of his discomfort.
“Rumors of my demise were greatly exaggerated,” I tell Mrs. Vanderbilt with a charming smile.
“But your cousin—?” she asks delicately.
“A tragedy,” I tell her, clipped. And I move on, Damiano trailing in my wake now.
The crowd parts and flows around me like water, and whispers follow.
They’re a vicious lot, the New York elite.
Few of those whispers are complimentary, toward me or the man shadowing me.
But every murmur, every sideways glance, every moment of recognition that bypasses Damiano entirely—I feel it feeding the beast behind me.
And my soul rejoices.
“Cal!”
I turn and see Jesse Foster gliding toward me through the crowd, his arm threaded through that of an older man I also, unfortunately, recognize.
Daniel King.
Jesse’s smile is radiant. “You look amazing.” His voice drops to an intimate whisper, eyes inquisitive. “How’s the arrangement working out?”
It’s a struggle, but I keep my expression perfectly pleasant. “I didn’t expect to see you here, Jesse. How are you?”
Jesse grins with delight. Daniel King gives me a nod and then stares at Damiano.
I should have realized back at the Obelisk, of course. But I only see it now. Daniel King is Jesse’s “owner,” the one who pays his tabs, the one to whom Jesse signed over ten years of his life. If I’d realized back then, would I still have agreed to the auction?
Probably.
So what does it really matter?
We exchange pleasantries for exactly the right amount of time—long enough to be polite, short enough to avoid running out of small talk. When they drift away toward the bar, I feel rather than see Damiano move closer.
A sense of unreality settles over me as he leans down to speak in my ear. “For such a parasite, Jesse Foster passes well for a human being.”
I’m not sure I want to know the answer, but the question comes out before I can think it through. “What do you mean?”
He sounds almost pitying. “Don’t you get it yet? Your buddy Jesse gets a commission for every desperate he delivers to auction. He wasn’t helping you survive, golden boy. He was selling you out.”
I shouldn’t be surprised. But somehow, I am.
Still, never show weakness in public. I turn to look Damiano dead in the eye when I respond. “Then you’ve taught me another valuable lesson, Dami.”
“And what’s that, little prince?”
“That I have no one left to trust.”
Something flashes in his dark eyes. He grabs me hard and drives me backward.
Shit. I pushed too far. He’s lost it; he’s going to shove me up against a wall, or drag me into a bathroom and—
But there’s a scream. More screams, yelling, shouting—
Men are flocking toward us. Bodyguards and security guards and even Luca D’Amato, with cold fury in his strange, pale blue eyes.
For a second I think they’re coming for me. That this is it: my fate will be appropriately classical. I’m going to be torn apart by a frenzied crowd.
But then Damiano locks his arms around me and hugs me to his chest. We’re moving—or he is, anyway, my feet dangling helplessly as he hauls me straight to the entrance, shouldering aside anyone who comes close.
And over that massive shoulder, I see all those men are still occupied, doing something to someone there on the floor…
“Move!” Damiano roars, and people scatter around us like leaves.
I’m pressed so hard against him that I can feel his heart hammering against mine, can smell his now-familiar scent, can smell something new—something coppery.
We’re back in the car before I know it, the driver taking off from the curb like he’s in Formula 1.
Damiano’s hands pat me all over. “Are you hurt?”
“No?” I look down at myself, bewildered to see dark red smeared across my white shirt. “I didn’t see…what happened?”
He’s still checking me all over, patting me down, turning me this way and that. “You have blood on you.”
“So do you,” I point out thickly. “Jesus, you’re bleeding—”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine, you’re—”
“I said I’m fine!” He snarls it with such finality that I shut up, but now that I’ve pointed it out, he’s looking at his own arm, at the torn opening in his tuxedo jacket along his bicep, the dark fabric soaked wet through with…
Blood. It’s dripping right down his sleeve, sliding down his fingers onto the leather seats.
“You need a hospital—” I begin.
“No.”
The car takes the next corner so hard that it throws me back into Damiano’s arms, and he wraps them around me at once.
“You’re bleeding,” I say again. I wrap my hands hard around the cut along his arm, since apparently he’s happy to exsanguinate in the back of the car. “What happened?”
“Someone came at you,” he says, and his arms tighten around me, squeezing hard. “But you’re safe.”
Safe.
And despite the hot blood seeping out from between my fingers, I believe him. Despite the fact that he was jacking me off in public, despite the creepy fucking basement and the collar and the cock cage…
I actually do feel safe with Damiano Orsini.
When we get home, everything transforms. Literally. Damiano hustles me inside and then activates a setting on the security panel right there in the foyer.
Steel shutters slam down over windows. Locks engage all over the house—deadbolts, security bars, enough reinforcement to withstand a siege. The house becomes a fortress in seconds, sealing us in like a tomb.
Damiano keeps me close as we move through corridors he didn’t show me during that house tour the first night.
His good arm is wrapped around me, practically carrying me.
We hurry down a discreet set of stairs I don’t remember seeing before, and then he’s leading me into a kitchen that smells like rosemary focaccia.
He stabs his finger at an intercom and barks, “Rosa!”
He strips off his jacket and then his shirt, elbowing me away when I try to help. A woman appears a minute later, steel-colored hair mussed from sleep, robe hastily belted. When she sees the blood, her expression doesn’t change. She just comes over to inspect the wound.
“I’ll call Darla,” she says.
“No.”
She simply nods at Damiano’s refusal and disappears, returning with a medical kit that looks…comprehensive. This is not the first time she’s dealt with something like this.
I sit in stunned silence, watching this “Rosa” inspect the cut. The wound is deep but clean—three inches across his bicep. If it had been higher, across his throat, or lower, slicing open his belly…
Rosa threads a surgical needle and I wince in anticipation. But Damiano doesn’t even flinch as she begins sewing him up. He just watches me with those dark eyes.
I have no idea what he’s thinking.
When Rosa finishes, she puts a large patch over it and winds a bandage around his sizeable bicep. Then she steps back and surveys her handiwork with satisfaction. “We’ll clean it twice daily. No heavy lifting for a week.”
“My ink’ll be all messed up with a scar,” he grumbles.
“You shouldn’t be disrespecting your body with tattoos in the first place.” She pats his uninjured shoulder like he’s a wayward nephew, then fixes me with a stern look, taking in my blood-stiffening shirt front. “You need to shower. Come.”
It’s not a suggestion.
And weirdly, Damiano just troops behind as I follow Rosa, who marches out of the kitchen, beckoning me to hurry.
When we reach the stairs, my legs feel unsteady, and Damiano puts his good arm around me again, practically lifting me up the steps.
I want to tell him not to, remind him that he’s the one who’s injured, but I don’t. I need his steady arm too much.
Someone came at me tonight.
It’s still happening. Someone still wants me dead.
We emerge eventually on the fifth floor, Damiano not even slightly out of breath despite half-carrying me the whole way, and then we go down another hallway. In front of a particular door, Rosa gives Damiano one last meaningful glare before disappearing back down the corridor.
We’re alone. He pushes open the door, reaches in to snap on the light, and gives me an ironic wave in.
Oh, fuck. This is his room. His bedroom.
Dark wood. Thick carpet. A bed so big I could get lost in it, and floor-to-ceiling windows that are currently covered with steel shutters. Damiano sits on the side of the bed, and for the first time tonight, he looks tired. Wrecked, actually.
More human than I’ve ever seen him.
“Go shower,” he says without looking at me. “You’re covered in my blood.”
I am. It’s sticky on my hands, soaked into my shirt, probably in my hair. The metallic scent of it wafts with me into the attached bathroom, where I strip out of my formal wear and step under the water.
But even as the red swirls down the drain, I can’t wash away the memory. The way he moved without hesitation. The way he put his body between danger and mine like it was instinct.
Like I was worth protecting.
When I emerge with one of his soft, fluffy towels wrapped around my waist, he’s settled on the bed, propped against pillows in nothing but black briefs, the white bandage on his arm stark against his inked skin. Brooding and beautiful and bleeding for me.
I stand there dripping. Staring.
“What are you looking at?” he growls.
“The man who saved my life.”
He scoffs. “I told you no one would hurt you under my watch. I meant it.”
“I know. I know that now.”
The silence stretches. And then I drop the towel.
He takes in my naked body—every part of me, and the faint marks he’s left on my skin with his chains and his hands.
I cross to the bed, climb onto the mattress, and straddle his hips. He just watches me do it. I brace my hands on either side of his head.
His eyes are black fire, but he doesn’t stop me.
I lean down until my breath ghosts across his lips, wondering if he’ll let me kiss him, but he moves his head away in mute refusal.
But that’s all he does, and when I trail my fingers down the ridge between his pecs, down to that oversized six-pack, he doesn’t grab my wrist. Doesn’t say anything.
I let my hand hover right above those black briefs and I keep waiting.
He reaches up and traces my bottom lip with his thumb.
“If you’re gonna do it,” he says, voice rough as gravel, “then get on with it.”
My heart clangs in my ribs as I slide back on his thighs, hands literally shaking as I hook my fingers in the waistband of his briefs. He lifts his hips to help, and then he’s bare before me.
Christ.
I didn’t really get a good look at him that time before. Turns out he must’ve been half-hidden by his clothes still, because seeing him in all his glory…
He’s huge. Thick and hard and intimidating as hell. And I want to prove something to him. To myself.
I lean forward and take just the head into my mouth. He sucks in a breath and I push down—
It’s too much. I gag, pull back, try again. My technique is still clumsy as hell, but I’m persistent. Working my tongue around the crown, fighting my jaw’s protests, determined.
Then his hands are on me, lifting, repositioning.
I’m turned head to toe, set on my side, his mouth hot against my thighs as he rearranges us in a tangle of limbs and feeds me his cock once more.
But then—oh, fuck, he’s pulling my legs open, burying his face between my asscheeks, and his tongue is pushing into my hole.
I choke on his cock, my entire body arching like I’ve been electrified. He doesn’t stop for a second, devouring me with tongue and lips and the careful scrape of teeth that has me shaking apart.
He’s hurt. He’s bleeding. And he’s eating me alive like he owns every inch of my skin.
And I—I want this. Want him. I try to return the favor, to take him deeper, but his mouth is destroying my ability to think. Every swipe, every suck, every insistent stab of his tongue makes my rational mind retreat a little more.
Because he meant it. He really meant it. He’ll keep me safe. Damiano Orsini took a knife meant for me. He’s going to have that scar for the rest of his life.
And that makes me more his than anything he’s done to me so far.