30. Lucia
30
LUCIA
A ntonio leads me to a private room. A club monitor walks us through the rules and then hands each of us a clipboard. There are several pages of disclaimers and legalese that we need to read and sign, but to my surprise, Antonio scrawls his signature on the bottom without even looking.
His inattention surprises me. “You’re not going to read it? Somehow, that doesn’t seem to match the picture I have of you.”
“I own the club,” he replies. “But more importantly, right now, I don’t give a fuck about paperwork.”
Does it surprise me that Antonio owns Casanova? Not even a little. I’m starting to realize that when they call him the King of Venice, it’s not an exaggeration. He really has his finger on the pulse of the city.
I sign at the dotted line quickly, a shiver running through me. The club monitor finishes up her safety instructions and leaves, and Antonio pushes the door open. “After you.”
I step into the room. Unlike the public areas, it’s sparsely decorated. There is no carpet on the cement floor and no art on the wall. This looks much more like Asylum. A heavy wooden desk sits in the center, and several chairs are propped against the wall. A crystal bowl offers lube and condoms.
Antonio comes up behind me. “I was watching you when the monitor went through the rules,” he says. “You don’t look surprised,” he says. “You’ve done this before?”
“Yes.” He’s waiting for me to elaborate, so I add, “I used to go to a club in Chicago right after my parents died.”
“Okay.” His blue eyes rest on me. “Do you have a safeword?”
“Red to stop, yellow to slow down and check in?”
An enigmatic smile covers his face. “It would be smart to have a discussion about our hard and soft limits,” he says, spinning me around and tugging me up against him. “But regrettably, I am too impatient for that.”
I’m too impatient as well. And besides, I’ve never been much for self-preservation. “You said you wanted to punish me.” Blood rushes to my cheeks when I hear how eager I sound. “I’m good with that.”
His grip on me tightens. He hears my eagerness, too, and he likes it. “If I bend you over that desk, hold your hands behind your back, and spank your ass?—”
My insides clench. “Yes, please,” I say, anticipation making me impatient.
“How many drinks have you had?”
“Just one glass of wine. It won’t interfere with my ability to use my safeword.”
He lets go of me and takes a half-step back. His expression turns forbidding. “Take off your dress, Lucia. From the moment you returned to Venice, you’ve been begging for punishment, and now you’re going to get it.”
His voice is so deliciously stern—I love it. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“In this room, you’ll call me Sir.”
Needs zaps through me, an electric current shocking my body. “I’m sorry, Sir.”
“I’m not interested in your apologies,” he says icily. “And I’m not interested in your delaying tactics. I believe I told you to take off your dress. When I give you an order, I expect immediate obedience.”
He moves behind me and unzips my dress, his fingers brushing my skin, his warm touch a sharp contrast with his cool tone, and it falls to the floor in a pool of fabric.
Underneath, I’m wearing the green lingerie set he gave me. When he sees it, his eyes turn hot and hard. “Who did you wear that for?” His fingers grip my hips. “Was it for Enzo?”
“No, Sir.” I swallow hard and tell him the truth. “I wore this because it reminds me of you.”
“Is that so?” he asks silkily. “Take it off.”
I shiver. Antonio’s seen me naked before, but there’s something about this role-play that changes the dynamic between us and amplifies its intensity. I am inexplicably nervous as I undo the clasp of my bra, and my palms are sweaty as I take off my panties.
He studies me for a long time when I’m naked, and then he leads me over to the desk and pushes me down on it. “Hands on the table. If you take them off, you won’t like what happens next.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Bent as I am, my aching breasts are crushed against the wood, sending a fresh surge of heat through me. I obey his orders, bringing my hands up in front of me and setting my palms flat on the tabletop.
“Good girl.”
Pleasure warms my cheeks. He hasn’t given me permission to speak, so I wait in silence for my next order. In this position, I can’t see him unless he’s right in front of me. I just hear the sound of his footsteps and hold still, my skin prickling, my heart pounding, for his first hard slap.
It doesn’t come, not immediately. He moves behind me, and his hands slide over my ass, proprietary yet dispassionate, like he’s assessing a horse he wants to buy. It takes all my control to hold still and not push back against him. I want to feel his fingers on my clit again, his mouth between my legs. . .
His nails scrape my skin, and I can’t hold back my whimper. Need effervescences through me like bubbles in champagne, and I unconsciously push back into his touch.
Antonio makes a disapproving sound and pushes down on the small of my back. “Stay where you are,” he says. “You are not allowed to move.”
“I’m trying not to move, but you’re making it impossible.” There’s a plaintive wine in my voice that makes me flush. “Sir,” I add.
He just chuckles. “Try harder.” He moves his hands between my legs, and I bite my lip as fresh heat flows through me. “Here’s how this is going to work, Lucia. Punishment first, then pleasure.” He squeezes my ass. “How many spanks for a thief who stole a very valuable painting from me? Ten? Twenty?”
The Titian is still on my bedroom floor, propped against the wall, which makes my next words that much more hypocritical. “A very valuable painting that does not belong to you,” I reply snarkily. “I just stole it to reunite with its real owner.”
He grips my hair. “Did I give you permission to speak?” he asks, his voice dangerously mild.
Goosebumps break out on my skin. “No, Sir,” I say contritely. Why am I being a smartass right before punishment? “I’m sorry.”
“Twenty, I think.”
Gulp. I should have kept my mouth shut; this is going to hurt. A frisson of fear goes through me, one that vanishes as Antonio slides one finger and then another into my pussy.
So good. So mouthwateringly, toe-curlingly good.
He circles my throbbing clit. “You don’t have to count the strokes,” he says as if his touch isn’t making me delirious with desire. “You can yell; you can cry out. But you need to hold still, and you need to keep your hands where they are.” He grazes his fingernails down my back, and I bite the inside of my mouth to keep from moaning. “If your hands move, I will start over.”
“I understand, Sir.”
Whack. The first spank is just hard enough to warm me up but not hard enough to hurt.
“Thank you, Sir,” I say automatically. It’s been years since I’ve done anything kinky, but I don’t remember it feeling this good. Maybe because I’ve never scened with someone that I feel as comfortable with as Antonio.
I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and let myself sink into sensation.
“Such a good girl,” he says approvingly. “So polite, thanking me without being prompted.” His hand descends on my left buttock, this time harder. I whimper at the sting, but then he strokes the sore spot, and the pain morphs into a rush of pleasure. “When did you first know you were into kink?”
It takes me a few seconds to focus enough to give him a coherent answer. “It was shortly after my parents died. I needed a distraction, and kink seemed to be the answer.”
Nudging with my foot, he spread my legs wider. His finger brushes over my clit, and I gasp and squirm. “Hold still,” he says disapprovingly, following his words with a couple of hard strokes.
I breathe hard, air whistling between my clenched teeth. “Yes, Sir.” He’s waiting for me to continue; I can sense it. “I blamed myself,” I whisper. “How could I not have realized how sick my mother was? Was I so self-involved that I missed all the signs? I kept replaying every conversation we had. The last time I talked to them, I had a test to study for, so I couldn’t talk much. If I’d stayed on the phone, would they have told me the truth?” I take a deep breath. “Those memories haunted me, and I couldn’t let it lie. I just kept circling back to them, poking at them like a scab.”
He spanks me again, and then he kisses my burning skin. “Keep talking,” he orders, pushing two fingers inside my pussy. “I didn’t give you permission to stop.”
His message is clear. If I keep revealing hidden pieces of myself, then he will bring me to orgasm. If I don’t talk, then I won’t come. I almost sob from sheer frustration, even as my muscles clench around his fingers. “My college roommate had an older boyfriend who belonged to a sex club in Chicago. I tagged along one day.”
“And you liked it?”
“Yes.” He thrusts his fingers deep as he gives me another stroke, and my toes curl with pleasure. My ass feels warm and red, and my pussy aches for his cock. “It felt. . . cathartic.”
“If somebody else was punishing you,” he says. “Then you didn’t need to punish yourself.”
His insights terrify me so much that I almost safeword. I thought I knew what to expect from Antonio. I was prepared for a sexy role-play where the big bad mafia boss takes the wicked thief in hand, punishing her for stealing his painting by spanking her and making her suck his cock.
But this? This is something far, far more intense. This is intimacy. Antonio is peeling my layers like an onion and finding out what makes me tick, and it’s terrifying.
But the word ‘red’ does not cross my lips. Because as much as I’m afraid, this also feels right. Confessing my deepest, darkest secrets to Antonio feels freeing.
“I deserved to be punished,” I choke out as he slaps my bottom again. “I never should have gone away to college. If I’d stayed back, I could have said goodbye to my mother. I could have consoled my father through his grief and prevented his death.”
Pain layers upon pain, and I take it all, but something shocking happens as the words spill out of my mouth and Antonio spanks me for the twentieth time. I took my punishment, and it’s done. A weight lifts off me, and I feel free.
I don’t realize I’m crying until Antonio wipes the tears off my cheeks with his thumb. “There we are,” he croons. He moves behind me again. “That’s my good girl. And now you get your reward.”
Then the most powerful man in Venice kneels between my legs and sucks my clit into his mouth.
Hot desire knifes through my body. He thrusts two fingers inside me again, and his thumb flicks my clit, lightly at first and then harder. “Please,” I beg. I’m so turned on. My body is on fire.
“Please what, little thief?” he growls. “Tell me what you need.”
I’m losing my mind. His tongue circles my clit, and I bite my cheek to keep from screaming out loud. Shivers roil my trembling body as Antonio’s tongue works its magic, and I gasp, writhe, and shudder.
“Please,” I whimper again, my voice breathy and needy. “Please don’t stop.”
“I wasn’t planning on it, tesoro.” His fingers strokes in and out of my pussy, and his tongue circles my clit repeatedly, a pulsing rhythm that takes me to the very edge of a massive orgasm. “The way you taste, Lucia,” he groans, his voice muffled against me. “So addictive. ”
Wave after wave of pleasure batters my body. “Antonio. . .” My knees are shaky, and my muscles are taut with strain. The feel of his mouth, his tongue, devouring me. . . It’s making me liquid. “I want. . . I need?—”
“To come? And you’re asking for permission like a good girl?”
There’s warm approval in his voice, but then he pulls away from me and straightens, which confuses me until he flips me over onto my back. “I want to watch you fall apart.”
“Yes, Sir.”
He kneels between my legs again, yanking me closer so my ass is on the edge of the desk. His hands spread me open, and his gaze is scorching hot. “Beautiful,” he murmurs. “Fucking perfect.” He puts his tongue on my clit again. “Come whenever you want, Lucia.”
Every time he licks me, my body jerks like I’ve touched a live wire. I rock my hips into him, and he laughs and holds me steady. He fucks me with his fingers and pleasures me with his tongue, and it doesn’t take long for the dam to burst. Sizzling heat sears me, and the blazing inferno of an orgasm burns through my body.
He licks me until the wracking shudders cease. I lie there, half on the desk and half off, lazy and sated. “Wow,” I murmur. “That was. . .” Spectacular.
He chuckles as he gets to his feet, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand before kissing me in a hungry, open-mouth kiss. His erection is a hard bar against his woolen trousers. I brush my hand against it. “Can I suck your cock?”
“Is that how you ask?” he asks, his voice half-teasing, half-stern. “Where are all the pleases and thank-yous now, Lucia? I let you come, and all that politeness disappears?”
“Oops,” I say with a grin. It’s so strange how comfortable I am with him. Every time I’m with Antonio, it just feels. . . right.
Antonio just read me like an open book. He gives me the best orgasms of my life. He growls orders at me in a way I find irresistible, but he always treats me respectfully. He listens to me, truly listens.
I’m catching feelings for Antonio Moretti.
I could very easily fall in love with him.
And that thought fills me with a buzzing sense of panic.
What the hell, Lucia?
This is about hot sex. That’s all it can ever be.
I slide off the desk and sink onto my knees, looking up at him from lowered lashes. He wants me to be polite? I can do that. “Thank you for my orgasm, Sir. Please, may I suck your cock now?”