15. Lucia
15
LUCIA
T he dating scene is tough, and nights like tonight remind me why I choose to stay single.
Correction, the little voice in my head reminds me, you stay single because of your jealous fiancé.
“Not my fiancé,” I grumble as I crawl into bed. “More like a bully.”
As I glance at the glowing screen of my watch, I see that it reads 9:57. It’s only been an hour since I left Brooklyn and the guys behind, but it feels like a lifetime ago. Her date, Andrew, insisted on hitting up more bars and continuing to drink the night away. My date, Oliver, was eager to take tequila shots and amp up the party even further. Caught in between their conflicting desires, I knew there was no way I could make it to midnight without collapsing from alcohol overload. So, I decided to call an Uber and retreat home.
“Saverio will be pleased to see my location,” I mumble. “Safe and sound.”
That’s the last thing I remember before the sound of someone rummaging through my kitchen wakes me up a hair past midnight. The soft shuffling of items and clinking of utensils echo through the house, piercing the silence of the night.
I shoot up in bed with my hair askew and the room swimming with the leftover dregs of tequila. My heart races as I try to convince myself that it’s just a figment of my imagination, a leftover echo from the nightmare I just jolted awake from. But then, I hear the unmistakable sound of heavy footsteps ascending the stairs to the second floor, and I know without a doubt that someone has broken into my home.
Why didn’t the alarm go off? Why didn’t my phone chime with a notification that someone was on my property? It’s gone off dozens of times when stray cats are on my lawn, but now there’s someone in my house, and the app is eerily silent.
I carefully swing my legs over the side of the plush, silk-covered bed and reach into the nightstand beside me. As I open the drawer, an unexpected combination of items greets me: a sleek black stun gun, a canister of pepper spray, a discreetly packaged vibrator, and a well-loved Viking romance novel. Despite the lingering effects of alcohol in my system, my mind is clear enough to instinctively grab the pepper spray and quietly make my way to the closet where my gun lies safely locked away.
When the intruder finally reaches the top of the stairs, they begin flipping on lights with an unsettling nonchalance. One after another, the harsh glow floods the dim hallway outside my bedroom door, illuminating the shadows that cling to the corners. It’s only a matter of time before they reach my room, and just as I brace myself, they flick on my bedroom light, bathing the space in a blinding brightness that feels like an invasion of its own.
Saverio stands there with a wooden spoon in his hand and an angry look on his face. “I see you made it home,” he sneers. His eyes drift down to my arm, lingering on the bandage where he cut the implant from my skin during our last encounter. Saverio’s expression softens for a fleeting moment, revealing a hint of something that might almost resemble remorse, but it dissipates quickly, leaving behind the familiar anger that defines him.
“Saverio?” I groan, the weight of exhaustion pressing heavily on my eyelids as I drop the pepper spray onto the floor with a soft clatter. “It’s midnight.”
“I told you I was coming.”
I vaguely remember a veiled threat of some sort from hours before. Something about St. Louis, I think. “Did you drive here?”
Saverio takes a menacing step forward, the wooden spoon tapping rhythmically against his thigh with each deliberate movement, echoing ominously in the dimly lit room. “Yes. There were no planes that could get me here faster. You should be glad because the drive helped cool my anger.”
I don’t know about that. He still looks like a raging bull ready to ravage my China shop. “Well, go home then.” I start to walk back to bed. “I’m tired, and it’s the middle of the night.”
But Saverio suddenly grabs me by the arm, yanking me against him with an intensity that catches me off guard. The heat radiating off his body envelops me, a heady mix of anger and arousal. “I warned you what would happen if you disobeyed me.”
“I don’t remember that.” In truth, I was riding the high of a tequila shot when Saverio called. Brooklyn insisted we all take one as soon as we arrived, her infectious enthusiasm making it hard to refuse. Although I wasn’t drunk yet, I took it on an empty stomach, and it went straight to my head. My conversation with Saverio from earlier is a little fuzzy.
He shoves me forward onto the bed with an unexpected force that sends a thrill through me. In a swift motion, he grips the waistband of my shorts, tugging them down my thighs with an urgency that leaves me breathless. “Maybe this will help you remember.”
The first time the wooden spoon makes contact with my ass, a sharp crack reverberates through the room, echoing off the walls like a thunderclap—sudden pain splinters across my backside, jolting me awake. My eyes open wide, and a rush of adrenaline courses through me, sharpening my senses. I throw him an ugly glare over my shoulder, my frustration palpable, but I find it difficult to move as his hand presses firmly into the small of my back, anchoring me in place and leaving me momentarily at his mercy.
“What the hell, Saverio!”
He doesn’t reply; he doesn’t even look at me. Instead, his gaze burns into my bared ass with an intensity that feels almost predatory, as if he’s savoring the moment. His arm raises a second time, poised and deliberate, and I brace myself for the impact. A moment later, the other cheek blazes with a fresh wave of pain, the sharp sting radiating through me.
I face forward, my mind racing as I instinctively reach around to rub the sting out of my backside, desperately trying to soothe the burning sensation that lingers there. However, the wooden spoon collides with my knuckles instead. “Fuck!” I swear.
“Take your punishment like a good girl,” Saverio scolds, “or else I’ll take off my belt.”
A shiver runs down my spine. I’m no stranger to Saverio’s brand of discipline, but this is a new one for me. A few love taps in the middle of sex is the closest I’ve come to being spanked before. “You can’t do this to me,” I whine, feeling bratty—like a middle school girl stomping her feet and throwing a fit because her mom wouldn’t buy her something at the mall.
Saverio smacks my ass with the wooden spoon again, this time in the place where my thighs meet my buttocks. The pain washes over me, an unexpected wave of agony that makes my eyes water as I grit my teeth and try to ignore the sting. “One of these days, you’re going to get it through your head that I can do whatever I want to you whenever I want to.” He ends his sentence with another swat, pain dispersing through my bottom and turning the skin a beautiful shade of pink.
I try to scramble away from his ministrations, but he’s stronger than me. He doesn’t even have to tighten his grip; he already knows there’s nowhere for me to go.
“When I tell you to go home, you go home.” Saverio lectures me in between swats, assaulting my ass with the wooden spoon until every inch of it feels like it’s been held over a fire. “When I tell you not to go out on dates, you stop going out on dates.”
“It was for Brooklyn!” I argue, my voice trembling slightly as I clench my teeth, determined to hold back any sounds that might escape. The sharp sting of the wooden spoon connects with my bottom once more, heat radiating through my skin and making it all the more difficult to maintain my composure.
“I don’t care if it’s for the king of England. When I tell you not to do something, you respect my wishes. Do you understand?” Another zing of pain flutters through me as the spoon comes down again, the sharpness of the sting cutting through my resolve like a knife. “Answer me, Lucia.”
I’m struggling to hold back tears. With each spank, I can feel them welling up. If it wasn’t so painful, I could do this all night. “I understand,” I reply through gritted teeth.
Saverio peppers my ass with swats in return, a short burst that breaks through my resistance. “I don’t think you do.”
Tears trek down my cheeks, leaving wet streams in their wake. I bury my face in the comforter, embarrassed and ashamed of the situation I find myself in.
“This could be your life, Lucia. If you keep disobeying me, I can find new, creative ways to punish you. Do you want that?” Another flurry of spanks follows the rhetorical question.
I cry into the blankets, my ass burning. I’d give anything to make him stop.
“Or do you want me to make you feel good?” The question is followed by his hands on my bottom instead of the wooden spoon.
I hiss from the pain, but it’s soon replaced with pleasure. I moan softly as the sharp sting transforms into a delicious ache. His hands caress and knead my sore cheeks as he works the sting out of my backside.
“I can give you the world, Lucia. I can make you feel good. I can give you the family you’ve always wanted.” His words race straight to the heart of my desires. “You only have to listen to me. I’ll never ask you to do something you don’t want to do.”
“But you sure as shit don’t have to do the things you ask me to do,” I mumble into the blankets, torn between tears and moans of pleasure.
His hand stops rubbing long enough to deliver a stinging slap to my already sensitive skin. “Keep testing my patience, Dandelion. I can do this all night long.”
I can’t. Between the pain from his spanking and his fingers massaging ever closer to my center, I’m torn between wanting to scream at him to get out or screaming at him to fuck me. Why does this always happen?
Saverio reads me like a book, and before I know it, he’s sprawled on the ground, his face nestled between my legs, eagerly exploring my dripping folds and aching backside. “Sit on my face,” he orders. “I want to make you cry tears of joy.”