Chapter 22
I wake up to the taste of blood and a faint throb behind my eyes. The ceiling above me is familiar—white plaster, crown molding, the chandelier I hate but never bothered to remove.
My bedroom. Not the dungeon.
That's the first coherent thought I manage.
The second is that my sheets are damp with sweat.
I sit up slowly, cataloging the damage. My knuckles are bruised—split across two of them where I caught Jino's teeth. My ribs ache on the left side. Probing fingers find a cut above my eyebrow I don't remember getting.
The fight comes back in fragments. Fast. Chaotic. Then… after…
The dungeon.
Her.
Images of Emmaleen return with clinical precision, like surveillance footage playing back in my mind. She is spread-eagled, face down on the dais, hands cuffed to the legs of the throne, ankles secured to the bolts in the floor.
The nipple clamps pressing into the platform beneath her, adding pressure with every breath she took.
The way her spine curved.
The way her shoulders trembled.
Beautiful.
The sounds she made—half gasps, half whimpers, muffled against the wood—were better than any confession I've ever extracted. Better than any plea I've heard in a back room with duct tape and zip ties. Those sounds were voluntary. Offered. Given as freely as her flesh.
My cock stirs.
I note this with the same detachment I'd note the weather. It's a physical response. Mechanical. The body reacting to stimuli the mind has already cataloged and filed under useful leverage.
She didn't use her safe word.
Thirty-seven strikes. The way she counted the last fifteen, voice breaking, tears streaming down her face and pooling on the platform beneath her cheek.
But she didn't say wisteria.
I swing my legs out of bed and stand. The floor is cold beneath my feet. My reflection in the bathroom mirror is exactly what I expected—bruises blooming across my ribs, the cut above my brow, stubble darker than I usually allow it to get.
I look like I've been in a war.
Technically, I have.
The shower runs hot. I step under the spray and let it scald my shoulders, my back, the knot of tension that lives permanently between my shoulder blades. The water turns the cuts on my knuckles pink, washing away dried blood like sins during confession.
The throb between my legs is still present.
I close my eyes, leaning one palm flat against the tiled wall. I wrap the other hand around my cock and begin a slow pull until the fantasies surface. Emmaleen on her knees. Emmaleen bent over the training platform. Emmaleen spread across the throne.
Emmaleen with tears tracking down her face as she counts every strike.
My cock pulses in my hand. It should disturb me how quickly I harden at the memory of her pain. But I'm beyond that particular moral threshold. Once you've killed for a woman, jerking off to the thought of her submission seems a minor trespass.
The water beats down, hot enough to turn my skin red. I stroke myself with practiced efficiency, remembering the arch of her back, the way her ass had reddened under the crop. The sharp gasps when I tightened the clamps on her nipples.
She took all of it. Every strike. Every torment.
And she never used her safe word.
My breath comes in short, sharp bursts as I approach the edge.
I think of Emmaleen's face when I first ordered her to strip in front of me in my pool house apartment.
The defiance in her eyes giving way to arousal.
The flush spreading across her chest. The way she dug her nails into me as I fucked her against the wall.
It was primal. Desperate. I wanted her so bad.
And if Rico hadn’t ruined it…
If Rico hadn’t ruined it… what? my monster asks.
The voice is mine but not mine. Darker. Hungrier. The part of me that was born in a warehouse tied to a post. The part that learned early that the world punishes weakness and rewards control.
You’d be a couple now instead of a power dynamic? You’d invite her to move in here? Let her sleep in your bed? Poor homeless girl. Down on her luck. Giovanni fancies himself a savior…
My hand grips my cock harder as I stroke, the punishing rhythm matching the beat of my pulse. Behind closed lids, I see her—not as she is now, locked in the dungeon's bedroom—but as she will be. After weeks. Months. When the training takes.
She'll learn to wake before I do, to kneel by the bed with her hands placed palms-up on her thighs, awaiting my first instruction. Her eyes will stay downcast until I permit her to look at me. A good little slave.
No.
Not slave. Property. Mine.
I tighten my grip, twisting my wrist on the upstroke. The water beats down on my shoulders, steam filling the glass enclosure.
She won't speak unless spoken to. Won't dress unless I choose the clothes—if I permit clothes at all.
I like the idea of keeping her naked, available for my use at any moment.
Those perfect tits with their rosy nipples that harden at the slightest brush of my fingers.
That smooth pussy that gets wet when I simply look at it.
She'll learn to anticipate my needs. To bring me coffee exactly as I like it.
To kneel between my legs while I work, her mouth available whenever I want it.
She'll learn to take my cock to the root, to swallow around the head, to look up at me with those wide green eyes filled with worship and need.
I lean my forehead against the tile, my breathing ragged.
I'll keep her on edge. Desperate. Wet. Always ready for me. She'll associate my touch with pleasure so intense it borders on pain. She'll crave my hand between her legs, my cock inside her, my lips on her neck.
She'll wear my marks. Bruises from my fingers on her hips. Welts from the crop across her ass. A collar—fuck—a collar around that pale throat declaring her mine.
My hips buck involuntarily, fucking into my fist.
I'll own every inch of her. Every thought. Every breath. Every heartbeat. She'll become an extension of my will, existing solely to please me. To satisfy me. To obey me.
And she'll love it.
That's the part that makes my blood race. The part that has my cock throbbing painfully in my hand. The knowledge that she'll fucking love it. That she'll give herself to me completely. Willingly. Eagerly.
She didn't use her safe word.
Thirty-seven strikes with the crop, and she took every one of them.
I'm getting close now, pressure building at the base of my spine. I think of Emmaleen spread across my desk in my home office, bent over with her skirt hiked up around her waist, no panties. Me standing behind her, one hand in her hair, the other gripping her hip as I pound into her.
I think of her on her knees in front of me.
How I'll teach her exactly how I want her mouth to suck my cock.
Slowly, methodically. I'll start with my thumb pressed against her lower lip, testing the soft give of it, the warmth inside.
Then I'll guide her down, inch by inch, her tongue tentative at first until she learns the rhythm I demand.
She'll gag on my cock—she will, inexperienced as she is—but I won't let her pull away.
Not until I'm ready. Not until she's proven she can take it.
I'll fist my hand into her hair, holding her steady, controlling the pace, the depth, everything.
She'll learn to breathe around me. She'll learn to relax her throat.
She'll learn that her comfort is secondary to my pleasure—and that realization, that understanding, will turn her on more than she'll want to admit.
She won't just learn how to suck me. She'll learn everything.
Every angle of her body I prefer. Every position that pleases me.
Every sound I want to hear and the ones I'll punish her for making.
I'll map out every nerve ending until her entire purpose becomes anticipating what I want before I have to speak it aloud.
She'll become fluent in the language of my desires.
And she'll love it.
Jino was right.
She's a natural submissive.
I picture her tied to my bed, wrists and ankles secured to the posts, blindfolded, gagged, helpless. Waiting for me to decide how to use her.
Tonight, I'll choose for her and make her think it's her idea.
I'll sit on the throne. I'll ask her what she wants. What she's been craving since the first day she walked into my apartment above the restaurant, late and flustered and wearing that ridiculous yellow cardigan like armor.
She'll hesitate. She always hesitates.
Then she'll whisper it. A spanking.
And I'll smile. Not the cold smile. The other one—the one that suggests I'm indulging her, giving her a gift she's earned through obedience.
I'll lead her to the punishment bench. The narrow one. The one designed to make comfort impossible. I'll bend her over it, her hips elevated, her ass presented like an offering. No restraints this time. She won't need them. She'll stay in position because I told her to.
My hand moves faster.
I'll start slow. Open palm. Firm but not brutal. The first strike will land across both cheeks, the sound echoing in the stone chamber. Her skin will flush pink immediately—she bruises so easily, blooms color like a flower opening under the sun.
She'll gasp. Arch slightly. Her hands will grip the edges of the bench.
I'll pause. Let the sting settle. Let her anticipate the next one.
Then I'll deliver it. Harder this time. Lower, where her ass meets her thighs. The most sensitive spot. This one will make her whimper with desire.
Five strikes on the left. Five on the right. Perfectly symmetrical. Perfectly controlled.
Between each set, I'll touch her. Not inside her—not yet. Just the barest brush of fingertips along her inner thigh. A thumb pressed against her pussy, testing her wetness without offering relief. Enough to remind her what she wants. Not enough to give it to her.
The thought alone sends a bolt of heat through me—my hand tightening around my shaft, moving faster now as the fantasy sharpens into vivid detail.