Chapter 20
I stand in Lorcan's kitchen with perfect coffee in my hands and his note staring at me from across the marble counter.
Tonight, I'm going to teach you Position Tertia. It involves the altar, your wrists cuffed behind your back, and my mouth between your legs until you forget how to recite the prayer. We'll see how long you can hold stillness when I'm making you come on my tongue.
My pussy clenches.
I set the coffee down before I drop it.
The fantasy builds itself—Lorcan's gray eyes watching me arranged face-down on cold stone, wrists locked behind my back, legs spread.
His mouth between my thighs while I recite prayers I can barely remember through the pressure of his tongue circling my clit, slow then fast then slow again, building me up and backing off until I'm sobbing in broken Irish I don't even speak.
Heat floods between my legs, slick and immediate.
My hand drifts down before I consciously decide to move it.
Fingers slide beneath the waistband of Lorcan's sweatpants, finding wet heat.
God. I'm soaked.
And then—
No self-touch.
Jino's voice cuts through the fantasy like a blade.
Cold. Clinical. Demerits.
My hand freezes.
I see Giovanni's face in my mind—that look. The one that says he knows exactly what I'm doing and exactly how disappointed he is. Not angry. Just... measuring. Cataloging my failure like he catalogs everything.
The Bavga Doctrine. Article VII. Hands and Touch. No self-touch. No scratching, fidgeting, or grooming without permission. Absolutely no masturbating without permission.
"Fuck."
I yank my hand out of my pants like I've been burned.
I see Giovanni's face in my mind—that look. The one that says he knows exactly what I'm doing and exactly how disappointed he is.
Two days.
That's my staying power. Two fucking days away from Giovanni's control and I'm already breaking protocol like some undisciplined brat who can't follow basic rules.
The arousal drains away, replaced by something worse.
Sadness.
I miss him.
I miss the basement, the dungeon, the rules. I miss Jino circling me with the riding crop. I miss the demerit notebook and the sick thrill of watching my point total climb, knowing consequences were coming.
I miss Giovanni appearing at the top of the stairs every evening—still in his suit, looking like money and danger—ready to clear my debt with consequences that made me scream.
I want to call him.
Right now.
But I can't.
Because I don't have his phone number.
Don't even have a phone.
The realization hits like a sickness. I never needed either when I was in his dungeon. Jino was there all day, drilling me through positions.
Giovanni appeared every evening after my bath—always right on time, like clockwork, like sunrise.
Ready to feed me steak while I sat in throne position between his thighs, feeling his hard cock through the fabric, getting worked up until he finally beckoned me into his lap.
Commanded me to ride him. Told me to take whatever I needed.
And then we'd compose poetry while we fucked.
My own words slip out before I can stop them—a whisper, broken:
"But here's the truth beneath my survivor's lies:
I don't want safety. Don't want soft or kind.
I want the man who sees through my disguise."
"I want the king who claimed me, body, mind
Who killed to keep me safe from greater harm
Who makes me feel like I am his to find."
The kitchen goes blurry.
I'm thinking about octopi. About kneeling between his legs while I told him how they squeeze through impossible spaces, three hearts beating, liquefying themselves to fit where they shouldn't.
"That's me," I whispered. "I'm the octopus.
Give me one crack in your heart and I'll squeeze through.
Three hearts means I love you three times harder when I do. "
He gripped my hair. Pulled my head back. "Shut up and eat."
But that night—after punishment, after he'd cleared my demerits and left marks I felt for days—he pulled me into his lap. "Ride me. Take whatever you need."
And while I rode him, he gave me new stanzas. His voice low and controlled even as he got close.
"An octopus, both graceful and arcane,
She writhes in intellect beyond his reach—
A creature skilled in artful, subtle pain."
I came the moment he finished the verse. Shattered around his cock while he held my hair and watched my face, cataloging every expression. Then he filled me completely, whispering mine against my neck.
And held me.
Just held me—his cock still inside, my face pressed to his shoulder while I tried to remember how to breathe.
I'm sobbing now in Lorcan's perfect kitchen, clutching the marble counter.
Because it's not Lorcan I want.
It's Giovanni.
Giovanni who wants to know what's inside my head. Who feeds me steak and won't let me suck his cock yet because I'm "not ready." Who killed a man for me and sat beside my hospital bed for six days writing demerits while I was unconscious.
Lorcan is good. Thoughtful, romantic. He bathes me afterward, discusses books, lights candles symbolically.
That's what women dream about when they read dark romance.
But I don't want it.
I want the monster who tells me to shut up when I ramble about octopi. Who watches me on hidden cameras and catalogs my failures. Who wouldn't dream of bathing with me because that's not what we do—Jino bathes me, Giovanni punishes me, and the system works.
Tyler threw me down stairs and blamed me for falling.
My parents loved me, but they're dead.
Giovanni murders people who hurt me.
I grab Lorcan's note. Read it again.
Tonight, I'm going to teach you Position Tertia...
It's beautiful. Thoughtful. Designed to give me pleasure wrapped in ritual.
And I'd trade it—all of it—for five minutes kneeling between Giovanni's legs while he ignores me and works on his laptop.
Just being there. Under his control. Waiting for him to acknowledge me.
That's what I want. Not romance. Not salvation.
The man who knows I'm already broken and decides to keep me anyway.
My reflection stares back from the window—pale, crying, wearing Lorcan's shirt and Giovanni's collar.
Still collared.
I haven't taken it off. Can't take it off.
Not without permission.
I don't want Position Tertia on Lorcan's altar.
I want Position One in Giovanni's dungeon.
Kneeling.
Waiting.
Belonging.
I'm still pressed against the window, forehead to the glass like I'm trying to absorb the city through osmosis, when I hear the door open behind me.
Lorcan's back.
His footsteps are different from last night—heavier, slower. The kind of gait that says we need to talk in every language including body.
Well, he's not wrong.
"I have something to say first," I announce to my reflection in the glass.
Behind me, Lorcan goes still. I can feel his attention lock onto me like a target acquisition system.
"I'm listenin'," he says quietly, and there's something in his voice—something gentle and careful, like he's talking to a spooked animal that might bolt if he moves too fast.
I turn to face him, and the words start spilling before I can architect them into anything resembling coherence.
"You're a lock," I tell him. "Giovanni's a key."
Lorcan blinks. "I'm... what now?"
"A lock. You know—the thing that holds everything in place, keeps it safe, contained, structured. You build these beautiful systems with positions, and prayers, and aftercare protocols, and they're locks. They keep everything organized and secure and they make sure nothing falls apart."
I'm gesturing now, hands drawing shapes in the air like I'm conducting an invisible orchestra of my own mental breakdown.
"Giovanni's the key. He doesn't hold anything—he unlocks it.
Shoves himself into all the broken tumblers inside you and just—" I twist my hands violently.
"—forces everything open. All the chaos you've been keeping locked down?
He turns one click and it all comes spilling out.
Your damage, your anger, your desperate need to be seen even when you're a complete fucking disaster. "
Lorcan's watching me with this expression I can't quite parse. Concern? Recognition? The look you give someone actively having a psychotic break in your living room?
"Locks are good," I continue, pacing now because standing still feels like death.
"Locks are healthy. They protect things.
Keep them from getting stolen, or violated, or destroyed.
You're offering me a lock, Lorcan. A really, really good lock.
Top-of-the-line security system with biometric access and—I don't know—laser grids or whatever shit fancy locks have. "
I spin to face him again.
"But I'm not a jewelry box that needs protecting.
I'm a goddamn Pandora situation. And Giovanni figured that out in about forty-five seconds.
He saw me kneeling in broken champagne glass at that hotel gala, bleeding and expressionless, and thought—oh good, someone who's already open.
Someone whose lock is already broken. I can just walk right in and rearrange the furniture. "
"Em—" Lorcan starts.
"Wait, I'm not done spiraling yet."
I press my palms against my temples like I can physically hold my brain together.
"Actually, no—scrap the lock metaphor. Different one.
You're like... you're like one of those Marie Kondo organizers who shows up and teaches you how to fold your emotional trauma into neat little rectangles so it fits perfectly in the drawer.
And Giovanni's the fucking—the Tasmanian Devil from Looney Tunes who just spins through your house destroying everything while you watch and then somehow you're grateful because at least now you know where all the broken pieces are. "
Lorcan opens his mouth.
Closes it.
Tries again.
"Are ya... is this goin' somewhere specific, or—?"