30. Chapter 24
Dashiell
Yeah, maybe I’m freezing cold and half-naked outside a club after midnight in October, but I don’t regret wearing the thong one bit. Fucking brilliant tactical maneuver on my part.
Lorenzo carries me out of the club, and I almost wiggle in glee at the suckers watching—none of them are lucky enough to get carried home and used by Lorenzo Diamante.
Enjoy the show! I almost want to shout, but I don’t, because hey, even I have some class.
Lorenzo throws me into the car when Wolfe pulls up to the curb. Hell yeah.
“Sit,” Lorenzo instructs. “Don’t speak until I tell you to.”
Yes, sir, my brain says as I mentally kneel in obedience.
“Wolfe, drive.”
“You got it, boss,” Wolfe says with a dry smile, and hits the gas.
Lorenzo sits up front. He doesn’t once look back at me. I crave his attention, but the lack of it is almost as enticing. Should that be concerning, the fact that it makes my cock drip when the man I want to fuck me blatantly ignores me?
Nah.
In the elevator to his penthouse, when I stand obediently in front of him, he’s so close I can smell him: cedar and salt, and underneath it, something sharper. His arousal, not cologne.
He watches the floor numbers climb, jaw set, hands tense at his sides.
Come on, Lorenzo, I want to say, let loose a bit.
Every second he holds himself back is worse than if he’d just slammed me against the wall, ripped my thong off, and shoved himself in raw.
I want to beg.
Don’t speak until I tell you to.
It’s not really in my nature to take orders from authority except in very specific situations. For instance, like standing basically naked in front of a mafia prince while eagerly waiting for him to fuck me senseless.
You know. An average night!
The door opens into his penthouse. Only once we’re fully inside does he turn around. His gaze drags down my whole body, slow and thorough.
“Look at you.” His voice drops low, rough around the edges. “Standing there and waiting. Turns out you can be obedient when you actually try.”
Sure there’s a taunt buried in there, but there’s also something pure and lustful about those words, and they lodge in the dirtiest, most wonderful part of my brain.
Don’t speak until I tell you to.
Oh, yeah? And what if I don’t listen, sir?
I don’t look at him when I say, “Thank you, sir.”
It works exactly as I hoped.
He crosses the distance between us in two steps and catches my jaw in one hand. He tilts my face up so that I can’t look anywhere but him. Real anger flashes in his eyes. I feel a small, private, and diabolical flicker of delight at having annoyed him.
I’ve always had brat tendencies. Guess the brat is taking control tonight!
“What did I say about speaking without permission?” he growls.
“Sorry, sir.”
Am I?
“Sorry isn’t an answer.” His grip tightens, mashing my cheeks into my teeth. My breath catches high in my chest as my body flares with heat.
Punish me, sir, that bratty corner of my brain suggests. I don’t say it out loud—some dignity is left.
Probably not for long.
He twists my head, angling my neck so that my ear is close to his mouth. His voice injects itself directly into my nervous system. “Say it. What did I say about speaking without permission?”
“You said I couldn’t. I spoke anyway, sir.”
“That’s right.” Disapproval moves through his eyes, while his other hand finds my thigh. His fingers are warm, almost hot, against my cool skin. “Do you know what happens when you break one of my rules?”
Sadly, I do not. I would, however, absolutely love a demonstration.
I shake my head as best as I can in his grip. “No, sir.”
“No. I think it’s time you found out.”
His fingers slide under the edge of my thong, close enough to my cock to make my whole body go hot and cold at once.
“Do you want to know what your punishment is, Dash?”
“Yes,” I breathe.
His hand slides to my ass, firm, possessive, and I squirm on reflex. “Even if it hurts?”
“Yes.” I’m not above begging, I’ve decided. “Please, Lorenzo.”
Slap.
His hand cracks across my ass and I yelp, more out of surprise than pain, tears springing hot and immediate into the corners of my eyes.
Something dark and satisfied moves over his face, which makes me unfairly pleased.
“I might need to be rougher than that.”
Well, thank god! “I deserve whatever you give me. Please.”
Slap.
Another sharp sting, and this time I bite down on my own lip rather than let out a gasp.
It’s good. Stupidly, embarrassingly, cock-twitchingly good. Better than anything I’ve negotiated with strangers who didn’t even know my first name, meeting up over apps and awkwardly and clinically deciding what to do.
His thumb traces a wet track under one of my eyes, while his other hand massages the stinging leftover from his slap. “You like that. Being punished.”
“Yes.”
“So filthy.”
No comeback to that, your honor.
Slap.
“My dirty, insolent boy.”
Something cracks loose in me, and before my brain can vet it for dignity, my mouth says: “Yes, daddy.”
Huh. Noted. Daddy kink unlocked.
His hand moves from my jaw into my hair instead, fingers tightening. “And what do dirty boys get?”
“Punished?” I guess, brain running at maybe thirty percent capacity between one hand on my hair and the other soothing the ache he just put on my ass.
“Used,” he corrects, and the word is more painful and delicious than the slaps.
“Use me all you want, daddy.”
His mouth curves, satisfied. “Good boy.” He steps back, just enough to let me breathe, and nods down the hall. “Now get in my fucking bedroom.”