23. Psychological Warfare #2
My mouth opened and closed repeatedly, trapping air.
Give a woman a ?break and a chance to reboot her brain.
He wasn’t playing fair with those sweaty, bulging muscles, fresh from a workout.
But neither would I. Make him regret you.
I stood taller, pushed my shoulders back, and walked over to the table as he popped a blueberry into his mouth.
“Very well, actually. I had some amazing dreams. Woke up feeling very… satisfied.”
“Don’t think they were dreams, mia amore.”
I glanced over the table spread with disappointment, ignoring his teasing. “Is there porridge?”
“Porridge?” He frowned, twisting around to glance at the ridiculous number of choices. “Why would you want that when you could eat all of this?”
“I like porridge,” I huffed, pulling out a chair and sitting down. I dropped my chin into my hand like a sulking teenager, then grabbed a croissant. “I guess this will have to do.”
Santino stared at me as I ripped into the pastry like a crazed animal, making a mess without a care in the world.
It took everything I had to keep up the act of an ungrateful bitch and to go against my instinct to thank him for going to all this trouble.
It was actually quite sweet, but no. I wasn’t falling for it.
“So…” he said, smirking again and folding his arms across his chest. “Tell me more about those dreams.”
“Hmm.” I nodded, sinking back into the chair.
“I should thank you. I’ve always had a bit of a spanking fantasy.
When I was eighteen, I had this really hot tennis coach back in the UK who always made me call him sir.
I would fantasise about him spanking me over his knee with a tennis racket whenever I lost a game.
And after last night, I dreamed of him again for the first time in years.
It was…” I fanned my face, blowing out a breath as Santino’s entire body stiffened.
The darkness that fell over his eyes was…
for a moment, utterly terrifying, but also…
hot. I made a mental note of that to add to my therapy list. “...unbelievable.”
His jaw clenched, a muscle twitching to the beat of his pulse as he glared at me. “Are you trying to get yourself punished again?”
I cocked my head to the side, enjoying how easy it was to rile him up, and gave him my most flirtatious look. Was I feeling a little too brave? Probably. But fuck it.
“Only if you let me call you 'sir'. Keep the shorts on, too. He wore ones just like that.”
In a sudden move, his face was inches away, his body looming over me in the chair as his dark eyes flicked between mine. I could feel the fury radiating off him. “Name.”
I frowned, feigning confusion. “Huh?”
“The tennis coach. His name. Now.”
I pressed my lips together to stop the nervous laughter threatening to burst out of me. There was no sexy tennis coach. I couldn’t hit a tennis ball to save my life. No spanking fantasy either. Although I’m pretty sure a kink had been unlocked last night.
“Aria.”
“I don’t remember.” I shrugged. “Are you really considering punishing me over a dream? How is that fair? I can’t control who I dream about.”
His nostrils flared, and he pushed away from me, storming into the kitchen and opening the fridge.
He put his head inside for a good two minutes, and I smirked, eating as much as I could from the table before he noticed.
I shamelessly ogled his deliciously tense back muscles and ass.
He slammed it shut with brute force. Clearly, his two minutes in Antarctica hadn’t cooled him down.
He ordered the sound system to play Cher’s hit If I Could Turn Back Time, and I pressed my hand over my mouth to stop the laughter from erupting.
He had his eyes closed, head thrown back as if he were meditating, and tapped his foot to the beat.
I watched him with amusement and intrigue.
This man was so… weird… and strangely endearing. Nope. Focus on the regret mission.
“So?” I shouted over the music. He held up a hand to silence me until the song finished before speaking to him. I didn’t. “How does this marriage thing work?”
He exhaled and opened his eyes, turning off the song. He walked back over, pulling out the chair next to me. His movements were controlled and fluid, but I could still see him pushing down the rage to find his inner peace or something that at least resembled not losing his mind.
“What do you mean?” he asked, his eyes roving over the T-shirt and settling on my bare thighs. Heat danced across my skin at that hungry look. I subtly pressed my thighs together and tugged the hem lower, though what was the point? Modesty was a thing of the past after last night.
“I mean… we’re married now. So what does that look like? How do you see this ‘marriage’ working?”
The question caught him off guard, and he sat back, tilting his head as he studied me. “You say that as if it’s not a real marriage.”
I scoffed. “Well, it’s not, is it? It’s a prison, and I’m its prisoner.”
“So that makes me… what? The sexy prison guard?”
“If that helps you sleep at night.”
He leaned forward, lifting his hand and pulling my lower lip down with his thumb. “This is a real marriage. I’m your husband, and you are my wife. Let’s leave the role-play for the bedroom.”
“Rather presumptuous to think I’m into that kind of thing.”
He smiled. “Okay. Tell me. What are you into? After last night, I think we can add punishments to the list.”
I pretended not to hear that comment and hid my face behind my hands. “I’m not telling you. You’ll kink-shame me like all my exes.”
He grabbed my wrists and tugged them down. “Ribelle, there’s no kink-shaming in this marriage. I’m the only man who gets to give you what you need, remember?”
I forced my eyes wide and doe-like. “Really? Because there are things I’ve really wanted to try.”
The excitement on his face was adorable, purely because I was about to crush it. “Tell me.”
“Well,” I lowered my voice to a husky whisper, letting my foot caress up his inner calf as I peered at him shyly from under my lashes. His throat worked as his arousal flared. “I have a thing for men who…”
“Si?”
“Dress up.”
“Like… costumes?” His eyebrows drew together beneath strands of his black hair.
“More like women’s clothes. Like cross-dressing.”
He froze. I nearly broke character at the sheer horror on his face.
“Seeing a man in women’s lingerie is such a turn-on. If it’s mine, even better.”
He stared at me, digesting, panicking, possibly on the verge of a meltdown.
“And… I’d really like to try pegging.”
His voice cracked. “Pegging?”
“Si. It’s where the woman wears a strap-on and fucks the man’s ass—”
“I know what that is,” he blurted, standing up from the chair and storming back into the kitchen.
He grabbed a glass from the cupboard and poured himself iced water as I fought every cell in my body to hide how close I was to hysterics.
I schooled my expression when he turned back around and started laughing.
“You are fucking with me. This is a joke.”
Cue dramatic overreaction in three, two, one. I jumped up from my chair, my face flashing with rage. “How dare you?”
He blinked. “How dare I what?”
“You are kink-shaming me! Do you know what century we are living in? Do you know who I am?” I screamed, slamming my hand against my chest. “I’m a strong, independent woman, open-minded about sexual exploration, and I like what I like! You do not get to judge me!”
“I’m not…” he spluttered, lifting his hands in a distinctly Italian gesture.
“You laughed at me!”
“I thought you were joking!”
“Because you are kink-shaming me!”
“No, I’m not,” he sighed, running a hand through his hair and then meeting my gaze. His lips twitched as he said, “I’m politely kink-declining.”
“Ah, so you’re not the man to meet my needs? Got it.” I gave a curt nod, flopping back into the chair. He groaned, dragging his hand down his face. Oh my God. This was so much fun.
“You’ve got to give a man a minute to drink his coffee before you bring up strap-ons so early in the morning, beautiful.”
“You asked,” I argued. “I thought we were having a consensual adult conversation.”
“Yes,” he moaned, looking stressed as hell. “People can like what they like. I’m all for sexual empowerment, but that’s not my thing.”
“What’s not?”
“You know.”
“Say it.”
“Why?”
“Because you can’t even say it, can you?”
“What? Dressing in a thong and being fucked in the ass with a giant dildo strapped to my wife? No, not my thing.”
I gasped, shaking my head. “That was a very judgy tone.”
“Oh for—”
“Fine. If you’re not comfortable with it, I respect your boundaries. Perhaps you could respect mine by installing locks on the bathroom doors.”
He laughed so loudly, shaking his head, then drank half the glass of water in one go, staring at the ceiling. “I did not predict our first marital disagreement would be over this.”
“We are obviously not sexually compatible,” I said, crossing my arms and smiling at him sweetly. “Perhaps we should quit while we’re ahead.”
“Oh, really?” He smirked, amusement and heat dancing in his eyes, making me squirm with memories. “We seemed pretty compatible last night. I didn’t hear any complaints.”
“I was drunk from all the champagne. I don’t remember much.”
“You weren’t that drunk.”
We stared at each other, and I knew there was no winning if I went down this road. We both knew how much I’d enjoyed myself. There was no faking that kind of enthusiasm.
I tugged my hair out of the knotted mess on top of my head for something to do, feeling his gaze on me the entire time. “Tell me the rules of my imprisonment, then. I know a man like you will have many for his new wife.”
He strolled back over. “Do you want rules to follow, Ribelle? Or rules to break?”
“After last night, I’ve learned my lesson.”
He raised an eyebrow, leaning his huge, veiny hands on the back of a dining chair. I darted my gaze away as the reminder of what they did last night flashed in my mind.