Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
GAbrIEL
L iv hadn’t been in my home for more than ten minutes, and she was already testing me.
I should have expected this. If what I wanted was submissive compliance, I should have picked another woman. I knew plenty of pretty faces who wouldn’t dare talk back or play at the boundaries of my patience. So many that I’d be hard-pressed to pick the one who deserved the opportunity to spend her days and nights surrounded by pleasure and luxury.
I’d brought plenty of that kind of woman home before. They didn’t last more than a day or two before I grew tired of them and showed them the door.
Unquestioning obedience might be nice in the moment, but it was also dead boring.
Liv, on the other hand, was anything but. She’d been surprising me from the moment I met her—even if some of those surprises were maddening as hell.
“You want to know about consequences?” I asked, closing in on her slowly. “Fine. I’m happy to teach you.”
For every step I took toward her, she shifted one back. I couldn’t help but smile at her hypocrisy. Her mouth might have been brave, but her body most definitely was not.
She kept retreating until she ran out of room. Eventually, her back hit the wall, and her eyes widened in alarm. I quickly closed in on her, pinning my arms on either side of her shoulders, trapping her in place.
Still, I had to give her credit. She did her best to put on a brave face as she lifted her shaking chin to look me in the eye.
“What now?” she asked. “Are you going to smack me around? Rough me up a little for daring to speak my mind?”
Despite the fire burning in her emerald gaze, it was easy to see her display of courage for what it was—nothing more than an act. Her voice quivered with every word, and her lips trembled as she spoke them.
“Is that what you want?” I asked softly, lifting my hand to trace the back of my fingers as lightly as possible down her cheek.
She stared up at me like I’d lost my mind.
“Of course not,” she said. “I just want to know what the next three months of my life are going to be like. I need to know what kind of monster I’ll be living with.”
“Monster?” Again, I’d been called much, much worse…just not to my face. “A monster wouldn’t have spared your brother’s life—or yours.”
Liv frowned. “So…what? In your mind, I should be thanking you for kidnapping me and holding me hostage?”
“You’ve got it wrong,” I told her. “No one was kidnapped. I gave you a choice, and you came with me of your own free will. And how can you call yourself a hostage when I’m not asking for a ransom?”
“So you’re saying I can walk out the door any time I want?” Her eyes were narrowed and her voice hesitant, as if she knew she was tiptoeing into a trap.
“Go ahead,” I answered, even taking a step back to prove just how free she was.
A few silent seconds stretched on as Liv stared at me assessingly. Only then did she dare to take a nervous step forward.
The moment she moved, I reached out. She gasped as my hand snapped around her wrist, holding her tight.
“Of course, the second you step outside that door without my permission, I’ll consider our deal void and send my men after your brother.”
She tried to wrench her hand back, but I held on, my fingers pressing firmly against her tender skin. “You call that a choice?”
“Sure,” I answered. “A shitty choice, maybe. But a choice all the same.”
“You’re an asshole,” she spat at me.
“And you’re a naive brat.”
For a second, her cheeks lit up with bright red anger. She raised her hand—the one I wasn’t holding—ready to sting me with a slap for the insult. Fortunately, I snatched it before she made it anywhere near my face.
All the color drained from her face the instant my eyes bored into hers. “You really don’t want to do that, Liv. If you don’t believe me about anything else, trust me on this.”
This time, the stone-cold sound of my voice was enough to reach her. Her shoulders all but folded in on themselves, and she tried to shrink away. But I wasn’t about to let her go.
Not now.
Because she was right about one thing. Obviously, I hadn’t been very clear in explaining how punishments were doled out around here. And I couldn’t expect compliance until I’d laid out the ground rules.
Hands still around her wrists, I pulled her in until her body was flush against my chest and she had to crane her neck back to look me in the eye.
“The rules of my house—the rules of my world —are very simple, Liv,” I told her. “It’s an eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth. You break my trust; I shatter yours. You slap me; I hit you back. You rile me up; I frustrate you to the edge of sanity. Understood?”
She didn’t answer, at least not with words. Her gaze stayed glued to mine, unblinking as she gave a trembling nod.
“Good,” I said. “Then this punishment for driving me mad will make perfect sense.”
The sound of her surprised cry as I pushed her back against the wall carried through the room, only growing louder as I let go of one of her wrists long enough to rip open the front of her pants. Before she could draw in another breath, I slid my hand down past her waistband and under the silken softness of her underpants.
My fingers pressed between her pussy lips with brutal efficiency. Blood roared through my veins at the feel of her wetness covering my fingertips. Clearly, I wasn’t the only one who’d been riled up by this back-and-forth conversation.
All it had taken was a few heated words and the barest of touches, and she was drenching my hand. It was enough to make me want to roar in victory.
Especially when she arched her back, her head falling against the wall.
“That’s right,” I hissed against her ear. “Pretend to hate me all you want, but your body doesn’t lie, does it? It fucking loves what I can do.”
To prove my point, I thrust two fingers deep inside her while pressing the pad of my thumb against the swollen nub of her clit. Her knees began to shake as I moved in slow circles over the most sensitive part of her body.
“Gabriel.” She breathed my name as her hands came around my shoulders, holding on for stability as I continued to wind the spring inside her tighter and tighter.
For a moment, I almost lost myself in the heat of the moment. The look of pure ecstasy on her face was intoxicating—eyes closed, head thrown back, loose curls falling over her shoulders. There was nothing I wanted more than to whisk her through the double doors of the bedroom behind us, toss her on top of the mattress, and forget about the rest of my responsibilities for the day.
Especially as her grip on me tightened and her moans grew louder and more frequent.
“Yes, yes,” she all but chanted with every rhythmic breath. “Please. Yes.”
It would have been so easy to take her over the edge. To watch her shatter. To feel even more of her warmth pour over my palm.
But that wasn’t what this was about.
She’d said she wanted to know the consequences of her actions, and by God, I was going to show her. Even if it tore me in half along with her.
I waited until her body tightened, until her cries had reached a fevered pitch, until I felt the start of the fluttering along her inner walls. Then I snatched my hand out of her pants and stepped back.
Her eyes flew open, her arms flying out the side to steady her shaking body before she crashed to the floor.
“ Gabriel ? What’s going on?” The sound of her pleading voice, questioning and begging for more all in the same breath, was almost enough to break my resolve.
Almost.
“I said you wouldn’t enjoy the consequences of frustrating me, Liv,” I said, pulling a pristine white handkerchief out of my breast pocket and wiping my fingers clean. “Now you know what it feels like.”
Her face began to burn as she struggled to catch her breath. I wasn’t sure if her flushed cheeks were from shame or anger until she opened her mouth, and rage-filled words poured out.
“That…That was a punishment? You bastard!”
“It was. And I’d watch your language…unless, of course, you want another one.” Tucking the handkerchief in my pants pocket, I pulled down my sleeve and straightened my coat before turning around and heading toward the door.
“Wait,” she called out before I reached the door. I didn’t have to stop—hell, after teaching her that lesson, I probably shouldn’t have—but I quickly realized that it took far more willpower to resist Liv’s voice than I’d originally thought. “Where are you going?”
“To talk with Matteo,” I answered without turning around.
“And what am I supposed to do while you’re gone?” she asked.
“I really don’t care,” I told her before throwing open the door and stepping out into the hall. “Just as long as you’re here when I get back.”