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I anticipated something going wrong and was surprised when it didn’t.
Turns out, I just wasn’t looking in the right zip code.
We step over the shattered door as I march Contessa back through the house. She goes with her head down, steps stiff. I wonder if she realizes how lucky she is, that if I had come back here in a different mood this morning, maybe I wouldn’t be so forgiving.
The girl has me more off-balance than she knows. For two days, I haven’t had my hands anywhere on that body, haven’t had her moans whispered against my ear as she clings to me like I can save her from herself.
Through a thick slab of one-way, bullet-proof glass, I watched Contessa’s cheap, knock-off imitation shake her ass on stage and flash her tits. I watched and felt nothing. I didn’t even have patience for the whores that came around to serve drinks and flirt with me and my men, looking for tips.
Contessa is supposed to rely on me for her pleasure. It’s not supposed to go both ways.
She takes her march of shame well until we reach the bedroom doorway. I sprawl my hand against her lower back, threatening another firm tap against that blazing red ass. She still hesitates. She really must hate this fucking room. Once inside, her expression dims at the sound of the door shutting.
“Show me how you got out.”
She holds her silence. That tells me enough.
“So, you could do it again, if you wanted. Or maybe it was Ava—”
“It wasn’t Ava,” she confesses, immediately, just like I knew she would.
“Well, I have no proof to the contrary, do I?”
The girl folds like paper when I apply the slightest pressure to someone innocent. From the dresser, she fishes out a disassembled pen and hands it over like prison contraband. She claims it was already in the room when she found it. That much, I believe, recognizing the name printed on it.
“Taking the method isn’t enough, Contessa. There’s more than just pens that can work on a lock like that.”
“Then change the lock,” she says, the obvious solution.
“That’s not what needs to change.”
She braces for the verdict as I encroach on her. My hands fit so perfectly around her waist, like she was built for me. I feel the tension in her as she wonders if her punishment isn’t over yet.
“What do you suggest?” she asks stiffly. “A lobotomy?”
I ignore the dry quip and pop open the button of her jeans.
“Take these off.”
She pulls them down carefully. I order her to the bed, where she lays on her stomach, putting that perky ass in the air. Beneath the thin cotton of her underwear, her skin practically glows, a vibrant red giving off its own heat. She won’t be able to sit for a couple days without remembering this, carrying it with her like my own signature on her skin.
Her tension radiates, bracing for the next layer of pain.
I dampen a hand towel from the bathroom and bring it to her. I sit on the edge of the bed and drag the cool rag against her skin. Her round ass twitches at the first contact, but she relaxes slowly into the relief.
“What are you doing?” she asks, watching me over her shoulder.
“I take care of what’s mine,” I say. Whether she understands me or not, she doesn’t answer. Even I have to take a step back and check myself, look in on the moment like a stranger in my own skin. I tell myself it’s deliberate. Intentional. This serves a purpose, my purpose. It’s not just a symptom of the spell she has me under.
But goddamn, the girl has me in a haze that sets my teeth on edge.
“I just got back this morning. A job like mine doesn’t work on a schedule, Contessa. I can’t always predict when I’ll be called away.”
“Did something happen?” she asks.
I ignore her prying for information, squeezing the cloth until water runs in droplets down her skin. She shivers, the tension bleeding slowly out of her muscles. Her face grows soft and thoughtful, again, showing all those complicated emotions beneath that bitter, pent-up façade.
“Is this your way of saying sorry?” she asks, softer, so I can barely hear her.
