Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 95046 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95046 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
"Hold the fuck on." Confusion spikes into disbelief. "Giovanni's sharin' you with Jino Moretti?"
She doesn't answer.
Just stares at me with those black pupils, waitin' for permission to speak again because apparently I didn't give her explicit clearance for follow-up questions.
I laugh—short, humorless, more bark than sound. "Since when does Giovanni Bavga share anythin'?"
Suddenly, Emmaleen's hands are reachin' for me—cuffed wrist stretchin' as far as the chain will allow, fingers grasping at air between us.
"Help me," she whispers, and the desperation in her voice cuts straight through my irritation. "Please. Please help me."
I stare at her, exhausted. "I'm tryna help ya. That's what this whole bloody mess is about."
But she's not hearin' me. Not really. Her eyes are unfocused again, slippin' back into that glassy distance.
Christ, I'm tired. Bone-deep, soul-weary tired in a way that has nothin' to do with the hours I've been awake and everythin' to do with the fact that I have Giovanni bavga's sex slave in my bed.
I should've minded my own business when I saw her in the hallway. Should've just called Giovanni in that instant, fessed up to what I was doin', tell him his slave was wanderin' maybe he'd like to punish her for that, I dunno. His call. And then got the fuck out of there, drove home, lied to the Irish mob about not findin' anything. Lied to the Italian Mafia about not findin' anything. And I'd be grand right now.
Because this isn't a rescue.
I'm not sure what it is, but rescue seems like the bloody antithesis of what's happenin' here.
I reach into my jeans pocket and pull out the handcuff key. The metal catches the dim light as I step toward the bed.
Emmaleen's breathin' changes immediately—faster, shallower, anticipation and relief crashin' together in her exhale.
I unlock the cuff with a soft click.
She scrambles toward me the instant she's free, all that stillness and perfect positioning dissolvin' into frantic movement. Her arms wrap around my waist before I can step back, huggin' me tight, her face pressed hard against my stomach.
The contact is sudden, overwhelming—her bare skin against my jeans, her breasts crushed against my abdomen, the heat of her breathin' through my t-shirt in rapid, desperate bursts.
"Help me," she begs again, the words muffled against my body. "Please. I need—I need them. I need my Master. I need my King. I need—"
Her grip tightens, fingers diggin' into my back like I'm the only solid thing in a world that's spinnin' too fast.
"Emmaleen—"
"Please," she whispers, over and over. "Please, please, please—"
She tilts her head back, lookin' up at me.
The movement stretches her throat wide—long, pale, vulnerable. Giovanni's collar sits tight against her skin, the leather dark against the column of her neck. I can see her pulse hammerin' beneath the surface, rapid and erratic, visible proof of whatever storm is ragin' inside her.
Her soft breath ghosts across my stomach even through the fabric of my shirt—warm, intimate, too close.
Instantly, I'm hard.
The response is immediate, visceral, completely beyond my control. My cock thickens against my jeans, pressin' uncomfortably against the zipper as blood rushes south and every rational thought I've been clawin' onto for the past sixteen hours evaporates.
Old urges bloom inside me—familiar, insidious, powerful as any drug I've ever watched men destroy themselves over. Except, it's not just an urge, is it? Not just some fleeting thought I can dismiss with enough willpower or distraction.
This need I have for puttin' my hands on the throats of women, feelin' their pulse flutter beneath my fingertips, watchin' their eyes go hazy with oxygen deprivation and somethin' else—somethin' darker that lives in that space between control and surrender as I fuck them into oblivion…
It's an addiction.
Pure and simple. Clinical. The kind of craving that sits in your bones and waits patiently for moments exactly like this—when a beautiful, broken woman is beggin' you for somethin' you know how to give her, when her vulnerability is laid out like an offering, when every instinct you've spent years trainin' yourself to master suddenly whispers that maybe just this once wouldn't hurt, that maybe she needs it as much as you want it, that maybe this time will be different.
My brain supplies an image before I can stop it—my hand wrapped around her throat. Not gentle. Not careful. Fingers pressin' into the sides of her neck just above Giovanni's collar, applyin' pressure to the arteries, watchin' her pupils dilate even further as the blood flow restricts and her body goes pliant and trusting beneath my grip.
I can picture it so clearly it feels like memory instead of imagination. Her head tiltin' back further, exposing more of that vulnerable stretch of skin. Her lips partin' on a gasp. The way her eyes glaze over, not with fear but with somethin' worse—relief. Surrender. Like my hand on her throat is exactly what she's been cravin' since the moment I dragged her out of Giovanni's mansion.