Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 102375 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 512(@200wpm)___ 410(@250wpm)___ 341(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102375 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 512(@200wpm)___ 410(@250wpm)___ 341(@300wpm)
Giovanni appears in my peripheral vision like some fever dream of everything I simultaneously want and should run screaming from. Shirtless. Because of course he is. Because the universe has decided that today is National Kick Emmaleen When She's Down Day, and apparently that includes parading around half-naked men with the kind of bodies that should come with warning labels.
And yes. Yes. That's exactly what it takes to break me.
This man with his impossible green eyes and his stupid perfect torso and his... Christ, is he actually hard right now? Like, visibly, obviously, aggressively erect? Because that's just fantastic. Absolutely stellar timing, Universe. Really outdoing yourself today.
I sigh before I can stop myself. A long, shaky exhale that sounds like a white flag being raised.
The want hits me like a freight train loaded with bad decisions and daddy issues. It's immediate and devastating and completely inappropriate given that I'm currently sitting naked in a basement dungeon having just spent the better part of the day being systematically humiliated by his leather-clad dungeon master.
But there it is anyway. Want. Pure, and simple, and utterly mortifying.
My heart does this stupid little skip-beat thing as he moves toward me. He's coming over. Finally. We're going to talk—really talk—like we did in the car during our twisted road trip game of Lie, Lie, Truth with Trauma. We'll banter and trade insults like intellectual foreplay, and then we'll fuck each other senseless like we did in the pool house.
Giovanni will make this right. He'll crack some dry joke about my performance today, maybe tease me about crying, and then he'll erase every one of those demerits with his hands and his mouth and that ridiculous cock that's currently making its presence very known through his pants.
Giovanni drops a notebook onto the desk with a soft thud that somehow sounds final. Ominous. Like a gavel falling or a coffin lid closing.
A fountain pen appears in his palm—sleight of hand that would be impressive if I weren't currently having a minor emotional breakdown—and he sets it beside the notebook with the precision of a surgeon placing instruments.
He points to the notebook. "Open it up."
That's it. No banter. No clever wordplay. No acknowledgment that I've been sitting here having what can only be described as an extended mental health crisis while wearing exactly zero clothes.
Just, Open it up.
And then he walks past me.
Past me.
Like I'm a piece of furniture. Like I'm the desk instead of the person sitting at it.
I crane my neck, trying to follow his movement, desperate to see where he's going, what he's doing, whether he's still sporting that impressive erection or if it was just my imagination running wild.
"Eyes forward."
The command cuts through the air like a blade, sharp and absolute. My head snaps back to face front so fast I probably give myself whiplash.
Behind me, there's a subtle shift in the lighting. A warm glow creeps into my peripheral vision, chasing away some of the murky darkness that's been pressing against the edges of my sanity all day.
Leather creaks. Not the quick snap of the crop, but something slower. Deeper. Like someone settling into a chair.
And then Giovanni's voice fills the space behind me, cool and measured and absolutely devastating in its clinical detachment.
He begins reading my day back to me like a court reporter. Like a fucking grocery list of my failures:
"8:10 a.m., subject fails to be silent. 8:11 a.m., subject fails to be still. 8:12 a.m., subject fails to lower her chin. 8:13 a.m., stand on command…”
It goes on and on like that. Subject makes unauthorized eye contact. Subject cracks joke. Oh, no! Not a joke! Whatever shall we do with this heathen?
Subject talks out of turn. Subject swears. Subject breathes wrong.
Each word lands like a small slap. Precise. Methodical. Completely devoid of the warmth or humor I've come to associate with Giovanni's voice.
This isn't the man who shared poetry about wisteria in the grotto. This isn't the damaged boy who told me about being kidnapped at eight years old. This is someone else entirely. Something else entirely.
"At 9:15 a.m., subject corrected Position One for excessive trembling. Physical inadequacy noted."
The litany continues: 9:23 a.m., 9:47 a.m., 10:15 a.m. Each timestamp a tiny burial for whatever dignity I thought I had left.
I let my mind drift somewhere safer—anywhere that isn't this basement, cataloguing my spectacular failure at being Giovanni Bavga's sex puppet. Maybe I'm back in my dorm room at Case Western, pulling an all-nighter on a Shakespearean analysis that actually mattered. Maybe I'm in the shelter cafeteria, choking down mystery meat and pretending Sister Margaret's daily affirmations aren't slowly killing my will to live.
Anywhere but here, listening to Giovanni dissect my day like a coroner performing an autopsy on my self-respect.
But the rage keeps pulling me back. Because this clinical recitation of my inadequacies is not what I signed up for when I demanded double or nothing. This is not the Giovanni who made me come in his lap while Rico watched. This is not the man who trusted me with his darkest secret.