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)
"What are you doing?" I whisper, because this gentle care feels more surreal than anything else that's happened today.
"Aftercare," he explains, continuing to pour water in steady streams across my skin. "It's mandatory after such a difficult day."
The word mandatory sits strangely in this context. Like required kindness or obligatory comfort—concepts that shouldn't exist but apparently do in Giovanni's twisted universe.
"Giovanni didn't put you to bed properly," Master continues, reaching for the unscented soap. "Or you would be clean and dressed."
The soap creates suds in his palms, and then—oh fuck—his hands are on my body, washing me with the kind of care usually reserved for something precious and fragile.
"I wrote a poem in my journal," I admit, the words spilling out before I can stop them. "It pissed him off. He stormed out."
Master doesn't comment, just continues his methodical cleansing. His hands move over my arms with surprising gentleness, massaging the soap into my skin like he's performing some kind of ritual.
When his soapy hands reach my legs, I try to convince myself this is purely medical. Clinical. Professional Dom providing aftercare services as outlined in some underground manual of best practices.
But when his hands move to my breasts, carefully caressing them with suds, my body betrays me completely.
Heat floods my core. My breathing hitches. I start squirming like a teenager experiencing her first makeout session, and I can feel my cheeks burning with embarrassment.
"It's okay," Master says, his voice maintaining that unexpected gentleness. "It's normal."
Normal?
Nothing about this situation qualifies as normal by any reasonable standard.
"I'm not supposed to be touching you like this," he continues, hands still moving with that maddening combination of care and sensuality. "But this is what Giovanni gets when he ignores basic protocols."
His thumbs graze my nipples, and I bite back a sound that would definitely qualify as inappropriate given our current circumstances.
"If Giovanni is too caught up in his own head to deliver your well-earned aftercare," Master says, his hands never pausing in their thorough ministrations, "then I'll handle it myself."
I'm holding my breath, trying to decode what handle it himself means in this context, when his hands move to my inner thighs.
Oh.
Oh.
That's what it means.
"Lean back against the tub," he commands, and I comply because apparently my brain has officially clocked out for the evening.
The tub is angled in a way that makes reclining surprisingly comfortable—like someone actually designed this torture chamber with ergonomics in mind. Which feels very on-brand for Giovanni's penchant for meticulous insanity.
Master's hands continue their methodical massage along my thighs, and when his fingers brush against the sensitive folds of my pussy, my entire body goes rigid.
But he doesn't linger. Just continues the massage like he's working out knots in my shoulders instead of... well, whatever the hell this is.
"Close your eyes," he instructs.
I do, because following orders has become my default setting today, and honestly? I'm too exhausted to fight anymore. As soon as my eyelids drop, something inside me just... releases.
Fuck it.
This isn't the man I want—that honor belongs to the emotionally unavailable mob boss who stormed out with my poetry in his head like some kind of literary thief. But Master's attention is exactly what I need right now. His hands are careful and thorough and completely focused on me, which is more consideration than I've received from another human being in longer than I care to calculate.
This is manipulation. I know it's manipulation. He's probably following some step-by-step guide from The Dominant's Handbook: How to Fuck with Your Sub's Head in Seven Easy Steps.
But I don't care.
If someone wants to touch me like I'm worth something for once in my goddamn life, then fine. I'll take it. I'll take whatever twisted version of care is on offer in this basement palace of psychological warfare.
So I let him do whatever he wants to my body, and I let myself enjoy it.
His hands move with practiced efficiency, working tension from muscles I didn't even realize were knotted. When he massages my feet, I actually moan—a sound that would have mortified me an hour ago but now just feels like honesty.
"Keep your eyes closed," he says. "Just experience the sensations."
His hands explore me in every way possible. Smooth motions along my slippery skin. Firm massaging over tired muscles. And every once in a while, a little slip. A swipe down my pussy. A twist of my nipple.
Except it's not a slip, is it? It's entirely on purpose.
Little by little, minute by minute, his touching stops being something we’re pretending is accidental and turns straight up provocative. Jino begins to arouse me on purpose. His hand slips between my legs—not a fleeting movement, either. But a lingering one. He flicks his finger against my clit, and all the pent-up tension—all the held in desire for Giovanni—builds to a peak. I bite my lip, holding it in.