Mafia Captive (28 page)

He stroked her back while she cried and continued to hold her when she was finished.

“You did very well, sweetheart. I’m so proud of you.”

She flushed at his words and knew she really had walked through the door this time. Though it hadn’t physically hurt as much as she’d thought it would, it
had
overwhelmed her. And these were the baby steps. The beginning. She shuddered in his arms at that thought, and he held her more tightly.

After a few minutes of silence, he helped her stand and guided her across the room. When he removed her blindfold, she was in front of the mirror. He stood behind her, his hands on her shoulders, urging her to take a look. Her face was like the faces of those women. Serene. Older. Wiser. Peaceful. Satisfied.

He turned her body to show her the marks he’d left: mostly redness with a few light stripes from the flogger. She ran her fingers over the still-warm flesh and stared, mesmerized. She felt his absence when he stepped away to turn off the record player, but was grateful to feel his hand in hers again as he wrapped her in the blanket from the bed and led her up the stairs.

What if Demetri or other members of the household staff were lurking around? They would know what she and Leo had done. It was obvious she was naked under the blanket. Why else would she be wrapped in it? But their trip to his bedroom was uneventful. It was late and the staff had retired to their part of the house, and Demetri with them. Most of the electricity was off, with only a few strategic lamps left on to light their way.

When they reached Leo’s room, he took the blanket off her and helped her into bed, tucking her in. He kissed her lightly on the forehead. “I’ll be right back.”

She nodded.

The way he looked at her… she resolved she would allow him to do anything he wanted without complaint if it meant he would always look at her like that. She’d seen desire in his eyes before. She’d seen kindness and anger and sadness. But she’d never seen this look he had now. She didn’t want to be foolish and call it love, but it was a strong fondness and affection, the kind that made her melt inside at being the recipient of such a gaze.

Leo returned a few minutes later, the cats and Max slipping in behind him before he shut the door. He held a tray with water and some cheese and crackers and fruit. He got in bed and shoved the food toward her.

“Eat something. It will help you feel more grounded.”

The light snack did help to bring her back to reality and the world of solid three-dimensional things. He set the tray on the table beside the sofa, undressed, and climbed into bed with her. She assumed they would sleep, but he was erect again—no doubt from everything they’d done in the dungeon.

He guided her down the length of him, and she took him into her mouth again, pleasuring him until he was satisfied.

Chapter Eighteen

Leo’s erection had grown physically painful, but he’d gagged her and wasn’t ready to replace the gag with his cock yet. Tears streamed down her face as he laid down lines of welts across her ass with the cane. He needed to make her cry more. She had to earn her pleasure with tears. Enough time had passed for that to be the price.

The gag frightened her, still, which drove him harder to use it. She needn’t fear. He knew when enough was enough with her. He’d been careful and exercised restraint. Each time the cane came down, she winced in a way that both made him want to comfort her and hit her again to watch that reaction… the intense expression of pain on her face, the tears that rolled down, and the lovely welt as it bloomed so quickly into those sharp red lines with the groove he loved to run his tongue along.

He knew what the cane felt like. Though, used properly, it didn’t often break skin, the hard rap of a thin dowel of rattan or steel always left a profound impression on the recipient. It was a kind of pain that bound them more tightly together each time he utilized it. He wasn’t sure if she realized how she’d grown softer toward him, more happy to please him, more relaxed outside the dungeon, more natural in all of their interactions, as if she’d been born and shaped in the fires of creation to be his slave.

If he could read her mind, every thought would be of him and how to please him. Something in these exchanges made her so vulnerable that even while he was crushing her, he wanted to preserve and protect her. He’d destroy anything that came between the two of them. Anyone. His obsession toward her was of a character unlike what he’d felt with others. Even Mei Lin. Mei Lin was a wonderful sub and a masochist, but the chemistry between them was nothing like the chemistry that came alive when he touched Faith and she melted beneath him.

They’d been together like this for months. The snow had melted and fled as winter had edged into spring, and spring was beginning to be oppressed and wilted by the heat of the coming summer. Faith was on the phone with his mother nearly every day as June loomed nearer.

She was still less than excited about the wedding. Did she see him as a monster, forcing her to marry him on threat of death or horror? She’d said she loved him. Wasn’t marriage what all women fantasized about? Wasn’t he giving her the right things? She’d promised to stay with him; what difference did jewelry and a piece of paper make? Maybe she didn’t want to lose her identity inside his as Jacobson was exchanged for Raspallo. After all, he’d never allow her to keep her name, or hyphenate. She was his, and she’d wear his name like a brand across her flesh.

Leo let the cane fall once more, this time going across the tops of her thighs, which made her jump as if he’d sent a bolt of electricity through her. Some day. He hadn’t yet been able to bring himself to use the violet wand. Electrical play could be scary. She wasn’t ready, and he wouldn’t risk damaging her trust in him again. They had all the time in the world together to get there.

She cried around the gag, nearly spent, almost at the breaking point that might send her into insanity if he didn’t stop soon. He set the cane on the tray and went to the medical bag with the salve. She whimpered as he rubbed the cool cream into her skin.

He tried not to go this intense every day, certainly not across the same expanse of flesh. Sometimes he was softer with her, more gentle. Some nights it was about humiliation, devising ways to make her uncomfortable for the sheer joy of watching her obediently carry out his demands. He’d used toys of every stripe: vibrators and dildos and anal plugs, gaining great amusement when he made her wear a plug for hours during the day. He’d enjoyed watching the blush come over her face when she’d encountered Demetri or another member of the household staff, afraid someone might realize there was a smooth, lubricated piece of glass being held between her cheeks.

He had slowly moved up in the size of the plug… preparing her body for a use he knew she was smart enough to know was coming. Each time he went up a size he could feel the anticipation that hummed through her as she closed her eyes and took slow, even breaths. Each time the toy inched in, an expression of pleasure lit her face.

He’d been shocked by her pleasure. Not every woman reacted to it that way.

And yet, he’d held back. He had to be sure he wouldn’t damage her physically or emotionally when he did it. Since the night he’d had to atone for, the night he couldn’t think about too long, or give the ugly name that he knew the event deserved, he hadn’t penetrated her in the normal way. He wouldn’t fuck her until she begged him for it, and so far, she hadn’t. He’d contented himself during that time with the use of her mouth and her tiny hand wrapped around him, jerking him off when he demanded she join him in the shower.

Some days he tied her up and tortured her in other ways—with teasing and orgasm denial. Sometimes he used the clamps on her nipples and on her labia, adding small weights until she couldn’t take it anymore. She’d obeyed him in everything, her body slowly becoming as confused as he’d known it would until her nerve endings responded to his cues instead of those coming from her own brain.

He slipped a finger inside her to find the wetness he’d known would be there. He doubted she would ever be a true masochist, but the desire to please him had transmuted into physical arousal like lead into gold.

He had thought the catalyst for her body’s full capitulation would be more physical pleasure, but desire was desire, and her need for his approval had moved between her legs to express itself in the way she knew would gratify him most. It was more sweet than if he’d only plied her with pleasure.

He continued to finger her as her body rocked to keep rhythm with him, then he replaced his fingers with a vibrator until she came screaming around the gag. He pushed her beyond the point of pleasure and waited patiently for her second and then her third orgasm before finally allowing her the mercy of a space without sensation in it.

Leo left her tied down as he removed the gag. She remained quiet, the tears sliding silently down her cheeks.

“Are you all right, sweetheart?”

“Yes, Master,” she whispered.

But she wasn’t all right. He raised her chin to look into her eyes and was struck by the painful sadness he found there. He was ruining her. And yet, her body responded. She was desperate to make him happy. If he offered her freedom again, it would only upset her more. She was addicted to him, unable to be without him but clearly disgusted with what she’d become at his hands. He was disgusted with the things he’d done to her. And yet… he couldn’t stop. The more disgust he felt, the more desire, the more unyielding the urge to keep going and never stop.

He’d planned to use her mouth, but couldn’t now, not with so much pain and sadness in her eyes. This wasn’t the cathartic crying of a good session. It wasn’t the bittersweet pain that melted back into pleasure. It was genuine distress. He untied her and rubbed the salve on her wrists and ankles, then sat on the table with her, holding her in his arms.

Leo was glad for the integrity of the furniture that allowed them both to use it at once. He stroked her hair and fought the urge to cry with her.

“Do I make you that unhappy?”

“N-no, Master.” Her voice was muffled against his shoulder, but he heard her. And he didn’t believe her. Part of him wanted to punish her for her lies, but the sadness was so deep that to punish her further might break him past the point from which he could recover.

“Can you stand?”

She nodded and got off the table.

“Let’s go have a shower,” he said.

Faith was shaky as she walked. He stayed behind her, guiding her so she didn’t fall.

In the bathroom, he laid out towels for them and turned the water on, waiting for it to heat to the right temperature. “Would you be happier if we called off the wedding?” His family would give him hell for it, and he’d have to hide her during the holidays… but they wouldn’t be happy with the lack of children produced, either. And frankly, none of it was their business in the first place. This had all gone too far. He wouldn’t sacrifice Faith to keep his family relations humming along.

“No! D-do you want to call it off?” She looked so fragile and broken, as if he were doing anything but trying to find the right thing to do to take away the pain. As if he would call off the wedding to hurt her in some way or to use as emotional blackmail to keep her in line.

“No,” he said. “But with how I feel about the sanctity of the institution, what it means to the Church… to force you into marriage… whatever our arrangement otherwise, I can’t do it if it’s going to torment you like this.”

She looked away, her eyes studying the black and silver pattern on the shower curtain. “Please don’t call it off.”

Leo pulled her back into his arms. He pressed his lips against her cheek. “I won’t.”

They got under the spray together, and he gently washed her. She leaned against the wall, quiet and still as a trophy as he ran his hands over her with the soap, not moving until he pulled her under the water to rinse her.

He put the soap in her hands and groaned as she lathered him. Faith lingered on his cock, stroking and squeezing with her soapy hands. She didn’t slow down until he came. He hadn’t asked her to do it. She’d seen his raging erection and had taken care of matters because she understood it was her duty to keep him satisfied. He gripped her shoulders as he rode the fading strains of his orgasm.

Then she went back to washing him as if nothing had happened. When she reached his back, she started crying again. Tears she couldn’t stop or control.

The scars.

When he’d asked Esmeralda to make him pay for what he’d done, he hadn’t thought about how the scars would be a permanent reminder, not just to him, but to Faith, and not just about what he’d done to try to make it right, but what had precipitated the event to make it necessary: that night that could never be erased, no matter how much blood flowed to cover it.

But Faith’s words surprised him. “Your poor back. How could you let someone do this to you?”

Her fingertips traced over the scars as his silent tears blended into the falling water.

Chapter Nineteen

Faith sat in front of a mirror in the many-windowed room in the east wing. Her wedding veil lay before her on the vanity table. Gemma had offered to help her get ready, but it was only a ruse to try to talk Faith out of marrying her brother. It was anathema to her that Leo should be happy after killing her husband.

“I know my brother is very charming, but you know what he did to Emilio. What makes you think you’re safe with him?”

As if Faith needed more things to fear. Though Leo hadn’t harmed her since that one night, it always existed as a possibility now.

“Leo loves me,” she said. It hurt to say it because he’d never uttered the words, and she had no reason to believe it. But people assumed marriage was about love, and if she didn’t speak in terms of romance and candy that his sister could relate to, someone might see through the whole ploy. And they were so close to the end.

“Leo loves Leo.”

Faith held back the urge to cry as Gemma gave voice to her greatest fear.

“He
is
hurting you, isn’t he?”