Page 8 of His to Hold

“Taxi.” The word is almost inaudible through her gut-wrenching sobs.

“What?” I’m not asking her to repeat herself. I just can’t believe what she said. Does she want to leave? Would she really rather face Rico’s family than take a thrashing from me? I don’t get the chance to ask. Isabella pushes herself up off the desk. Without giving me a backward glance, she runs from the room.

It takes me a few seconds to compose myself. What just happened is bewildering. Did I really hurt her so badly she had to get away? On reflection, I don’t think I did. I’ve spanked women much more harshly in the past and not gotten such a theatrical response. Perhaps it was the act of submitting to punishment that was too much for her.

Stepping out into the corridor, I’m just in time to see Isabella turn toward the stairs. There’s a brief flash of her bare pink butt from beneath my t-shirt before she disappears from view. A better man wouldn’t experience a surge of desire on seeing the result of his discipline, but I’ve never claimed to be a good person.

As Isabella heads upstairs, I follow. Trying not to spook her further, I don’t race after her. I take my time, allowing her to get to my bedroom ahead of me. When I enter the room, she’s lying face down on the bed. Her shoulders shake as she sobs into a pillow. Fuck! Despite everything, I hate seeing her like this.

“Isabella.” I announce my presence as I walk toward her because I’m not sure she heard me come in and I don’t want to startle her. “Sit up and face me, please.”

Sniffing loudly, she does as I asked. She looks up at me, eyes red and puffy. Her cheeks are streaked with tears. Though she’s a bedraggled mess right now, nothing can diminish her beauty. It’s those vivid green eyes, the vulnerability they betray, that pull me in. An uncharacteristic urge to put an arm around my wife and offer her comfort comes over me, but I resist it. I want to have a frank conversation about what happened just now and can’t allow myself to get sidetracked.

“I’m sorry,” Isabella says before I speak. “Please don’t ask me to leave. I can’t face Rico’s family.”

“You’re my wife, Isabella. I’m not going to throw you to the wolves.”

She looks up at me with wide, scared eyes, and I realize my stance might be intimidating. I’m hovering over her with my arms folded across my chest. Shoving my hands in my pockets, I step back and lean against the dresser. It’s a more casual pose that will hopefully put Isabella a bit more at ease. While I don’t mind her being on edge, I’d prefer not to witness a complete meltdown.

“But I used my safe word,” she says.

That makes me grin. I can’t help it. What would my inexperienced wife know about safe words?

“You don’t have a safe word, Bella. I decide when a punishment is over, not you.”

“But you told me to say taxi if I wanted you to stop.”

I rub my chin thoughtfully. It seems there’s been a misunderstanding here. “I was giving you the chance to either accept a spanking with my belt or leave. It wasn’t a suggestion for a safe word.”

“I don’t get it.” The exasperation in her voice emphasizes the fact. “If I don’t have a safe word, how can I get you to stop if it’s too much for me?”

“You can’t.”

The furrowing of her brow tells me I’m going to have to be clearer about what I want from her.

“Isabella, I expect you to trust that I will realize when you’ve had enough and stop before I push you beyond your limits.”

“But I thought the submissive was the one who decided.”

I almost roll my eyes. What the hell does she think is going on here?

“You’ve been reading too many books, Bella. I’m not a Dom. I want control in the bedroom, and I will punish you when I feel you’ve earned it, but there will be no negotiations and no safe words. You’ll obey me in the bedroom and outside of it.”

She swallows so hard I hear the gulp. “You expect me to give you permission to do whatever you want to me? I’m to have no say in what happens in my life?”

I scrub a hand over my face. Does she not realize her ability to do as she wished was stripped away the moment I put a ring on her finger? As the wife of a mafia boss, she was always going to have to live within strict boundaries. The men who work under me have expectations of how she should behave and my enemies would exploit any opportunity to get to me through her. I thought I’d made that clear to her from the start.

“You’ll get the opportunity to prove yourself trustworthy and earn certain freedoms, but you’ll never be able to go out and do whatever you want,” I tell her. “I’ll be hard on you, Bella, but I’ll be fair.”

“Uh-huh.” She sounds unconvinced.

“This is your last chance, Bella. Accept how things are going to be or leave.”

Her eyes flash with irritation, an encouraging sign that the inner strength I know she possesses hasn’t been completely sapped out of her.

“You know I can’t do that.”

“Sure you can. You just have to understand that rejecting my generous offer to resume our marriage means you have to go it alone.”

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