Page 92 of Sin & Sapphire

Her delighted smile slayed me. I wanted to give this woman so much more fucking joy, and if that wasn’t the most fucked up thought I’d ever had, I didn’t know what was. She was a toy that Angelo and I were training to slake our kinks, nothing more. Shecouldn’tbe anything more.

We should have started training her like this in Nice, instead of wasting a week hoping she’d submit because she wanted to.

I handed her the bundle of clothes I’d retrieved from her room.

Ana’s eyes widened as she unfolded a dusky rose silk peignoir and a short gown to wear beneath it. The clothes would hide nothing from us but would give her the illusion of modesty.

“Is this—? May I—?” She paused, “Maître?”

At some point, we had to allow her to speak more freely. Yes, I wanted her on her knees, her ass bared to me and weeping with pain, always. But I wasn’t quite ready to inflict the mental pain that a punishment would entail, not today, when she was so sweet and malleable before me, determined to earn a “good girl.”

“Put it on, princess.”

Ana dashed back into the bathroom to get a smaller towel, then carefully wrapped her hair in it. I watched her, amazed at the pleasure she took in such small actions. She slipped the gown over her head, and it did nothing to hide her already hard nipples or the curves of her hips from my gaze.

“Come here,” I said, wrapping my fingers around her hip and tugging her to me. I took a nipple into my mouth, unable to resist the temptation, and sucked hard through the fabric. To my delight, she clutched her fingers around my head, holding me there, as I teased and worried at her nipple, then whining plaintively when I pulled away.

I handed her the robe, and she slid her arms into it and tied it around her waist. The woman in front of me didn’t look like the scared waif I’d rescued from a casino cell a few weeks before. Instead, a calm, cool, and collected princess looked at me through bottle green eyes I wanted to drown in.

“Come,” I commanded her.

Without complaint, she unwrapped her hair from the towel, loosened the robe so it flowed behind her, and dropped to her knees, ready to follow me where I indicated.

My cock hardened at her easy compliance, the sight of her on her hands and knees waiting for me. For the first time in a long time, I didn’t only want her pain—I wanted her obedience, I wanted her smiles. Fuck me, I wantedher.

That sentiment was neither here nor there. Ana was a spoiled brat, and the only place for her in our household was if she continued to please Angelo, to calm Angelo. And that required her total submission.

She didn’t deserve another reward—a shower and modesty were more than enough, but a tendril of warmth wound through me at the thought of making her happy. After the shit day I had interrogating assholes who thought they had the right to the Costa empire because Angelo was only thedonuntil we married Ana off, I didn’t have the energy or desire to deny myself.

I walked to the living room, where Angelo paced and made phone calls.

“Up,” I said, patting the couch beside me.

Ana didn’t question me, just clambered up and pushed herself under my arm so it rested on her shoulders as she curled up with her head on my chest. I should have pushed her off and enforced distance between us, leaving no doubts as to our roles as master and slave.

But when she curled her fingers in my shirt and hid her face against my chest, I found myself frozen, unable to move, unwilling to push her off and set her apart.

“Maître,” she whispered against my chest. She sounded so small, so unsure of herself, so unlike the confident brat I’d been driving Angelo away from for the last several years. My chest tightened as I stroked my fingers up and down her arm.

“Oui, princesse?”

“May I speak, please?”

“Oui, princesse.”

“I need to know what happened to my compound.”

I ignored her.

“Valentin,” she growled, and I reached around to swat her on the ass.

Angelo’s attention snapped to us, and a feral grin lit up his face. “I’ll call you back,” he said to whomever he was speaking with, then slid his phone into his pocket.

Ana glared up at me, adorable in her rage, and relief flooded me that we hadn’t broken her spirit—just tamed her a little bit. “Maître, would you please tell me what happened to my family compound?”

“Tchérnov burned it to the ground,” I said, not bothering to mince my words.

She searched my eyes, looking for I don’t know what. “Everything?”

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