Page 32 of Owning Nicci

11

NICCI

My expectation is that Savio will take me back to my room. Instead, his hand stiffens on my back as we reach the landing just before my door, and he urges me past it, down the hall towards his room.

My heartbeat pounds in my ears again, the blood rushing through my veins. I remember the press of the leather collar around my neck, his hand in my hair, his cock shoving down my throat, cutting off my air, my thoughts, everything except how itfelt.

It felt, for that moment,good.

I’m angry with him. I am. Ihatehim. But my body is humming as he urges me towards his bedroom door, wondering what’s in store for me behind that secret panel tonight.

What he’s going to do to me.

Savio leads me into the cool, quiet dark of his room, which smells of leather and cedar—utterly masculine. He walks to the back wall. Lays his hand on the panel, and I hear it click open.

My heart thumps hard in my chest—with fear or anticipation, I’m not sure which. I tell myself it’s fear as I walk forward…only fear. I don’t want it to be anything else. Certainly not desire.

I step into the room, and just like before, the lights come flickering on. It’s warm inside, a perfect, pleasant temperature, but I shiver when I hear Savio follow me and close the door.

“Kneel.” The command comes out sharp and firm, and I want to resist. To refuse. But I know this is how I make up for what happened tonight. How I try to salvage our bargain before I lose it all.

And a small part of me, buried deep, wants to find out what happens if I obey. What he’ll do to me—and how it will feel.

I drop to my knees. He didn’t tell me to turn and face him, so I don’t. I simply sink down, my skirt sliding up my thighs as my bare knees touch the hard wooden floor, and I feel Savio behind me.

His fingers brush over the twist that I put my hair in tonight. One by one, he pulls the pins out of it, flicking them to the side. I hear each one hit the floor with aping, as my hair tumbles down around my shoulders.

Savio wraps his hand in it, making a fist. He tugs my head back so that I’m looking up at him—upside down. Even like this, I can see how cold his face is, how impassive—but his eyes are different. I can see the lust there, the need burning in their emerald depths.

“You will obey,” Savio says, his voice ever-so-slightly rough at the edges, a rasp to it that tells me he’s hovering on the edge of control once again. “You will do as I command. And then,principessa, I will decide if we still have a deal.”

Swallowing hard, I nod as much as I can with the grip that he has on my hair. He tugs once. “Up,” he commands, and I get to my feet as gracefully as I can.

He lets go of my hair. “Go to the bench.” He gestures towards an angled leather bench at one side of the room, and my stomach flips, nervousness bleeding through me. But I think of how it feltto kill Lucas, to taste vengeance for the first time. How it felt to see a man who had made me feel fear…fear me instead.

I walk to the bench with slow, graceful steps, trying to put a sway in my hips—something to entice Savio. To make him think that I’m trying to please him. My heart slams behind my ribs again, my blood buzzing in my veins, and I tell myself that it’s not anticipation. It’s only fear. Only worry that when this is over, it won’t be enough.

“On your stomach,” Savio instructs, and I obey, climbing onto the bench and lying down on my stomach. The leather is cool, smooth, and buttery against my skin, and I lie absolutely still as he moves toward me, bending down to bind my wrists and ankles to the cuffs at the edges of the bench. When he’s finished with that, I see movement out of the corner of my eye, and then the bench shifts, angling so that my body is hinged at the hips, my head tilted down and my ass angled upwards.

“Beautiful,” Savio breathes. He hasn’t taken off an inch of clothing. Once again, I’m bare, bound, utterly vulnerable—and he’s still fully clothed. I’ve almost come to expect it now, even in this short time. If he got undressed, I think, watching him cross the room to a cabinet on the other side, at this pointit would feel like intimacy.Like vulnerability from him, too. And that, I’m sure, will never be something he shows me.

Would I want him to? Why?

The thought is cut short as Savio takes something out of the cabinet—a riding crop. A shudder runs down my spine as I see him run his hand along it, hear the sharp crack of it against the palm of his hand as he turns back to me with a smirk on his lips.

“I could have let you choose,” he says. “But I wanted this tonight. I considered a cane or a flogger. But I think this will deliver the punishment that you deserve.”

What does that mean?He cracks the crop against his palm again, and I bite my lip, curling my fingers into my palms. As he walks closer, another shiver runs through me.

He brushes the tip of it against my hair, pushing the strands away from the back of my neck. And then he drags the tip of the crop down my spine, from the very edge of my hairline all the way to the base of my lower back, in a long, slow drag that has me trembling by the time I feel the stiff leather brush against the very bottom of my spine.

“You will learn to obey me,” Savio murmurs, dragging the tip of the crop over the curve of my ass. “You will learn who you belong to.”

The crop comes down on my ass with asnap, and I cry out. I can’t help it. The sound is high-pitched, and my cheeks flush red with embarrassment, but I couldn’t have prepared myself for how it would feel. For the burning sting of it, as he brings the crop down onto my ass over and over, in sharp strokes that leave me whimpering and sobbing with pain.

I’ve never been spanked before, not like this. I’ve had men swat me on the ass at the club or try to spank me with a hand during sex, but there’s no comparison here. Those clumsy attempts are nothing compared to the stern, effectual strokes that Savio crisscrosses over my skin with an expertise that tells me he’s done this before, many times.

The moment the thought runs through my head, that jealousy burns through me again. The thought of him with some other woman strapped to this bench, his cock aching as he whips her skin red, makes my jaw clench and my fists tighten.Why do I want to be special?

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