Page 20 of Owning Nicci

When Savio decides that I can’t take any more of the punishing workout, he orders me up from the mat and leads me out to the car before we head back to the penthouse. He doesn’t say a word to me until we’re back in the room, when he closes the door and looks pointedly at me.

“Clothes, pet,” he says calmly, and I feel my stomach tighten.

“Of course, sir,” I murmur, even as my mind rebels against the idea of giving up my clothing again. It isn’t even really that bad, being without my clothes—it’s not as if I’m cold or being exposed to anyone that I don’t want to be, or being hurt in any way besides my pride. But it’s that pride, that feeling of vulnerability, that makes me hesitate for a split second before I start to undress, my sore muscles protesting with every movement. I can see from the look on Savio’s face that he didn’t fail to notice it.

I start to toss the sweaty clothes into a heap on the bed, but Savio’s expression stops me. I force myself to fold them into a neat pile before turning to face him again, and I watch as his gaze slides over my naked body.

There’s a flicker of that heat in his eyes again, that desire. He’s holding it back, leashing it tightly, and I wonder why. It’s not as if he can’t have me. He’s made it abundantly clear that I belong to him, to do with as he pleases. But he’s not demanding his pleasure now, and the reasoning for it is a mystery to me.

I mull it over after he leaves with the clothes, while I soak in a hot bath that leaches some of the soreness from my muscles. But I can’t find an answer—not one that satisfies me, anyway.

It goes on like this for three weeks. Every morning, I wake up to breakfast already delivered, and a little while later, Savio appears with clean clothes and orders to meet him downstairs.We train—shooting, working out, and finally practicing using a knife. Then we come back. I take off the clothes he gave me and collapse into a bath before eating lunch. Later, I have the dinner that’s brought up to me. After a week of good behavior, I convince him to buy me Epsom salts for my baths, and my afternoons turn into hot, lavender-scented soaks.

And not once, at any point during those three weeks, does he touch me. Every time I take my clothes off when we return home, I see that hunger, that heat building in his eyes. I see him start to get hard just by looking at me. The tension thickens as the days pass, that taut string that I imagined feeling when he demanded my submission that first day tightening, until I wonder if it will snap.

But it doesn’t. And I find the tension getting to me, too. I find my hands wandering in the bath as I remember that afternoon, Savio’s cock in my mouth, choking me, his hands wrapped in my hair. How used I felt, like a doll, a toy for his pleasure. It shouldn’t turn me on, but it does—and I wonder if it’s at least partiallybecauseI shouldn’t be aroused by it. As the days pass, the memory blurring into something softer and more palatable, I can feel myself getting wet and swollen every time I remember it—my fingers dipping between my folds in the bath, in bed, in moments where I drift off into the memory, before I yank my hand away and mentally reprimand myself for evenconsideringtouching myself to the thought of Savio using me.

Just into the third week, I’m surprised after I’ve finished dinner. I’ve just taken the last bite of the lamb medallions on my plate, the roasted vegetables and garlic mashed potatoes long since finished off, when the door opens, and Savio steps inside.

He’s slightly less formally dressed than he usually is when I see him. He’s still wearing suit trousers and a button-down, but his jacket is gone. “Are you finished?” he asks, glancing at my tray, and I nod.

“Yes, sir.”

“Good girl.” His gaze sweeps over me, and I feel a small flicker of pride when I see that heat darken his eyes. I’ve looked at myself naked in the mirror every day for the last three weeks—I’ve seen the subtle changes in my body already from the plentiful food and all of the exercise. I’ve always been on the thin side, no matter what, but I can see that I look stronger. And I can see that reflected in the way he looks at me, too.

I don’t want his approval. I don’t care.I remind myself of that as I wait to find out why he’s come up here to visit me, outside of our usual routine for the last few weeks. I’ve gone so long without anyone’s approval that it’s easy to forget, sometimes. To slip up.

“I’ve tracked down one of the Crows,” Savio says, and my heart leaps in my chest. “A man named Lucas Giacometti. Did you know him?”

I swallow hard, trying to think. I wasn’t introduced to very many of the Crows by name. Barca wasn’t of the mind that I needed to be on a named basis with them—jealousy, I think—and I didn’t care. I was focused on anything that would keep him happy, that would keep him working with my father, because that was the only way that I got to have a future.

A future that all came crumbling down anyway.

“I might know him by sight,” I say carefully. “But I don’t know the name.”

Savio reaches into his pocket, pulling out a folded sheet of paper. He hands it to me, and I’m once again painfully aware of the fact that I’m naked. It feels strange, having a semi-ordinary conversation like this while he’s fully clothed and I’m not.

Although there’s nothing ordinary about planning an assassination with my kidnapper.

I smooth the paper out on the surface of the desk, next to my empty dinner tray. A printed photo of a man looks up atme—probably in his mid-thirties, dark-haired, decently good-looking, wearing simple clothing and a thin gold chain around his neck, visible against his black t-shirt.

“He looks like a lot of the men who worked with Barca,” I say finally, after studying the photo for a few moments. “But I don’t recognize him specifically.”

Savio nods, taking the paper back from me. “I’m sure that he’s one of the Crows,” he says, tucking it back into his pocket. “But I wondered if he was one you knew any better than the others.” He pauses. “Any of these men might recognize you?—”

“I have a plan for that,” I blurt out, and Savio’s brows rise.

“Did you just interrupt me,principessa?”

My chest tightens, a jolt of fear rattling my ribcage. I can’t make Savio angry, not now, not when I’m so close to finally taking the first step in my revenge. These last miserable three weeks of following his every order and running myself into the ground can’t be for nothing.

“I’m sorry, sir,” I say quickly, bristling at every word but forcing myself not to think about it.

“You have a plan,” he repeats slowly. “What is that plan?”

I feel heat creep up my neck. “Barca’s men often…wanted me. He would threaten to give me to them if I upset him. I know from whispers that I heard, occasionally, that his men hoped if they stayed on his good side, they’d get a shot at me if I ever pissed him off enough to follow through on it. They’d make bets on who might get to be the first, or talk about how they’d done something particularly well—and that it might improve their chances. So I think—” I’m once again painfully aware of how exposed I am, of how Savio can look at me and see every single thing those men once coveted. “I think I could easily convince pretty much any of them to be alone with me.”

I wait for him to mock me, to say what a high opinion I must have of myself. But instead he nods, slowly, and I see his jawtense slightly, that dark, possessive heat that I’ve seen before filling his eyes.

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