Page 52 of Lies like Rubies, Part Two (Savage Jewels)

“You’re stillmyslut,” he rasped.

Sofia nodded sharply.

“Prove it.”

The knife clattered to the floor as she sank to her knees before him.

I couldn’t watch this farce. I shoved Nick aside and stormed out.

22

DANTE

Sofia reachedup to unbuckle my belt, and I stopped her. As much as I ached to reassert my rights as her owner, the thought of covering her in the blood of the useless fuck we’d interrogated filled me with disgust.

“Hands behind your back, slut.”

“What’s your safeword, Sofia?” Nico asked, as if she hadn’t used it a moment ago to stop me.

Sofia looked up at me with bold eyes, a hint of trepidation in her gaze, and something else she tried to hide when she licked her lips. Manipulation? My respect for my kitten grew. Far better that she understand the tug and pull of our dynamic than mistake it for anything else. Because it wasn’t anything else. It couldn’t be, not with Sergio still alive and breathing, his specter ever present between us.

“I won’t use it,” she said as she clasped her hands behind her back.

“Leave,” I snapped at Nico, unwilling to share with anyone else, even a man who’d enlivened our play as much as he had.

Nico gnashed his teeth at me, then smiled, predatoryand fierce. The expression was so unlike him, I was taken aback.

“She has class at nine,” he said. “And if you treat her poorly, I will kill you myself.”

Our motley crew didn’t entirely trust each other yet, not with Sofia, in any case.

“I won’t do anything to her that she doesn’t want me to.”

Nico bent to brush his lips across her hair. “I’ll go run interference with Miss Carolina until you get upstairs.”

She turned her face up to capture his lips. “Thank you.”

“Thank you, sir,” Nico said. He might pretend he wants to protect her, but he was as eager as me to start our games again.

“Thank you, sir,” she repeated. He patted my shoulder. “You’ve probably got ten minutes to get her up the stairs and into your room.”

As if I weren’t also perfectly aware that Miss Carolina’s alarm went off at 5:30 on the nose every morning.

“You heard him, slut. Ten minutes. Strip, then crawl up the stairs so both Nico and I can appreciate that gorgeous pussy of yours.”

Her eyes widened, and then she threw off her borrowed T-shirt, dropping it on the floor as she scrambled toward the stairs.

Yellow and green bruises still dotted the curves of her ass and her thighs, and murderous rage threatened to ruin this gorgeous moment with my fierce kitten, instead of taking her upstairs and sending her into subspace so she could continue to pretend there were no traumatic aftereffects to whatever she’d suffered at Sergio’s hands.

Nico nudged me forward, and I followed our gorgeous woman, my eyes never leaving her hips as she crawled up the stairs.

“You’re so goddamned gorgeous,” Nico murmured as she reached the top and looked over her shoulder, half siren, half uncertain. “Keep going, baby, right into Dante’s room.”

I reached down to slap her ass, and she startled forward before sending a reproachful glance my way. I leaned over her to open my door.

Nico touched my arm, then whispered in my ear, “She was bratting last night—unlike her.”

I frowned. Sofia wasn’t a brat—or at least, she hadn’t shown any tendency toward bratting.Shit.I fucking hated brat taming. I needed utter submission, not a goddamned fight every goddamned time.

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