When the rain starts back up, I duck into one of the shops and use Sebastian’s money to buy an umbrella. Back outside, I watch people rush by, some with giant umbrellas, some on bikes, and tourists dragging their oversize suitcases along uneven, rain-soaked streets. I listen to their complaints about the weather and I think they should be grateful. They’re free. How we take simple freedoms for granted. How I did.
A car drives too fast to make the traffic light, splashing water on my legs. I look up, mentally curse the driver, and realize why there are so many people with suitcases here.
I’m at the Verona train station.
When the light changes, I cross the street, avoiding the bigger puddles, and run under the cover of the overhanging roof of the station, shaking out my umbrella and closing it before walking inside. It’s busy here and loud with people waiting out of the rain.
I reach into my pocket, feeling the stack of bills, and read the schedule boards. There’s a train leaving for Rome in thirty minutes, and a ticket will cost me €65.
I walk toward the counter. I even get in line. But there’s a part of me that wonders what I’m doing. What I will do. Where will I go? Home? How? With what money? What passport? Besides, my parents won’t want me back. Given what I’ve learned, I wouldn’t put it past them to return me to the Scafoni family.
The line moves, and it’s my turn. I take out my wad of borrowed bills. “Rome, please. One-way.”
What am I doing?
The woman says something I don’t understand between the noise around me, my own thoughts, and her accent, but she points to the screen displaying the amount I owe.
I push my money into the little tray under the glass. A few minutes later, she spins it around. I take my change and my ticket and step out of the line. Someone bumps into me, or truly, I bump into them because I’m not paying attention.
“I’m sorry.”
The man barely gives me a sideways glance and carries on talking into his cell phone, rushing to his train.
I head to the turnstiles. I’m just following those ahead of me. I have no identification. No passport. No nothing. Just a little more than €20 in my pocket and my train ticket.
A crowd of people rushes past me. They’re panicked, like they’re about to miss their train, and I step aside to let them pass.
I have half an hour, so I walk across the station to the coffee shop and order an espresso at the bar. I stand with the locals and take the tiny cup of thick black liquid and sip it. It’s too strong. I try again but put the cup down and look at the check under the cup for what I owe. I reach into my pocket and pull out the handful of coins from the umbrella purchase. I’m rifling through them, turning each one over to see what’s what when an arm slides around my waist.
I shift my gaze to the fingers that curl around me, and I’m not sure if I’m surprised.
I look up at him.
He’s not looking at me.
Before I’ve made sense of my coins, Sebastian drops three on the counter and picks up the train ticket next to my coffee cup. I watch him read it and realize that drumbeat is my heart pumping blood loudly in my ears. He reads the ticket, crumples it in his fist, and shoves it into his jacket pocket.
When he finally looks at me, his eyes are dark. He doesn’t speak, not a word, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned about him, it’s that when he’s truly angry, he’s quiet. He’s thinking. Planning the best mode of attack.
“Finish your coffee.”
“I-I’m finished.”
He picks up my tiny espresso cup, hands it to me. My hands shake when I take it from him. I don’t think he blinks while I force down the too dark coffee.
When I’m finished, he nods, takes the cup, and puts it back onto its saucer.
I expect we’ll leave right away, but we don’t. We stand at the bar, my back to it while he faces it, his arm now around my front, fingers still gripping my waist. He’s watching me, and I’m watching the people move around us, most rushing, some strolling, stopping for coffee, sitting at a table to eat something.
The noise of the station fades into the background, the announcements, the rain, the chatter. Sebastian takes a deep breath in, and I turn to him.
“I don’t understand you,” he says.
I stare back at him. I want to ask what he doesn’t understand. I want to ask how he found me. I want to ask how angry he is.
No, not that last one. I can see that. It’s in the tightening of his chiseled jaw. In the hardening of his full lips.
Lips that kissed me gently and spoke sweetly just a few hours ago.
Gentleness and sweetness that I rejected.
“You prefer me to be rough with you? Is that it?” His fingers dig into my skin. “You choose to draw a line between us?”
“It’s not a choice. None of this has ever been a choice for me.”
His eyes scan my face, narrow a little.
“I can be rough with you, if that’s what you want,” he says quietly. Calmly. “What you need.”
I swallow. I know he means it.
Without another word, he shifts his grip to my hand, fist on fist, squeezing so hard my fingernails cut into my skin. He picks up my umbrella—I’d forgotten it—and like this, not quite hand in hand, we walk out of the station and into the rain, to the line of waiting taxis. He opens the back door of the first one and gestures for me to get in. I do. He follows and gives the driver an address in Italian.
About ten minutes later, ten minutes where he doesn’t speak a single word, ten minutes where I feel his anger throbbing like a separate entity in the car, we pull up to a shop. It looks like men’s shoes.
He gives the driver some instruction before opening the door of the taxi, not bothering with the umbrella as he drags me out with him. In the distance, I can see blue skies, but here, rain is pouring down.
A bell rings over the door as we enter, opera music playing softly, the faint scent of a cigar having been smoked recently filtered by that of leather and expensive cologne. The older man who is reading the paper behind his desk looks up at Sebastian, smiles in recognition, stands.
Sebastian speaks a few words to him. His tone is clipped.
The man’s smile turns into a nod and a quick glance at me. He disappears behind a curtain.
Sebastian is still squeezing my fist, and his hand feels hot.
A few minutes later, the man reappears with a thin cord of leather about three feet long. Sebastian releases my hand, takes it, wraps it around his fist and tests its strength.
When I look up at the old man, he quickly looks away. Sebastian says something to him, tucks the cord into his pocket, hands him some bills, and, a few minutes later, we’re in the taxi again and heading back into the center of Verona and to our hotel. By the time we arrive the rain has turned into a drizzle, but the city is drenched, even the sunlight is a dampened yellow.
Sebastian pays the driver. We leave the umbrella when we walk back into the hotel and at the front desk, he asks for the key. They still use the old-fashioned ones you turn in when you leave. We head up to our suite and, once inside, he finally releases me.
I step away, look at the crescent indents my fingernails carved into my palm, look back at him. “Are you going to talk to me?”
He takes off his jacket, hangs it up, takes that corded-up leather out of the pocket and sets it on the table beside the door along with the room key with its red tassel hanging from it.
“Take off your jacket and hang it up.”
I do as he says and hang it beside his. He looks me over.
“Your shoes too.”
I look down, slide off the shoes which have tracked dirt into the room, and instantly lose two inches.
“Let’s go into the bedroom.”
“Why?” I’m cautious. He’s not going to just let this go.
“Because I said so.”
When I don’t move, he comes to me. I expect him to grip my arm and make me go. But instead his fingertips are
gentle at my low back. I walk into the bedroom with him.
He goes to the full-length mirror against the far wall, moves a chair to clear a large space, then turns to me.
“Come here.”
I do. I stand with my back to the mirror facing him. He looks at me again, at the buttons of my dress. I’m still when he begins to undo them, one by one, taking care not to touch my skin when he does.
“What are you going to do?” I ask quietly because he will punish me. I know it.
He meets my eyes, then shifts his gaze back to the buttons, unbuttoning each one carefully, taking his time until the dress is undone to just below my waist. He pushes it open a little, just enough to glimpse the swell of my breasts in my lace bra. Leaving me there, he walks into the living room and returns with the leather cord.
“Do I need to tie you?”
I look at it, unsure what he’s planning. Is he going to tie me up with it?
“What are you going to do?” I ask again.
“Do I need to tie you?” he repeats.
I slowly, uncertainly, shake my head no.
“Good.”
He reaches out, pushes the hair that rain stuck to my forehead away, looks at me and for a minute, I regret what I did. I regret rejecting him. I regret running off.
“I wasn’t going to get on the train.” I wasn’t. It’s true.
“I know.” He touches my cheek like he’s wiping something off, then meets my eyes again. “Turn around.”
“You don’t have to punish me.”
But he does. And he will. His silence tells me so.
“Why?” I ask. I feel myself begin to tremble. Feel the heat of tears building behind my eyes.
“Turn around, Helena. Do as I say. It’s important you do as I say.”
I turn slowly so I’m facing the mirror. I don’t look at us, not right away. Instead, I look at the reflection of the window, see how the shadows are growing long outside as evening slowly descends. I must have been gone for hours.
It’s when I feel his hands on me that I watch him. They’re on my shoulders, and he squeezes them, rubs them. Wraps his big hands around them. I want to lean into him, I want to take back what I said and lean into his powerful chest and let him hold me. Not punish me.
But his fingers take hold of my open dress and slowly, gently, so carefully, drag it over my shoulders, not off, only halfway down my arms. He does the same with the straps of my bra. His hands burn my skin as he collects my hair and lifts the mass of it to set it over my shoulder before kissing it.
His lips are soft against my skin.
“You’re perfect,” he says to my reflection.
I turn my head, my cheek almost touches his. The scruff of his jaw is rough. He’s warm. I almost turn around, but he must sense it and he shakes his head a little. His hands are on my arms, rubbing them.
“I’m going to punish you, Helena.”
My tears begin to fall like the rain of the afternoon.
I nod my head. I know he’s going to punish me. And I know it’s going to be bad. Not like before. Not like when he used his belt. This will be worse because it means more now.
“And I don’t want you to fight me. I don’t want to tie you. It’s important.”
I nod again, stupidly, and his hands come to the tops of my shoulders. He puts a little pressure on them.
“Kneel.”
There’s a moment of panic, but he’s behind me, pressing against me, arms around me holding me to him. One hand covers one breast and squeezes it, weighs it, while the other slips under my dress, fingertips sliding into my panties, just touching my clit. I watch us like this, my lips slightly parted.
This is what I look like when I want.
“Kneel, Helena.”
I nod. I don’t want to disappoint him.
He draws his hand out of my panties. It’s back on my shoulder, and I kneel. He arranges my hair again, over my shoulder to expose my back, pushing my head forward a little so I’m kneeling, head bowed, like a penitent seeking forgiveness before a god.
He kisses my shoulder again, pushes the dress a little farther down my arms, arranging me. Preparing me. And when he straightens and turns on the television to a random channel, the volume up, I know what he’s going to do. I know exactly why he bought that cord. Why the old man looked at me like he did.
I know.
Chapter Sixteen
Sebastian
She’s beautiful.
Perfect.
Her skin is pristine, unmarked. Hair black, the darkest waterfall but for that rebellious, silver streak. Wild and defiant, like her.
All that perfection, all that unblemished skin, it makes me want to mark it up, brand my name on it, burn it into the back of her neck. Hear her scream. Know she’s mine.
Even the bottoms of her small feet, their vulnerability as she kneels before me, toes curled under her, waiting for her punishment—my little penitent—even those feet make me want to mark. Brand. Own.
I swallow, pick up the coiled leather, wrap it around my fist once, twice. My dick is hard, and I’ll fuck her when I’m finished. Fuck her from behind while I watch her face in the mirror. While I fill her up.
Sick bastard.
I smile at that voice.
Yes, I am.
“Don’t turn around.” I may want her tears, but I don’t want to mark her pretty face.
She makes a small, nervous sound, gives a nod of understanding. She’s looking down, not at me, not at us. Not when we’re like this.
I move a little to the side and eye the broadest part of her shoulders. She trembles slightly while she waits. I wish I could slide a hand into her panties, feel if anticipation makes her as wet as it makes me hard. I should make her touch herself while I punish her. Maybe I will. But not yet. Pain first.
The sound of the first lash is the sweetest, the finest strand of perfect leather burning a line into her skin. Blemishing it. Interrupting all that perfect beauty.
But her gasp, it’s sweeter still.
Her body rocks forward, and she catches herself, hands on the floor in front of her. The dress slides lower down her arms, to her waist, the cups of her bra at the tops of her hard nipples.
Her eyes meet mine in the mirror. I wonder what I look like to her. Huge as I stand over her, makeshift whip in my hand, cock hard as steel pressing against my pants, my body coiled tight.
The skin around her dark eyes is red from crying. Her mouth is a small O, but she can’t be surprised.
I gesture for her to get back into position. She does, bowing her head slightly, hands small balls on her thighs, her body more tense than mine.
The second lash lines up perfectly beneath the first and this time, when her body jerks forward, she cries out, like the stroke pushed the air from her lungs.
I watch that line of red, thin and angry, striping even the backs of her arms, at the crease of her armpit.
I should make her raise her arms up, whip the underside.
Another time.
Another lash, and she’s on her hands and knees.
“How many?” she pants. Sweat beads on her forehead.
“Back in position.” I may do the bottoms of her feet yet.
“I wasn’t going to go on the train,” she tries again.
“This isn’t about the train.” It’s not and it is. It’s about everything. It’s to punish her for disobeying, for taking the money I’d left behind, for failing my test, for proving me right.
But it’s also about submission. It’s about her being the Willow Girl. My Willow Girl.
My fist tightens around the cord. “Back in position. Now.”
She wipes the back of her hand across her eyes and this time, when she’s back in position, her hands are closed around her thighs, her knuckles white, shoulders tense. She squeezes her eyes shut when I ready my arm.
This stroke is harder. She lets out a scream, and I curse the fact that we’re here in this hotel, that I have to have the telev
ision on. That I can’t hear her scream break perfect silence.
I lash her again and again and again, until I count ten lines, not a single one crossing the other, each laid perfectly, neatly, obediently, beneath the last. Helena’s leaning on one arm, half on her hands and knees, breathing hard, trying to keep her position, failing, yet too proud to beg for mercy.
I swallow, adjust the crotch of my pants. Her eyes follow the movement and rage fills them.
Fuck, but I like her like this.
“You’re getting off on this,” she accuses.
“Not yet, but I will.”
“You’re a dirty, sick bastard.”
I snort. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. She’s as dirty as I am. “Put your hand inside your panties.”
She searches my eyes, gives a panicked shake of her head.
“Do it. Put your hand inside your panties and rub your clit.”
“No.”
With one quick flick of my wrist, I lash the bottoms of her feet. She gasps and squeals at once and instinctively reaches back to cover them.
I crouch down, grip a handful of hair, tug. “I said put your hand inside your panties and rub your clit.”
She does it slowly, neck craned at an awkward angle, eyes locked on mine. I watch her face, see her fingers work in my periphery.
“Are you wet?” I ask, fisting my hand in her hair.
“I hate you.”
“But are you wet?” I lean closer, inhaling deeply. “Because I can smell you.” I reach the whip hand into her panties, and from between her fingers, rub inside her folds. I smile. “You’re as dirty as me, Helena,” I say, dragging my hand out, an inch of the leather wet.
I stand back up.
Her eyes follow my movement in the mirror. She’s still rubbing her pussy. I raise my arm and lay the lash across her back. She grunts, but rubs harder, her eyes on mine as I do it again and again and again.
Until the whole of her back is marked.
Mafia Romance Page 73
