Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 102375 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 512(@200wpm)___ 410(@250wpm)___ 341(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102375 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 512(@200wpm)___ 410(@250wpm)___ 341(@300wpm)
"Are you fantasizing about my sex slave? And while we’re on the subject, your dick is hard, asshole. There’s no excuse for that. You told me you were a professional, yet you get off on a little nipple flicking with a crop?”
He points to my dick. “The same could be said of you, cuz.”
“You’re missing the point. She’s mine. Her only purpose is to get me off. You’re here to intimidate her into standing up straight.”
"It's called training." He gives a thin, cold smile. "And if you'd ever actually done it yourself instead of hiding up here behind your cameras, you'd know the difference."
"I know the difference between training and the way you were eyeing her like she's the last steak at Delmonico's."
"She's got better marbling." Jino shrugs. "And you're one to talk. I've never seen you lose your shit over a woman before. The great Giovanni Bavga, brought to his knees by a homeless girl with a smart mouth. I don’t even know why you’re pretending not to care. She's built like every wet dream you've never admitted to."
I glare at him. "I didn’t summon you so we could banter about standards. My slave seems to be wriggling her way past your defenses with her intelligent defiance and perky tits. It stops now. You’ve been crossing lines down there, Jino."
"Which one? The one where we pretend this is actually about business? Or the one where we pretend you're not terrified she might actually win this little game?"
"There's no winning. That's the point."
"No, the point is you're making up new rules as you go." He nods at the screen. "Look at her. Perfect form. She's not breaking. And it's driving you crazy."
I stare at the monitor, where Emmaleen hasn't moved a millimeter. "What’s driving me crazy, aside from your dick bulging inside your pants, is the fact that she’s trying too hard.”
“Too hard?” Jino blinks at me.
“Yes. She’s playing us, Jino. Trust me, I know this girl. Her obedience is her defiance.”
“That makes no sense. If she submits, she is obedient.”
“No. It’s the intention underneath. And clearly—” I point to the monitor. The perfectly still and rigid body of Emmaleen Rourke as she continues to hold her position, “—she has no intention of submitting. She’s trying to infuriate me with her fake compliance.”
“You’re paranoid.”
“Give her the Banana-Split Treatment."
Jino laughs. "What the fuck is—" then stops, remembering. A small smile turns into a big smile and suddenly he's shaking his head, laughing. "You're joking, right? You want me to banana split this girl?"
"Do I stutter?"
“That’s not even a real position.”
“It is,” I counter.
“Not for subs, Giovanni. That’s a degradation ritual for—”
“I know what it is, Jino. Now go back down there and put her in it.”
Jino blows out a breath, grabs his mask from the desk, and pulls it back on as he turns his back to me and opens the door to the basement. "I hope you know what you're doing."
And then he's gone.
I lean back in my chair, watching the monitor as Jino thumps down the stairs. "Let's see how long you last now, Miss Take."
Jino appears on screen again. He circles Emmaleen, snapping the crop on his gloved hand. Evaluating. Assessing. And… recalibrating. I know this because he finds a camera and looks at me. Under the ski mask, I detect his eyebrow going up.
He knows I'm right. She's trying very hard. She didn't move at all. She might even be holding her breath.
Even women who like this kind of thing—women who pay Jino to train them—can't hold a position that well in the first hour.
And Emmaleen isn't that kind of woman.
Emmaleen is defiant and bratty. That’s her natural state. This compliance is the opposite of that.
Jino doesn’t explain himself, simply orders her to kneel.
She does it without comment. Without breaking a single rule.
See. I knew it. She’s trying to beat me at my own game.
He commands her to lie back on the mat and place her fingertips behind her head. “Don’t pull on your neck,” I hear him say. Then, he encourages her to bring her knees up so her thighs are perpendicular to the floor and her shins are parallel, like she’s sitting in a chair tipped backward. He holds her head, telling her to lift her shoulders off the ground. “Keep your back anchored to the floor,” he says.
It intrigues me that he’s so adept at positioning her like this, even though he claims it’s not part of submissive training.
Apparently, my cousin has a secret life I’m unaware of. Because he was right. This is a humiliation ritual during an assassination. A ritual invented by my father. That’s how he got his nickname—Salvatore the Splitter.
I concentrate on the screen. Emmaleen’s legs are up in the air now. The position mimics the ‘bicycle exercise’ used to strengthen the core, with one modification.