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)
He releases my throat but keeps his hand fisted in my hair, holding me in place. "I asked you a question, slave."
I suck in air, coughing. "A poem."
Silence.
Complete, absolute silence.
His hand is still twisted in my hair. My neck is still bent at an unnatural angle. My windpipe is still screaming.
But Giovanni has gone utterly, terrifyingly still.
Then he lets go.
I collapse forward onto my hands, gasping, my hair falling around my face in a tangled curtain.
Behind me, I hear his footsteps cross to the desk. The scrape of the chair. The rustle of pages.
I don't move. Don't look up.
Just kneel there, trying to remember how to breathe like a normal person instead of someone who just got choked by a mob boss in his sex dungeon.
"I didn't finish." My voice comes out hoarse, wrecked. I clear my throat and try again. "That poem I was writing you the first night. You stopped me before I was finished, so..." I blow out a long breath. "I kept writing."
More silence.
Then the sound of pages turning. Faster. Faster. Flipping through the notebook like he's searching for something.
I risk a glance over my shoulder.
Giovanni stands at the desk, the notebook open in his hands, his expression unreadable. He turns another page. Another. Another.
Then he stops. Looks up.
Stares at me.
"What the fuck is this?"
I blink. "I told you. My poem. For you."
"It's like..." He flips to the end, then back to the beginning, his brow furrowing. "A hundred fucking pages long, Emmaleen."
"I know, but..." I blow out a breath, suddenly feeling weirdly self-conscious about the whole thing. Which is absurd, considering I'm naked on a dungeon floor with his handprint still burning across my throat. "You're kinda complicated, my King."
For a moment—one that seems to stretch out far longer than it actually is—Giovanni just stands there staring at me, the notebook held loosely in his hands, his expression caught somewhere between disbelief and something I can't quite name.
Then he laughs.
Actually fucking laughs.
Not the cold, mocking sound I've heard him use on me at times. Not the sharp bark of surprise when I do something unhinged.
This is real. Unguarded. The kind of laughter that transforms his entire face, softening the sharp edges, making him look younger.
Almost... human.
"A hundred pages," he repeats, shaking his head. "You've been down here for all day, no instruction, no goals, and you decided to spend your time writing a hundred-page poem about how complicated I am?"
"Technically it's seventy-three pages." I pause. "But who's counting?"
His laughter fades, but the ghost of a smile remains. He closes the notebook carefully, almost reverently, and sets it on the desk. When he turns back to me, the monster is gone from his eyes.
Just Giovanni.
My King.
"You really are insane," he says quietly.
"So I've been told." I lift one shoulder in a shrug, then remember I'm supposed to be in position and quickly snap my gaze back down. "By you. Multiple times. Usually while threatening to fire me or lock me in your basement sex dungeon."
"You're already in my basement sex dungeon."
"Fair point."
He crosses the space between us with slow, measured steps. Each footfall echoes against the stone. When he stops, his polished leather shoes are inches from my knees.
"Look at me."
I raise my eyes, keeping my chin down, the way Jino taught me. It's a strange angle—submission without full surrender. Obedience with a hint of defiance still visible in the set of my jaw.
Giovanni's expression is unreadable as he studies my face. His thumb brushes across my lower lip, gentle enough to make me shiver.
"I watched the footage," he says.
There it is. The reason for his fury, laid bare.
"I know."
"You let him touch you."
"Yes."
"You begged him for more."
My pulse spikes, but I hold his gaze. "Yes."
His thumb presses harder against my lip, not quite painful but definitely possessive. "And you told him you'd convince me to give him full access to you. No restrictions. Complete control over your body and mind."
I swallow hard. "He... he said that was the only way he'd keep training me. The way you wanted."
"The way I wanted?" Giovanni's voice drops to something dangerous. "Or the way you wanted?"
The question hits like a slap.
Because he's right. He's absolutely fucking right.
I didn't beg Jino for more because Giovanni ordered me to. I begged because some broken part of me needed what Jino was offering—structure without chaos, discipline without cruelty, pleasure without punishment.
The exact opposite of what Giovanni gives me.
"Both," I whisper.
The word hangs between us, heavy with implications I'm not sure either of us is ready to unpack.
Giovanni's hand slides from my mouth to cup my jaw, tilting my face up further. His grip is firm but not cruel. Possessive but not painful.
"You want him to fuck you."
It's not a question. But I answer anyway.
"I want..." God, how do I explain this? How do I articulate the fucked-up geometry of my desires? "I want what he can teach me. The way he makes everything make sense. The rules, the structure, the—"