Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 95046 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95046 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
It's biology. Pavlov. Dopamine receptors respond to visual stimuli regardless of moral context.
I'm not goin' to overthink it.
Except—Christ, here we go—here's the philosophical rabbit hole I'm tumblin' down at nine-twenty-fuckin'-eight on a Sunday night while holdin' a naked woman hostage in a cabin.
Dominance is a feature, not a bug.
Men are made to dominate women. Full stop. That's not misogyny, that's evolutionary biology wrapped in ten thousand years of social organization. The capacity for dominance—the impulse toward it—exists in every man with a properly functionin' amygdala and enough testosterone to grow facial hair. Alpha behavior isn't pathological. It's the natural state for any man worth a shit.
I'm not apologizin' for masterin' the art of control.
Not in business negotiations with Russian mob captains who respect strength and despise weakness. Not in physical confrontations where dominance means survival. And certainly not in sexual encounters with women who—let's be honest—are biologically wired to respond to confident authority the same way men are wired to provide it.
The difference—the critical difference that separates civilization from barbarism—is choice.
I give women the option to walk away. Always have. Always will.
Giovanni, apparently, prefers the collar-and-dungeon approach.
Which brings me back to the problem at hand.
"Emmaleen."
She doesn't move. Doesn't even flinch. Just sits there with her chin tilted up and her hands resting on her thighs like she's waitin' for me to tell her what shape the air should take when she breathes it.
"That's a nice Irish name. I'm Lorcan, also Irish. Ya have family in Ireland?"
Because here's an idea—maybe I could send her to Ireland. County Clare, maybe. Or Galway. Somewhere with decent pubs and people who mind their own business. Get her away from Giovanni's Gothic mansion of sexual dysfunction, away from the LaRiccia mob family lookin' for revenge against whoever killed their heir, away from—
Well. Away from me.
Not that she needs to get away from me specifically.
I'm entirely capable of controllin' myself. Even around a woman like this.
A woman who's been systematically conditioned to kneel, and obey, and treat male authority figures like they're dispensin' both punishment and salvation from the same hands.
A woman sittin' naked in my cabin wearin' nothin' but a collar and the kind of trained compliance that makes my cock twitch against my zipper despite every intellectual and moral objection I should be havin' right now.
She shakes her head no to my question.
Grand.
This is grand.
The phone buzzes again.
Unknown number this time.
I silence it.
Emmaleen doesn't react. Doesn't ask who's callin'. Doesn't fidget or shift or do any of the normal human things a kidnapped woman should be doin' when her captor's phone blows up.
Just waits.
Patient. Silent. Perfect.
Like she's been trained.
Fuck.
I shift tactics.
Because here's the thing about rescue operations—sometimes, in certain scenarios such as this, the person you're rescuin' needs to understand exactly what they're bein' rescued from.
"So, Emmaleen." I lean against the wall, cross my arms. "How well d'ya think ya know Giovanni Bavga? After five weeks of... active involvement?"
Her face does somethin' interestin'. Just a flicker—barely there—but I catch it. A slight tightening around her eyes. A micro-expression that suggests my question landed somewhere it shouldn't have.
Then she smooths it over with that trained-submissive calm.
"Well enough to know I love him."
I laugh.
Can't help it. The sound just erupts from my chest—a proper guffaw that echoes off the cabin walls and probably scares the wildlife outside.
"Oh, Christ. Oh, that's brilliant. Five weeks and you're in love with the man." I push off the wall, startin' to pace because standstill isn't an option when my brain's racin' like this. "Right, so let me paint you a picture of what five weeks with Giovanni Bavga actually buys you in terms of knowin' who and what he really is, yeah?"
The words start spillin' out faster than I can organize them—proper Lorcan spiral, full-throttle philosophical rant mode engaged.
"Giovanni Bavga is methodical. Obsessive. The kind of bloke who'll spend six hours organizin' his spice rack alphabetically in three different languages just because the asymmetry bothers him. He's got the emotional range of a teaspoon unless he's calculatin' how to manipulate yours. Brilliant strategist—I'll give him that—but absolutely ruthless about gettin' what he wants, and what he wants is usually power wrapped in the illusion of control disguised as affection."
I'm gesturin' now, hands movin' through the air like I'm conductin' an orchestra of accusations.
"He's got daddy issues the size of Pittsburgh. Mummy issues even bigger. His mother killed herself when he was twelve, but it got labeled a 'car accident'. His father, Salvatore, decided the best way to get Giovanni past this wasn't therapy, it was to teach his son that intimacy was poison. To never let anyone close enough to hurt you unless you own them completely first. He's charmin' when it serves him—proper Italian prince routine, all tailored suits and expensive wine—but underneath that he's a man who'll smile while he's destroyin' you because he's already three steps ahead plannin' how to rebuild you into whatever shape he needs."