I looked up at him. “I try not to make it a habit.”
He smiled. “Your family can’t say the same.”
“Nor my present company,” I spat back.
His smile grew then like he was excited by the battle. “People get nowhere in this world being honest, I’ve learned.” Then he took a couple of steps backward. “For what it’s worth, I really didn’t want to do that. I felt it was important to protect myself. It’s clear I’m not dealing with the average woman.”
“Of course,” I said. “Why wouldn’t you pull a gun on a complete stranger for something that has absolutely nothing to do with her? Aren’t we all faced with such temptations day in and day out?”
That took his smile away. He opened his mouth to respond, but then closed it and just stared at me. The polar sides of him that I’d gotten to see were flashing through my brain. The charismatic businessman I met at the bar, the aroused guy standing over me while I was tied up in his office, the infuriated one that snapped and pulled a gun on me a few minutes ago. I’d convinced myself that what Gio presented was who he really was, but I was rapidly learning the truth, and it was significantly more terrifying.
No oneevergot the real Gio. He tailored his personality to fit the situation. Right now, he needed me afraid, so I was getting the mobster, kidnapper, maybe even murderer. Gio was sexy, sure, but right now that was far outweighed by how terrifying he was.
“I’ll leave you,” he said. “Hopefully, there are no more surprises.”
I nodded. “Yeah. Hopefully not.”
11
GIO
When my alarm went off for work, I did something I rarely did and hit the snooze button. To say I was exhausted would be an understatement. Maybe it was just because I’d never struggled much with women in my life before, but Avion was an unexpected obstacle in a sea of smooth sailing. I would go and check on her each day, once in the morning, and again at night, but she wasn’t warming up to me at all.
I knew pulling a gun on her when she first arrived was going to hamper the already tenuous relationship we’d struck, but I didn’t expect that she’d still be giving me the cold shoulder after a week had passed. I tried to be cordial, patient and didn’t show any aggression, but every time I went to see her it was the same thing.
“I brought you some food,” I would say.
“Thank you.”
“Are you feeling okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Do you need anything?”
“Nope.”
And then silence would fill the space between us until it was too awkward, and I had no choice but to leave.
“It’s not like you invited her for a weekend at the vineyard,” Milli huffed when I was complaining to him about it later that day. “You had her snatched from her home and stuffed her in a coat closet. It may shock you to learn that is notactuallyhow you court women.”
“What would you know about courting women?” I spat back. I only barely heard the hiss of something flying across the room at me before it made hard contact with my head. It thudded to the ground and I turned around to see that Milli had chucked his pen at me. It had pinpoint precision and made my head sting in the spot where it had struck. “Ow!”
“Keep your stupid ass comments to yourself,” Milli hissed. “I didn’t tell you to try convincing a woman to sleep with you by making her your prisoner.”
“I expected she would be more malleable given her shaky relationship with her father and brothers,” I admitted. “At this rate, she’d probably be happy to see them, which I don’t understand.”
Milli crossed his arms and lifted an eyebrow at me. “Maybe if you gave her better accommodations, she would be more receptive.”
“That’s… It’s part of the plan,” I said.
And it was. Part of the reason I’d kept Avion in the conditions she was in currently was because any reasonable person would eventually ask for more. I had to break her somehow. I had no plans to force her to be my sub, so I had to show her in non-sexual ways the benefit that simply asking could have. The dom-sub relationship in its simplest form was someone who wanted something and someone else who had that thing to give. I had better room conditions, better food, and really just about anything Avion could need waiting for her.
All she had to do was ask.
I’d hoped that providing her with less than thrilling provisions would have her running to me sooner rather than later, but instead, she’d made herself perfectly at home in the small, empty space. She slept mostly, but when she was awake, she’d do yoga. I appreciated the sight of her bending this way and that, but it didn’t stop me from feeling bad. She wasn’t meant to have to live in squalor while she was at my estate, I just wanted her to want more for herself. To discover on her own that asking me for pleasure could yield great results.
“Have you informed her that if she asks, she will receive?” Milli asked.
