“Yeah. I thought I was too nauseous to eat,” he tells me.
I push the plate closer to him and watch as he proceeds to eat all but a few of the fries left on the plate.
7
Carmine
At the only home I’ve ever known, things aren’t getting any fucking easier. As hard as I try, I can’t keep myself away from a bottle of alcohol. Soren said that I don’t have to. He said to not let myself go overboard, that’s all.
Why does it matter what he said though? Why am I even contemplating listening to what he’d told me to do. Call him. Text him.
Tell him I want to drown myself in an entire bottle of whiskey and have him scold me in that dark voice.
That deep tone…the same one that had sounded so concerned for me that night in the office. In the safe house.
I still remember how his fingers felt against my cheek as he checked me for any more blood. The way his eyes shifted to my lips, how he seemed to linger.
He looked at me like I was a piece of meat for him to stalk and take as he pleased.
Which is what he’s doing, isn’t it?
I growl to myself and open the bottle in my hand as I sit down at the window seat in the library.
Soren is just trying to get to me. I don’t know why, not exactly, but I can guess.
My family is important, wealthy, powerful. It doesn’t take someone with a P.H.D. to figure out why the Fiorellis might want to screw me over. Screw us over. My family.
The only thing I have left.
I down several large swallows, and it rolls down my throat like water. I’m so used to the burn that I barely notice it. A good sparkling water would have more kick to it than this.
I huff slightly, catching my breath, and take another drink.
It’s already too much, I know it.
“So what?” I mumble. “I’m alone.Sorenisn’t here to stop me.”
I scoff and take another drink. It sloshes around in my stomach with each breath, and the way the liquid stretches my stomach as it fills it feels uncomfortable and sore. It feels like I’ve been at this for months, even if it’s only been weeks.
I lick my lips and set the bottle down on the cushioned bench seat.
“What is he going to do?” I ask myself. “Punish me? How exactly?”
I snort and shake my head. “What can he do that hasn’t already been done?”
Even as I say this, I think about the way he looked at me while saying it.
Punish me.
If I don’t do as he says, he’ll punish me.
I understand the undertones now as I really lock onto the memory in my tipsy state. Would it include a spanking?
“Hah!”
Can I really imagine that? Can I actually imagine myself being bent over Soren Fiorelli’s lap and having my ass spanked?
My jaw goes a bit slack, and my mouth waters. I stare across the room, through the closed door and into a fantasy of my own making.
