Three severance packages. Rosa will reach out.
He responds with a thumbs-up. Then I call Rosa.
“You’re going soft.”
“Valentina asked me to make sure they were well taken care of.”
“She’s a breath of fresh air, Salvatore. She’s good for you. Good for this house. She reminds me of your mother.”
She’s quiet after that.
And then… “Me too.”
“I… told her she could leave after six months. And now, I think she might be considering it.”
Rosa laughs. “Salvatore, that girl isn’t going anywhere. She may not want to admit it yet, but she has the hots for you. She’s not a normal girl you can just push around—and that’s exactly the kind you need. She has my vote.”
“Thanks, Rosa. Tell Arturo not to drink too much.”
“Io nipotino.”
* * *
"Come to my bed."
It's a command, and she knows it. But Valentina's defiant, always has been. Even more so now that she loves me.
She hasn't said it yet. Not in so many words. But I can feel it in the way she moves around me, the way her eyes track me across a room when she thinks I'm not looking, the way her voice softens when she says my name. I've caught Rosa smiling when Valentina mentions me, seen the way the older woman's eyes crinkle at the corners like she knows a secret. She sees what Valentina can't admit yet.
That she's mine.
She's been sleeping in my bed since the first time we made love. Since I claimed every inch of her body, marked her soul with mine. Since she surrendered that beautiful, stubborn will of hers and let me in, past all the walls she'd built to keep men like me out. And now? Now the thought of sleeping without her beside me makes my chest tight. The bed feels too big, too empty, too wrong.
I don’t want to sleep without her in my bed. Not now. Not ever again.
She’s punishing me.
"Such a bad girl, Valentina," I murmur to the empty room, already imagining the ways I'll make her pay. My cock hardens at the thought of having her beneath me, crying my name, begging for mercy I won't give her.
That's the beautiful thing about Valentina, she fights me tooth and nail, but when she breaks, she shatters so completely it's fucking poetry.
I pull out my phone and type out a message.
If you don't come to my bed tonight, I will punish you worse than before.
I watch the screen. Three dots appear. Then disappear. Then appear again.
Nothing.
She's reading it. Thinking about it. Probably biting that full bottom lip of hers, trying to decide if she's brave enough to defy me.
I give her sixty seconds, long enough for her imagination to run wild, before I send another.
There will be no safe word. Nothing will protect you from the things I'll do to you.
My dick strains against my pants. I can already see her, wrists bound to my headboard, that gorgeous body on display for me, completely at my mercy. I'll take my time. Make her wait. Make her beg. Make her understand that she belongs to me, in my bed, every single night.
Still no response.
