“I will not be drawn into your games like those silly, virginal Italian boys you dealt with in Naples, led around by their dicks and your beauty. I am a grown man and a seasoned Dominant; you’d do best to remember that and not continue to taunt me into conceding control. Is that understood?”
“If you’re so damned controlled, I think you can withstand a little taunting from an inexperienced Italian girl,” I retorted, stepping even closer so I was toe to toe with him.
Desire burned in his eyes, and I knew he wanted to punish me for my insolence.
A shiver nibbled at the base of my spine.
“I don’t have time to show you just how utterly inexperienced you are at the moment because I have meetings this morning. You are here to commence what will be part of your daily chores.”
My eyebrows shot into my hairline. “Being your sex slave isn’t enough, now I have to clean?”
His lips twitched with humour before he could screw them shut. “You will begin each day by tending to me the way my valet, Murphy, would. He is currently on a much-needed vacation in Scotland with his family and so, the duty must fall to my slave.”
He moved away from me, walking across the plush Persian rugs to opened double doors that seemed to lead into a walk-in closet.
“Come.”
I cursed under my breath in Italian but followed him.
He continued to speak as he moved through the closet into the enormous marble bathroom beyond that had clearly been recently updated. I watched as he moved to the rain shower encased in glass and turned it on. “You will bathe me and dress me, then see me off every morning. When I return each night, you will be waiting in the great hall in your position, naked and waiting for me.”
“And while you are gone? Will I be made to sit in the ballroom all day contemplating my servitude and shackles?”
I was going to crazy if I spent too much more time alone in that blackhole of a place.
Alexander studied me with a furrowed brow, and I noticed just how clear his grey eyes were, so dark a grey they were nearly black before arrowing near the pupils into a colour so clear it seemed crystal.
He was truly the most beautiful monster.
“You’ve pleased me relatively well in the past twenty-four hours, so I’ll allow you run of the house while I’m away. The rooms that are unlocked are the only ones you have access to. Do not attempt to take advantage of my generosity by breaking in to forbidden places.”
I pouted before I could stop myself, but to my complete shock, my expression made Alexander chuckle softly and gently pinch my chin between his fingers so he could better look at me.
“What a delight your youth is,” he murmured, seemingly surprised by his enjoyment. “I cannot remember the last time someone stood up to my tyranny or pouted in the face of my rules. It’s oddly endearing, topolina.”
“At least you admit that you’re a tyrant.”
“Oh, a tyrant of the highest order. One who rules with absolute power,” he assured me, his tone oddly playful even though his face was cold, almost vacant in its impassivity.
“And you are utterly confusing,” I told him, slightly breathless because interacting with Lord Thornton was like what I imagined riding a roller coaster would feel like, a constant change of atmosphere.
Whatever softness had lurked in his eyes solidified even though his grasp on my chin remained gentle. “If you trust anything about me, trust this. I am your Master, and I will be hard on you. I will break you and reform you into my ideal slave because there is no other option for either of us. If you believe in anything, let it be my cruelty and have my occasional lapse in judgement where I might be kind, be something to enjoy and then discount.”
“But why does it have to be this way?” I asked, an edge of desperation to my tone as I stepped close, my nipples brushing against his lower chest. “I just don’t understand why you’d do this to me?”
“Sometimes we are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sometimes we are born to bad people and live a bad life. There doesn’t always have to be a reason for misfortune, Cosima.”
“No,” I agreed, feeling those words like a punch to the sternum. “But there is for this.”
“There is.”
“You said something when I was out of it about being your enemy. Please, explain it to me,” I begged, my pride drowned in a tidal wave of hope-fueled curiosity.
“What have I told you? This is a give and take relationship, my beauty. You give, and I take. If you please me, I will reward you. You have not even begun to please me enough to earn the answer to the question of your slavery.” His grip on my chin tightened painfully, and he dipped down to bite hard into my lower lip. “You can begin now by bathing me.”