It takes her a full second, but she slowly lets her arms fall on either side of her, baring her tits for me again.

Good girl, my little Petal.

Her pink nipples pucker as I stalk toward her, and she tries to keep a straight face, but the fidgeting and the crimson cheeks give her away.

Such a breakable thing, my pet.

I tower over her, my fingers slowly circling the hard nipples, turning them into tight buds. Her eyes flutter as if to close while her body melts against mine.

“Does this turn you on?”

“W-what?”

“Being told what to do by me.”

She bites the inner of her cheek but says nothing which is all the answer I need.

“How about this?” I pinch her nipple harder, eliciting a whimper from her pink lips.

“Do you like being hurt, my pet?”

Her eyes widen as she stares up at me. I don’t know if it’s because of the name or the question, or both.

I thought it would’ve been unlikely, but from the guilt in that cloudy gaze, she thought about it and she likes it more than she wants to admit.

Fuck me.

I knew my little Petal has more hidden underneath the normal life she leads so well.

Still pinching her nipple, I tug on it with the intention to hurt. She cries out but doesn’t push away. She doesn’t even lift her hands to protest.

Another answer she gives without speaking.

I reach my free hand and grip her jaw tight, forcing her to stare up at me. “What should I hurt you with first, Pet? My fingers, my teeth, or should we start with my cock down that pretty throat?”

Her breathing turns shallow with every word I say. Her nipples turn harder like tiny diamonds. I’m tempted to bite them into my mouth and feast on them until I taste blood.

The same with her parted lips. Only I don’t usually do kissing —or stalking for that matter, but different time, eh?

“Answer me.” I shake her jaw.

She opens her mouth, but no words come out.

“If I make the choice, there will be a payment.”

“I—”

Her words die when something vibrates between us.

My phone.

Fuck.

I’m tempted to ignore it, but there’s only one person who calls me this late —or any time for that matter, and he doesn’t like being ignored.

My cock is about to go on riot as I make the decision.

My little Petal’s face whitens when I push away from her.

“I have to go.” I turn around and stride to the door.

“You’re going?” Her voice is disbelieving instead of angry.

I throw one last glance at her. “Think on that answer.”

And then I’m out of her apartment. I take a long breath as I answer the phone on my way down her building’s ugly stairs.

“What’s your progress?” Lucio’s voice never made me so fucking pissed off as I am right now.

“On it.”

“On it, how?”

“Since when do you question my work, Lucio? Do we have a problem here?”

“I need that boy dead,” he emphasizes every word. “Consider it the highlight of your career.”

“Done.”

“It’s not done until I have the fucker’s head.” He hangs up and I grip the phone tighter as I head outside.

A part of me wants to go back to my little Petal and finish what I started.

Have her on her knees and shove my cock inside her mouth then in her pussy.

She needs encouragement, but she’ll let me. She’ll fucking enjoy it, too.

But priorities, one of them being Costa’s heirloom.

I call Giovani, the eighty-year-old gardener. “Pronto.”

I switch to Italian. “This is Jasper. I wanted to ask about Salvatore or Saviano or whatever the fuck his name is. Where was the last time you saw him?”

He coughs, and I wait patiently for the fit to disappear. “At the house.”

“Another place that isn’t Costa’s.”

“I don’t remember.”

“You have a beautiful granddaughter, Giovani, a lawyer, correct?”

“You promised.”

“I did, but only if you tell me what I want. If you don’t, I’ll have to tell Costa and he’ll have Stephan and Marco rape her in front of you as you bleed to near death from torture. Just because you left this life doesn’t mean it won’t follow you, Gio. Costa will always be able to track you down and every last one of your bloodline. Don’t give him the reason to.”

He curses me in Italian, and I wait until his fit of coughing subsides. Giovani has been with us long enough to know how the game goes. You don’t hide information from Costa and expect to live happily ever after.

They only had one rival once upon a time, the Vitallios, but even those have been wiped off the face of the earth decades ago. Whatever is left of their men have retreated to Sicily like rats.

“Vita Boarding School. Ask about Sarah Lisette.”

The line goes dead.

I stare at the phone, as the name of the school whirls in my head.

Vita Boarding School.

The school I was raised in until Costa got me out of it.

10

Georgina

I can't believe that bastard Jasper just left me like this.

I'm still fuming an hour later, lying on the sofa and channel hopping, unable to focus on any of the shows or films playing on the TV. My cats are curled up next to me, and I absentmindedly stroke their silky fur, my thoughts revolving around one person and one person only.

Jasper.

I hate how he left, and I hate how he's made me feel. My pussy is fucking leaking, alerting me of every second that passes painfully slowly without him.

"Where the hell did you come from, Jasper," I mutter under my breath as I turn off the TV and pull my laptop out from under the cushions of the couch. "And what the fuck are you doing to me?"

I open my laptop and blush lightly at the last open window. A fantasy blares out on the screen in glorious, graphic detail, and I hesitantly reach for my headphones, then push them against my ears. In a split second, my head fills with a woman's moans, and I watch in fascination as she gets hurt on the screen before me.

My fetish. My dirty little secret. What nobody knows about me.

All those secrets race through my mind as I keep watching the scene unfold on the laptop screen, my fingers rushing between my legs, pushing my panties to the side and eagerly massaging my wet slit. I'm thinking of Jasper, and not even trying to fight it. He's turned me on so much, turned me into a needy puddle of frustration hidden behind the veil of being strong, independent. I wonder what he would have done if he'd known how eager I was, how much I was hoping for him to take me anyway.

I've had to build a thick skin to get through life. There's no room for me to be vulnerable. That's why I've put up wall upon wall – to protect myself. But with Jasper, I want to let all those walls come tumbling down. Hell, I want him to break them down, enter my life with force and stay there by power of sheer will. I want him to bury himself in my life and never leave. There's a connection there and I refuse to believe I'm the only one to feel it.

The woman on screen is being held down by a man, tied with one limb to each of the bed posts, and with the guy's hand on her throat. She whimpers and cries as he forces orgasm after orgasm out of her, and I let out the loudest moan as I watch. Nervously, I glance at the wall I share with my neighbor. Fuck, I hope she can't hear me.