I shouldn’t have punished her. I shouldn’t have touched her. I know the signs of arousal, and I’ve just lit a fucking match. Her eyes are half-lidded, her lips parted. She braces herself on the bed, but her knees are trembling and it looks as if she’s struggling to catch her breath.
I shouldn’t walk away. I should run.
But like a damn idiot, I need to know. I want to find out. Is she aroused by punishment? I lace my belt through my loops and don’t break eye contact. If she doesn’t get the message, coming over here was a waste of time.
“Get out,” she repeats.
“Watch your mouth,” I say, taking a step closer to her. To her credit, she looks a little abashed. Good. Seems a few hard smacks of the belt have done their job.
She brings her pretty, delicate fingernails, painted bright cardinal red, to her throat, and swallows hard.
Bingo.
Christ.
Not my imagination then.
She’s never been disciplined. She’s never been spanked with a heavy palm until she came. I could fix that.
In the distance, someone shoots off fireworks over the water. The sudden boom makes Mia jump. I blink, as if coming out of a trance.
What the fuck am I doing?
I was sent here as punishment, to make amends. If Piero Russo finds out I touched her, he will fly over here from Italy and murder me with his own bare hands.
“Leave,” she says, but her icy tone’s thicker, and her cheeks are flushed pink.
I have to get myself out of her fucking apartment and get back home. The asshole isn’t a threat to her anymore. Not now.
“Behave yourself.”
I turn and leave before she can respond. I walk through her apartment, but take note of everything. A half-empty bottle of Prosecco on the counter beside a Juul and a cell phone. Notebooks, pens, and her schedule. Of course she’s gotta be playing with fire under my watch. Excellent.
I leave her apartment with reluctance, but I take a moment to make sure her door’s back in place before I go. Something feels off, and my conscience pricks me. Even though I’m right next door, watching everything she does, she isn’t safe here. I shake my head, leave the building, and go back to mine.
I watch her on the feed. After a time, she walks through her apartment, and shuts and locks the sliding glass door.
Good girl.
I’m lying in bed in boxers, my suit hanging up in the closet for the next day above glossy black shoes and my briefcase. Tonight, I’m Enzo Caprio, soldier for the family. Tomorrow, Professor Caprio.
I slide my phone off the bedside table, and click the footage of Mia. She’s changed into a tiny tank top and boxers. I swallow hard. No bra, her breasts swing free, and the tiny pair of boxers barely covers the swell of her ass, still striped red from the lashes of my belt.
Christ.
I punch my pillow and go to put my phone down, when I see her reach for her schedule on top of her books. She stares at it, biting her lip.
Her shoulders pull back when she draws in a breath, then slides her paper back on the stack and heads to bed. I click on the second camera feed that leads to her bedroom, telling myself this isn’t creepy at all. It’s my job.
She shuts off her light and climbs into bed, but I can still see her by the light of the moon, her perfect features lit up with the gentle white light. She’s got so many pillows on the bed she has to toss half a dozen to the foot before she can rest comfortably. She’s swallowed up by the cavernous bed, easily ten times her size. She looks like a little girl playing house.
I’d help her fill that bed.
Christ, maybe I should bang the chick next door, scourge my mind from the filth that riddles it. And just as I go to put the phone down again, I watch as she slides her hand beneath the covers. She barely lets them cover her, so I can see the top of her hand right above the little shorts she wears.
God. No. I should shut this off. I should turn away. I’m already lusting after this woman so badly my balls ache, but if I don’t stop myself—
Her head’s thrown back on the pillow and even though I don’t have the sound on, I can imagine the prettiest, softest moans filling the room. Her eyes flutter closed as she fingers herself, and I’m so fucking hard it’s painful.
What does she think about when she touches herself? When she’s writhing in climax and blood rushes through her body? What does she fantasize about?
I can’t watch her come. I’ll never get the image out of my mind. I’ll never be able to control myself.