I dip my toes in the hot springs, one of my favorite things to do in Tuscany. Saturnia is a spa town in Tuscany, and the hot springs are open all year long. He doesn’t like me coming alone, which I have not done, but I don’t think now’s the time to tell him I’ve got two bodyguards in tow.
“Hot springs, honey,” I say nonchalantly. “Relax.”
“Relax?” he growls. “Relax? I come here to find you and you’re nowhere to be found? I texted you twelve times, twelve times, Vittoria, and you didn’t respond to me.” He’s seething. Uh oh. My ass clenches.
“I’m sorry.”
“You fucking will be.”
My heart taps a beat in my chest, the dance of dominance and submission a dangerous one that Romeo loves and I’m still learning the steps to.
When I get home, he’s waiting for me, dressed in a three-piece suit that he hasn’t even shrugged out of yet. I helped him pick it out. Pinstripe navy, to bring out the color of his eyes.
“Hi, honey,” I say cheerily, pushing past the way my heart hammers so hard in my chest I can hardly hear myself speak for the pounding in my ears.
“Don’t fucking ‘honey’ me,” he says, every bit the dangerous king of the underworld I married. “Strip.” His eyes rake down my body, eying the bikini I’m wearing. I had a cover-up on at the springs and this bikini’s only for his eyes, but he doesn’t need to know that. “That’s what you fucking wore to the springs?”
He doesn’t like me to wear anything that would draw unwanted attention to me.
I shrug.
“Vittoria,” he growls, his eyes narrowing dangerously. He crooks a finger at me. “You have three seconds.”
I tip my head to the side. “Yeah? Or what?”
“Or what?” He curses in a string of Italian so dirty my cheeks blush.
“You’ll have to go to confession for that, sir.”
He lifts the folded belt in his lap and snaps it. My sex quivers.
“And so will you, sweetheart. Right here. Over my lap.” I see the tension around his shoulders ease a bit when I lower myself over his lap. His knees pressed up against my belly, I sigh, even as I brace for the punishment he’ll give me.
A hardheaded man like him needs an outlet. His outlet is me.
I’ll tell him the truth, all of it, after he’s whipped my ass and made me climax. I’ll cuddle up to his chest and tell him all the things, and he’ll run his fingers through my hair and hold me, because this is how we work.
This is how we live.
This is how we love.