Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 95046 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95046 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
I head into the bathroom, turn on the shower, and stand there, waiting until the steam begins curling over the glass door, fogging the mirrors, turning the space into something soft and shapeless.
I step under the spray.
The water is scalding. Hot enough to remind me I'm still fucking alive even when every other signal suggests otherwise.
I brace one hand against the tile and let the water hammer down on my shoulders, my neck, the muscles that have been locked tight since I watched that footage last night.
This is usually when I take care of things.
Years of routine. Built into the architecture of my day like coffee or checking my phone. I get hard, I handle it, I move on. Efficient. Methodical. No different than shaving or brushing my teeth.
Before Emmaleen, the fantasies were generic. Faceless women bent over desks, kneeling on expensive rugs, spread across hotel beds in cities I can't remember visiting. The details didn't matter. Just the control. The power. The moment when resistance broke and surrender took its place.
The monster always provided the script.
But since she walked into my life six weeks ago it's only been her.
Emmaleen on her knees in the dungeon, eyes downcast, waiting for permission to breathe.
Emmaleen bent over the punishment bench, ass raised, counting strikes in that breathless voice that cracks on seven every single time.
Emmaleen straddling me on the throne, straddling my lap, whispering yours, my King against my neck while I fill her so full she can't remember her own name.
I reach down.
I'm not even hard.
I wrap my hand around my dick anyway. Try to summon something. Anything. A flicker of heat, a ghost of arousal, the beginning of that familiar tightening that leads to release.
Nothing.
I close my eyes. Try to reconstruct last week—Emmaleen on the dais, wrists cuffed to the leather restraints, nipple clamps connected to her collar by a chain that forced her head down. The way she looked up at me when I told her to count. The way her pussy glistened when I dripped wax across her stomach.
Still nothing.
This has never happened.
Not once in twenty years of jerking off in the shower have I ever failed to perform for myself.
The water beats down. Steam rises. My hand moves mechanically, trying to force a response my body refuses to give.
I think about her mouth. The way she takes my fingers past her lips when I feed her, the way her tongue flicks against the pad of my thumb like she's tasting something sacred.
I think about the sounds she makes when she comes—that hitched gasp followed by a broken moan, like pleasure is something she has to apologize for.
I think about the look on her face when she handed Jino the key instead of taking it. The moment she signed the Doctrine. The moment she chose me.
My cock twitches. Finally. A spark of something.
But then my brain supplies the rest of the image—Emmaleen in Lorcan's trunk, curled up in the dark, probably terrified, probably wondering why I'm not coming for her.
The spark dies.
My hand drops away.
I brace both palms against the tile wall and let my head fall forward until my forehead presses against the cool marble.
I feel empty.
Like someone reached inside my chest and scooped out everything vital, leaving just the shell. The expensive body. The tailored exterior. The monster everyone expects.
But the engine that drives it all is gone.
Because that engine isn't the monster anymore.
It's Emmaleen.
After I shower and dress, I go downstairs. My hair's still damp at the neck. Shirt pressed, tie knotted. The suit drapes my frame the way it always does. Custom-cut. Italian. Perfect.
I look exactly like Giovanni Bavga is supposed to look. The performance is flawless.
The actor playing a role has left the fucking building.
Jino's in the living room when I round the corner. Sweaty. Shirtless. Muscles carved into definition from two straight hours on the heavy bag. His chest rises and falls in controlled rhythm—not winded, just operational. Running on fumes and fury.
He's pacing.
I pause at the threshold to the living room, one hand still grazing the doorframe. Not quite entering, not quite retreating.
Just... stuck.
Jino stops pacing the second he sees me. The sudden stillness is almost worse than the movement. The scrutiny is uncomfortable in a way I can't quite name. Not threatening. Not accusing. Just... seeing.
"Do you know what happens to them?" Jino's voice is low, barely above a murmur, but it carries across the space between us just fine. "The girls you break and throw away?"
The words hang in the air between us, demanding an answer I don't have and wouldn't give, even if I did.
Never followed up. Never checked in. Never gave a single fuck what happened after they walked out my door with their payout. They stopped being my problem the second they stopped being mine.
So I just stand there, silent.