Page 37 of The Kingpin’s Bride

She re-appeared half an hour later.Morena chose a pair of soft grey yoga pants with bell bottoms and a fold-over waist. On top, she was wearing a knit pink cardigan, tied at the waist.

I pointed to the low cushion I had placed on the floor beside the chair I used for work.

“Kneel for me, baby”

She did. The movement was automatic. Then, she handed me her own leash.

I sat up straighter, looped it around my hand, and opened the folder that had been waiting on the side table since before the auction.

“These are the rules of this house,” I said. My voice stayed level, the same tone I used when giving orders that ended lives. “You will listen carefully. You will not ask questions until I am finished.”

I listed them without embellishment.

She would remain collared and leashed whenever we were inside the penthouse. When I walked, she walked. When I sat, she knelt unless I directed otherwise. She would eat what was placed in front of her, sleep where I put her, and keep her body available. No locked doors on her side of any room. No telephone. No unapproved contact with the outside world. A private physician would arrive tomorrow morning to confirm her health and begin the schedule required for the heirs the Families demanded. Multiple. As many as her body could safely carry. She would not refuse examinations, medication, or my use of her.

I made it clear my obsession was with one thing only: making her a mother.

I watched Morena’s face while I spoke. The colour drained further from it with every sentence, but she did not interrupt. When I finished, I waited.

Silence stretched. The city moved beyond the glass. The leash sat warm and heavy in my palm. Finally she lifted her eyes. They were glassy, red-rimmed, and empty of everything except the same quiet resignation I had first seen on the secondary stage weeks ago.

She nodded once, a small, broken motion, and lowered her gaze again.

Chapter Nine

Morena

The leash tugged the moment I tried to shift my shoulders. The free end rested across the mattress near my hands exactly the way he had left it, a constant quiet threat that moved with every breath. Leather lined collar, locked at the back, the silver ring centered at the hollow of my throat so that any small turn of my head reminded me the key lived in his pocket now.

The ache between my legs was deep and insistent. Every small inhale made me feel the residual stretch, the places he had forced open while strangers touched themselves in the dark. Dried evidence of him marked the insides of my thighs in faint sticky streaks the shower had not fully erased. The ring on my left hand caught a bar of city light through the windows. Heavy gold. Sharp, clear stones. It sat on my finger like a brand more than anything else, the weight of it pressing into the bone with every heartbeat.

I did not cry. Tears had spent themselves in the weeks before. What remained was a cold hollow quiet and the steady thrum of fear that lived under my skin whenever I thought of the man who had just closed the door.

Matteo Ventura.

The name felt foreign even though I forced myself to whisper it. He had answered the only question I dared ask and then locked me here without another syllable. No softness. No explanation beyond the rules he had listed while I knelt on the cushion at his feet.

Collared. Leashed. Available.

A schedule for the heirs the Families demanded. Multiple. As many as my body could safely carry.

The private physician. No telephone. No contact with the outside world. Dario was no longer my concern, at least.

That meant I would not get to see any more pictures of Camilla. How would I know that she was still alive and okay?

Dario has no use for her now.

I stared at the ceiling and tried not to remember the way Matteo’s hands had moved over me in the shower. The way two fingers had parted me under the water so he could rinse what remained of our wedding night.

The way he had watched the pulse jump beneath the new collar while I ate the food he placed in front of me.

Everything about him was controlled. Measured. The same cold focus he had used when he went to his knees between my legs on that stage and made my body answer him in front of every powerful man in the city.

I hated that my body had answered.

The memory rose without permission. The flat of his tongue dragging through me while the crowd leaned forward. The thick stretch of his fingers curling against a place that had never been touched. The blunt pressure of his cock pushing into me while he ordered me to come for them.

My thighs clenched uselessly. Fresh shame burned through me hot and thick.