Instead, he clapped.
Slow, powerful smacks of sound that took my traumatized mind straight to spankings and red ass cheeks.
He was clapping for me.
“Well done, topolina, very well done.”
I bristled at the Italian nickname. “Little mouse” didn’t exactly denote strength against adversity.
“I commend your show of spirit,” he praised, and I could see that praise in his eyes, heated and dark like banked embers.
A shiver ripped viciously down my spine, and instantaneous regret flooded through to my bones.
He liked my show of spirit because there was more challenge in the squashing of it.
I held my breath as he stepped even closer, the luxe fabric of his designer suit tickling the bare skin of my thighs, rasping across the sensitive peaks of my pierced breasts. His dark eyes were my entire world as he wrapped a big hand around my throat, curling each finger one by one against my pounding pulse point.
“To own this body is enough,” he growled. “For now.”
Then he leaned forward, his thick lashes fluttering closed as he nipped my chin firmly with his teeth and trailed his tongue along the path of a fallen tear over my cheek. His breath fanned over my cheek, his lips against my temple, and his hand even tighter around my neck as he whispered, “But one day, it won’t be, and I’ll come for it all. Your mind, your spirit, and your innocent heart.”
He pulled back just enough to stare into my eyes the way an astrologer might into the star-filled sky. I felt catalogued by him, defined by words I didn’t understand in a language that was dead to everyone but him.
I squeezed them shut and whispered, “I will hate you every day for the rest of my life.”
“Love me or hate me if you will. Either way, I will always be on your mind,” he reminded me. “Now, slave, kneel for me.”
I didn’t want to kneel. It felt too enormous a gesture when previously, I’d never given it much thought. But to be on my knees before such a man felt like readying for a beheading, the axe gleaming in his hands, my neck tender with exposure.
I hated that I had no choice, that I had been condemned to such a fate not by my own actions but by those of my feeble father.
He was not pleased by my hesitation.
Fingers bit into my shoulder, and he slowly forced me to the ground.
“Kneel and get comfortable; you will be spending a lot of time on your knees,” he ordered, shifting his hand to the top of my head as soon as my knees crashed painfully to the marble floor.
I panted slightly, a combination of fear, resentment, and dying pride like two fists compressing my lungs.
“This will be our first training session together. I don’t expect much from you, but I do anticipate complete obedience, is that understood?”
I shut my eyes and licked my dry lips, trying to transport myself to another place, one without a cold Brit trying to tell me what to do.
“You will keep your eyes on me at all times,” he demanded. “Customarily, a slave never looks in their Master’s eyes, so you should thank me for the privilege.”
“Thank you for making me feel so special,” I said, saccharine sweet.
“There is a reason for every single move I make in this life. This is yet another example of that. I want my slave to look me in the eye so she can watch as the animal inside me breaks free to ravage her. Without constraint. Without mercy. Because there is no leash powerful enough to contain it.”
I swallowed thickly, unable to keep back the shiver that played my spine like piano keys. “Understood.”
“Understood, Master,” he corrected sharply.
“Yes, Master,” I ground out between my teeth.
“Mmm, you think your bad attitude dissuades me, bella?” He paused after the question, then used his hand on the back of my head to press my temple against the granite length of his cock beneath his slacks. “It achieves quite the contrary, so misbehave all you desire.”
I could feel the heat of him through the fabric, the pulse of him beat against my cheek like a drum roll heralding an invading force.
“Now, this is how you will present yourself to me,” he coached coldly as he used one leather shoe to kick my knees farther apart.
The cold air bit teeth into the lips of my exposed sex and made me realize with shameful clarity that I was wet.
It was too much to hope that Alexander wouldn’t notice.
He ran the toe of his loafer gently over my bare, pouting lips, then harder over my newly pierced clit hood.
“You look good in gold,” he praised mildly, reaching down to twist one of the gold bars in my nipples. “Golden eyes and golden sex for my golden slave.”