I work her through it, easing the intensity but not stopping entirely, letting her ride the wave to its conclusion.
When she finally collapses back onto the mattress, I slowly withdraw my fingers. Her body makes a small, involuntary sound of protest at the loss of contact. But when I touch my slick fingers to her lips, tracing the outline, she opens her mouth and tastes herself.
I’m so hard right now.
Her hand shoots out. Grabs my wrist.
"More," she gasps.
"Emmaleen—"
"Please." She pulls herself up on shaking arms. Looks at me with eyes that are fever-bright, desperate, already sliding back into that headspace where pain and pleasure are the same language. "More. I need more. Show me everything. Show me everything Giovanni won't give me. Everything he's afraid to give me. All of it." Her grip tightens. "Right now. Please, Jino.Please."
21
I can hear my own breathing. Fast, shallow, and desperate. Like I've been running a marathon through my own psyche and just now realized I'm winning.
"More," I repeat, because apparently my vocabulary has shrunk to monosyllables and begging. "Everything Giovanni won't give me."
Jino's face does something complicated. Part concern, part desire, partwhat the actual fuck am I doing.
Join the club, buddy. We meet on Thursdays.
"Emmaleen." His voice carries that Dom-warning tone. The one that saysI'm about to be reasonable and you're not going to like it."You need to think about what you're asking."
"I have thought about it." The words tumble out, faster than I can organize them. "I've thought about nothing else. You and Giovanni—you're like… like a Venn diagram of fucked-up perfection."
He blinks. "A what?"
"A Venn diagram. You know, the circles? The overlapping things?" I'm gesturing now, hands tracing invisible shapes in the air between us. "Giovanni is all punishment and control and 'bow to me or else.' You're all structure and boundaries and 'let me teach you how to sing.' And in the middle—" I slap my palmstogether. "In the middle is me. The overlap. The place where both of you make sense."
Jino's expression suggests I've just explained quantum physics using interpretive dance.
"I'm not high," I tell him. "I'm not locked in subspace. I know exactly what I'm saying."
"Do you."
It's not a question. It's a challenge.
Fine. Let's do this.
I sit up, pulling the nightgown down to cover myself because apparently, we're having a BFF heart-to-heart now and I should at least pretend to have dignity.
"Giovanni wants to break me," I say slowly, carefully. "Every night, he wants to takes me apart. The crop, the clamps, the collar—it's all designed to shatter whatever's left of my defenses. And you know what? I want that. Ineedthat."
Jino's jaw tightens.
"But you," I continue, "you want to put me back together. Every morning, you want to show me that submission doesn't mean erasure. That I can be owned without being destroyed. That pleasure exists without requiring blood sacrifice first."
"Emmaleen—"
"No, listen." I lean forward. "You're the reason I survive Giovanni. And Giovanni is the reason I appreciate you. It's a perfect circle. You give me what Giovanni needs to see in me. Giovanni gives you what you need to fix in me. We're all getting exactly what we want."
The silence that follows is so thick I could spread it on toast.
Then Jino says, very quietly, "Giovanni will hate this."
"Will he?" I tilt my head. "Or will he hate that he loves it?"