by Zoey Parker
Gio nodded once, reared back, and brought the flails forward hard. They connected with Carla's stomach and the pain came a split-second later, so sharp and dizzying that her flesh momentarily felt like shattering glass. Her own ears were surprised by the volume of her scream, long and high and jagged, like nothing she'd ever uttered before.
There were several giggles from the crowd as Gio brought the whip down again, this time on Carla's breasts. Razor-like agony bloomed in them, and her left nipple burned as though someone had put a heated dashboard cigarette lighter over it.
Yellow, water, yellow word, say it, just say water, her mind yammered crazily. She felt a sickening lurch in her midsection when she looked at the studs on the whip's handle and thought about them inside of her, but her skin felt like it was on fire and her brain screamed that she couldn't take another smack from the flails.
Just a few more, she thought, steeling herself. Just a few more and he'll stop, you can take it, just be strong and take it and he'll stop...
The whip whistled through the air and cracked against the front of her thighs, sending jolts of pain slithering up through her body like venomous snakes. She let out another long shriek. She'd endured injuries before, but never anything as calculated and relentless as the blows from this horrible instrument made specifically for torture.
There was nothing she could do—no gun to reach for, no self-defense move that would allow her to escape her bonds and strike out at her attacker. All power had been taken out of her hands, replaced with a total paralysis that vapor-locked her every thought, that was somewhere between terror and exhilaration.
Her only escape, the only sliver of self-control that existed to her anymore, was a set of two words and the numbing certainty of what would happen if she uttered them.
The whip came down on her thighs again and the flails seemed to find the same hateful lines they'd made before, the hurt cutting even deeper into Carla's muscles until she imagined the leather cords stinging down into her bones. In that moment, she knew she couldn't endure another strike, no matter what came afterward. She would do anything to make it stop, anything at all.
“Water!” she screamed.
Gio froze, the whip poised over his shoulder, ready to deliver another lash. He slowly lowered his arm and reversed the whip's position in his hand, moving toward her.
“All right,” Gio said. “If that's what you want.”
She looked down at the bulbous end of the whip handle and suddenly wished she hadn't said anything. The closer he got, the bigger and uglier it looked and the more she dreaded having it inside her. But it was too late now.
She'd set things in motion that couldn't be taken back, and all that was left for her to do was hang on and take whatever Gio gave her until it was over. This thought was accompanied by a giddy tang of adrenaline, and she was surprised by the sudden realization that she was damp between her thighs.
Her brain was stuck in fight-or-flight mode, and she could do neither. Somehow, deprived of those two doors, her emotions seemed to overflow, pushing through some inner border and spilling out of her as raw desire.
Gio pressed the studded dome of the whip against Carla's inner thigh, tracing a delicate line up to the area between her legs. On its way up, it briefly connected with one of the thin red welts created by the lashes and Carla hissed at the stinging sensation. Then the whip's head pressed against her quivering folds, then pushed past them, entering her.
Carla cried out again as she felt the metal studs dig into her G-spot. It was rough and painful, but there was something so filling and inevitable about it that Carla felt a strange pang of satisfaction deep in the pit of her stomach. She'd never felt anything like this before, the agony or her unexpected enjoyment of it, and this realization brought a mixture of shame and elation.
“Take it,” Gio growled insistently, his face inches away from her own. “Take it all the way inside you.”
“Yeah, take it!” a voice from the crowd called out mockingly. Several others laughed.
Carla let out a ragged gasp. She could feel the inner walls of her pussy burning as they stretched around the whip's rounded head.
The feeling tearing through her helpless body was primal, transformative, almost religious. The familiar world she'd known before was being brutally reshaped to accommodate Gio, the laws of physics warping and shifting beneath her skin.
Her eyes darted over Gio's shoulder and she saw that the crowd of spectators had grown larger. Baby Mask was watching them and breathing hard. A short girl in a painted vampire mask stood next to him and watched as she touched herself. It took a moment for Carla to realize it was the cashier from the costume shop.
Carla inhaled and opened her mouth to speak the next word, not because she was desperate for this to end, but because she was desperate for what came next. She couldn't wait any longer.
“Air!” she cried out. “Air!”
Gio pulled the whip's head out of Carla in a single, rough gesture, eliciting another scream from her. Her voice had become so hoarse that she almost didn't recognize it. The studs hurt as they left her body, but somehow, the sudden, aching emptiness seemed to hurt her even more.
Gio tossed the whip into the satchel, took out a condom, and unzipped his trousers. His cock pushed forward, hard and trembling as he rolled the condom onto it, his eyes still locked on Carla's face. He stepped forward, positioning himself in front of her and cupping his hand behind her neck.
“Now you can look into my eyes,” he said, his voice muffled behind the mask. “And don't you dare look away.”
Before she could respond, the tip of Gio's cock slid between the soft, sore lips of Carla's pussy. She let out a low, ragged moan. Each thrust hurt as his shaft rubbed hard against her tender inner walls, but the hurt seemed intertwined with an even deeper pleasure, until she couldn't tell which was which anymore.
She just wanted more.
“Who does this pussy belong to?” Gio asked tightly, pushing deeper inside of her. In her mind, all the spectators were gone and it was just the two of them, suspended in a black and timeless void.
“Y-You,” Carla stammered, her wide eyes staring into his. “You, M-Master.”
“Say it,” Gio commanded. He stabbed into her even harder, his cock slamming against her throbbing cervix so hard she thought she might faint.
“My...pussy...belongs...to...you,” she moaned, her words coming between gasps.
“Again,” Gio ordered. His pelvis was locked against hers and they were moving as one, up and down, up and down, her back slamming against the wooden cross.
She didn't want to give in to any part of this. She wanted to cling to her duty, her career, her sense of self. But with each hard push, with each time he stabbed into the core of her like a killer's knife, she felt her own identity shoved further and further away—replaced with nothing but the harsh truths of these bonds, this wooden cross, these floorboards pressing against the soles of her feet. There was no truth beyond this moment, this absolute loss of control.
No, not loss.
Surrender.
“My pussy belongs to you!” Carla shrieked, climaxing hard. “I belong to you, Master, I'm yours, I'm fucking yours!”
A moment later she felt Gio come, and then they were holding each other fiercely, the sweat from her nude body soaking the front of his sleek suit as the crowd whistled and applauded.
Chapter 22
Carla
They strolled briefly around the gallery, watching other scenes being played out. Carla was surprised that Gio helped her get dressed and allowed her to walk instead of crawl.
Carla's legs were still shaking slightly as Gio walked her back to her car. He'd insisted that they both keep their masks on even after they left the club, and Carla wondered if that meant he was worried about being followed.
Had someone already seen them together? And if so, had he gotten in trouble as a result? More questions for her to file away and ponder later, in case the answers
might give her an advantage over him.
But it felt strange for her to keep thinking about them in adversarial terms after what they'd just shared. She'd been able to put a lot of trust in him by assuming he'd obey the limits he'd set for them, and she was amazed that he hadn't abused that trust.
Instead, he'd opened doors inside of her that she'd never known existed, and it was difficult for her to focus on her original mission when she was dealing with such unfamiliar and conflicted feelings.
Gio remained silent as they walked together. With the mask hiding his expression, she couldn't discern his thoughts. Was he trying to intimidate her? Was he displeased with her for some reason? Was he struggling with his feelings about her, the same way she was with him?
They got to her car and Carla got behind the wheel, unsure of what to say. After what they'd just done, any comment she could make seemed like it would be inappropriate, if not downright surreal.
But Gio broke the silence, leaning over and resting his elbow on the edge of her window. “Thanks a lot for tonight. I had a great time.”
Carla was taken aback. He'd started off blackmailing and abusing her, and now he was thanking her?
“Me too,” she said before she could stop herself. She tried to tell herself that was the only response that made sense in terms of keeping him happy, that it wasn't sincere—but that felt like a lie.
“I brought you something,” Gio said, reaching into his pocket. He produced a small tube of ointment, handing it to her. “If you dab that on your welts, they'll heal a lot faster.”
“Thank you,” she answered, putting it in her pocket. She was taken aback by this gesture of concern.
“Listen, uh, I need you to do something for me,” Gio said uneasily. “I need you to use your Fed connections, your databases, all that shit, and find out about a guy named Salvatore my dad knew about twenty years ago.”
Carla blinked, surprised. When he'd said he needed something from her, she expected it to be sexual, not something work-related.
“That could be difficult,” she said. “There are a lot of guys named Salvatore in your line of work, and most of them go by Sal or even Sammy...”
Gio shook his head. “This won't be someone he worked with. It'll be someone he knew personally, like a friend, or...something. Please, okay? It's important.”
Carla couldn't believe he was actually asking her for a favor, or the sincerity she heard in his voice.
“Okay,” she agreed. “I can't promise I'll find anything, but I'll do what I can.”
He looked relieved. “Thank you,” he said. “I'll, uh, see you around, okay?”
Carla nodded, and Gio took his elbow away from the car window. She drove home full of questions, wondering who the hell Salvatore could be.
Halfway to her place, she felt agonizing pain in her chest and lap, and realized the seatbelt was digging into the welts left by the whip. Instead of taking the belt off, she savored the pain, fondly remembering every lash.
Chapter 23
Carla
When Carla got home, she carefully eased herself out of her dress, wincing and hissing as it dragged across the welts from the whip. Once she was completely undressed, she walked to the bathroom and picked up a tube of ointment Gio had given her. She sat on the edge of the tub, gingerly brushing the medicated gel onto her wounds with her fingertip.
Just as she was finishing up, her phone rang. Once again, she cursed herself for not checking it when she got home. These evenings with Gio—and her conflicted feelings about them once they were over—were distracting her.
She ran into the living room, checked the phone's caller ID, and saw Don's number.
“Shit,” she muttered, pacing around the room nervously. “Shit, shit, shit.” She knew he'd probably called while she was out again, and she dreaded receiving another stern lecture from him, even though she knew she deserved it. She briefly considered letting the call go to voicemail, but she couldn't bring herself to worry Don any more than she already had.
Besides, she'd only be delaying the inevitable.
She accepted the call, bracing herself for his disapproval. “Hi, Don.”
“So what was it this time, Carla?” Don demanded angrily. “Locked yourself in the bathroom for a few hours? Abducted by a damn UFO? I'm waitin' for the next fairy tale from you to explain why you ain't pickin' up when I call! I swear, by the time this case is over, I'm gonna end up with about four or five dozen ulcers from worryin' about whether or not they've killed you.”
Carla squeezed her eyes shut. “I'm sorry. I really, really am.”
“You don't have to be sorry,” Don said. “But you do have to tell your handler—that's me, by the way, in case you forgot—where the hell you're runnin' off to when you can't be reached. I need to know your whereabouts at all times, darlin', or else this whole damn thing won't work an' you'll be on your own if you get into trouble. An' I cannot allow that to happen, understand?”
“I understand,” she answered quietly. She could hear the concern in his voice, and she felt terrible. “But all I can tell you is that what I'm doing is crucial to this case, and for it to work, I can't have my cell phone on me during certain periods. I'm sorry. I'll tell you everything when this is over, I promise. But I can't tell you now. I just can't, or it'll all have been for nothing. I need you to trust me, just for a little while longer. Can you do that, Don? Please?”
There was a long silence from the other end of the phone. Finally, Don said, “I think I have a pretty good idea of how you've decided to handle this thing, Carla. An' I guess we both know I can't come right out an' say it on this call, 'cause it's bein' recorded an' we could both end up in a whole mess of trouble later on. But I'm gonna go ahead an' trust you, 'cause you ain't never given me a reason not to, an' that's a damn sight more than I can say for most people.”
Carla sighed with relief. She knew she should have guessed that Don would eventually figure out what she was doing based on their previous discussions about Patty. “Thank you. I really appreciate it...”
“Well, now, don't go appreciatin' it too much yet,” Don continued, “'cause for this to work, you gotta give me somethin'. I know you can't talk about these secret excursions of yours, but the taped conversations you've sent in from your meetings with Gio an' Mario have given us precisely squat, an' the folks upstairs are gettin' a mite restless.”
Carla raised her eyebrows. “Why the hell would they be getting restless already? Fred was undercover for seven months—I've barely been undercover for three weeks!”
“Yeah, but Fred's career was also a damn sight longer than yours,” Don said, “so he had a lot more credit in the bank where them boys were concerned.”
“Plus he was a man,” Carla pointed out sourly.
“Well, you said it, not me,” Don agreed mildly. “But you gotta give me somethin' I can put in a report, darlin'. Anythin' that makes it look like we might be makin' progress here, so I can get 'em to back off while you're...doin' what you're doin'.”
“It's been pretty tricky,” she said. “Gio's running the restaurant clean, and I can't suggest that he do otherwise without having the case thrown out due to entrapment. He'd made a few half-assed references to collecting money from low-level pot dealers and that kind of thing, but it's nothing any decent lawyer couldn't get him out of if we busted him for that.”
“What about Mario? Have you gotten close enough to get anything on him?”
“Mario's doing a good job of isolating his rackets from Gio's,” Carla answered. “I think he's worried Gio might get sloppy and trip him up somehow. And believe me, Gio knows his dad doesn't trust or respect him, and he resents the fuck out of it.”
“Can we use that somehow?” Don asked. “If Gio ain't a fan of his old man, can we maybe get him to flip?”
Carla thought this over. “It's possible, but it's still a bit of a stretch. Even though Gio hates his father and isn't that interested in the gangster life, with these Sicilians, family is
everything. We'd need something heavy to hold over Gio's head to get him to rat out Mario. Unless...”
“Unless what?” Don prodded her.
“Hey, Don, are you in front of your computer right now?”
“Sure,” he said.
“Okay, good. I need you to look into the files on Mario, going back twenty or thirty years. See if you can find anything at all about someone named Salvatore who he'd have been associated with around that time. Personally, not professionally.”
“Good thing you narrowed it down,” Don grunted. Carla heard his fingers clacking on the keyboard in the background. “What's this about, hon?”
“I have no idea,” she said. “But it seemed like it was worrying the hell out of Gio, so maybe it'll give us something to go on. I know it's a longshot, but...”