Page 21 of Wicked Auction

So the couch will be for surveillance. Got it.

“You could’ve tied me to the bed.”

“Could’ve. Planned on it.” He crosses his arms on his chest. “Might still.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Think I was hard enough on you for one night, aye?”

Ah, good. I can still cash in on his guilt over the spanking.

He turns away, picks up a pillow from the floor where it’s fallen, and tosses it toward the couch in one fluid motion.

“Get some sleep.” He jerks his chin toward the bed. “Now. That’s an order. Tomorrow, we get to work.”

Work?

He reaches over and switches off the lamp without asking if I’m ready. He heads to the living room, climbs onto the couch in boxers, bare-chested, and I’m left standing in the half dark beside a king-sized bed that’s all mine.

“Bed, Valentina. Don’t make me get up and make you.”

In the dark, with his back to me, I give him the finger.

Then I think about what he'd do if he saw it, and that thought is a problem because my first response isn't necessarily dread.

The fuck is that about?

Jerk.

I turn away from him. I need sleep.

The mattress is positively fucking heaven. I sink into it with a groan I hope he doesn't hear, then lie still and listen, because if he heard it, I want to know.

I have slept in very expensive beds. My bed at home is something a decorator picked out with my mother, with sheets that have an absurdly high thread count. This is just a hotel mattress with starched white sheets that still smell faintly of bleach.

But right now, it’s the most comfortable thing I’ve ever felt in my entire life.

The problem, when I find it, is my ass. I discover this within the first thirty seconds, when I roll over and the sheet touches the skin that is still, without a doubt, registering what happened earlier.

Great.

I shift. That’s even worse. I try the other side. Same.

I end up on my stomach, facing the window, the blanket pulled up to my shoulder blades.

I think about how much I hate him. It helps.

He put his hands on me because he thought he had the right to, as my fucking “owner.” He thinks he has the right to punish me.

He probably thinks he has the right to do it again.

So I make myself think about something else as my eyes grow heavy.

I wonder where my brothers are and what they’re doing. I think about Lorenzo, who will be running a search the way he runs everything: with precision and care. I think about Giuseppe, who will be breaking things and being held back, because that’s his way.

They don’t know that I’m in a hotel room with a man who bought me at a fucking auction… but took the couch.

Who bought me peanut butter and jelly and Guinness. Who orders me around and spanked me, then apologized for doing it.