Page 19 of Sinful Mafia Santa

He traces the lace across my left hip, circling each red rosewith his thumb. I groan as the pressure pulls my knickers tighter against my clit. His second blow is harder than the first.

“Two,” I call out. “Thank you, sir.”

The pulse between my legs grows faster. My body hasn’t forgotten my first time with Gage. My first time with any man.

It was the Friday after Thanksgiving. Logan and a couple of defensemen were taking some homesick Russian rookies out to one of the casinos for caviar and blini after the game.

I drove down with leftovers from a holiday feast I’d shared with fellow culinary students. I had a month off from school. Most of my classmates were working all December, filling in at restaurants during the busy holiday season, but I was late looking for a job and not willing to accept the dregs available once I got my arse in gear.

I let myself into the house on Beach Avenue and put all the food away in the fridge. Settling down to wait for my brother, I started reading a super-hot romance novel on my phone. My hand slipped inside my knickers as the book got spicier. Gage walked in when I was one stroke away from coming.

Now, his fingers tighten on my knickers. He tugs, hard enough to make me gasp. The elastic stings as it snaps back to my arse. Gage’s hand lands after that, steady and solid and sharp.

“Three,” I cry. “Thank you, sir.”

The thrumming in my core spirals up my spine. My nipples are rock hard. My fingers stretch from my bound wrists, quivering with need.

That Friday night ten years ago, Gage saw exactly what I needed. He grinned from across the room and said he could help with that. I told him I was a virgin, and he crossed the room to twist a curl of my hair around his finger. He repeated his offer: “I can help with that too.”

I let him.

Here in the Heart, Gage’s strong fingers wrap around the triangle of lace that’s torturing my arse. The panel betweenmy thighs cinches tight. I cry out from the pressure, and then he twists his wrist, tugging hard enough to shred the delicate lace.

His palm lands low on my arse, close enough to my drenched core that I yelp. My right shoe clatters to the stage. “Four,” I call out, desperate for more. “Thank you, sir.”

That first time, he didn’t gag me. He didn’t tie my wrists or use his belt. Those were games we mastered later, in the single month that followed.

Because I didn’t go back to New York after that Friday night. Instead, I haunted Atlantic City. Logan and Gage put in long hours at the arena—practice and games and countless hours studying tape. But Gage and I fucked whenever we could, hiding in his bedroom, discovering all the ways I longed to submit, all the ways he knew to own me.

My arse is bare now in the Heart. As he lands his fifth blow, Gage pulls my hair, tilting my chin toward the crowd. He wants me to see them.

I’m on display to every member of the club, subs and Doms, all of them masked, all of them studying the work of a master. All of them measuring out the service of an obedient sub.

“Five,” I cry, throwing my voice to the back of the room. My left shoe tumbles to the floor. “Thank you, sir.”

We had thirty days before we were caught. Thirty days before our lives spun out of control. Thirty days before I told him I hated him, before I said giving him my v-card was the biggest mistake of my life, before I screamed I never wanted to see him again.

I lied. I wanted him even then. I’ve dreamed about him ever since. I’ve never been with another man who could read the tiniest hints of my body, who could measure out precisely how much I can bear. No other man has ever known me better than I knew myself. No one has been as good as Gage.

“You’re so red,” he growls, just before his palm lands on the right cheek of my arse.

“Six,” I call, obedient even though my throat feels torn. “Thank you, sir.”

He’s hard beneath me. I’d forgotten the length of his cock, the girth. I want to beg him for it, make him promise he’ll feed it to me, then he’ll fill my aching pussy once my punishment is done.

But good subs don’t ask for what they want. Good subs trust their Doms. Good subs get rewarded when they follow the rules.

My left cheek ignites from the flat of his hand.

“Seven,” I croak, the loudest sound I can make. “Thank you, sir.”

I can smell myself, slick with need. He told me once I smelled like salt air. I tasted like honey, he said, but smelled like the sea.

His hands are scarred where he caught too many pucks. A thin white line slices through his eyebrow, reminder of some long-ago game.

He smacks the same place he did after ripping off my knickers, the bruised hot flesh so close to my core.

“Eight,” I moan, stretching my arms like they can reach an invisible light switch. “Thank you, sir.”