“Don’t you trust me?” he asked. “Why would you want to play with me if you didn’t trust me?”

“I trust you, I just…” She looked up into his eyes then, the pleading visible.

“What did I say about eye contact? Right now, your body belongs to me. You agreed to this. Whether we do this or not, when we leave this room you are leaving my house. Don’t you want to feel like you won a round?”

She looked down quickly—back to the old Caprice—and said, “Yes, Master.” Playing on her sense of competition was too easy. For all her conniving and borderline insanity, she was easy to read and manipulate. She was unable to step back from a situation and judge cost versus benefit once she’d settled on a course of action. Perhaps he’d beat some sense into her today.

“Good girl. I imagine you never hear that phrase. Must be such a novelty, and perhaps demeaning, all things considered.” He pushed the black rubber ball past her lips and snapped the gag into place before she could utter the comeback that had surely begun to weave itself together in her mind.

With the family upstairs opening gifts and wondering where the hell he was, all he wanted was to get his fix, to get his sadistic urges out on a live and somewhat willing human being. He went straight for the cane. It was maximum impact for limited time allotment.

One by one, he laid the welts across her ass and thighs in sharp, practiced strokes. The anger in those welts mirrored his own. His anger at the situation he was in, at Caprice’s machinations, and at his own carnal weakness in falling for her scheme. But oh, he would make her pay for it. She had to know that.

She screamed around the gag so loudly that he was glad for the obstruction. As soundproofed as the dungeon was, you could never be too careful with your mother and a pack of small children upstairs. “Why did it sound like you were murdering someone?” wasn’t the question he wanted to entertain on Christmas morning.

There was something vulgar in this display on such a holy day. They’d been out of Mass for a short eight hours and he had one woman tied down, beating her, while the woman he was marrying sat upstairs abandoned to his criminal family.

He stepped back to admire his work and ran his hands over the hot, red marks. Leo pressed a finger inside her, unsurprised to find her wet and needy. Even with no warm-up or love and kittens, she could rise to the occasion, and so, it would appear, could he, if his hard-on were any indication.

It didn’t matter who was under his cane or whip. The effect on his body was the same every time—a fact which disturbed him.

Leo went back to the toy box and retrieved a vibrator with leather straps attached. He pushed the toy inside her, making sure the external nub pressed firmly against her clit, then he secured the straps around her thighs and waist and flipped the switch that brought it to life.