Devil's Advocate: A Dark Mafia Romance (Devil's Playground Book 1) by Vivi Paige (different ereaders .TXT) 📗

seat for me. Not wanting to argue, and wanting this lunch over, I sat down. I figured the best way to get along here was to play along.

He sat down across from me and a waiter appeared almost instantaneously.

“Buona giornata,” he said, turning to me. “Welcome to Luciano’s. Have you dined with us before?”

Indro shook his head.

“She hasn’t, Louis. Bring us the cabernet, the linguini in clam sauce, Caesar salad, and some fried calamari, si?”

Louis nodded and bustled off to the kitchen, presumably.

“What if I don’t want any of that?” I said.

“Nah, you’ll want it. It’s the best food in Chicago. It’ll knock your socks off, I promise you that.”

He was infuriating. As arrogant as the day is long. The problem I was finding was that somewhere, inside me, I liked it. I could feel it. And I didn’t know how to reconcile that with the other aspects of him.

The man was a criminal. Not someone who maybe made a mistake one time, not someone who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. This was his career. He was a bad guy. Straight up. No middle ground or gray area here.

Now, I will grant you, I was a defense attorney. I didn’t care if my clients were innocent or guilty, I took cases to win. I was being blackmailed, yes. But I could have found a way to overcome it.

And yet…

Here I was. Having my lunch ordered for me. By a thug. A handsome thug, but a thug nonetheless.

The salad arrived and, even though I thought I wasn’t that hungry, especially given the circumstances, it was delicious. Maybe the best such salad I’d ever eaten.

“What do you think of the grub? Not bad, am I right?” Indro said, washing down a bite with the wine.

I nodded, still chewing.

“It’s… it’s surprisingly good,” I said.

“Damn right it is. You won’t get food this good anywhere else in town.”

“Well,” I said, taking another forkful, “I’ll remember that. I hope you do, too.”

“Meaning what?”

“Oh, nothing. Just saying that my guess is that they don’t serve food this good in prison.”

“Ha, yeah. Believe me, they don’t. The only things they serve in prison are lockdowns and beatdowns. And you don’t want either of them, believe me.”

“And you don’t want to drop the soap either, from what I hear,” I said. I saw Indro bristle at that. A little weakness.

Hm. Well. Let’s see how that plays out.

“I mean, unless that’s your thing,” I said, reaching for the wine.

Indro grabbed me by the wrist, causing me to spill the wine.

“Hey!”

“What the fuck did you just say to me?”

“What’s the matter, big boy?“ I said. “Can’t take a little… poking?”

Holding me by the wrist, he pulled me out of my chair, knocking it over. Not one person looked up. I guess scenes like this were fairly common.

“What the hell are you doing?” I shouted as he yanked me into the kitchen of the restaurant.

It was busy back there, water boiling, sous chefs chopping vegetables, waiters moving about.

“Everyone out, now!” Indro commanded. Instantly, everyone in the kitchen was gone, without question. He let me go and paced back and forth in front of me.

“You think you can make jokes about that?” he said to me. “Think you can make jokes like that to me?”

I stood right up to him, getting in his face.

“Listen to me, you Stone Age Neanderthal,” I barked at him, ”I’ll make jokes about whatever the fuck I like and that’s that.”

“Oh yeah?” Indro said.

“Yeah.”

Suddenly he whirled me around and bent me over the countertop.

“What are you doing?”

I watched him grab a wide, plastic spatula from a container and he held in front of my face.

“You watch what you say,” he said to me quietly, leaning down into my ear, “or you get punished.”

“Who the fuck do you think you—”

I stopped when I felt the spatula whack hard against my ass.

I didn’t know what to say.

Then Indro spanked me again. And again.

I was shocked to say the least. And every time he made an impact, I yelped a little. It didn’t really hurt. It stung slightly. But no more than that.

It was, however, humiliating.

And here’s the real kicker: I think I liked it.

He had taken control of me. And I liked it.

This really had become a strange day.

Chapter Twelve

Indro

Fuck me—that was hot.

The idea was to spank some of that sassiness out of her, but I didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did. Now, as I looked down at her bent-over figure, the curves of her perfect ass calling out to me, I couldn’t help but want more. Maybe Sophie had it right when she told me she didn’t date clients. It just made things more complicated than they should be.

Then again, what was life without complications? They were fun, provided they were the right kind of complications. And a complication with the breasts and ass that Sophie had… well, fuck, do I really need to explain myself?

“Next time you think of making a cutesy little joke,” I said, throwing the spatula aside, “just remember that there’s a price to pay.” I cocked my arm back and, opening my hand, I brought it down on her ass. My palm smacked her cheeks with a satisfying sound, and a pleasant shiver ran up my spine. Inside my pants, my cock twitched happily, probably wondering what the fuck was going on out here.

“Did you have fun?” Sophie pushed herself away from the counter and, with a scowl, used one hand to smooth out the wrinkles in her skirt. Despite the attitude she was showing me, there was a deep shade of crimson on her cheeks. It made the red of her lips stand out, like one of those vintage Chiantis the Don always kept in his cellar.

“Do you think it’s fun to mete out punishment?” I cocked one eyebrow up, and then offered her a grin. “Trust me, this hurt me just as much as it hurt you.” Not exactly one of my