It’s the right answer. It’s what I want to hear. She trusts me. So why am I so dissatisfied with it? Why do I still want something more? Jaw clenched, I settle my hands at her waist again, and I pull her off the glass, her body all but next to mine, but I don’t cave to the urge to pull her close. Instead, my lashes lower, and for a moment that turns into several more, I just inhale that sweet scent of her, waiting for the satisfaction that should follow but does not come. “Undress,” I order, releasing her and taking a step backward.
“Undress,” she repeats, making no move to do any such thing.
My gaze slides over her exposed nipples, lingering a moment and lifting. “Yes. Undress.”
“And you? Are you going to undress?”
“When I’m ready,” I say, maneuvering the large brown leather footstool in front of the coffee table and her. “For now,” I add, sitting down on top of it, “I’m going to watch you.”
Her eyes meet mine, hers narrowing, a tiny hint of vulnerability in their depths that is there and gone before I can even begin to analyze it. She knows I see it too, and she reacts in that feisty, fierce way I expect from her. Her chin lifts, challenge and defiance in her expression. She slides her blouse off her shoulders and tosses it aside. Turning the tables on me, she doesn’t give me skin. She pulls her boots off next, as if she knows it’s torturing me to wait for more. And it is, but damn if the burn in my body isn’t the sweetest ache of any I’ve had tonight.
Her bra is next though. She unhooks it, but instead of removing it, she laces her fingers in front of her and it, her hands under her chin, and just watches me. But it’s not hesitation to undress I see in her eyes. It’s something else. Something I can’t quite name, but I want to. She doesn’t give me the chance to try. Without further delay, her fingers part, and she drags her bra down her shoulders. My gaze rakes over her beautiful, high breasts, her nipples already puckered, hard like my cock, before my gaze slides down her arm to the finger where her bra now dangles. Sensing there’s a message in the action, my eyes find hers, my brow arching in question. Her lips firm, her eyes darken and she lets her bra drop to the ground. A calculated decision. A choice. The question is, is that choice about her taking control or giving it? It’s a question I’ll answer for her and soon.
She reaches down and unzips her pants, wasting no time in shimmying them down every delicious inch of her body, to expose pale, gorgeous skin, and kicking them aside. Her fingers then twine in the strings at her hips, and she drags the slip of lace that is supposed to be panties down her hips. They too dangle in her fingers, her eyes meeting mine, before she releases them.
I’m pulling my tie from my neck and standing before they ever hit the ground. “I’m going to tie you up, Emily,” I say, closing the small space between us to tower over her.
Her response is quick and unexpected. “On one condition,” she says.
“I’m listening,” I say, and suddenly, while waiting on her answer, I realize she might be without clothes, but I am naked in every other possible way. And I know then that I am fucked up tonight, both looking for her confession of fear and dreading it.
“When this is over, you will not question how or why it happened. This is my choice. You didn’t intimidate me into saying yes. You didn’t scare me. I chose to give you this control because I trust you. Because I am not afraid of you, and when you are like you are tonight, I still won’t be.” She offers me her hands.
Every nerve in my body is jumping. Every dark part of me is now on fire. Every emotion a twisted knot that torments me with a demand that it be named. I won’t allow myself that kind of weakness, and the theme of this night returns. Anger. Emily is the one pushing me to feel these things. She is the one pushing me to prove one thing: that I didn’t see what I saw in her eyes tonight.
I toss the tie and drag her to me, tangling fingers in her hair again and cupping her backside. “Denial is destructive. You know that, right?”
“I do,” she says, her fingers on my chest. “I know, but do you?”
“Damn it, Emily,” I growl, my mouth coming down on hers, tongue sliding past her lips, a band of tension wrapping around us, my need to bend her will, to force her to admit the truth dominating, the way I want to dominate her. But she doesn’t let me dominate her.
Her kiss is as fierce as mine. Her tongue as demanding, while her soft little hand manages to slide under my shirt that is somehow untucked, and scorch my skin. I deepen the kiss and squeeze her backside again, not sure who is pushing who. Not finding the fear I’d sought or expected, and that drives me to want it, to want her, all the more. I raise my hand and give her a smack on the bottom just hard enough to get her attention.
She yelps and then pants into my mouth. “Was that supposed to scare me? Because it didn’t.” She pulls back and looks at me, no hesitation in her words or eyes. “In fact, it turns me on. Everything with you turns me on, Shane. Do it again.”
Possessiveness rises hard and fast, unfamiliar and intense. “Who spanked you before me?”
“Nothing matters before you,” she says, her fingers curling at my jawline. “Do it again. You want to. I feel it. I know it.”
“Holy fuck, woman. I was worried about scaring you.”
“You mean you were convinced I was already scared. I wasn’t and you can’t scare me, but you can piss me off like you did when Martina left. That wasn’t fear you saw in my eyes, Shane. That was anger. I was pissed. I still am.”
I don’t do us the injustice of playing naive. “Because I didn’t want you to hear that meeting.”
“Yes,” she says. “And you know my past and all the secrets and lies. You know the lie I have to live to survive. Don’t give me more of the same.”
“I also know the reasons your family gave you to feel insecure. I don’t want you to feel that.”
“Secrets make me feel that.”
“It’s not about secrets. I was—”
“Don’t say ‘protecting me’ again. Don’t even say it. Even now, you want to be the person you were in that elevator and you won’t. Give me everything or nothing. I can’t do in between. So you want to fuck me, you want to spank me? Stop holding back.” She grabs my shirt. “Stop holding things back from me. I want the good, bad, and ugly. I want—”
I kiss her again, and damn it, if she wants the bad and the ugly, I’ll give it to her. I lift her and carry her to the couch, sitting down, and before she even knows my intention, I have her over my lap, my hand on her backside. “I’m going to spank you now.”
“Do it,” she hisses. “Do it now.”
But I don’t do it now because that would defeat my purpose: seeking control and her giving it. And it wouldn’t be about anticipation, pleasure, or escape. It would be about fast, hard pain. “Soon,” I say softly, shutting my eyes, running my hand over her bottom, warming her cheeks, readying her beautiful backside, that dark part of me unleashed but controlled in a way it wasn’t before. She isn’t demanding that I spank her for me. She wants it for her. She wants the escape it can be, and I know now that she’s needed that in the past, details of which I plan to find out. She was afraid tonight, but I was wrong about why. It wasn’t because of me. It wasn’t even because of Martina. It was about losing control, losing me and us. She wants the same escape I need, and I’m going to give it to her.
CHAPTER SEVEN
SHANE