I nodded, watching as he poured two glasses of what looked like expensive whiskey. He handed one to me, his fingers brushing mine in a touch that felt deliberate, charged.
"To honesty," he said, raising his glass.
"To honesty," I echoed, taking a sip. The whiskey burned pleasantly down my throat, warming me from the inside.
We stood in companionable silence for a moment, the fire crackling in the hearth, the room cocooning us in a warmth that felt dangerous in its comfort. It would be so easy to forget here—to forget who he was, who I was, how we had come to be standing together in this beautiful room.
"You didn't obey my instruction about dinner," Rafe said finally, his voice low but not angry. "What am I to make of that?"
And just like that, the spell was broken. Reality rushed back—the power dynamic, the captivity, the game we were playing.
"I obeyed the spirit if not the letter," I replied, taking another sip of whiskey for courage. "I dressed appropriately, just not formally."
"Semantics," he said, moving closer. "You knew what I meant."
I didn't back away, holding my ground as he invaded my space. "Perhaps I wanted to see what would happen if I didn't follow your rules to the letter. What the consequences would be."
His eyes darkened, understanding dawning. "You're testing me."
"Yes."
"Why?"
I set my glass down on a nearby table, suddenly needing my hands free. "Because I need to know what kind of man you really are. What happens when you don't get exactly what you want. Whether your control is as absolute as you pretend it is."
He set his own glass down, his movements deliberate, controlled. "And what have you concluded from your experiment?"
"That you're intrigued by defiance even as you demand obedience," I said, watching his reaction carefully. "That part ofyou enjoys the challenge I present. That complete submission would bore you as much as it would suffocate me."
His expression changed—surprise giving way to something darker, hungrier. "Perceptive," he murmured. "But incomplete."
"How so?"
In answer, he moved with a speed that took my breath away, backing me against the nearest bookshelf, his body caging mine without quite touching. His hands gripped the shelf on either side of my head, his face inches from mine.
"What I enjoy," he said, his voice a low rumble that I felt as much as heard, "is earning your submission. Not taking it, not demanding it, but watching you choose to give it. Freely. Willingly. Because you want to, not because you have to."
My heart raced, a mixture of fear and something else—something hotter, darker, more dangerous—coursing through my veins. "And if I never choose that?"
"Then we continue as we are," he said simply. "I ask. You refuse. I adapt. We both miss out on... possibilities."
The word hung between us, laden with promise and threat in equal measure. I was acutely aware of his body so close to mine, of the heat radiating from him, of the memory of what those hands had done to me just last night.
"What possibilities?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
His eyes held mine, dark and intense. "Let me show you."
Slowly, deliberately, he reached for my wrists, lifting them above my head and pinning them against the bookshelf with one large hand. The position arched my back slightly, bringing my body into contact with his—not forcefully, but unmistakably.
"I could restrain you," he murmured, his free hand tracing a line from my cheek down my neck, across my collarbone, to the edge of my sweater. "I could take what I want. You couldn't stop me."
I should have been terrified. Should have been fighting, screaming, doing anything except standing there, pulse racing, breath coming in short gasps as his fingers traced patterns on my skin.
"But I won't," he continued, his voice dropping lower. "Because what I want isn't your body under duress. It's your surrender. Freely given. Eagerly offered."
His hand moved lower, skimming over my breast through the thin material of my sweater, down to my waist, to the waistband of my jeans. I bit my lip to keep from making a sound, from giving him the satisfaction of knowing how his touch affected me.
"Tell me to stop," he said, his fingers playing with the button of my jeans. "Tell me you don't want this. Tell me you don't want me to touch you, to taste you, to make you come apart in my hands."
