“Come here.”
My stomach dips as I stand rooted in place, my hesitation shrouded by worry, becausethatvoice is nonnegotiable. Yet he disappears and then reappears, and all he has for me is “I know”?
“Riley.” His tone’s laced with warning.
I close my eyes in defeat.
“Please.”
Not once, in all the time we’ve spent together, has he ever used that word. I’m the pleaser. He’s the taker. And never is the dividing line crossed.
He doesn’t deserve my obedience, though I worry how he’ll react if I completely disobey, so I meet him halfway, shuffling by him to open the kitchen curtain. Moonbeams dance across my skin, though he remains obscured by shadows.
“How did you get inside?”
“Used my key.”
“What?” I gasp. “You have a key to my apartment?”
He counters my question with one of his own. “I’ve failed, haven’t I?”
“Failed?” I stare at him, incredulous.
“At corrupting you.”
A shiver races up my spine. That voice. That tone. He makes me forget my own name. “No,” I whisper.
“Let me see,” he orders. “Unfold your arms.”
My skin heats beneath a flush. What a picture I must have made, bare-chested and crawling around on the floor. His lips have crisscrossed every inch of my body, so why this crippling shyness?
“Show me what you’re hiding, baby.”
Baby.The word feels like a soft caress from this harsh, no-nonsense man. Did he feel my absence, as much as I missed him?
I drop my arms, and my D-cup-size breasts bounce free. On my small frame, breasts this size appear bigger. And he, freakishly, loves them. Is borderline obsessed with them.
“Come here.”
I step closer. My mema’s crystal cocktail glass on the table, alongside a nearly empty whiskey bottle I don’t recognize.
He had a few drinks the night we met, but I’ve never seen him drunk.
“What’s wrong?”
His midnight black hair’s mussed, like he’s been running fingers through it. Scruff darkens his chin like he’s forgotten to shave. I’ve memorized even the curve of his lips, the cupid’s bow of his upper lip softening the rigid set of his bottom lip. I focus on the upper one, the antithesis of the steely force I’ve grown accustomed to.
How little I know about him, other than he thrives on control, domination, and filthy, dirty sex. He’s always well-groomed, hair smoothed back and face baby-bottom smooth.
But tonight … something’s upsetting him.
“Say something.”
“I’m here.”
“I didn’t notice,” I quip. Such a liar. Because I notice everything about him. The spicy lemon cologne he wears. The tension sizzling between us. His face, body, enormous dick. Theway Italian bleeds into his words, especially when he’s bossy or extra dirty in bed.
“This is the last place I should be.” He drops my cell phone onto the table with a clatter. Why did he have it? Was he scrolling through it?
