Page 7 of Dominant

I rolled my eyes, but I couldn’t help smiling, too. “It’s just a lot of things. Making me feel like I don’t belong…” I sighed. “She said something to me tonight that just… gave me the impulse to lash out.”

“So you’re a brat,” he said, in that same suggestive tone he’d used when he’d called me a naughty girl.

“That’s just making light of something you know nothing about.”

“That’s not how I meant it. Do you know what a brat is?

“Yes,” I answered empathetically, suddenly wondering if I actually did - at least in the way he meant it.

He glanced over at me with a heat in his eyes that surprised me. “A brat is someone who wants to break the rules so they can be put in their place. They like it.”

I heard his words again in my head. I saw a naughty girl who should be punished.

I had a sudden image of Alexander Abbott punishing me - grabbing me by my wrists and pushing me up against the wall, handling me with a rough, masculine forcefulness, and I felt a delicious shiver run through me.

Out of unconscious habit I reached for my elastic band and snapped it before I even realized what I was doing. Suddenly remembering him staring at my wrist earlier, I felt a jolt of shame as the sharp twang rang out in the car.

“Sorry,” I said awkwardly. “That’s a weird habit. I just do it… when I’m, you know, when I feel stressed.”

He nodded without taking his eyes off the road. “I know.”

I twisted my finger into the elastic, pressing against the bruise. I wasn’t sure what he meant - how could he know?

“The pain helps with the pain,” he said after a moment, when I didn’t speak.

“Yeah,” I said quietly. His succinct summation surprised me.

“Pain helps with a lot of things,” he said mysteriously. “Do you like pain, Jordan?”

A beat passed, and my heart skipped with excitement as I answered, carefully: “Sometimes.”

He didn’t say anything, but I had the sense I had given him the answer he was looking for.

I was disappointed when we finally pulled up in front of my apartment building. I didn’t want to get out of his car; I didn’t want our time together to end. The way I’d felt cocooned in a private little capsule with him, the subtle scent of his cologne, the thrill of his teasing questions - it all felt like it was leading up to something. He pulled up in front of my building, parked the car and turned to look at me.

“You’re a beautiful girl, Jordan,” he said out of nowhere, and I blinked. “If this was a different situation, I might have asked you out.”

A shot of excitement spiked through me. “What’s wrong with the current situation?” I asked.

“You’re my business partners’ daughter.”

“Well, family relations are strained, you might have noticed.”

He smiled and leaned his head against the headrest, never taking his eyes off mine, and reached a hand towards me, circling his fingers around a lock of my hair and then dropping it behind my shoulder.

“You wouldn’t want to go out with me anyway,” he said quietly. “You might not like what I’m into.”

My breath quickened. An expanded slideshow of erotic images played through my head: Alexander bending me over his knee, Alexander pulling my hair, Alexander calling me a naughty girl.

“I’m not a brat,” I said. “I can be a very, very good girl.”

“Yeah?” he asked, something sparking in his eyes.

I nodded, and tried not to look at his mouth, which I wanted to feel against mine - very, very badly.

He reached out again and wrapped his fingers around the same lock of air, pulling on it hard, until I could feel the hairs pulling against the scalp. “Oh, the things I would do to you,” he said wistfully, and leaned forward. With his other hand, he pulled the handle for my door and pushed it open.

Cold air whooshed in, breaking the warm cocoon of the car. Cold, sobering air like an icy shower raining down on the fantasy I’d been entertaining that a man like Alexander could be interested in a young, dumb girl like me.

“It was nice to meet you,” he smiled, eyes suddenly cold, and I felt gutted.

He had been toying with me.

I stepped out of the car and awkwardly turned back around, expecting him to say more - anything else - but he pulled the door handle shut. I stood there watching as he drove away, feeling like something had abruptly been wrenched away from me. And then I turned on my heel and walked wearily up to my apartment.

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