Page 90 of Cruel Dominion

“Please.”

I frowned, letting my head fall the other way. He never said please.

“I’m no good at this Anna. I don’t date. I don’t…do this with people. I’m never going to be…”

“Normal?” I supplied.

He gave me a pointed look, but responded anyway. “No. Probably not. I don’t know how to be that guy, Anna. Not anymore. This is me. But I am trying.”

I rattled my restraints. “This is trying?”

“No, this is me not letting you hurt yourself trying to put yourself right back into the danger I just pulled you out of.”

“This is kidnapping, you know. A criminal offense.”

“You going to have me arrested?”

I snorted. “As if it would stick. I know all about your friends in high places.”

“Ah. That. Redditors really think they’re the sleuths of the interwebs.”

I rolled my eyes. Of course he saw every Reddit thread I poured over about his meteoric rise to success.

“Are you angry that I looked at your history, or angry that I know you were looking for me every time you grabbed your phone at night?”

Both, I thought, but didn’t reply.

“That’s what I thought. Anna, why can’t you admit that you want this—that you want me just as fucking badly as I want you?”

His hand on my heel shifted, pushing up to my calf, his calluses against the smooth skin there making goosebumps rise all over my body.

My pulse fluttered.

I worked to shut it the fuck up, but as his hand shifted higher, I couldn’t get that canary back in the cage and felt my lips part on a breathy sigh.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

You are not going to let him do this.

“Anna,” he said, his voice a husky whisper that begged me to open my eyes. I squeezed them tighter.

The mattress shifted and stars exploded behind my eyelids at the anticipation.

Tell him to stop.

My traitorous lips stayed shut, forcing me to breathe heavy and fast through my nose as I felt the presence of his body hovering just above mine.

His nose brushed my cheek.

“Tell me you hate this,” he whispered in my ear.

“You’re unbelievable,” I replied, the able turning into a sharp chirp as he lowered his hips against mine.

“Do you feel how fucking hard I am for you, little siren?”

So hard, he might tear through those Brioni slacks. I tried to move, to press my thighs together, but couldn’t.

I did manage to hold in my moan, but my eyes flashed open to find him watching me intently, our faces a breath apart.

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