Page 89 of Their Greatest Strength

“You’re playing with fire,” he warns, voice low and throaty.

Pressed together like this, it’s easy to feel his cock, hard and rigid in his slacks. I’d take that as a win if I wasn’t positive that while lost in the need to show him up, I’ve grown wet in the lewd panties I put on for tonight.

“I’m not the one afraid of getting burned,” I whisper, moving my touch around to his hip. “Are you scared of having to tap out?”

He’s hard everywhere, firm and strong, and touching him like this only reminds me of that. It’s dangerous to feel him beneath my fingers and know that if I just shifted a little further, I’d break every single barrier left between us.

Cross a line that’s not meant to be crossed.

Jamie wets his lips and curls his fingers in the silk stretched around my ass. “Do you think I’m scared, Blakely? Because all I need is the slightest signal, and I’ll tear this dress to shreds.”

“It’s expensive,” I argue on a wobbly breath.

“I don’t care.”

He’s too committed to our game. I genuinely believe that he would rip this dress off with his bare hands if I told him he could.

My chest heaves, nipples tightening to points in my corset. Desire pools between my legs, and as if he’s reached inside my brain and flipped a switch, I’m debating just how far I could take this and get away with it.

With a cover in place, I’m brave, confident.

I repeat those words in my mind as I drop my hold on him and twirl the two ends of his tie around my fists. With a yank, he’s leaning into me, our noses bumping.

“Tell me what you’d do once you got my dress off,” I coax.

He curls a finger beneath my chin and tips it back before ghosting his lips across mine. “In how much detail?”

“All of it.”

“In the kitchen?”

I pause, searching his eyes for the reason behind the question. The meaning of it is obvious, even to someone who hasn’t been asked out by literally anyone in years. But if he’s hinting at going upstairs with me, it doesn’t fit the rules of our stupid competition. Even if we didn’t exactly go over what we could and couldn’t do, this doesn’t fit in the imaginary guidelines.

So . . . does he want me to come with him for real? Outside of what we’re doing right now and his teasing earlier?

“Pretend I didn’t say that,” he adds, his eyes flicking between mine, reading every question in my head without needing to hear them.

Relief rolls through me. Jamie is the only man I’ve ever allowed to get close enough to know me this well. And the way he trusts me to make decisions on where my boundaries are andwhen I’m willing to stretch one is comforting in a way I’ll never be able to explain.

“Just tell me, Pretty Boy.”

“Not yet.”

My brow goes up at the same time I’m being lifted off the ground again. In a blink, I’m sitting on the island, and Jamie’s collecting the hem of my dress in his hands, lifting it to pool in a pile at my knees.

With the tight fabric out of the way, he fits himself between my legs and grips the edge of the counter in both hands, leaning forward.

“Better?” I coo, planting my palms on the marble behind me, my head rolling to the side.

Tracing his eyes down the length of my body and then back up again, he swallows. “Much better.”

“Get to it, then. I’m getting bored.”

“Bored,” he echoes, gliding his fingers beneath my right knee, digging them into the sensitive skin. “We can’t have that.”

“No, we can’t.”

There’s no point trying to hide every visceral reaction he yanks from me. Not when my skin pebbles with goosebumps and my breath catches with the first sweep of his palm around my calf.

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