Page 17 of Take the Sub and Run

“If you get scared…” He repeated the words in a low voice, almost as if he were saying them to himself. “Your safe word?”

“Rembrandt,” she said, The Night Watch still on her mind.

Andrei tsked her. “What a bad girl you are, my little thief.”

“What do I… Do I call you, um…” She rarely stumbled over words, but right now, she was flailing.

“What do you usually use? It’s fine if it’s something in Dutch.”

“Sir,” she said.

“In English?”

“Yes.”

He hesitated only a moment before saying, “Then you call me ‘Sir.’”

Finally, Sofie opened her eyes.

Andrei was on his hands and knees in front of her. Had he crawled across the floor to her? Why did she find that idea so disturbing and arousing?

He was close enough that the reality of what it would mean to submit to him made an emotion approaching panic grip her chest. It was hard to take a full breath.

“You won’t hurt me?” she whispered desperately.

Andrei looked away for a moment, and she was sure he would call it off. Was already trying to figure out how to fix it. How to undo what she’d done.

Instead, he smiled, a slow devil’s smile that shouldn’t have made her trust him more, yet it did.

“I will hurt you,” he vowed, and his gaze dropped to her cleavage.

“You won’t make me cry?” she asked, watching him watch her.

“Cry?” He tipped his head side to side to say maybe. “But beg? I will make you beg.”

Need overwhelmed her. What had been slowly building, surging until she couldn’t hold back. She would have agreed to anything, accepted anything he wanted to do to her, in that moment.

Sofie reached for him, wanting to feel his hair under her fingers, that plump lower lip against her skin.

Andrei sat back on his heels, grabbing her wrists before she could touch him.

Their gazes locked, her wrists captive in his grasp.

He gave her one small squeeze and released her. “I’m going to leave. When I return, if you’re naked on your knees, we start.”

Sofie’s breath caught, and she didn’t exhale until he’d stood and walked out the door.

Then she rose and reached around behind her back for the zipper.

Five

Andrei hesitated, wanting to exist in a place of possibility for a little bit longer.

He wouldn’t fault Sofie for backing out and remaining clothed. This was an odd night that seemed to exist outside of reality. A night where he kidnapped art thieves instead of arresting them and scening with a virtual stranger in a quarter-renovated BDSM club made perfect sense.

He wouldn’t fault Sofie for deciding not to do this once the cuffs were off and he wasn’t right there pushing and teasing her with wicked words.

But he would be disappointed.

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