Page 24 of Fierce Protector

“You’ll never get the grip you need to hold the position with pants on,” I say with a grin before letting go with my hands and throwing my head back, leaving me hanging upside down, the pole in a tight grip between my thighs. I’m wearing a sports bra and my pole shorts. They’re slightly longer than booty shorts, but not by much, and they’re necessary for pole work.

As I spin around, I now realise that perhaps it wasn’t just the falling that caused their red faces, because right now they don’t know where to look. Every time they come into view as I turn, they look more and more flustered, doing everything they can not to look at me. On the next rotation, there’s a shadow in the doorway, and as I come back around, Stefano steps into view—face like thunder and anger rolling off him in waves.

“Get the fuck out right now,” he roars at his men, and I can’t help but giggle as the guys flee like startled cattle. They’re their own two-man stampede.

I loosen the grip my thighs have on the pole, sliding down and laying my hands on the floor, kicking back into a handstand before standing. Stefano slams the doorto the garage and storms towards me, his expression rigid and his jaw clenched tight. He looks like a bull charging a matador. I hold up my palm as he reaches me, stopping him dead in his tracks.

“Don’t you fucking start with me, Tiero. I came in here to work out and found your men playing on my pole?—”

“What do you mean playing on your pole?” he growls, and I snigger. “Don’t laugh at me. This isn’t fucking funny. Why the hell were my men standing here ogling my-my… you, wearing next to nothing on a stripper pole?”

Any humour I was experiencing is sucked out of me, replaced with an irritation at his tone that festers around me, hanging in and gearing us up for what’s about to be our first official fight as a couple.Wait, does dating for twenty-four hours make us a couple?Who the fuck knows.

“Where the hell do you get off coming into my house and judging me for how I choose to exercise?”

“Th-That’s not what I mea—” he stutters, clearly realising his mistake. He’s poked the bear and now he’s ripe for a mauling.

“How fucking dare you judge me for what I do and what I wear,” I screech, stepping into his space only for him to take a step back to escape.

“That’s not why I?—”

“I don’t care why you’re acting like a fucking caveman, Tiero. I came in here and found them dicking about on my ‘stripper’ pole, as you so eloquently put it. So, I decided to teach them a lesson. Quite literally, and theywere mortified. You think the minute you turn your back, I’m in here putting on some kind of show for anyone who’ll watch. You think I’d do that to you?” My chest is heaving with each sentence I spit at him. “And if you think you have any say in what I do with my body, you’ve got another thing coming. What the fuck do you thi?—”

He bats away the finger I’m using to repeatedly stab him with and steps towards me, placing his hands around my waist and hoisting me up against him. My traitorous legs wrap around him to balance as he walks me back against the wall of mirrors. I flinch when my bare skin hits the cold surface.

“What the fuck are you doing? We’re fighting,” I grind out. My breathing is ragged and strained as he leans in closer.

“We’re not fighting,” he fires back at me.

“I beg your pardon. Yes, we fucking are,” I snap. My arms encircle his neck but I unfurl one just long enough to slap at his shoulder. He loosens his grip on me and drops me down, startling a yelp out of me as my feet find the floor. His hands dart for my wrists, dragging my arms over my head and pressing them firmly against the cool glass. “What the fuck is your prob?—”

Pinning both my wrists beneath one of his broad palms, his free hand darts for my throat, cutting me off mid-irate sentence.

“Enough,” he roars, before crashing his lips to mine and stealing the head of steam I’d built up straight from my lungs. I gasp and let out a little whimper when he shifts his stance, pressing against me with his hips, andshowing me just how much he likes having me at his mercy. The corner of my mouth curves in a smile when I calm down long enough to recognise that this reaction isn’t down to mistrust. There’s a torrent of emotions drifting across his features, but the one I can see gleaming in his eyes is jealousy. He’s jealous. Jealous that anyone other than him got to see… what’s his.

“Goddammit, why do you have to make it so difficult to apologise? You’re a fucking menace sometimes.” His tone is gruff and strained. We’re so close our breaths mingle and tussle with each other.

“Are you saying you can’t handle a woman like me,vecchietto?” I say with a sarcastic lilt to my voice. Throwing down the gauntlet, trying to see how far I can push him. The tips of his fingers flex, just enough to elicit a half-feral moan as the pressure around my neck fluctuates.

“You know what I think,micetta?” he teases, his mouth curling into a lopsided smirk and letting his dimple come out to play. “You need a firm hand or a hard fuck, don’t you, baby girl?”

“Why not both?” I say with a dramatic pout.

He releases my wrists and throat, and I instantly miss the sense of possession they gave me. I need his hands on me. I crave them and my body seems to come alive under his touch.

He looks like a beast about to tear me limb from limb. I’m so exposed, so vulnerable, and so fucking turned on. A low rumble in his chest is the only warning I get before he grabs my arm and drags me with him as he stalks across the room.

The more roughly he handles me, the more my core heats and my arousal builds. “What are you going to do to me?” I ask, not really caring what the answer is, but desperate to hear his gruff voice again.

“What do you want me to do to you? What will make you understand who you belong to?” he says, his timbre so full of gravel I swear I can feel it vibrating in my molten core.

“I’ve been yours for years. You just never claimed me,” I whine, hating every second his hands are not on my body.

“Is that what you want? To be owned?”

“Yes. But only by you, Daddy,” I whisper, but I may as well have shouted for the reaction my words elicit. Stefano’s expression darkens and one hand darts back to collar my throat before squeezing just enough for my pulse to hammer against his fingertips.

“On. Your. Knees,” he commands. With his other hand, he wrenches open his belt and unbuttons his pants. “Take out my dick and show me how good you can be for me.”

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