Page 196 of Auctioned

“Miss Monroe”—it infuriates me that I can’t call her Mrs. Hawthorne yet—“and I have a business meeting that I can’t put off. Clear my schedule for the next hour and hold my calls.”

“Will do.” She jots my instructions on a piece of paper on her desk.

Suppressing a wicked smirk, I add, “Unless it’s Oliver. I’m starting to worry about him.”

Her expression clouds, brow furrowing. “Do you think we should involve the police? I can do that while you two are in your meeting.”

“Hmm.” I pause. I’m dying to see what’s bothering Ophelia. Fuck the fear out of her. But my performance has to be flawless. I have to appear as though I’m considering this. “Give it until the end of the day. We don’t want police officers barging in on him in an intimate moment.”

Oliver’s orgies are no secret around the office. His reputation serves me well today.

“Will do.” Her cheeks don’t flush. Professional to the bone.

I’m inside the office. Door closed. Lock flipped.

Ophelia waits for me behind the desk like she was told.

Manhattan’s view pales in comparison to my dark angel. Her expression is defiant. Lips pinched, chin up.

She needs me. The man to put her mind at ease.

The one to put her in her place.

“Bend over the desk,” I say, my tone bored.

I’ll never get over our games.

I’ll never stop getting hard from the shocked, humiliated expression on her face.

“We’re at work.” She sounds self-assured. Her hands are shaking, though. A slight tremble that gives her away. “We should be, you know, working.”

“We will.” Every step I take toward her has her lips pinching tighter. “After you bend the fuck over.”

“Why?” Flexing her fingers gets the shivers to stop. She pushes them to her hips. “I’m not ovulating”—she spits out the word—“today. You should save your sperm.”

I hope she’s ready for her punishment.

For talking back. For doubting me.

For letting an outsider put these ideas in her head.

Most of all, because she needs the pain to remember who she is.

I’ll always be there to attend to her needs.

I round the desk, standing behind her. I slide a hand beneath her chignon to curl my fingers around the nape of her neck. “I see what’s going on here.”

“Stop it,” she hisses.

“Like hell.” She puts up a fight when I bend her over the desk, cheek mashed into the expensive dark wood.

“You’re a bastard.” Her insult is swallowed up by the buzzing in my ears. By the sense of mission. By the determination that burns through me.

The need to slaughter Topher doesn’t help, either.

“James.”

“Shut up.” I pull her arms behind her back. My hand is a manacle around her wrists.

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