Page 19

I laugh, bitter. “Trust? Why the fuck should I trust you? You kidnapped me.”
“And yet here you are. Waiting. Watching the door.” His gaze drops to my feet then trails back up, leaving a path of fire. “Wet.”
Heat floods my cheeks. “I am not?—”
“You’re not stupid. So don’t act like you don’t know what’s happening here.”
I hate how calm he is. How measured. Like I’m already halfway into his palm and we’re just negotiating the speed of my fall.
“I want to show you something,” he says. “But I won’t touch you unless you follow the rules.” His eyes return to my feet again, bare because when my clothes were miraculously returned my boots weren’t.
He seems… fascinated by them.
Does Dante O’Driscoll have a foot fetish?
Gah, I don’t want to know. “What rules?”
“The rules I’m about to give you.”
He walks over to me slowly. Doesn’t touch. Just stands close enough that I feel the heat of his body like a current under my skin.
“Strip, Dahlia,” he murmurs. “That’s rule number one.”
My breath trembles. I should say no. But my fingers are already moving.
Belt. Cargo pants. Turtleneck. I pause. He waits, not even an eyebrow raised.
I swallow. Bra. Panties. Each piece makes my skin feel thinner. By the time I’m naked, I’m fighting tremors and the urge to clench my thighs.
He walks behind me. I feel his breath at my neck. A little faster, hotter than normal.
“Hair down,” he instructs. And his voice is hoarser too.
Dante isn’t as unaffected as he projects. I revel in the tiny punch of power even as I raise my hands and obey his instruction. The weight of my long hair caresses my skin,expanding every shiver of awareness. Making my breath shorten more.
“You’re going to kneel now. Not because I forced you. Because you choose to.” His voice darkens, low and dangerous. “Because you want to know what it’s like to be handled properly.”
I hesitate.
Every stubborn cell in my body screams at me to defy him. To smirk. To spit some smart, bitter line about consent or autonomy or how men like him always think they’re in control. But none of it makes it to my lips.
Because somethingelseis stirring.
A pressure beneath my skin, heavy and undeniable. It’s not fear. Not even lust. It’s gravity. Like I’ve been resisting the pull of something for so long that I forgot what surrender feels like—and now, standing here, stripped down to nothing but nerve and instinct, I feel it pressing into my bones. A strange, aching need to let go, just enough to see what happens when someone else takes the reins.
I sink to my knees.
Quietly. Without drama.
Without any show of reluctance—because that would be a lie. The marble is cold against my skin, but that’s not what makes me tremble.  It’s the silence that follows.
The slow, deliberate way he breathes as he looks down at me. As if he’s known all along that I’d do it. That part of me wanted this—cravedthis. And I hate that he might be right. I hate it so much… it almost makes me wet.
Nah, forgetalmost.
Dante walks in front of me, crouches to my level. “Look at me.”
I do.