Page 32

The playroom waitsfor me like it always does—dim and humming with anticipation. Walls of cool steel and shadow. Black leather restraints coiled like snakes. The faintest scent of cedar and sweat and unfulfilled sex lingers in the air.
I step inside barefoot half an hour after dinner, feeling every brush of the cool floor against my warm soles. My dress slips off easily. I left my shame somewhere between the second night and the third orgasm I never got to finish.
But this feels different.
He’s already there, dressed in all black, leaning against the padded bench like he owns gravity.
Dante’s hot black eyes drag down my body slowly—my small, curvy frame, the flare of my hips, the swell of my breasts. He pauses on my thighs, then moves lower. “You followed the plug instructions.” The ones he texted me before dinner.
I nod. The larger stretch is still new, tight and pulsing.
Dante pushes off the bench and circles me like I’m prey. “And the rest?”
I lower my eyes. “Yes, Sir.”
Of all the minute things he’s let slip, his immediate, electric reaction to that title is the most evident.
It tastes like surrender.Mine. Like sin.Ours. Like something I don’t want to need—but I do.
With the barest flare of his nostrils, he comes closer, tilts my chin up with one finger. “More words, Specter.”
I swallow. Wish he would call me Dahlia but I don’t vocalize that. “I strip on command. I ask before touching myself. I follow the rules.”
His eyes narrow. “Except when you don’t.”
I tense.
“I know you just tried to hack the tablet again ten minutes ago.”
My stomach flips. The collar around my neck seems to pulse with heat. “I just wanted to see?—”
He shuts me up with a kiss.
Not gentle. Not violent. Just…total.
His mouth takes mine like it has every right to. Like it’s been waiting for this moment. Tongue sliding deep, slow, possessive. His hands grip my waist, fingers sinking into my skin like he’s memorizing my curves, inch by inch.
I moan before I can stop it.
And he grins against my lips. “Still think you’re not fucking mine? That you can do what you please?”
I don’t answer. I can’t.
Because he’s behind me in the next breath, hands firm on my hips, his voice a whisper at my ear. “On the bench. Knees apart. Show me where it hurts.”
I obey.
The leather’s cool under my skin. I spread my legs, face flushed, my heart hammering as he kneels behind me. His fingers trail down my spine, then dip between my thighs. He strokes lightly, nowhere near enough. One stroke, glancing my clit, my hole.
“You’re wet,” he murmurs. “Already? From just a kiss? Or from something else? Something that feels like rebellion but tastes like your impending surrender?”
I shudder. Hate how true it is.
But then his hand stills. “Answer me, Dahlia,” he says quietly, “Or you don’t get fucked.”
“No,” I whisper, not even sure whether I’m begging him not to deny me or I’m denying him a proper response. Five days of edging have me out of my fucking mind.
He waits.