Page 64

The pounding vibrated against my door later than I expected. Dinnertime had come and gone and I hadn’t yet turned on my phone, but Bennett’s meeting would have been done hours ago.

I was only halfway through my second glass of wine, deciding to forego getting drunk before I found the nerve to look through Jakobs’s job proposal.

Dressed in flannel pajama pants, a tank top and a matching flannel buttoned top, thick socks covered my feet propped on my coffee table, while the fireplace roared in front of me, heating the small living room.

“Shit,” I muttered and took another sip of my wine. I should have drunk more. I should have gotten drunk. Bennett didn’t play sexually when his sub was drunk.

Staying sober wasn’t my first mistake, though. No, that had happened when I gave myself to him repeatedly through the week, trusting he meant every word he said to me.

Another knock hit my door, the sound of an angry fist and while he hadn’t shouted my name, Bennett’s furious presence still seeped through my thick, wood door. I had started this game, unintentionally, but I’d still done it. Hiding from him longer would only make things worse.

Too bad that in the hours where I’d had my bath, lathered on lotion afterward and thrown my hair up, twisting it into a bun at the top of my head, and then suffered through a meager dinner of store-bought sushi I had in my fridge, I hadn’t come to any great conclusions on what to do.

Stay with Bennett, stay employed under him and beneath him per the contract, or leave everything behind.

My need for safety screamed at me to leave, to walk away and never look back. But somehow, my few times with Bennett had created in me a new need, one that was bubbling just below the anger and pain rolling through my blood: passion.

As another knock reverberated against my door, I slipped to my feet and set down my glass of wine. I moved slowly, quickly creating a mental pro and con list on all the reasons to stay with Bennett but as I opened the door, swinging it wide open before he could crash his fist through the wood, I realized my mistake.

In the hours we’d been apart, I’d forgotten how absolutely, undeniably beautiful the man was.

“Good evening,” I breathed, already losing my voice and my brains in front of him. His hands were fists on his hips, unbuttoned suit coat flared behind his hands. His tie was knotted at the base of his throat, his shirt still perfectly pressed like he’d just thrown a fresh one on.

Perhaps he had. Perhaps he’d been with another woman and gotten re-dressed before coming to scowl at his plaything.

Because he was definitely scowling.

“That’s what you have to say to me? ‘Good evening’?” He stepped into my house, his chest pushing against mine as he barreled both of us backward.

The door slammed shut behind him and then his hands were back on his hips, fingertips gripping the fabric of his waistline in a way that told me he was trying not to wrap those fingers around my throat.

Mental note: Bennett didn’t like it when I avoided him.

I scraped whatever confidence I could find off the floor and tilted my chin defiantly. “What are you doing here?”

He scanned my face. “Would you like to explain to me what in the hell happened to you today? And why you’re acting like this?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Bennett. I’m simply home after a busy day of work.”

“And your phone? Do you know how worried I was when you didn’t answer any of my calls?”

God, his voice. So deep and guttural like he actually meant it. Either the wine or he was giving me a headache. I rubbed my forehead. “Can we please not do this, Bennett? It’s late and I’m tired.”

“Yeah, you’re tired. Tired because you were taking my cock all last night and half the morning and if you think you can give me that and then shut me out with whatever bullshit game this is, then you’re not thinking clearly, Rebecca. Now talk. You can’t give me what you’ve given me this week and then expect me not to wonder what in the fuck is up with you.”

He was leaning forward as he spoke, bending down so his face was inches from mine but it wasn’t his beauty I was absorbing. It was the way he spoke, so deeply and emotionally. The way his veins popped on his throat and his jaw was so hard I thought it might snap. Which is why I stupidly asked, “What did I give you?”

My body. My cunt. My attitude or my kisses was what I was expecting.

One side of his lips hitched and he grinned, rocking me backward with the force of a boulder. “You, Rebecca. You gave meyou, all of you. And you can’t give that to me and walk away from me.”