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She nodded slowly, but her body betrayed her. Her posture might have been composed, but her fingers twitched where they rested on the table. Her throat flexed on a swallow. Her chest rose and fell with her breaths a little too fast.

I could see it, plain as day. It wasn’t Mikhail she was thinking about now. It wasme,and the punishment she had coming when the two of us got home later that night.

CHAPTER 32

Sloane

The car ride was too quiet.

I crossed my legs in the seat, only to uncross them two seconds later, the ache between my thighs pulsing harder every time I remembered his voice. My palms were damp, my mouth dry. My heart hadn’t stopped pounding since I told him I’d gone to the gym.

God, I couldn’t stop thinking about his belt.

The image burned hot in the back of my mind, him calmly unbuckling his belt, letting the leather slip through the loops like a warning. The way he’d fold it in his hand. He’d make me wait, make me stand there shaking until I couldn’t take the silence anymore. He’d bend me over the bed, fingers curled in my hair, and whisper that I was going to be one sorry girl by the time he was through with me.

And I’d cry.

He was definitely going to make me cry.

I pressed my thighs together again, but it didn’t help. If anything, the friction made it worse. I shifted in my seat for the third time, trying to find a position that didn’t make me feel like I was going to burst just from thinking about it. My skin was too warm, my pulse too loud, my breath too shallow.

He glanced over and caught me squirming.

“Nervous?” he asked, voice casual, but I knew better.

I nodded. “Yeah.”

His reply was immediate.

“Good.”

That single word wrapped around me like a noose. His word was final, but wasn’t cruel.

It was inevitable.

I turned to look out the window, hoping the city lights would pull me back into something resembling focus, but all I could see in my head was the way the first strike would land. I’d try not to cry, but he would make me anyway.

I was wet. Mortifyingly wet.

The car slowed as we turned onto a street I recognized. The warehouse came into view. Same steel door, same flickering security light. He parked in front of the private entrance and killed the engine.

Neither of us moved at first. He just looked at me and I tried not to look back because if I did, I was afraid I’d beg him to punish mebeforewe walked in.

I knew he’d say no. He’d make me wait because he knew that waiting was half the punishment.

“Ready?” he asked.

I swallowed. My throat was tight.

“Yes, Daddy,” I said softly. “I’m ready.”

The gym was mostly dark when we stepped inside.

No crowd. No fighters. Just the droning buzz of overhead fluorescents and the sound of one man alone in the far corner, wrapping his fists securely, the movements methodical and practiced. The scent of sweat still lingered in the air, clinging to the mats and the walls like memory.

Mikhail was training all by himself.

He was bare-chested, black shorts low on his hips, muscles slick under the dim lights. The kind of body carved by years of work, not vanity. A fighter’s body, confident and deadly. Focused. He didn’t look over at first, but he must have heard us and stopped. He glanced toward the door, spotting Nikolai first, then me.