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“Depends,” he said, his voice resolute and thick. “What do you think a bad girl deserves?”

My heart tripped over itself.

“I—” I started, but couldn’t finish. I didn’t know.

I just knew the way his eyes were locked on me that he’d already decided how this would end.

“I should take you over my knee,” he murmured, his deep voice reverberating in my chest. “Teach you a lesson about messing with things you don’t understand.”

A breath caught in my throat. Heat rushed between my legs.

“You ever been spanked before, Sloane?” he asked, his tone of voice far too conversational for such a question.

I shook my head. Slowly.

“Didn’t think so.”

He smiled—not soft, not kind, but predatory.

“I don’t think you’ll like it at first,” he said, taking one more step until I was backed up against the wall, breath caught somewhere between fear and arousal. “But you’ll learn to.”

My skin was on fire, my heartbeat pounded in my ears, and Ihatedhow much I wanted to know if he was right.

I should have stayed silent.

I should have been wide-eyed and trembling, maybe begging for forgiveness or mercy or whatever girls like me are supposed to do when someone like him shows up in the middle of the night with judgment in his eyes and power in his every calculated step.

But that’s not me.

I wouldn’t back down. Not even when I was cornered.

Especiallynot when I was cornered.

So I lifted my chin, pressed my spine against the wall to hold myself steady, and I gave him a look—that look. The one that constantly got me in trouble. The one that saysif you’re going to make a move, then fucking do it.

“I’m not some little girl you get to scold and manhandle,” I snarled, voice level now, the tremble long gone. “So I’d suggest you turn around and try that whole intimidation thing on someone else.”

His eyes flashed. Not surprised, but amused.

A slow, dangerous smile edged at the corner of his mouth and—God help me—it made my body simmer with heat. Like I was being assessed by a wolf that wasn’t sure if it wanted to devour me or just pin me to the ground and teach me my place.

“Is that how this works now?” he asked. “You get to pretend you didn’t stick your pretty little fingers into something you didn’t understand?”

I shrugged, even though my heart was hammering against my ribs.

“I didn’tmakeanyone believe anything. They saw what they wanted to see.”

“And got rich off it.”

“I like money,” I snapped.

“I like obedience,” he countered, stepping in again. “We all have our kinks.”

The heat that slammed through me at that was unfair.

I didn’t let it show.

Mostly.