Page 14 of Punish Me, Daddy (Boston Kings #8)

Because while my chest was tight, my breath was short, and the nerves were crawling up my spine… my thighs trembled just the slightest bit.

Heat bloomed low in my belly—unwanted, undeniable—at the way he looked back at me. Like I was already in trouble, and he was the one who was going to deliver the punishment.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I tried to sound calm, but even I heard the wobble in my voice. It wasn’t a good lie. It wasn’t even a real lie.

He took another step closer.

“You’re such a bad little girl,” he growled.

My face flared with fire, and I knew I was blushing. My mouth opened, but nothing came out. He shook his head slowly, like he was disappointed in me.

Like he knew I’d try to lie.

“You’re clever,” he said, raising a single eyebrow. “Clever enough to think you could get away with messing with things you shouldn’t. Rigging the odds on one of my fights. Manufacturing rumors. Making money in my world. I almost respected it.”

His eyes darkened.

“ Almost .”

I swallowed hard.

“What are you going to do?” I whispered, voice barely audible.

He was closer now—not touching me, but close enough that I could smell smoke on him, as well as the scent of something ruggedly masculine, expensive, and dangerous.

“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 I hated how 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.

Especially not 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 says if 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’t make anyone 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.

“I’m not going to apologize for being smarter than your bookies,” I retorted, holding his stare. “And I’m not going to stand here and let you threaten me like I’m some pawn in your little testosterone-fueled underground fantasy.”

“You’re not a pawn, Sloane.” His voice dropped an octave. “That’s the problem.”

I didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.

“You’re clever. Strategic. Dangerous in your own way.” He tilted his head, his gaze dragging over my sleep shirt and my bare legs. “But you’re still reckless, playing games in my world like there won’t be consequences.”

His hand lifted and he dragged the back of his knuckles down the wall beside my head, not touching me, but close enough that I felt it. Every hair on my body stood on end and I had trouble pulling in a breath.

“You do know what happens to girls who cause problems in my world, don’t you?” he growled, his voice like gravel.

I swallowed hard.

“Let me guess,” I answer, forcing the words past the lump in my throat. “They get spanked.”

His smile was all teeth now.

“No. The ones who get spanked?” His voice was velvet-wrapped steel. “They’re the lucky ones.”

Something shuddered deep inside me. My whole body went rigid. I lifted my chin one more time and glared at him like I wasn’t already losing traction. I tried to stand my ground.

“You don’t scare me,” I whispered.

His eyes burned into mine for a long moment. And then he laughed, low, dark, and quiet.

“You should be scared, Sloane,” he replied. “Because I don’t bluff.”

He took a step forward, and my breath stumbled in my throat.

Shit.

I slipped out from beneath him, instincts flaring like warning bells. It wasn’t fear, not really, just that tight feeling in my chest that says this is a very big man and you just pissed him off.

I retreated into the kitchen, trying to collect myself, trying to pretend I wasn’t flustered and barefoot and wearing a pair of shorts that barely covered my ass.

The ass he had already threatened to spank…

He followed.

Of course he did.

Slow. Purposeful. Like he already owned the ground between us, and he was just giving me time to realize that too.

I reached the far side of the kitchen island and stopped, one hand on the counter, the other clenched into a fist at my side, trying to hold my expression together. I couldn’t let him see that I was rattled.

But my voice came out thinner than I liked.

“What do you want?”

He didn’t answer right away.

Just watched me for a moment with those ice-blue eyes—quiet and inscrutable—until I swore that I could feel my heartbeat in my fucking teeth. My knees wobbled just a little. Not enough to be obvious, but enough for him to notice.

His mouth twitched, like he was amused by that.

“I know what you did. I know how much you made. I know how you did it. What I don’t know,” he said, stepping closer, voice lowering, “is who helped you .”

Stopping on the other side of the island, he stared at me. Close enough now that I felt the heat of him across the slab of cool marble between us.

“You’re going to tell me how you did it,” he demanded, soft but deadly. “Or I will make you. And if you lie?—”

Another step.

“You’ll be in more trouble than you already are.”

I gulped.

He was bluffing. Maybe. Probably. Hopefully…

Something about the way he said it—the way his voice curved around the word trouble like it was something intimate—made my skin buzz with anxiety.

I glanced at the door.

He was standing between me and it, leaving me nowhere to run. Even if I could make it out the door, I was no track star. I knew better than that. He would catch me and then who knows what he would do.

I stared him down, even as the heat in my stomach curled tighter.

“Okay,” I began, lifting my chin. “Fine. I did it.”

Silence.

Just the hum of the fridge and the pounding of my pulse. His jaw ticked once, but otherwise he didn’t react. I folded my arms across my chest.

“How did you find out?”

He smirked and I turned my head, infuriated.

“That’s not your business.”

Of course it wasn’t.

He was the type of man who didn’t explain. He didn’t justify. He knew. And that was enough.

Something like annoyed defiance twisted in my chest, and the words came out before I could stop them.

“Whatever,” I sneered. “ Fuck you. ”

He chuckled back at me, and something inside me snapped.

I didn’t pull off that scheme just to end up scolded in my own kitchen like a misbehaving debutante.

I had made a play—a good one—and I wasn’t going to let him reduce me to some trembling little thing just because he was the one man in this city who actually scared me.

I squared my shoulders, lifted my chin, and looked him dead in the eye.

“You act like I should be sorry,” I snapped, voice hard and sharp like broken glass. “But I’m not. You got played, Nikolai. I won. I outsmarted you. Deal with it.”

His gaze narrowed.

Fuck. What have I done?

One heartbeat. Two. Then I saw the shift. It was subtle—the way his eyes darkened, the way his stance changed, how the amused smirk fell away, and something colder slid into its place.

Dangerous.

Predatory.

I felt it before he even moved, but I didn’t back down.

“If you’re that pissed off about losing a few bets,” I added, “maybe you should start hiring people who don’t get outmaneuvered by a girl in a miniskirt and heels.”

That was it.

That was the moment.

He moved. Fast. Too fast for me to react. One second, I was safe behind the kitchen island, flush with adrenaline and pride and just the right amount of reckless bravado—and the next?

I was bent over it.

Hard marble under my hips, one of his arms braced across my lower back, his other hand gripping my wrist and pinning it down.

I sucked in a sharp inhale, stunned still, heart ricocheting inside my chest like it was trying to escape.

“W-What the hell are you doing?—”

“You want to act like a bad girl?” His voice was a growl against my ear. “You’re going to learn what happens to bad girls in my world.”