Page 69 of Stand Your Ground

She leaned in, swiftly kissing me and taking my bottom lip between her teeth.

I cursed as she bit down hard, but then she released me with a grin and my body was surging to life, already silently pleading for more.

“Take your clothes off,” she commanded, gracefully taking a seat on the bench. “Slowly. I want to see what I get to play with.”

Instantly, my hands moved to my jacket, unfastening the buttons at my waist before I shrugged it off and tossed it on the bed. I was already starting on my dress shirt when Livia leaned back on her palms and crossed her legs with a wide grin.

“So eager,” she teased. “So desperate for me, aren’t you?”

“Always,” I panted, unfastening my belt next.

“You’re pathetic.”

I stilled, heart kicking hard in my chest at the word.

Instantly, Livia leaned forward. “Safe word check.”

“High stick for stop, offside if I want to keep going but need to slow way down.”

“Or if something went too far,” she reminded me, her eyes sincere as they watched. “Do you need to use one now?”

I blinked, trying to sort through the emotions swirling through me. I was so fucking turned on, so ready for whatever she was about to do to me, but I was also triggered by that word.

But somehow… not in the same way I was used to.

It made me feel that familiar wash of shame, the heat behind my cheeks, but it also sent tingles through me. It had me vibrating and almost wanting… more?

I shook my head. “I… no, I don’t think so.”

“Good. Then listen to me carefully, Carter. When I call you pathetic, or desperate, or anything else tonight… it’s not to cut you down. I’m not him. I’m not trying to make you smaller so I can feel bigger.”

She rose from the bench, every step toward me slow and intentional until she was right in front of me, tilting her chin up so her eyes locked with mine.

“I say it because you want me to. Because it flips a switch in you when it comes from me. Here, you’re in control of what I call you. Here, you can stop me with a single word. And when you don’t? That means you’re letting me own you in a way that’s safe, in a way that feeds you instead of starves you.”

Her hands slid up my chest, hooking my open shirt until I let her strip it off my arms. She threw it to join my jacket on the bed.

“When he said things like that, it was about breaking you. When I say them, it’s about building you into something that turns us both on.”

She smirked again, heat returning to her gaze.

“So, I’ll ask again, pretty boy — are you still eager for me?”

I wet my lips, nodding. “Yes.”

“Do you want to pull your cock out for me?”

“Yes,” I groaned, already doing what she asked. My pants and briefs were gone in a flash, and when she dropped her gaze to watch me fist myself, I moaned.

“Is that the best you can do?” she asked, and the bite in her tone sent a zip of electricity through me. “God, I’m already bored.”

I stroked my cock with my eyelids fluttering at the feel of it. “Tell me what to do.”

“Always needing to be told. You’re lucky I waste my time on you.”

“I am. I’m so lucky.”

What the actual fuck was happening?