Page 24 of The Secretary Volume II

I drink.

He raises his glass in a slow, deliberate toast.“To us.”

I clink my glass against his, and I drink, because I don’t have a choice.

I smile, because that’s what he expects.

But inside, something is screaming.

13

Gillian

He watches me over the rim of his glass, unreadable.But I know that look.Amusement.Possession.Anticipation.

Ellis likes to savor things.

His power.My silence.The slow unraveling of my resistance.

The wine is warm on my tongue, but the heat between us is warmer.

It’s in the way he leans back, the way he watches me like he’s already won.

Like this was always the inevitable conclusion.

And maybe it is.

“Come here.”

I don’t hesitate.

Because that’s what he wants.

Because I know better.

I set my glass down and cross the space between us.My movements are smooth, rehearsed, muscle memory dictating what my mind can’t fully grasp.

I kneel at his feet.

This is familiar.The curve of his leg under my palm.The slight flex of his thighs as he shifts beneath my touch.The way my body knows exactly how to move, exactly what to do.

Because we’ve done this before.

Even if I don’t remember it.

Ellis’s fingers thread into my hair, tilting my face up to his.

The moment stretches—the hesitation before a storm, the tension before a wire snaps.

His thumb grazes my lower lip.

“I should make you beg.”

A sharp pulse of heat runs through me.My breath catches—just once—and that’s all he needs.

His smirk deepens.

“I should make you earn it,” he muses, fingers drifting lower, tracing the line of my throat, the hollow between my collarbones.“But you already have, haven’t you?”