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“I’m curious about something,” he says, his tone casual, like we’re having a quiet drink rather than fighting each other for control of my body.

Tucking my arms under my chest, I resist as long as I can. But he wins and wins again, getting my arms tethered in the leather restraints so my wrists are chained to opposite ends of the headboard. My heart hammers uncontrollably. Do some women like this? Because I’m scared, which doesn’t feel good. Also, my fear makes me angry at him and myself.

“You know what C Crue is, right?”

“My parents still live in Coynston.” The words come out laced with bitterness.

“And you thought the plan to drug me would go unanswered?”

“I wasn’t supposed to know the person at the game! It was supposed to be someone lower in your organization. And he wasn’t even supposed to realize he’d been drugged. He should’ve felt buzzed. Not sick, just foggy for a while.”

“To get him loose enough to talk?”

“Yes.”

“It’s just hearsay and your word against his without a recording, though. Did you try to record the game on your phone? We’ll check that in a bit.”

I purse my lips. He’s so clever, as always. And of course he knows the law. That’s necessary for him to know how to evade prosecution. A part of me remembers how I loved his quick wit, his brilliance. I hate it now.Almost.

“You had a choice to stop when you saw I was the one you’d been sent to catch.”

I did stop, I think. But that was probably a mistake. Maybe if I’d kept the wire on, I wouldn’t be in his apartment now.

Although if they wanted to track me, couldn’t they do it through my phone? Which is in my purse in his Range Rover downstairs.

“Because, FYI, I’m not the right guy to try to roofie. I did drugs recreationally. I’ve taste-tested a lot of product. I can tell what I’m tasting and usually exactly what it’s been cut with. Aspirin. Baking powder. Whatever.”

“Whiskey’s strong.”

“It is. Maybe someone else wouldn’t have noticed. But I’m not a good mark to slip something to. My tongue’s too good.”

Does he mean the double entendre? My body registers it, and my nipples tighten. His sliding a wedge under my stomach raises my hips and ass above the rest of my body.Jesus.And why does my belly clench with more than fear at being positioned this way?

“Scott, come on. You’re not really going to do this, are you?”

“Calling me by my first name is a mistake. If you want to call me something, Sir’s the word you want.”

Is he serious? I turn my head, meeting his eyes. Yes, he’s very serious.

“Only the girls in my family call me by my first name. Every time you use it, it reminds me you’re a girl who oversteps. Wrong strategy.”

I stare at him. Is that really how it feels to him when I call him by his first name? Or does it remind him of how long we’ve known each other? I think it’s the latter. I’m counting on it, in fact.

He slides the t-shirt up my back so my sheer cream panties are exposed. I’m lying with the foam wedge under my stomach, positioned for a spanking… or sex. Does it turn him on? I’d bet him the five hundred dollars from earlier it does.

I take a halting breath. I should be terrified, but there’s also something darkly sexual in all of this, and that part is almost alluring.

“Why are you like this?” I ask, shivering, desperate to feel in control of something, even if it is just the conversation.

“Who sent you to the game?”

I swallow. I don’t think the truth will make him more lenient with his damn paddle. I think it’s likely to piss him off more, so I shake my head. If he’s going to hurt me either way, why should I tell him anything?

He slaps my ass a few times with his hand. I jerk each time, not from the stinging, but because each slap startles me. The warmth and sting don’t really hurt; in fact they heighten my awareness of him.

“Your ass is fantastic,” he says. “Too bad the circumstances call for me to punish you. This could’ve been a different kind of spanking.”

I stare at a point on the bedspread, trying to stay calm, trying to detach myself from what’s happening. “What other kind is there?”