Page 39 of Wicked Auction

“Stop it,” she whispers.

That whisper.

That whisper is not stop. I know the difference. She sounds like someone whose body has just voted against her, and she hasn't forgiven it yet. I decide to test my theory.

“They said you were a virgin, Valentina.”

I kiss her cheek.

It's tactical. I tell myself it's tactical.

“Seems to me,” I say, my mouth still close because moving away is apparently not something I'm doing right now, “it would be easy to bring you to the edge and leave you there. You caved so beautifully last time.”

I'm not performing anymore. I’m half drunk on the idea already.

“Strap you down. Wrists to the posts, ankles spread wide at the end of the bed, so you can't move, can't close your legs, can't do a single fucking thing except feel exactly what I'm doing to you.”

I make myself pause, deliberate and controlled. “Then I'd put my mouth on you and take my time. My time. Not yours. Until you're shaking and wet and begging me to let you finish. Then I'd stop.”

My lips brush her cheekbone, and I feel her pulse hammering directly against my jaw like an accusation. “Every time. Until you begged me. Until you remembered who’s in charge.”

Silence.

Her pulse doesn't slow.

“That would teach you, wouldn't it?” I whisper.

She says nothing, which is its own kind of answer, and we both know it. That knowledge sits between us like a lit fuse.

“Look at you, you little whore.” It’s practically praise, directed at her. “You like it.”

And there it is—the thing I was trying to establish as a threat, which has somehow turned into truth because she does. And I…

I like that she does.

I like that she's still here, still fighting, still trembling, still refusing to break. I like that she took my wallet to find out who I was. I like that she's here in front of me, looking like she's winning even though she's not.

Aye, we’ll make a great fucking team.

Years behind stone walls. Years spent alone. Years of being something hard because hard is the only thing that survives in there. Now I'm in a room with a woman who is warm and stubborn and terrified in a way that she keeps folding herself up small so she can function, and all I can think about is fucking her long and hard until she comes undone and I take back control.

But I'm not in control of this the way I should be.

Yet.

“Now tell me.” I pull back just enough to look at her properly. She should look diminished from here. “Two very different things I can do to you. I could punish you, or I could reward you if you’re good. Choice is yours.”

She clamps her lips together.

I study her—her jaw, her eyes, the way she's doing the math on me, running the numbers. Whatever answer she's coming up with is not the one that ends with her telling me what I want to know.

Don't admire it, I tell myself. She's leverage. She's a problem you bought to solve a different problem.

She is not yours.

“So you're going to die on this hill.” It comes out almost gentle, which is wrong. My cock throbs. “Let's see if you die on the next one.”

I lift her.