3. Chapter 3 #4
My mind starts to catch up, then race. Wait, wait. Is he…? No. No, he couldn’t be suggesting—
My eyes widen, and his narrow before he slowly nods, clearly seeing the wheels in my head turning.
“She’s finally figuring it out,” he murmurs, and the smirk that follows makes my stomach somersault in the most traitorous way imaginable.
God. I am .
The invitation. The seating arrangement. The glances. I realize it all at once.
It slams into me with sharp clarity and stings.
I blink, take a breath, and try to regain some control over the situation. “Shakespeare couldn’t have written a more romantic proposal.”
He huffs out a quiet, amused breath that’s almost a laugh. “See it for what it is,” he replies. “A mutually beneficial arrangement.”
This wasn’t what I expected. Not this…deal wrapped in seduction.
Part of me recoils. The rest starts calculating. Could this help me? Would being associated with him launch my designs into the stratosphere? The attention? The momentum? I could ride it. I’ve been riding it. And if I stay beside him—if I let people think—
While I’m still spiraling through the pros and cons of branding hell, his voice cuts through the haze. “You saw what five minutes of my time did to your engagement online.” He steps closer. “Imagine what all of it would do. ”
He’s too close. I can’t think straight with his scent. That deep, expensive all spice and dark musk and danger—wrapped around me.
And something about him tells me that now that I’ve met him, I won’t be able to forget him. There’s no going back.
So I do the only thing I can. I tilt my chin, find my voice, and wrap it in confidence I don’t fully feel. “And what will you be using me for, Captain?”
His eyes scan mine, then drop to my mouth. They roam slowly, dragging over every inch of my face like he’s cataloguing it, already imagining a hundred different answers, each one more unholy than the last.
His hand lifts to my face, and I suck in a breath, bracing for his touch. The pad of his thumb brushes along my lower lip, feather-light. It’s almost nothing, but it seals the air in my lungs.
He drags his thumb down until it tugs at the soft flesh of my lip, pulling it slightly, like he’s testing how far I’ll let him go.
I suck in a breath as he parts my lips. He commands my body without even trying, without needing to ask. He just takes, and I let him, because everything inside me is chaos.
His answer comes in a deep murmur. “Whatever I want.”
The words wrap around me and squeeze. I feel them in my spine, in my belly, in the heat that suddenly coils between my legs.
“Whatever I want.”
The words swirl inside me like smoke, thick and heavy, and before I can stop myself, my eyes flutter shut. It’s involuntary—a reaction to images conjuring themselves behind my eyelids of all the ways he would use me: his mouth between my thighs, his hands pinning me down.
I don’t even know him.
And yet every cell in my body hums with the thought of being undone by him.
I’m not stupid. I know manipulation when I see it.
But damn—when it comes wrapped in a face like that, with a voice like his, in a deal that reads like seduction, how do you tell the difference?
How do you want to ?
My mouth parts slightly, but no sound comes out. I don’t trust myself to speak—not when I’m still tasting his thumb, still trying to slow my racing heart.
This man is dangerous.
Because part of me, a part I haven’t met until now, wants to be used by him.
And to use him back.
His fingers slide back to rest along my jaw.
My eyes are still closed when I feel his breath right against my ear. “Cunning little thing like you wouldn’t pass this up.”
The words are so close, so intimate, I feel them graze the side of my neck.
My eyes snap open. I turn my head slowly, pulse hammering in my throat. “You’re manipulating me.”
It’s not a question. It’s a fact.
Dominic watches me as his lips twist into a wicked smile. A quiet acknowledgment that, yes—he is. And I’m letting him.
My gaze drops to his lips. Full, symmetrical, sculpted. I wonder what those lips could do. What kind of sounds he could pull from me. What I could pull from him. What it would feel like to taste them .
The thought sends another bolt of heat through me.
I force my gaze back up. My heart is beating too loud, my lungs too shallow. “What if I say no?” I ask, trying to steady my voice.
His eyes lock on mine, and I see the flicker of disapproval at my question. “Nothing,” he says simply. “You go back to your life. I go back to mine. And we never see each other again.”
A small, sharp flare of something sparks in my chest—disappointment, frustration, possession. I don’t know. But I don’t like it.
The idea of not seeing him again settles like a bruise in my stomach. I don’t want to go back to before knowing him, before this thrill that’s been fuel in my veins since the club.
I want more of it. Of him. More of the game he’s inviting me to play, even if I’m not sure what the game is.
I lick my lips slowly, then bite the bottom one on purpose. His eyes flick down and stay there, darkening instantly. I release my lip, fighting back a smile. Gotcha .
“I have conditions,” I say softly.
“I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.”
“If this is nothing but a mutually beneficial arrangement…” I let the words hang there, letting him feel the power shift as I take it, “…then your team will be hearing about my conditions.” Not you.
I watch the change happen in real time. Something in his jaw tenses; his eyes lose the spark from a moment ago before they narrow.
He does not like being kept in the dark.
He studies me long enough to make the silence press on my lungs. “They’ll tell me either way,” he says, tilting his head, still leaning in, lips too close to my temple.
“In that case,” I murmur, drawing out the words, “you’ll just have to wait, pretty boy.”
His jaw ticks. His tongue rolls across the inside of his cheek like he’s biting back a grin. A flicker of heat flashes in his eyes. It’s not anger, not quite amusement either. It’s something in between.
All I know is this man could end me in a thousand ways. He has enough power to turn my social image to dust, to sabotage everything I’ve been working for, and make me wish I’d never met him. He doesn’t look like a man who lets things slide.
And yet I can’t stop.
Because the way he’s looking at me now makes me want to poke the bear again.
And again.
And again.
Until it pounces.