Chapter 33
On the bedroom door, she’d taped a neat card: MISS UNDERSTOOD INVESTIGATIONS—FIELD INTERVIEW IN PROGRESS.
She exhaled. Would he read it and knock? Or run away…again.
Her pulse leapt, then misfired when the hallway creaked to life. Marcus. Too late to back out now.
The plan had been born in the shower and fed by a mean, familiar thought: what if the problem was her, not him?
What if Marcus hadn’t finished because she was the whiny girl a father once said wasn’t worth staying for?
Heat pricked behind her eyes. She set her shoulders and used the line her therapist drilled into her.
“I am not the problem,” she told the room. Again. “I am not the problem.”
Still, her fingers went clumsy on the trench belt. Role play had seemed brilliant an hour ago. Now it felt like placing her heart’s file on his desk and stamping it open case.
The steps stopped outside the door. A pause. Then, faint through the wood, what might have been a single, low word. Unredeemable. Followed by a knock.
She wrapped her hand around the cool knob and let the metal calm the shake in her fingers, before cracking the door like a speakeasy window. “Evening. Miss Understood Investigations. Field interview.”
Marcus stood in the lamplight wearing nothing but boxers, that impossible body, and a peony pinched between two fingers like he’d mugged the field behind the manor.
Sir Hissalot sat in a covered carrier on the hallway runner, a lumpy silhouette of grievance.
If feline side-eye could set fires, the manor would be ash.
“Press?” His gaze tracked down, hooked on the knot at her waist, then came back up slower. Heat gathered.
“Fact-checking a rumor.” She flipped open her notebook, pencil poised. “Multiple sources allege a pattern of incompletion. Roof shingles. Kitchen cabinets. Climaxes. I require your comment on the record.”
“That’s libel,” he said, voice already lower than decency.
“Excellent. I adore writing retractions.” She stepped back.
He crossed the threshold and handed her the ridiculous flower and the box of condoms. “I was taught always to bring a gift when invited to a woman’s…office.”
Something traitorous in her chest lifted. “As long as they are not a bribe,” she said, closing the door and turning the lock. She slid the condoms onto the nightstand within easy reach and tucked the peony into her half-empty water glass on the dresser.
Then she faced him, loosened the knot of her belt with two fingers, and let the coat slide off her shoulders.
He went still. Not the frozen kind. The reverent kind. His attention fixed wholly on her.
She bent to gather the coat, giving him the long line of back and legs, then crossed to the coat rack. She took her time fishing her pencil and pad from the pocket. When she turned, his gaze was locked on her ass, hot and unguarded.
“Ground rules,” she said, because if she didn’t keep talking, she might climb him then and there. “Verbal yes from both of us. I direct the interview; you may ask for clarifications. Safe word is banishment.”
“Safe word?”
“It happens rarely, but sometimes interviews get out of hand. Any issue with roughness?”
“Fuck no.” His voice went gravel, forearms flexing like he’d already filed uses.
Her mind unhelpfully replayed the first time he’d mentioned spanking; heat climbed her throat. “Excellent.” She lifted her phone. “Standard documentation protocol includes—”
“No photos or video,” he said, immediate and unshakeable. “Ever.”
“Hmm. Interesting caveat, but okay.” She set the phone face down on the dresser. “Handwritten notes only. Incinerated by sunrise. Do the rules meet with your…satisfaction? If so, say yes.”
His shoulders softened. “Do I consent to having Frankie Peterson examine my follow-through? Hell yes.”
“That was a rather lovely comment,” she said, steady now. “We might circle back to your obsession with me if we have time. Tell me, Mr. Grant, what are your wants for tonight? Beware. If I sense you’re lying, there will be consequences. Truth earns a mark of approval.”
“I want you,” he said, no hesitation. “I want to cross the finish line—multiple times—with you.” He skimmed a knuckle down the knot of her hair like a promise. “If you want slower, I go slower. If you want more, I give you more.”
Her breath did scandalous things. She uncapped the lipstick and drew a tiny check at the edge of his collarbone. “Verified.”
“The next task involves kissing.” She rose on her toes. “I will name the type, you execute. We’ll start with the hello kiss.”
He brushed her mouth with the softest welcome, a graze that said I have all night.
“Promise.”
A thumb under her chin, eyes on hers, and then his mouth found hers slow, careful, like signing a contract in ink he didn’t plan to erase. “On the record,” he murmured against her lips, “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Hunger.”
His hands bracketed her hips and walked her back into the door.
Cool wood at her spine, tilted glasses, the faint clink as a hinge protested.
Her laugh slipped, and he caught it on his mouth.
Heat rushed through her, bright and shameless.
He started to ease away, and she fisted his hair, dragging him in until the sound in his throat vibrated against her lips and lower, turning thought to static.
She rose on her toes, opened, matched the hungry pace they found together until nothing existed but pulse and pressure.
He broke just enough for air, and she followed, and their foreheads touched, breath hot and shared.
She set her palms on his shoulders and eased him back an inch. The lipstick had fallen. She bent to pick it up and heard him groan. Rising, she placed a discreet lipstick check behind his ear. “Kiss differentiation achieved.”
“This one should present no problem,” she said, breath steadier than she felt.
“We touch foreheads and match breathing for thirty seconds. Beginner exercise in rhythm.” Foreheads touched.
She inhaled. He matched. She exhaled. He matched.
Thirty seconds turned into a slow melt. She drew a check over his heart.
“Physiological alignment complete. Next up. Hands placement.”
His pupils dilated. “I like the sound of that.”
“Normally, I would choose where your hands are placed, but your honesty earns a reward. You may place your hands where you prefer. Once placed, you may not move them unless I say. Can you adhere to those rules?”
He nodded.
“Choose.”
He studied her, heat and focus. “Open your legs for me.”
She widened.
He set one palm pressing through the silk between her thighs, the thumb of his other hand resting lightly over the pulse at her throat. Their gazes locked.
Desire swept her, and the heat in his smile said her heartbeat was telling him everything.
“You may use your thumb to stroke me…one time.”
He swallowed, then dragged a single, devastating pass exactly where she’d meant.
Her breath hitched. She stepped back and drew a lipstick check on the inside of his forearm. “Compliance excellent. Next up, truth and compliment,” she said softly. “One of each.”
“Truth,” he said. His voice came rougher than before, his eyes steady on hers. “I’m a selfish jackass.”
Something shifted in him. She felt it. “I hope your compliment can make up for that touchy-feely truth.”
Two fingers tipped her chin. “Compliment: when you tilt your head like that, I forget how to breathe.”
She marked the notch of his throat. The check came out a little wonky. She didn’t apologize.
“The rest of the test requires the bed.” She let him back her to the mattress until it pressed behind her knees. “Shoes stay.”
“Yes, Investigator.” His grin did indecent things.
He slid a hand behind her thigh and traced the satin line of the garter strap, thumb catching the clip for a light, teasing snap that went straight through her.
She settled onto the mattress and stretched out on her back, heels biting the quilt, while he knelt between her legs like focus made flesh.
“A man can’t please a woman if he isn’t aware of her pleasure points,” Frankie said. “There are many. Prove your knowledge by placing kisses on eight of them.”
He began at her mouth, slow taste that opened her.
“One.” The corner of her smile. “Two.” The tender spot behind her ear.
“Three.” A lazy sweep along her hairline, his fingertips combing her scalp.
“Four.” The delicate ridge of her collarbone.
“Five.” The front of her shoulder. “Six.” Her wrist, the pulse under his mouth.
“Seven.” The inside of her thigh, kissed until her breath broke. “Eight.”
He paused, hovering, eyes asking the next question without words.
She nodded.
His lips skimmed upward to her vulva, nudging aside the thin strip of satin that had never stood a chance. “Twelve.”
He stayed there, mouth and tongue working with unholy focus, adjusting to every breath she couldn’t contain.
“Time’s up,” she managed, reclaiming her voice.
“Damn. I really like this test.”
“Next is edge control. Your job is to bring me close to orgasm, then stop for a slow count of ten. A man in tune with a woman’s body will know she’s on the edge without asking and knows exactly when to back off. A man who doesn’t understand a woman’s body will fail.”
“Which body part am I allowed to use in this test?”
“Hands only.”
He went low, breath rough against her skin, and opened her with confident fingers, working a focused rhythm that hauled her to the ledge before she could be dignified about it.
He sensed the shift and went still, keeping warm contact everywhere except the place that would tip her. He matched her breathing while she rode the edge down—one, two, three slow exhales—until her grip loosened.
“Again?” he asked, voice barely there.
She nodded.
He wound her back up with the same ruthless patience, found the rhythm she’d liked best, and when her spine arched he eased off once more, kissing the inside of her thigh while she steadied.
A third time followed—build, hold, breathe—until she realized he was proving it, that he could keep her right there as long as she wanted.
“Nicely done,” she said, pushing up to sit and drawing a lipstick check just above his waistband, dead center. “The next test may be the most challenging yet.”
He lifted an eyebrow.
“I’m going to see how long you can go before you tap out.”
His brows drew together.
“And because I’m fair, you may choose whether it’s my mouth, my hands, or both, that test your staying power.”
He groaned, rough and helpless, and the leash on his patience gave way.
He closed his hand around her ankle, sliding her down the bed; his knee nudged between hers, the garter strap pinging a warning as he came over her.
He touched a finger to her lips. “Frankie, I get hard when you say my name. I’d like to skip the rest of your planned tests and prove myself free form. Think of it as the essay portion.”
She shoved the notebook away. “Yes.” Heat crashed as his mouth found hers and the mattress caught her back. He nudged her knee higher, anchored her jaw with his palm, and the plan melted. Not her show now. His.
Much later, after many orgasms and one blow job that she wasn’t allowed to finish, with dawn lifting pale light across the ceiling, she reached for the lipstick and drew a final, generous check over his heart.
Then she capped the tube like a gavel. “Verification complete,” she said.
“Retraction drafted: Marcus D Grant finishes what he starts.”
“Print it,” he said, voice wrecked and satisfied.
She wrote RETRACTION FILED in the notebook and flipped it shut. His focus snapped to the lipstick, desire written all over him.
“Follow-up interview?” he asked.
“Standing appointment,” she said, straddling him with the serene confidence of someone who’d tested the goods and approved. “Long-form.”