No, the point was, he was ordering her to do it. As though they had a relationship, as though she were something more to him than a hard little f**k whenever he and Khalid decided they had an itch.
And well, there was the wine. False courage. She really didn't drink it very often, for a reason. It clouded her mind just enough to make her forget a lifetime of lessons where her own anger and her smart mouth were concerned. And she'd had just enough that, combined with her anger, it made her tone just as cutting, as falsely sweet, as any debutante or society bitch ever created.
"You're not my husband, and you're not my father. You're not even my f**king lover," she stated coldly. "Unless you can claim one of those titles, keep your damned demands to yourself, Chase, because I'm not in the mood for them."
Chapter 9
Chase stared at her. He could almost feel his head getting ready to explode, the dominance that he kept carefully leashed tugging at its bonds.
She was like a flame, burning. Her blue eyes glittered with emotions and anger, her gently rounded face was flushed with it, and that stubborn little chin lifted as she defied him.
He was aware of Khalid leaning lazily against the kitchen counter, pouring wine into a glass and watching them curiously. As though it were some damned show he was enjoying.
He was aware of other things, too. The shoe that lay against the wall as though it had been thrown there. The spill of satin, lace, and silk across the couch and flowing to the floor. The blanket tossed across the room, the pillow that lay against the glass doors that led to the deck.
Subtle. The fury that had raged through the apartment was subtle. Like Kia. But the anger that raged inside her now wasn't subtle, and it sparked something inside him he didn't want to look at too closely.
"You don't want to push me on this," he warned her, holding himself in check, pulling back on the sexual core inside himself that sometimes seemed too tightly bound to her.
She laughed. A broken, pain-filled sound that had Khalid wincing and had Chase breathing roughly. She was hurt. He couldn't stand to see her hurt; he couldn't stand to see that disillusionment in her eyes.
"Perhaps you don't want to push me, Mr. Falladay," she warned him. "I gave you what you wanted two years ago, and you've gotten what you wanted from me in the past few weeks. Count yourself lucky and watch the demands you make. I'm not some spineless twit who's going to sit in a corner and wait for you to tell me when to move."
"Did I ask that of you?" he said carefully.
"And you're not going to," she informed him before gesturing to the door. "Go on. Run away now. You did what you came for; you warned me to obey you. I'll take your demands under consideration."
It was the smile that did it. That tight little facsimile of a smile that curled at the edges of her lips and didn't have a hope in hell of reaching her eyes.
Damn her, she looked like a f**king teenager standing in front of him. Snug jeans encasing her hips, that T-shirt dipping just a little bit too low with its deliberately ragged neckline. She was nothing like the other women he knew. She wore what she liked, not what she thought she should wear. She walked with stately elegance despite her petite frame, and he had no doubt she could bring kings to their knees.
She definitely had him ready to go to his knees.
"Take it under consideration, will you?" he drawled, aware of Khalid finishing the wine with a grimace before he straightened in interest at the tone in Chase's voice.
"I'm certain I will." She propped her hands on her hips, and his control slipped. "One of these days."
He'd had enough. His dick was so hard beneath his slacks that it throbbed. Blood pumped hard and fast through his veins, and a haze of lust began to dim his vision.
"I'm going to spank your ass." He kept his voice as calm, as certain as the decision he was making.
"You and who else?" she sneered back at him.
"Why, his third, of course." Khalid chuckled behind her as she swung to him.
Khalid's black eyes gleamed with anticipated pleasure, his expression suffused with it. "Have you been spanked, Kia?"
Khalid held her attention as Chase unbuttoned his shirt and stripped it from his shoulders. She turned back to him as he strode to her, her eyes widening, but not in alarm. Anger and excitement flickered together in her eyes now, flushed her face, and loosened the tight line of her lips.
"You wouldn't dare!"
He curled an arm around her h*ps and jerked her to him.
"Do you feel what you do to me, Kia?" he growled as her fingers buried into the light mat of hair covering his chest. "Do you feel how f**king hard you make me?"
She felt it. She couldn't help but feel it, and he knew it. His c**k pressed into her lower stomach as he threaded his fingers into her hair and pulled her head back.
"Drew is dangerous," he told her. "You will stay away from him."
She licked her lips. "Make me."
Make me. Ah, God.
His lips came down over hers as he lost the last thread of control, which he had sworn he would keep. Her defiance, his knowledge, a damned certainty that Drew posed some risk to her, flared inside him. Her determination to stand toe to toe with him and refuse to consider her own safety raged inside him.
Damn her.
Make me! It was tantamount to waving a red cape at a bull. The primal, primitive male instincts snapped into place, and it was all over but for her screams of pleasure. Those still had to come.
His lips covered hers, taking the kiss he needed like he needed air to breathe. He held her to him, ignoring her struggles. He knew the difference. He'd been born to know the difference between a woman's struggles to be free and the struggles to establish her own dominance.
She fought his kiss, and he let her nip his lips before he nipped back. Not hard. Just enough that she felt it. Then she stilled, her lashes lifting to allow her gaze to meet his.
Anger warred with her own sensuality, with her strength. She stared back at him, and he saw the strength inside her that he had only suspected for years.
That strength was exciting, erotic, dangerous.
When it came to her safety, he couldn't allow it.
He couldn't explain why her refusal to heed his warnings had the dominance rising inside him now. He could have argued her down. He could put a bodyguard on her. Instead, sexual, powerful, she called to that dominant core inside him that he always fought.