Ben unbuttoned and removed his shirt. She swept her gaze appreciatively over his chiseled chest and scrumptious six-pack, wishing she could run her hands over every muscle.
Stop drooling, Kimani, and focus on getting yourself outta here.
Right. What could she do? Convincing him that he was wrong, that he only imagined she knew something, wasn’t working out.
She watched him select a flogger from the wall. Shit.
The flogger had about two dozen leather falls. He whipped the flogger against her leg.
“Ooof!”
Okay, maybe this one could be bad. This flogger stung more, though she wasn’t sure why. The vibrations from the egg flared before settling back down.
So this was the torment he had in mind. Flogging and orgasm denial.
“Is my safety word still the same?” she inquired.
“Good you asked. It’s not. Your safety word is telling me what I want to know about De Reyes and Chang.”
“What?! That’s got to be against the rules.”
“You have an out. That’s all I need to provide.”
“But your ‘out’ is extortion!”
“Guess that makes me an asshole,” he replied, landing the flogger against her thighs.
She yelped, then gave a frustrated cry. She tried to free herself but could only kick at air.
Why did you trust the guy? Why didn’t you run the hell away when you had the chance?
She narrowed her eyes. “Not only is it extortion, it’s not fair.”
“Life’s not fair, pet.”
“And it’s playing low. Is this how you conduct your business, too? Ugh. Ow!”
He had struck her twice on the ass. Hard.
The vibrations surged again.
“Arm-twisting and coercion,” she continued. “Getting what you want without caring what happens to others. You know, stuff like that gives rich people a bad name.”
He paused. “For the record, I rarely employ coercion and arm-twisting as business strategies. There are plenty of businessmen who have succeeded through bullying, but my father built his success on creating win-win situations for all parties.”
He ran a hand gently over the arch of her ass, as if admiring it. “See, if you tell me what you know, you get to have some bloody fine orgasms. Win-win.”
“But how is torment a win for me?” she seethed, trying to ignore the fact that his thumb now rubbed her clit, causing a delicious agitation to ripple through her.
Retracting his thumb, he sucked it, tasting her. “I can see how you got into Stanford.”
Her anger, fueled by helplessness and fear, flared at his patronization. “Fuck you.”
His brows went up, and she immediately regretted her words. She rarely used those two words together. In fact, she couldn’t remember the last time she had told anyone to fuck off. Not even the time she and her friend Jasmine had been falsely accused of shoplifting by a store employee who’d said that the missing necklace “had to have been taken by those women.” Turned out another employee had put the necklace on a mannequin.
“Let’s see what your education is worth,” Ben said. “Is it very smart of you to defy me?”
She sighed. “I don’t know anything!”