His hand drifted from where it held hers, slowly, the tips of his fingers gliding over the tender skin of her wrist, up to the curve of her elbow. “Subdued?”
They drifted along to her shoulder, across the line of her collarbone, to the base of her throat. And then he raised his hand slowly and rested it on her neck. He did not squeeze. Did not tighten his hold at all—rather, he simply let it rest there. But she could feel the danger. The threat.
And winding through it, as if it were a threefold cord, eroticism.
Something that made her skin crackle. That made her nipples tighten and that place between her legs go soft and damp.
“You only think that because you still labor under the delusion that you have captured me. You invited me in. I am in your palace. Ready to take the position of power that you have offered to me. Nothing will happen here that I do not decide. Do not mistake control for subjugation, Annick. It would be a grave mistake on your part.”
Then he released his hold on her, and she found herself still there, pinned to the wall, her heart beating wildly.
She didn’t know what had just happened.
She had made a study out of engaging in power plays that the other party did not know they were involved in. But this was an open war for power, naked and on display.
He was right. She had invited him into the palace. She had offered him carte blanche. And she didn’t actually know what he would do with it.
He claimed that he would protect her. That he would help her.
But he was clearly going to do it only on his terms.
And for the first time she did wonder if she were foolish.
If she had sought emancipation at the hands of a man who only knew how to control.
His business training women how to control their images—that was a facade. That was a piece of him that wasn’t real or true.
So who knew what he was actually doing. What the end result truly was.
Remember what you want. Remember what you need.
Yes. She would do well to remember that. Who she was. What she had come to him for.
And suddenly, she was not content to allow him to have the final say in this interaction.
And so she flung herself away from the wall, wrapped her arms around his neck and crashed her lips against his.
And the world burst into flame.