I’d watched her lips as they formed the words, and now as my own formed into a tight smirk, I lifted my gaze back to hers. “Already tried. You’re much prettier in person.”
A light flush colored her cheeks.
So, she wasn’t immune to a little sweet-talking.
“Flattery will get you nowhere.” She tucked her hair behind her ear.
“The fact you’re blushing tells me that’s a lie.”
“It won’t get you what you want.”
“Are you talking about the bar, or you being naked on your knees in front of me?”
Those shiny lips parted as my words hit her. She stared at me for a moment, mouth open, unblinking. I’d caught her off-guard, and I could almost see her mind whirring as she tried to come up with a suitable response.
Finally, she blinked.
But she kept staring. Didn’t change her expression at all.
The grin that formed on my face was smug. I didn’t have to look in the mirror to know that because I felt the smugness. She’d been almost unflappable until the moment those words left my mouth.
She closed her mouth, clearly still speechless. I raised an eyebrow as she sat there, unmoving, but still looking at me. It was as if she was frozen, caught in the aftershock of the words that had come so easily to me.
I did want her on her knees in front of me. Naked would be a bonus, but it wasn’t like her being fully-clothed was a problem. I could work with either.
“Oh good,” she finally said, her voice weaker than before. “You’re a dating website come to life.”
I bit back my laugh. “You refused my dinner invitation.”
She sat up straighter. “That wasn’t an invitation. That was a demand.”
“Close enough to an invitation.”
“You know that scene in The Beauty and the Beast where he demands she join him for dinner, and when she refuses because he didn’t ask, he tells her to starve? I’d rather starve.” Her smile was tight, and any embarrassment she’d felt was now hiding behind her bite.
No doubt, her bite was worse than her bark.
And I had no fucking idea what she was talking about.
“Never watched it,” I said dismissively, ignoring her eye-roll. “I’ll try it again. Join me for dinner?”
“That’s still a demand.”
“No, it’s a shorthand version of ‘will you join me for dinner?’ I asked it as a question.”
Her face flushed, but this time, it wasn’t a blush. “At this point, I don’t care how you ask me, my answer is still no.” She uncrossed her legs and stood. “If that’s all you’re here to talk about, we’re done. I have work to do, and I’m sure you do, too.”
Her hips swayed as she walked to the door.
How many spanks would it take to make her submit?
I wanted to find out.
I pushed myself up off the sofa as she opened the door. She refused to look at me, instead choosing to look at a spot on the wall behind me. If she thought she’d get the last word in this conversation, she could think again. It was bad enough that my cock was twitching inside my fucking pants at the thought of my handprint on her tight little ass.
I pushed the door closed with two fingers. She wasn’t expecting it, so she dropped the handle, which brought her eyes back to mine. Her lips parted for her to speak, but I clasped her chin with my hand, still with the other against the door.
Her words died on her lips.
“One day,” I said in a low voice, holding her harsh gaze. “One day, you’ll have dinner with me, Dahlia. Just like one day I’ll own this bar. One day, you’ll be on your back, my handprint on your ass, and my cock buried right inside you.”
She swallowed. “That’s a fact, is it?”
“I’m used to getting what I want. Everyone gives in eventually.”
“I’m not everyone. Sorry to say, you’ll be disappointed when you finally realize that.”
I moved closer to her. She took a step back and ended up against the door, a fact that only worked in my favor. I stepped right into her, just brushing my body against hers. My cock pulsed against my pants and the tiny gasp that she attempted to hide by clamping her mouth shut gave it away.
She’d felt it.
And now, she was blushing again. Only this time, it was furiously. She still held my gaze, despite the obviousness of her reaction to me.
I’d expected her to whimper, to drop her gaze, to do something other than stand there, her body a breath away from being pressed against mine, and hold her ground.
I ran the back of my fingers along the gentle curve of her jaw, not missing the way her chest heaved at the touch. I kept moving my hand until my fingertips toyed with her hair and her face was firmly in my grasp….Until she was cornered and unable to move until I let her.