Play Me Wild (Play Me 1)

“Absolutely.”

“And there are no strings?”

“Strings?”

“I don’t have to fuck you to keep my job.” She looks a little embarrassed at her blunt request for information, like she expects to be reprimanded for her vulgar language. But I like the bluntness, like the fact that she’s so frank and open. It will make things so much easier between us in the long run.

“Your job is yours no matter what happens—or doesn’t happen—between us.”

“I just want to make sure we’re clear. Nothing is going to happen between us. I don’t sleep with rich men.”

“Good thing I don’t plan on doing much sleeping then, isn’t it?”

“Mr. Caine—”

“Sebastian.”

She looks like she wants to argue, but in the end just gives in with an exasperated sigh. “Fine. Sebastian.”

“I like the way my name sounds on your lips, Aria.” I like the way hers sounds on mine.

“Since you’re playing semantics, let me be clear. I’m not going to fuck you.”

“Okay.” The word rolls off my tongue with a nonchalance I’m far from feeling.

She looks suspicious. “That’s it? Okay?”

“What did you expect?”

“I don’t know. You sounded so sure before…I guess I expected you to be upset, annoyed.”

“I don’t see the point in getting upset about something I have absolutely no control over. Either you’ll decide to fuck me”—I use the crude term deliberately, enjoying how she squirms a little as the word leaves my lips—“or you won’t. Either way, the decision is yours. I’m just along for the ride.”

“For the record, there will be no riding.”

I grin then, liking her quick wit almost as much as I like her backbone. “We’ll see.”

“We will see.” She pauses, ducks her head, and I can practically hear the wheels turning in her mind as she deliberates about what she wants to say next.

“Okay. Yeah. I’ll be here tomorrow. For work.” She turns to go then, striding toward the door with the long-legged, confident gait I first noticed in the video of her. At first I think that’s it, she’s going to walk out without so much as a backward glance. But she stops at the last minute, doorknob in hand, and shoots a look over her shoulder at me.

“Thank you,” she says.

And just that easily my body tightens up again, my muscles locking into place as heat sizzles beneath my skin. I love the sound of those words on her lips. Can’t help imagining other times, other places, other reasons for her to say them.

“There’s nothing to thank me for.”

She smiles then, just a quick uptick of the corners of her mouth that has me longing to lick along the seam of her lips.

“Sure there is. Most guys in this office would have fired me first and asked questions never.”

“I’m not most guys.”

“Yeah. I’m getting that.” She opens the door but still doesn’t tear her gaze from mine. “It was nice to meet you, Sebastian Caine.”

“Nice to meet you, Aria Winston.”

This is it. What she says here, how she leaves things, will determine absolutely how this thing proceeds. Will determine if I back off and leave her in peace or if I pursue her with the intention of taking everything she has to give, of pushing her limits—her control—right to the breaking point and beyond.