Because he was about as submissive as an actual alpha wolf.
And then he opened his arms wide in a parody of surrender wholly belied by that mocking curve to his perfect lips, took a step back and then dropped to his knees—right there in the middle of her office.
Chapter Four
Zoe’s breath deserted her in a rush, then came too hard, too fast.
Her body felt like someone else’s, as if her heart beat that wild and rough of its own volition, as if it wanted to tear its way out of her chest all on its own. It was an insistent pulse in her throat, her belly. In her suddenly too-heavy breasts and that shocking, swollen heat between her legs.
She felt as if he’d punched her. Some part of her wished he had. She was only dimly aware that she’d dropped her hands to her sides and was gripping the edge of her glass-topped desk.
Hard, as if she was afraid of what might happen if she let go.
As if she already knew exactly what would happen.
Because the only thing she could see was Hunter. The crisp bright winter daylight faded away, New York ceased to exist outside her windows, the business she’d made and the revenge she was determined to enact disappeared like smoke.
There was nothing but Hunter.
On his knees in front of her, big and male and that lazy, frankly sensual look in his beautiful eyes that his technically submissive position did nothing at all to undercut. He was such a large man that even kneeling, his head was nearly at the level of her breasts, and her nipples went painfully hard at the notion of what he could do with that.
What she wanted him to do—but no. She couldn’t want that, could she? She wasn’t the kind of woman who wanted. She wasn’t sure she knew how. That was only one among the many things she’d lost. That had been taken from her.
The very thought of her sordid, ugly past should have spurred her into some kind of action, a better defense at the very least, but she couldn’t seem to make herself move.
Hunter looked as if he was this close to simply leaning in and tasting her, taking her—simply because he could, simply because he was Hunter—no matter that she was theoretically standing in the power position. Literally looking down at him.
It should have made a difference. It should have wrecked a man like him right down to the marrow of his alpha male bones.
Clearly, it wasn’t working.
If anything, Zoe felt even more like his prey than she had when he was looming over her, taking up all of her space, making her frighteningly unable to tell the difference between his breath and hers...
Oh, yes. She was in trouble.
And she still couldn’t control her breathing.
“Your wish is my command, Zoe,” he said, that rich current of amusement in his low voice, his eyes never shifting from hers. Her traitorous hands itched to close the distance between them, to bury themselves in the thickness of his dark blond hair, and that trickle of yearning that was very nearly an urge came much too close to overwhelming her. She didn’t understand it. She certainly didn’t want it. “Please tell me those shoes you’re wearing are involved in whatever dominatrix fantasies you’d like to play out. I promise, I’m happy to be your willing slave.”
“This is ridiculous.” Her voice was a hiss of sound. Desperate, she could hear, and could only hope he didn’t know how desperate. “You’re playing games.”
“Be on top, if you want,” he said in that sinful drawl of his that shivered through her, making it hard to sit still on the edge of her desk. Or at all. His gaze burned into hers. “I don’t care. Whatever turns you on.”
She didn’t want to think about what turned her on. It had never really come up before—not like this. It was as if Hunter knew more about her body, her desires and her needs, than she did. As if he was deliberately provoking her, as if he knew precisely how little it would take to tip her over into a great blaze.
“I need you to stop this,” she said sternly—or as sternly as she could. “That’s what turns me on. You on your feet, an appropriate distance away from me, behaving yourself.”
But he moved then. He tilted his glorious body forward, and caged her hips in his big, sure hands, and everything seemed to explode. Or that was only her—a great, white-hot, rolling sort of implosion, tearing her apart from the inside out. There was so much heat—
From his strong, elegant hands. From that hard, male look on his face. From her—inside her. All the pieces of her she was sure would fly apart into a thousand shattered bits if he hadn’t been holding her fast between his hands, making her flush from head to toe, red and wild and terrified.