She swallows. Good girl.
Her lips are soft around me, trembling just enough that I can feel it in my bones. She doesn’t break eye contact. Not because she’s brave, but because I won’t let her. My hand is firm under her chin, tilting, trapping, owning.
I pull my thumb free, slow, wet, watching the shine of spit catch the light as I drag it down her chin to her throat. She gasps, but I keep going, smearing the trail lower, over her collarbone, until it glistens there like a brand.
“Look at the mess you’re in,” I murmur, and she shivers like I’ve cut her. “All because you wanted to keep eating your little breakfast in peace.”
Her breath stutters. “You’re—you’re not fair.”
“No,” I admit, bending close enough that my mouth almost brushes her ear. “But I am consistent. You push, I push harder. You run, I hunt. You give me attitude, baby girl…” I let my hand slide lower, fingers resting at the hem of her shirt. “…I take it out of you.”
Her thighs twitch, like she’s not sure whether to close them or spread wider. The chair creaks under her, betraying how tense she is.
I don’t touch. Not yet.
Instead, I lean back, settling into the chair opposite hers again, like I’m just another man finishing his coffee. My eyes drag down her body, slow, deliberate. “Spread your legs wider.”
Her jaw drops. “Dean?—”
I raise an eyebrow. “That wasn’t a request.”
The silence stretches taut as a wire. She grips the arms of the chair like they’ll save her, then, finally—slow as honey—her knees fall open.
My smile is sharp, cruel. “Better.”
I drum my fingers against the table edge, deliberately unhurried, like I’ve got all the time in the world to sit here and watch her squirm. Her cheeks flush deeper, her chest rising faster, and it hits me—how much she hates this, how much she loves it.
“Do you know what I see right now?” I ask softly.
She shakes her head.
“A girl who’s been mine from the second she walked into my house.”
Her breath catches. She opens her mouth to argue—then closes it, because she knows I’ll tear down whatever excuse she makes.
I let the words hang there, heavy, before tilting my head. “Now…” My eyes drop back between her thighs. “Show me how wet you are.”
She freezes. That’s the first instinct — not to obey, not to protest, just to sit there like a rabbit who thinks stillness might make the predator lose interest.
It doesn’t.
I lean back in my chair, spreading out, one arm draped over the backrest, the other swirling my coffee like I’ve got nowhere else to be. My gaze stays locked between her thighs. Waiting.
“Dean…” her voice is quiet, strained, almost pleading.
I hum low, bored. “You can say my name all you want, sweetheart, but it won’t change what I asked you.”
She licks her lips. Her hand flutters in her lap, like she’s half a second from bolting. I don’t move. That’s the trap — my stillness. It leaves her to wrestle with her own pulse hammering in her ears, her own body betraying her under the weight of my stare.
“Why do you—why do you always?—”
“Push you?” I cut in, my tone soft but sharp enough to slit her throat if I wanted. I tilt my head, watching her squirm. “Because you beg for it without even opening your mouth. You think I don’t see it? The way your pupils dilate when I so much as touch your wrist? The way your thighs press together when you tell me you hate me?”
Her face flames red. “That’s not?—”
“Not what?” I snap, leaning forward now, elbows on the table, my voice dropping low. “Not true? Or not something you want to admit out loud?”
Her lips part, but no sound comes out. She looks away, toward the plate fragments glinting on the floor. Like she’d rather bleed on the shards than confess the truth.
