“Bethany?” she presses, and the name is poison on her lips.
That is the part that wants violence, not sex.
“If you were mine, Bethany wouldn’t matter anymore,” I say, and the truth of it tastes like blood.
Her fingers slide up my arms, nails grazing skin, and my restraint starts to fray.
“Girls wear property patches for a reason,” I continue, my hand comes up. My thumb drags slow along her throat.“Sometimes inked into their skin. It ain’t about control. It’s about protection. It’s about claim.”
“And if I didn’t want a tattoo?” she asks.
My mouth finds her throat, and I kiss her there like I’m stamping my name into her skin without leaving a bruise. Yet.
“With me you won’t get that choice. I want it. And you’d be mine,” I mutter against her. “You get the ink, because I want it, because I say.”
She makes a sound, small and conflicted, and it kicks something in me that I don’t like because it feels too close to true affection.
I kiss her deeper. Slower. Not wild. Not rushed.
Intentional.
I want to make her feel chosen. I want to make her feel like I ain’t taking from her, even while I’m taking my fill of her mouth and her breath. Taking the way she melts under me like she was made to fit there.
“You don’t get to halfway this,” I tell her, voice low. “You don’t get to date church boys and come crawl into my bed when it’s convenient.”
“I’m not crawling,” she whispers, eyes bright. “I’m choosing you.”
That word hits harder than the rest.
Choosing.
My body reacts like it believes her. Like it has been waiting for permission to stop pretending I’m in control.
I slide my hands down her sides, and her skin is hot under my palms. She arches into it, and it is so damn responsive it makes my teeth grit.
“You think you could handle it?” I murmur. “Handle being the Vice President’s woman?”
“Try me,” she says, breathless and defiant.
I laugh once under my breath, but it comes out darker than amusement.
“You’d have rules.”
“Such as?” She swallows like she already knows.
“You don’t disappear without telling me,” I say. “You don’t let some Pearly Gates bastard get close enough to touch you. You don’t go near the water without looking back. You don’t put yourself in a place where I gotta choose between the club and you.”
Her eyes widen at that last one.
“Would you?” she whispers.
I lean down until my mouth is at her ear. My voice is a growl.
“I already did. Don’t make me do it again.”
Her breath stutters. Her hands slide up my back, holding on like she is anchoring herself.
“You’d really mark me?” she asks, and the question ain’t cute. It’s hungry “As yours?”
