Being dominated by Maddox is something I’ve been fantasizing about since long before I’d openly admit to it, long before I had any way of knowing he was a Dom. I’d spend Sunday nights at his house eating supper with his little sister and his mama and then go straight home and shove my hand down my panties to fantasize.
“Was that too much, after what happened today?” Despite the question, his voice is steady. I can’t make myself look back at the screen, but I can almost picture his head tilted just so, eyes squinty like every other time he’s tried to figure me out.
“No,” I say, typing a bit more gibberish into my notes app before tossing my phone back down and meeting his eyes through the screen again. There they are—squinting like he can see through me if he strains hard enough. “That whole thing wasn’t any big deal. The crying wasn’t… I just didn’t get any sleep last night, so I was running on fumes,” I lie.
I don’t know when I learned to read him as well as he can clearly read me, but I know he’s not buying my excuse. He’s not even going to pretend he is to be polite.
“Regardless, itwasa big deal,” he argues softly. “No one has the right to touch you without your consent, point blank period.”
“Are you planning on giving this same TED Talk to the last dozen or so guys who needed to hear it, or just to me?” I realize pretty quickly that Maddox isn’t someone who appreciates dark humor. His eyes widen briefly before they fill with anger, like he’s about to demand a list of names for all the men who’ve ever wronged me.
I cut him off before he can get on his high horse. “So, were you offering?”
“To give TED Talks, whatever the fuck that is?” he asks.
“To punish me for being a brat.”
He blinks, and just like that, he’s moved on from whatever murder plans he was making. The shock wears off after a second, a cocky smirk replacing it. One day, I’ll slap it off his face just so he’ll take my wrists and pin them above my head. “So I was right. You’ve just been aching for a sore ass all this time, haven’t you, baby?”
I shrug like I couldn’t care less. “Eh. I don’t have anything on the agenda that requires a long period of sitting or anything, so might as well.”
Maddox grins so wide, I can’t help but mirror it. He smooths down his mustache, like that’ll make the smile go away, but it doesn’t. “Come over,” he says. “You can spend the night.”
“Drive ten minutes to your ranch at one o’clock in the morning just to get my ass whooped? I don’t think so, Rancher. Sweeten the pot with a nice fuck and you’ve got yourself a deal.”
Outwardly, I’m RedRanger. Coy, seductive, bratty—playing him like a violin. Inside, I’m a ball of nerves. I just might be fucking Maddox Whittaker tonight. Finally. After years of wanting him.
“You know what?” he says after a few seconds. “Fuck it.”
TWENTY-ONE
MADDOX
It takeseverything in me to walk out to her truck and open the door for her like a gentleman. What I really want to do is lift her up out of the truck and pin her against the side of it just to ravish her out here where God and the cows and Mama’s nosey ass can see. I can’t see the Big House’s lights on, but I wouldn’t put it past her to have some sort of Spidey-sense that lets her know when there’s a woman at my cabin.
Austin’s already spewing some bratty bullshit that I’m not even comprehending, but the second I close the door behind her, I’ve got her pushed up against it. “Hush,” I tell her lowly, ducking my head enough to get my lips on one side of her neck and my hand cradling the other. I feel her pulse jump and she shivers as my mustache tickles her, but she hushes like she was told. I don’t draw her attention to it, knowing she’d go out of her way to do the opposite if I praised her right now.
“Safe word?” I mumble against the bend of her neck, nipping her when she doesn’t immediately answer me.
“Color system is fine,” she breathes, and I grin against her skin, using my finger to push aside the strap of her tank top so I can kiss down her shoulder. “Are you gonna continue to assault me against the door or take me to bed?”
“Gonna fuck you on the floor and give you a reason for your bitching if you don’t hush like I told you to.”
She bristles, but it happens a few seconds too late to be her genuine reaction to my words. My girl wants to be good for me, she just wants to make me work for it. Fair enough.
I bend enough to wrap my arms around her thighs and hoist her up. She wraps her legs around my waist like they belong there, like we’ve done this a million times and will do it a million more.
“So youaregonna take me to bed then?” she snarks with a grin when I kick open my bedroom door. I only respond by dropping her on the mattress, watching the way her tits bounce as she does.
I’m undoing my belt buckle when I see her smile twitch and her eyes cloud with something I don’t like. “What?”
Her smile returns just as quickly as it left. “Nothing,” she says. “Wondering if it’s true that the camera makes things look bigger than they are.”
The tone of her voice is flirtatious, but I’ve learned the difference between her actual flirting and the words she coats in that tone when she’s weaponizing them. I let go of my belt and lean over her, fists framing her hips on the bed. “You’re gonna tell me the truth, or you’re gonna get back in your truck and go home and we’re not gonna play together like this. If I can’t trust you, I can’t dom you, Austin.”
She blinks and her eyes turn to steel. Does she even realize how expressive they are? Before she can throw her walls back up, I grip her chin hard enough to get her attention and stare at her expectantly.
“I’d rather you didn’t use the belt on me,” she finally says, jaw tight, like it physically pains her to have to admit a hard limit. I want to press for more, to ask why her mind immediately went there when all I’d done was undo my belt buckle, but she’s barely comfortable as it is, so I don’t.
