The corner of his mouth shifts. Not quite a smile. “And when we get there?”
“I’m going to take off this dress.” I hold his gaze. “And then I’m going to let you do whatever you want with me.”
A beat of silence. His eyes drop—just once, just briefly, a slow drag down the length of the dress and back up—then return to mine with something new in them.
Darker. Decided.
“Whatever I want.” He says it slowly, like he’s testing the weight of it. “That’s a dangerous offer from a woman who doesn’t know me.”
“Maybe that’s the point.”
Something moves through his expression—not surprise exactly. Recalibration. “I’m not going to be polite about it.”
“Good.” I don’t look away. “I’m not interested in polite or soft.”
He goes still. The particular stillness of a man revising his assumptions.
“How dark are you willing to go, little bird?”
His voice has dropped to something that belongs in a different room entirely—low and deliberate, stripped of any pretense of restraint. The sound of it moves through me like a second pulse.
“Darker than you think.” I hold his gaze. “Don’t let the dress fool you.”
Something shifts in his jaw. “I like it rough.” Flat. Unapologetic. A warning dressed as a fact. “Not the kind of rough most women mean when they say they want rough. The kind that leaves marks.”
“Good thing I bruise pretty.” Heat detonates low in my belly. I don’t look away. “Your marks will look good on me.”
A sharp exhale through his nose—not quite a laugh, but close. His hand presses flat against the small of my back, fingers splayed wide, heat bleeding through the thin fabric like a brand.
"I intend to take you apart." His thumb traces a slow arc against my spine. "Slowly. Until you don't remember your own name, let alone why you thought you had any control over how this ends."
"Control." A breath of a laugh escapes me. "You think I came here tonight to be in control?"
His thumb stills against my spine.
"I spend every waking hour making decisions, managing problems, holding everything together." I hold his gaze and don't look away. "Tonight I want exactly one thing — and it's to hand all of that over to someone who knows what to do with it."
The air between us shifts. Something in his expression moves through recalibration and lands somewhere far more dangerous.
"So take it," I say quietly. "I'm not going to fight you for it."
He pulls back just enough to look at me. Really look. Like he's reassessing everything he thought he knew about the woman in the short black dress who wandered into the wrong bar.
"Easy to say it on a dance floor." His voice is low. Careful.
"I'm not saying it on a dance floor." I hold his gaze. "I'm saying it to you. Directly. Because I've spent three months being in charge of everything and I am so tired of being in charge of everything, and you—" I press my palm flat against his chest— "look like exactly the kind of man who doesn't need to be told twice what to do with a woman who hands him the wheel."
Something shifts in his jaw.
"Once I take control," he says, "I don't give it back easily."
"I don’t suppose you do." The word comes out steadier than I feel. "Good thing, I'm not asking for easy."
The silence that follows isn't empty. It hums.
Something flares in his eyes — dark and decided and absolutely certain.
"And when you're begging—" he leans in, just enough, his mouth at my ear— "and youwillbeg…are you still going to let me be in control?”
