“I will. After you’ve learned your lesson.” His voice was also entirely different than before. He was enjoying this. He’d found the perfect opportunity to make me feel like a little girl.
While I’d enjoyed our games, I honestly wasn’t in the mood at this point.
As soon as the elevator doors opened again, I calculated how best to get out of his hold. One swift knee into his chest and he involuntarily pitched forward, losing his grip.
I shoved my hands against him, quickly lunging through the elevator before the doors closed once again. I thought I was home free, even slapping my hand on the up button while laughing when he somehow managed to shoot an arm through the opening.
“Ah, fuck,” I managed.
“Ah, fuck is right,la mia piccola strega.”
I backed away, shaking my head. “If you call me a little witch one more time…”
“You’ll what?” Every long stride he took pulled at a level of desire that was unwanted.
He’d pissed me off and was playing games with him, acting as if this was foreplay? Oh, hell, no. I kicked off my heels, pitching them against the wall before taking a fighter’s stance.
He stopped in his tracks. “You’re kidding me.”
My hands were fisted and I was ready to go. “Does it look like I’m kidding you? We’ve been dancing around each other for months. Why don’t we see who’s the better… man?”
Snorting, his eyebrows arched as he took his sweet time dropping his eyes all the way to my painted toes. “Try years and there is no weapon on this planet, no number of fights you can get into or belches you can expel that will make you anyone’s idea of a better man.”
“Who’s talking about any belching? I’m talking about fighting.” I threw myself at him, able to get off two brutal punches to his gut.
The way he playfully stumbled backward annoyed me and he knew it since he winked. He was all muscle and a goddamn tank couldn’t make his hard body move.
He allowed me to plant a third into his stomach, grinning the entire time. Only when I tried to throw a punch to his jaw did he finally react, swallowing my fist with his palm.
“Now, that wasn’t very nice of you.”
When he was playing with me, his Italian accent was much heavier. I’d made the mistake once of allowing him to know how much I adored his accent and from there, he’d used it as a weapon against me.
Sadly, my nipples were rock hard, the interaction of both violence and uninhibited teasing quite the powerful aphrodisiac.
The grin lingered even as he made tsking sounds.
“You should know by now I’m not a nice girl.” He had no intention of allowing me to pull my hand free. Oh, I could smack him for this. Maybe I would.
“Then I guess I’ll need to tame you. So you won’t potentially hurt yourself.” Instead of tossing me back over his shoulder, he used my punch as a way of pushing me backward down the hall. Toward the group of offices.
I glanced over my shoulder, trying to keep from stumbling. “What are you doing?”
“I already told you. Teaching you what I hope will be a valuable lesson. I think a spanking will do the trick. Don’t you?”
What? Did he think I was going to accept him giving me a… What the hell did he say? A spanking? Oh, that just wasn’t going to happen. No freaking way.
“Oh, no, you don’t. I told you. I’m the owner here.”
“It’s cute you think that will stop me. Besides, there’s something really hot about a powerful woman.”
He was goading me, using his sexiness in a way I wasn’t used to. He managed to push me into one of the offices, but as soon as we were inside, I almost managed to escape him, shrieking then laughing when he yanked me off the floor by the waist.
Now he carried me against his side, unfazed by my struggle as he flicked on a light, yanked out one of the armless office chairs and sat down.
I wasn’t expecting him to follow through with his threat.
Or his promise.
