“You’re mistaken, princess. So fucking naive.” I hold up the card and rip it in two, letting the tatters float to the ground between us. “If you ever believed you could get away with something like that, you’re nothing but a sheltered little princess who’s been coddled her whole life. You think you’re capable enough to enlist the help of the fucking Bratva? Get real, sweetheart. Learn your fucking place.”
Her hand connects with my face in answer. It’s an eruption of frustration and powerlessness on her part.
Her attempt to get back at me for demeaning her.
The slap cracks through the room like a whip. My head snaps to the side, my cheek prickling from the contact.
Yet my grin remains as I turn my head back to face her and glare into her eyes like the brute I am. She seems to realize her error, spotting the dark humor in my gaze as she goes to take a step back.
But I grip her by the arm again to keep her where she is.
“Don’t retreat now,” I say coolly. “You think we’re anywhere near done here?”
“Yes we are done!” she insists. “I’mdone with you, Callahan!”
Her defiance is such a fucking head trip. It’s such a damn mindfuck.
It pisses me off while simultaneously turning me the hell on all at once. It makes me want to choke her out all while I fuck the shit out of her.
Rage pumps through my veins like a flame torching me up from the inside. My hands itch, craving violence at the same time my cock throbs and grows hard and stiff.
The whiskey takes away any decorum I could’ve possibly had—though it’s not like me and good behavior ever belong in the same fucking sentence anyway.
In a split-second decision, I’m snatching her wrist and dragging her along with me. I’m pivoting on my heel as I stride toward my desk. We step over the shards of broken glass and scattered pens and soil from the potted plant I knocked over earlier.
I come to a stop on the other side, gripping a struggling Simone.
“Get your hands off me!” she screams hysterically.
But she’s ignored as I yank the bottom drawer open and pull out the roll of duct tape I keep for emergencies.
In the Irish mob, you can never have too much duct tape lying around.
“Are you CRAZY?!” she shrieks, eyes rounding once she sees what I have.
My grin twitches just a little wider. “Actually, yeah, I am, princess. You mean you didn’t know that when you married me?”
I tug at the tape, pulling the roll free ’til I have a strip long enough that’ll fit around her wrists. It presses into her skin as I wrap it around a few times for good measure.
“RONAN!” she screams in a panic. “What are you?—”
I tear an extra strip free using my teeth and then slap it over her mouth, silencing her.
“That’s enough of you,” I say. “I’ve heard enough from that smart mouth of yours. It’s time for you to listen. It’s time for you tolearn.”
I produce a pocketknife—again, standard for Irish brutes like me to carry or have lying around at all times—and clench my fingers into the fabric of her fancy dress and coat.
The blade glints as it flips out of the base, and I go straight into hacking away at her precious designer dress. The ribbed knit fabric peels away, falling open as I cut it up, and soon her bra and panties are within view.
Just like that, she’s half naked, eyes larger than ever and breasts heaving from the halted, panicked breaths she takes.
Eventually, the sliced-up dress slips to the ground altogether, and I go to work on her undergarments, using the knife to sever the band between the bra cups. Then the delicate waistband and crotch area of her panties.
I make sure to hold her gaze as I let the blade chafe against her mons pubis and the small patch of coarse hair there.
Making her understand who has the power right now; who is in complete and total control as I cut away the last pieces of her modesty and leave her bound and naked.
Simone’s truly a sight for sore fucking eyes in this moment.
