“No name-calling. In either direction.” Maya smirked as though lining up the winning move in a chess match. “Rough or soft?”
Harper mirrored her expression. “Rough.”
“How rough?”
“As rough as you can make it.”
“Not sure you can handle that.”
“Try me,Maya.”
“Wrong. It’s ‘try me,Sir.’ You may not want an honorific, but I do.”
Maya hadn’t taken her eyes off hers once. An unwavering gaze, one Harper struggled to maintain. An odd assurance shined in her glittery irises, as though Maya knew that when this game started in earnest, she would win.
That was an assumption Harper waseagerto test.
“Alright. Try me.Sir.”
“That tone suggests you’re not taking this seriously.” Maya’s voice was tantalizingly soft. “There are rules involved with this. Only good girls get to have fun, and good girls show proper respect. Say you understand and be polite when you do. An easy task, just to get us started.”
Everything in Harper’s body wanted to go against that order. Wanted to prod and poke, testing just how rigid these rules might be.
But she shouldn’t. There was a limit to how much people could deal with her antics. She knew from experience that her attitude lost its charm rather quickly, and if this was headed where shereallyhoped it was, she shouldn’t ruin it before it began.
She could be polite. For now.
“I understand. Sir.”
Maya leaned in closer. “Say you’ll behave, and that you’ll do as you’re told.”
“I’ll behave, and I’ll do what I’m told, Sir.”
Maya’s mouth was so close that her breath hit Harper’s lips.
“Say you’re a good girl.”
Oh no.She shouldn’t do it. Sheknewshe shouldn’t do it. Going by her proximity and how low her voice had gotten, Maya already had a plan for what the next steps would be. Harper shouldn’t intercept them.
But the words were already slipping out. That setup was just too perfect to ignore.
“You’re a good girl, Sir.”
A strange sheen rose in Maya’s eyes. One Harper first interpreted as annoyance, as that was what she’d expected to see. What she was used to.
But that wasn’t it. Instead, Maya’s beautiful smile seemed almost hungry. Hungry and frighteningly excited.
“If you let me, I’m going to make you regret those words.”
That promise—threat—made Harper’s breathing turn shallow. She’d heard versions of it before, being uttered right after her partner turned frustrated enough that they ended up holding her down and fucking her until they ran out of stamina.
There had to be studies that explained the psychological basis for why she found that exact thing obscenely hot. Why something in her brain ticked when it happened, heightening every pleasure to where nothing else compared, and if Maya was the one doing it…
A heart attack might be inbound. But what did that matter? If that was how she went out, it would have been a good run.
“How much is left of your shift?” Harper whispered.
“It ended about an hour ago. I was just enjoying our conversation too much to leave.” Maya’s eyes glinted like gilded obsidian. “Why do you ask?”
