She’s challenging me.
She’s sitting on my bathroom vanity, bare and completely unashamed of it, biting her lip.
I should find this irritating.
I do find it irritating.
I saw her on the cameras with Dmitri earlier, and the bomb detonated. No warning. Just — her face turned toward him, her hands moving the way they always move when she’s talking, animated and unselfconscious.
She didn’t know the rule. I’m aware of this. The rule didn’t exist before today, which I’m not going to admit out loud.
She knows it now.
And she’s still sitting on my vanity saying,Or what.
I take a step toward her.
“Get down, I dare you.”
She looks at me. I watch her run the calculation, watch her decide.
She puts one foot on the floor, pauses, and looks at me.
I don’t move.
The second foot follows.
There it is.
I close the distance in two steps.
My hands find her throat, not hard enough to hurt, just enough to feel the pulse accelerating under my palms, to communicate that the space between us has changed and she is not the one determining how it changes. Her breath catches. The flush moves from her chest upward, visible even in the low light, her body announcing what her face is trying to compose.
“Turn around.”
She turns.
Her eyes meet mine in the mirror’s reflection.
“Very good,” I say. My voice comes out lower than I intended. “You turned around.” I hold her gaze in the mirror. “But I told you to stay where you were.”
Her chin lifts fractionally. “I know.”
“And what did you do?”
“I got down.” Her voice is controlled.
“I told you to stay.” I move closer. My chest is now against her back, my hands leaving her throat to settle at her hips. “Do you regret it?”
She holds my gaze in the mirror, considers, and decides.
“No.”
My palm comes down against her.
It echoes. She gasps, her hands finding the edge of the vanity. White-knuckled.
“Do you enjoy disobeying me?”
