Page 56 of Merciless Daddy

I saw the pulse jump in her throat. Saw her thighs press together beneath the black trousers. Saw anger arrive a second late to cover the response.

My own body went hard with violent speed.

But it was not only lust.

Something older opened in me.

A locked room. A collar in a box. The part of me that understood that praise was not decoration when given to the right woman. It was structure. Recognition. A hand held out to the part of her that wanted to put down every weapon and still be safe.

Daddy.

The word rose in my mind with such force I felt it in my teeth.

Yelena looked up at me. Defiant. Flushed. Too aware.

“Don’t,” she whispered.

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t tease me. You know I want you.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, stepping back. “I’m sorry.”

But Yelena did not—would not—stop trying to test me. She was a brat.

I was in the temporary office reviewing camera placements when the door opened.

She did not knock.

She wore black again. Fitted trousers, soft sweater, hair loose. No shoes. Only those socks, which had become a private threat to my judgment.

She came around the desk and perched on its edge.

On my paperwork.

“Move,” I said.

“No.”

“Those are security plans.”

“I think they’re ugly. Boring.”

“They are diagrams.”

“Ugly diagrams.”

She reached for the whisky at my elbow and lifted it.

“Yelena.”

“What?”

“That is mine.”

She drank from it without breaking eye contact.

The whisky touched her lower lip. Her tongue followed.