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“And this?”

“This,” he said as his thumbs pressed into my waist through the expensive fabric of my suit, “is whatever you decide it is.”

That answer annoyed me further because it was a non-answer. When had Cain ever given me the option to decide what something was? Deep down, I know it was him still pulling the strings under the guise of giving me the ability to pick. What I decided was that this was something I could use.

I rolled my hips forward slowly and felt his grip on me tighten. I hid a smirk because it was the first crack in the composure he always wore. I couldn’t stop my body from doing it again.

“You’re messing with me,” he said.

“I’m testing something.”

“And what’s the hypothesis?”

“That you’re not as controlled as you want me to think.”

His hands tightened around my waist again, not enough to stop me, but enough that it sent a tingle down my spine. “You already know the answer to that.”

“I want a demonstration.”

The low growl that came from deep within his throat was the only warning I had before he moved. One second, I was on his lap controlling the pace and the next, I was on my back. The leather seat was cold against the part of my neck that was exposed which sent goosebumps across my skin. Cain’s weight settled over me and for a moment, neither of us moved.

His face hovered inches above mine as his tie brushed the front of my blouse. I shifted my gaze toward the front of the car and noticed the partition that blocked any visual of us. That should have been reassuring, but I felt as if it made Cain even more dangerous because there weren’t any witnesses. Then again, if there were, they were employed by him so there might as well have been no one around.

“No one can see what we are doing,” he said, answering a question I didn’t vocally ask.

“Good,” I said as I reached up and pulled his tie loose. “Now you look almost human.”

“Careful, Sutton.”

The warning landed in my lower stomach like a sledgehammer, but that didn’t deter the next comment that fell out of my mouth. “Or you’re going to do what? Lock me up again?”

“You think provoking me gives you control,” he said.

“I think it’ll get results.”

“It gets a reaction.”

“Same thing.”

“No,” he said, and his hand slid from my waist to the outside of my thigh. “A reaction is what happens before a person thinks. Control is what happens after.”

I scoffed. “You’re lecturing me during this?” I asked.

His mouth brushed the corner of mine. “You started with a hypothesis.”

“And you’re avoiding the demonstration,” I said, because apparently my self-preservation instincts had decided to resign effective immediately.

His eyes traced my face with so much focus that I wasn’t sure if I’d ever felt more seen. It was as if he was digging into the depths of my soul. Then his gaze returned to mine. “I’m deciding how much of one you can handle,” he said.

The intelligent response would have been to tell him I could handle plenty and then prove it by pushing him off me. However, what I did instead was way worse. I lifted my chin and kissed him again.

He took the kiss from me this time. That was the only way I could describe it. He didn’t steal it because I’d offered it. Not forced, because my hands were already in his hair, ruining it and not giving a fuck. He took what I gave him and changed the terms of the exchange mid-breath, deepening the kiss until the inside of the limo seemed to narrow and the only thing that mattered was us.

His hand slid beneath the hem of my skirt, and my body betrayed every argument I had ever made against him. I gasped against his mouth as his fingers traced the edge of my thigh and if even a little bit of it was still intact, my professional façade crumbled completely. The smart thing would have been to push him away, to maintain some semblance of dignity. Instead, my hips arched toward him, betraying everything I’d told myself about this being strategic.

“Is this still your experiment? Or maybe it’s just a little game to you, little lamb?” His voice was rough against my ear and I couldn’t help but think of how it would sound with him talking me through orgasm after orgasm.

I should have said yes and maintained that this was leverage, that I was using him the way he’d used me. But when his hand slid higher, and my body responded with an urgency that had nothing to do with strategy, the lie was tossed out the window of this moving limo.