Chapter Six

We don’t talk much during our meal of sashimi and tempura. Despite my hunger, I don’t overindulge. I’m too excited for whatever Braden has planned. So excited, I drop my chopsticks not once but twice.

When we finally leave the kitchen, he leads me not to his bedroom but to his office.

“Take a seat.” He motions to one of the leather chairs sitting across from his desk.

“Okay…” I sit down.

“I wasn’t planning to have this talk tonight,” he says, taking a seat behind his desk, “but your escapade earlier today seems to necessitate it.”

“Okay…” I say again, not sure what to expect.

“I want you. I’m hard as a fucking rock right now, looking at you in that leather top. I could fuck you three different ways in the next three minutes. That’s how much I want you.”

I can’t help a smile. The leather is abrading my nipples again, and I squirm against the wetness between my legs.

“Before we go any further, though, there’s something you should know about me.”

“What’s that?”

He lowers his eyelids slightly, searing my gaze with his. “I’ve never said ‘I love you’ to any woman before you.”

Though I try to hold back my surprise, my eyes inadvertently widen.

“You find that surprising?”

“Of course I do. Look at you. You’re Braden Black. Women have been falling all over you for ten years. Aretha Doyle and all the others.”

He gives me a slight smile. “That doesn’t mean I fell in love with any of them.”

I warm all over, my skin tingling. From his smile or his words, I’m not sure. The words give me joy, but that smile… The smile I see so seldom…

Still, the words ignite me.

Braden loves me. Braden has never said “I love you” to another woman, but he said it to me.

This is big. This is huge.

I return the smile. “I don’t know what to say. Except that I’m flattered.” And really, really happy.

“I’m not asking you to say anything. Just listen, Skye.”

I nod. “All right.”

“Obviously, you can deduce that I don’t say those words lightly. I don’t, but I said them to you, and I said them for one reason.”

I lift my eyebrows.

He gives me that slight smile again. “I meant them.”

I let out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. A breath of relief. Again, I squirm against the tickle between my legs.

“I’m not in the habit of saying things I don’t mean, Skye.”

“I didn’t think you were.”

His smile disappears. “So when I say I don’t talk about what happened between Addison and me, I mean it.”

So we’re back to this. I’m not surprised. I’m the one who brought it up, and now I have to deal with the fallout. Only fair.

“Good. You’re not opening your mouth to fight me. I’d say that’s progress.”

“I’m not sure what I should say, Braden. I’ll always wonder what happened between you and Addison. I’ll always wonder why she changed so much after your relationship.”

“You know Addison,” he says. “You know what kind of person she is. Yet you can’t figure out why she might tell lies about me? Or anyone else, for that matter?”

“I admit you have a point,” I say.

“You of all people should know that Addison feels very strongly when she thinks she’s been crossed. She comes out fighting, and she doesn’t fight fair.”

“Okay, I admit she accused me of trying to steal her spotlight, which I never meant to do. In fact, I can’t. She’s so far ahead of me, she may as well be in a different galaxy. But she never said or gave any indication that I hurt her in any way.”

“No, she didn’t. Right now, you don’t have something she wants. Despite your quick success, she hasn’t lost any of her own following. But she’s watching you, Skye. I know she is.”

I wrinkle my forehead. Is he talking about Addie watching my Instagram? Or does he mean something more? “How do you know?”

His gaze darkens. “Because I’m watching her.”

My skin grows cold, as if it’s been flash frozen like those chicken breasts at Sam’s Club.

“I’ve been watching Addison for years,” he says. “She’s intelligent and cunning, but she does have a weakness.”

I lift my eyebrows in question.

“Her vanity,” he says. “Her need for attention.”

“She’s a hotel heiress. She’s had everything given to her since she was born. Of course she’s vain.”

“True, and when she feels those things are threatened, she strikes.”

“Why? Why did she strike against you?”

“You’re as intelligent as she is, Skye. More so, in my opinion. You can answer the question yourself.”

He’s right. I nod. “She wanted you. I know the story, Braden. Parts of it, at least. She pursued you relentlessly and you began by rejecting her. But you eventually didn’t reject her, and that’s what led to—”

“You’re getting perilously close to the line, Skye. I will not talk about these things.”

“If you don’t talk about them, what choice do I have but to find the information somewhere else?”

He shakes his head, scoffing. “My God, you will drive me to an early grave. You sit there, looking so delectable… Trying my patience…” He rakes his fingers through his gorgeous hair. “You have the choice to trust me, Skye. You have the choice to let this go.”

I sigh. I want to fight back, find fault with his words. But I can’t. He’s right. What happened between him and Addison has nothing to do with him and me. The fact that Addie and I have a history also has nothing to do with him and me, other than that I probably wouldn’t have met him but for Addison.

“You gave up your control to me in the bedroom. I need you to give up your control in this situation as well. As long as you insist on pressing me about Addison, there will always be an issue of trust between us. I won’t be in a relationship with a woman who does not trust me.”

I nod. He’s right. I have to give up this fact-finding mission.

If I don’t, I could lose the man I love.

The only problem? It goes against my inquisitive nature. It goes against my controlling nature.

“I’ll try, Braden.”

“Trying means nothing. You either do or you don’t. Are you going to give up on this ridiculous quest for information? Or aren’t you?”

I know which answer will get me into Braden’s bed. Braden’s bed is where I want to be. Already, his controlling nature is washing over me, making me hot, making me wet.

But if Braden thinks I can just give up on any quest for information, he doesn’t know me very well. Any answer I give him won’t matter. Because he knows me, and he knows the truth.

“Yes,” I say, smiling. “I can give it up. I can try, at least.”

Braden returns my smile.

“I see,” he finally says. Then he stands.

He walks out from behind his desk and stands over me, like a tall mountain shielding me from the sun.

“Stand up,” he commands.

I part my lips and obey him.

“God, those lips.” His voice is raspy again. “I’ve told you how sexy you look in that leather thing.”

“It’s a bustier,” I say, being careful not to stammer as he eyes me like I’m candy.

“You’ve seen me rip a dress to shreds before.”

I nod.

“I don’t think my fingers are strong enough to take on leather.”

I nod again.

“So I’ll ask you to do it.” He turns to his desk, picks up a pair of scissors, and hands them to me.

I drop my mouth into an O. I just paid two hundred bucks for this bustier. No way am I going to cut it off myself.

“Take them, Skye.”

“Braden, I—”

“I said, take them.”

My hand shakes as I reach forward and grasp the scissors. The steel is cool against my warm palm.

“Be careful,” he says. “Don’t nick your creamy skin.”

I’m trembling. Truly trembling. I’m not sure I trust myself to have the scissors anywhere near my skin at the moment.

“Do you trust me, Skye?”

I hesitantly nod.

“Then give me the scissors.”

I shakily hand them back to him. He grins and tucks the scissors above my navel, right onto the beautiful black leather.

I close my eyes. I can’t help it. I love this bustier, and I paid a lot of money for it only hours ago.

“Open your eyes,” he commands, his voice dark and forceful.

I hesitate.

“Now.”

My eyes pop open, almost solely from the dark force in his voice.

“Watch my hands, Skye.”

I drop my gaze to his hands holding the scissors. He squeezes his fingers to his thumb, cutting a two-inch slice into the leather. I can’t help myself. I suck in a breath. My beautiful bustier will be in shreds before I know it. Two hundred dollars down the drain.

“Why is this so difficult for you?” he asks.

“Because I just bought it. I bought it to look sexy for you.”

“And you do look sexy. Just like you looked sexy in that little black dress. And it turns me on to no end to cut this off you.” He lowers his eyelids and inhales. “I’m hard as a rock, Skye. I’m angry as hell with you, but I want you so badly, I can’t see straight.” He slices another inch into the leather. “Do you have any idea what you do to me? I’ve never been so completely angry with someone and yet so turned on by her at the same time. You make me question things. Not just about myself but about life. It’s…disorienting.”

Disorienting? He’s disoriented while he has scissors against my flesh?

Trust him.

“I never wanted a relationship,” he continues, “but from the first time I saw you, scrambling to pick up a condom off the floor, your cheeks red with embarrassment, I wanted to fuck you. I hoped one fuck would get you out of my system, but I think we both know how that turned out.” He slices another inch.

The steel blades are cool against the warm flesh of my abdomen. And I find, to my complete and utter surprise, that I’m getting even more turned on.

“I don’t like feeling disoriented, Skye. Not at all. But somehow, I fell in love with you anyway. I had no intention to, but I did.” He slices again, coming close to my breasts.

“Braden…”

He meets my gaze, his blue eyes on fire. “This is my time, Skye. My time to be in control. Don’t speak again until I tell you to.”

My flesh is smoldering. Even the cool blades of the scissors spark heat in me. My nipples harden and push against the leather binding them. I flash back to the nipple clamps and then to Braden’s lips firm around them.

“I’m going to fuck you in here, Skye. In my home office. And I’ve never fucked a woman in here. Never even wanted to. But I want to fuck you, and I want to do it now.” The scissors slice up between my breasts, and the bustier falls onto the carpeted floor.

I feel no loss. Not now. Sure, my two hundred bucks are gone, but my breasts have been freed. They’re already swollen and ruddy, the nipples jutting out for Braden’s mouth.

Still, one thought flies through my mind. He says he’s never fucked a woman in this home office.

Has he fucked other women at his work office?

My thoughts fly to the afternoon, me with a knee on Braden’s leather chair, grabbing his tie and making him kiss me.

Then his dick inside me, tantalizing me…

But no climax.

He didn’t let me climax.

Will he let me tonight?

“Skye?” he says.

I say nothing.

“You may speak just this once.”

“What?”

He raises one eyebrow. “You look inquisitive.”

“It’s…nothing.”

“Tell me.”

“I just wondered…” If you were going to let me come tonight. No, I don’t want to say that. Not now. “If you’ve ever made love to a woman in your other office. Other than me, that is.”

He meets my gaze. “Yes, I have.”

His answer isn’t unexpected, but still it catches me off guard.

“Oh.”

His expression is unreadable. “Does that disappoint you?”

“Of course it disappoints me.” I keep myself from huffing like a jealous schoolgirl. He’s much older than I am. Of course he’s had sex with other women in his office. Why should that surprise me?

“You know you’re not my first fuck, Skye.”

“I know that. It’s just… Shit. I don’t know.”

“I just told you I’ve never fucked anyone in this home office.”

“I know. And I’ve totally ruined the moment, haven’t I?”

“No”—his voice darkens—“you haven’t.”