They logged off the video conference.
“That went well,” he said.
“For you. I was humiliated when you made it very clear to your boss and your buddies that you were fucking me.”
“Settle down, Zara. It wasn’t like that. My choice would never be to deliberately humiliate you.”
“What do you call making me sit in your lap?”
“A little lesson in obedience for you and yes… a declaration of sorts to them. Sweetheart, they have nothing but admiration for you. They know what a bastard I am. You need to learn to behave. I might correct you to a certain extent in front of them, but not anybody outside the family. Don’t let that give you any ideas. If I don’t discipline you in front of someone for something you did, you can be damn sure the second I get you alone, you’ll pay for it.”
“But they know…”
“Of course, they do. The same way you know about Croft and Finn. I’ll tell you a secret… Mac and Willa and John and Mandy have the same kind of relationships. And if Thom ever gets his shit together, you’ll be able to commiserate with Avery as well. All and all, you’ll never find a group of guys who have greater respect for or enjoy spending their time in the company of women.”
“You made that abundantly clear,” she said in a scathing tone.
“If Mac’s and my talking shit to each other hurt your feelings, I apologize, but, sweetheart, I don’t work with stupid people. They’d have figured it out. Better to just get it all out on the table. I find having clear and open lines of communication works best for everyone. Withholding tidbits of information in a relationship—”
“Is that what you think we have? A relationship? Don’t flatter yourself.”
“You really are trying to push my buttons, aren’t you? If you’ve missed being spanked since Damian died—”
“Don’t you dare mention his name to me,” she said angrily.
“Zara, I didn’t say it to upset you. What I was trying to say, in as non-threatening way as I could, was if you’re really stressed and need to be spanked, you can just tell me. You don’t need to act out.”
“You like direct communication? Good. Then hear me when I say… we have no relationship. You are my captor, and I am your hostage or prisoner. That’s all.”
“No, it isn’t. Communication is a two-way street. I’m not the bad guy here. I’m the guy who saved your life—”
“That doesn’t give you the right to try to take it over. It sure as hell doesn’t give you the right to spank or fuck me whenever you want, and I won’t even talk about how over the line the whole figging thing was.”
He smiled. “Funny, you know what it’s called.”
“I do a lot of research in my work. I know lots of things.”
“I believe you. Fact is, I believe you know more about this whole situation than you’re letting on, but we’ll circle back to that in a minute. I know this thing between us happened fast, and neither one of us expected it—”
“Only one of us thinks it’s more than adrenaline-fueled lust between two people who haven’t been getting laid frequently enough of late.”
“You can be a nasty, viper-tongued bitch when you try.”
“As you said, I’m a writer… I like words.”
He chuckled. “Touché, sweetheart.” Noah got up and caught her by the wrist before she could pull away. “It’s more than that… a whole helluva lot more than that, and you know it,” he said in a soothing, seductive voice. “I know you’re scared and not just of Fariq and Springer and whatever they’ve got going down, but I’ll keep you safe from them.”
“But who will keep me safe from you?” she whispered. The look on her face told him she hadn’t meant to say that out loud.
“You don’t need to be kept safe from me… and you don’t want to be.”
She nodded. “Yes, I do. I swore I’d never get involved with someone like you again.”
“Sexy, tough, ruggedly handsome, and hung?” he teased.
“All of those and chauvinistic, dominant, and arrogant. Someone who truly believes men are far superior to women, and we need to be kept safe and cherished. I won’t have it. I won’t live that way again. I’m damn good at what I do.”
Noah sat back but didn’t relinquish his hold on her.
“I’ll give you dominant, but I’m neither chauvinistic nor arrogant. Fact is, in most ways, I think women are far superior to men. In general, you’re every bit as tough, if not tougher, far more intelligent, and you’re one hell of a lot sexier. Am I opinionated? Yes. I think there’s a natural order to things, and the best relationships I know are the ones where the men are dominant, but that doesn’t mean their women are submissive to everybody and his brother. I don’t want a submissive woman. You were right. I’d be bored in a month.”
“I never said anything like that to you,” she accused softly.
He grinned. “Yes, you did.
“No, I didn’t. I only just met you, and I haven’t forgotten anything either of us has said.”
“It was in a dream,” Noah admitted.
“You dreamed about me?”
“On more than one occasion. You are the kind of woman who can kickstart a lot of male fantasies. You were a pain in the ass in the latest, a helluva good fuck, but in my face from the get-go.” He reached up and stroked her face with his finger. “You should know even in my dreams, you didn’t want to yield… but you did.”
She rolled her eyes.
“In the last one, you called me a coward and nailed me on the type of woman I thought I wanted, but even then, my soul knew you were the one. We can take it slow on the relationship part. You need to fight me before you capitulate? I can deal with that for a while. But know that, at some point, I’ll make you tell me everything I want to hear.”
“So, you’re saying you aren’t going to touch me again?”
He laughed. “Oh, hell no. I have no intention of not availing myself of your sexy body whenever I want.” He drew her closer and ran his hand down her back, slipping inside the sweatpants and tracing his finger along the crack of her ass. “And I’ll take any hole I want and spank this sweet of ass of yours when you need it, but if you want to tell yourself for a while longer, we aren’t in a committed relationship, I can let you have that little victory… for now. But never, ever doubt for a minute, you will surrender everything to me in the end.”
Noah pulled her into his arms. She was already so much a part of him. Her body pressed close to his, especially when he had his cock buried in her, was the most perfect thing he would ever experience, and they both damn well knew it. He was just willing to admit it. She’d need to get over that, and if she couldn’t do it on her own, he’d help her—one way or another.
He stood and took her face in his hands before kissing her deeply, letting his mastery over her senses remind her she was his, and she could entrust herself to his keeping. Her resistance was brief and futile. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she melted into him, sighing and giving herself over to the kiss.