The rage rushing through my blood only seems to deepen with each moment that passes. The more I think about what happened today, the more I consider what could have happened, the more I want to throw Wynter over my shoulder and take her away from this place. Away from the war. Away from my family. Away from danger.
And if I thought she wouldn’t kill me for doing it, we’d already be on a plane halfway to the other side of the world right now, but she won’t leave her family, and she won’t leave Frost Industries.
I prowl across the room like a lion chasing my prey, but Wynter doesn’t move a muscle. She watches me curiously, each step I take carefully considered until I’m looming over her. She follows my gaze, her head reclined all the way as she holds my eyes. Anyone else on this earth would have flinched away by now, they would have seen a predator coming at them and cowered. But not my little dove.
“Keep pushing me, Wynter. I promise you won’t like the consequences,” I force through clenched teeth.
Her eyebrow quirks up and the corners of her lips tip up in a mischievous smile. “Won’t I?” she challenges.
If it was any other day, if she hadn’t just sat over the top of a highly explosive device for two hours as she told me she loved me because she thought she was going to die, I’d probably crack a smile at her sass, but the darkness calls my name. It beckons me, and any second now I’m going to snap. “You’re playing a dangerous game, little dove,” I growl as I bring my face closer to hers until our breaths mingle. “You’re not ready for the level of punishment I need to give you right now, so here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to get undressed and have a bath, a shower, I don’t give a fuck. You are going to wash away any evidence of what happened today, and then you’re going to come back and I’m going to hold you until I feel like I can breathe without needing you in my arms. Okay?”
Wynter shakes her head. “What if I want the punishment?” she whispers.
“Little dove,” I warn.
“You need it, Ev. I can see it in you. You need this, and you gave me what I needed last night, I want to give you what you need.”
“I don’t want to scare you, Wynter,” I say quietly. “Yesterday, the idea of punishment almost made you have a panic attack. You are not ready for what I need to do to you right now.” The words come out low and rough, my desire and darkness mixing.
“Try me.” Wynter shrugs but never tears her eyes from mine. She’s staring the devil in the eye and she doesn’t even fucking know it.
I growl and push myself away from the bed. The longer I spend with her on the bed, the more tempted I am to strip her bare and feast of her sweet body. But I swore I wouldn’t touch her until she knows the truth, and until she understands how dangerous being with me truly is.
It wouldn’t be fair for me to take her before she can make a decision about the monster she loves. Not that it will make any difference, but at least she’ll know who I am going in.
“I can handle it, Everett.”
“No, you can’t. Not yet.” I shake my head and resume pacing up and down the length of the room. At least if I keep moving it distracts me enough that I’m not tempted to go against everything I’m trying to do and use her body the way I crave.
Wynter groans before hanging her legs off the edge of the bed.
“Don’t you dare get off that bed, Wynter,” I snap.
She rolls her eyes at me, and I immediately want to take her over my knee again. She’s pushing me, seeing how far she has to go before I’ll give in, but I meant what I said when I told her she couldn’t handle what I need right now. “A couple of things. One, you told me to shower or have a bath, neither of which I can do from bed. And two, you just told me you’re not going to punish me, so what are you going to do if I move?” she challenges, her eyebrows raised in defiance.
Fuck. I forgot how much Wynter lives for the fight. She will push and push and push, until she gets exactly what she wants, and if that’s not one of the most equally infuriating and sexy things about her, I don’t know what is.
“I swear to God, dove, if you get off that bed right now I’m going to tie you to it for the next week and bring you to the edge so many fucking times you won’t even know your name by the time I finally take pity on you and allow you to come.”
I stalk toward her again, unable to hold myself on the other side of the room as I should, and I don’t stop until we’re so close our noses brush as I bend over her. “But then, after days of denial, after you begging me so many times to allow you the release you crave, then I’ll give it to you, over and over and over again, until you’re begging me to stop.”
Her breath hitches, but she doesn’t look away, not even for a second. She’s holding her own against the big bad wolf, and it’s only making my cock harder.
“Is that what you want, little dove?” I ask, my hands moving until they’re pressing into her thighs. “Do you want me to torture you with your own pleasure?”
Wynter shakes her head and a smirk tugs at my lips because I know I’ve won, but then she speaks. “If that’s what you need to let go of all the anger you’re holding inside, then do it. But if you need to punish me, if you need me to submit to you and accept your punishment, then that’s what I’ll do.” Her words are even, as if she’s said them a million times before.
It’s long moments before I can think of anything to say. She has always been the only person who could render me speechless, and I’m almost happy to say that’s still the case.
“Not today,” I say quietly. “Not while I’m this wound up. I’m afraid I won’t be able to stop once I start, and I don’t want to scare you away from it when you just got it back.”
She nods once. “Okay, not today. But if we’re not going to do that, then I think we should go strategize. I’m assuming whatever was in that box yesterday wasn’t a bomb, and it wasn’t big enough to be anything else all that dangerous, so Angelo has escalated a lot in a very short amount of time, and I think we need to start thinking about how we’re going to play this.”
“How we’re going to play it, huh?” I raise my brow. I’m not sure when she started thinking this was a group effort that involved her, but there’s no way on earth I’m going to put her in harm’s way.
“Yes, how we’re going to play it. You guys can’t use me when it’s convenient and then leave me on the sidelines for everything else. I’m a part of this. That’s pretty fucking obvious considering the package yesterday and then my car being the one targeted.”
“It’s too dangerous.”
“So was sitting on top of a bomb today, but I did that,” she snaps.
“I didn’t put you in that situation. If I had had it my way, you wouldn’t have left the damn house today,” I growl.
Wynter glares at me, all the ice in her eyes directed at me with barely contained fury. “Can I go shower now?”
This goddamn woman is going to be the fucking death of me.
