Page 55

“Not by choice.”

A quiet laugh leaves him. “You’re adorable when you lie.”

“I’m not adorable.”

“You are.”

I plant both hands against his chest and shove.

He rocks back half a step, but before I can straighten properly, he’s back in my space again, one hand catching my wrist, the other flattening at my waist.

“You don’t listen,” I snap.

“You don’t mean it.”

“I mean every violent thing I say to you.”

“I don’t think you do.”

I make a strangled, furious sound that only seems to amuse him more.

God, I want to kill him.

Or bite him.

Or push him out the window and then climb down after him.

His gaze drifts over my face like he’s memorizing every crack in my composure. Then he leans closer, and this time he doesn’t kiss me right away. He just lets me feel how close he is, how easily he could.

It’s unbearable.

“You should leave,” I say, but my voice comes out rougher than I want.

“Do you want me to?”

No.

“Yes.”

He lowers his head and presses one last kiss to the corner of my mouth, soft, which somehow wrecks me more than the harsher ones.

“You should learn to say what you mean, prince.”

I swallow hard and stare at him with all the venom I have left. “You should discover the revolutionary concept of keeping your hands to yourself. It’s called restraint.”

“Believe me, I have restraint. Otherwise you’d have been bent over and fucked long ago.”

I shove at his chest. “Is that what you tell Sasha too? Right before you stick your dick in the first hole that looks at you?” My mouth curls. “Get off me. I’m not one of your leftovers.”

I twist for the knife on the desk. My fingers close around it, and I swing, aiming for his side.

He catches my wrist, and the blade stops short.

“You make me so hard when you’re violent.” He turns me so fast the room tilts. My chest slams into the desk. Papers scatter, and the edge bites my hips. He folds both of my wrists at the small of my back, knife still trapped in my fist, and then his palm comes down as heat explodes across my ass.

“You fucking—” He spanks me again. Okay, so this asshole has grown tired of being alive.

“I like it when you get mouthy.”