“Put your hands on the counter. Flat. Palms down. Trust me.”

In eighteen months, he has ordered me to do many things. I almost always obey. Not always because I want to, but because I like to. When he uses that voice, it does something inside of me. Something that felt—back when I was engaged to Craig—wicked. Put your hands on the counter. Flat. Palms down. I glance down at his pen, the metal tip of it next to the lace of my stocking. He drags the point lightly against my skin and I close my eyes. I carefully place my hands on the cool surface of his counter, my fingers spreading over the marble, lines of silver and blue across the giant expanse of white. Trust me. In some ways, I trust him with my life. In other ways, these ways, I wouldn’t put anything past him. Will he lower his mouth to mine? Maybe. Will he slide his hands up my sweater and brush his fingers over my breasts? I hope so.

“You know we’ve had some complaints of the elastic getting stretched out on these.” He slides the pen underneath the top of the stocking, his eyes on the motion, and I watch as he tilts his head, watching the nylon stretch. “Have you experienced that?”

“No.”

“I’m going to slide my hand under here.”

“Why?”

“I want to.” His eyes lock with mine, his hand not hesitating as he sets the pen down on the counter, and reaches his hand forward. I can hear the roll of the pen as it moves toward the edge, but I can’t look away, can’t breathe, as he holds my eyes with his. “Is that okay, Kate?”

His hand closes on my thigh, a warm grip of ownership, and I close my eyes.

“Is that okay, Kate?”

I can’t answer him. If I speak, I’ll beg. If I say anything at all, he will know just how badly I want him.

He slides his hand along the inside of my leg, his palm along the lace, his thumb on my bare skin, playing with it as he moves. “Open your legs, Kate. Uncross them.”

“Trey.” It is the best defense I can manage. I think of Mira, of smelling her perfume, and I reach out to grab his wrist, to pull it away—

“Just your right hand on the counter.” He moves off his stool, coming closer, and I can smell his cologne, feel the brush of his shirt against my sleeve. I remove one hand from the counter, my body swiveling to him, and my knees brush against the thigh of his jeans. “This is market research, Kate. I’m just examining the product. Now, open your legs before I pull them apart myself.”

I open them. I let my feet hang loose from the stool and open my knees, one heel dropping to the floor, the sound loud, my shoulders jumping in response. I lift my eyes to him, and he slowly nods, holding me with his stare. He doesn’t smile, he doesn’t blink, and I’d be surprised if he is even breathing. For a moment, both of us just are. Then he drops his head, and I watch as his second hand joins in, both tracing over the place where my garters clip to my stockings. He runs his fingers up, my shirt stopping his hand, the fabric restricted by my butt on the stool. He softly clicks his tongue against his teeth. “Stand up.”

“I’m not standing up.”

“Kate.”

“Stop saying my name. I’m not standing up.” If I stand up, then my panties are going to end up coming off, and this is going to go to a very bad place, a place that I have been wanting for over a year, but that doesn’t matter right now, none of that matters right now, because this isn’t just Trey, this is the owner of Marks Lingerie, and if he—he slides his hands underneath my skirt, and I gasp when his fingers reach the bottom edge of my underwear. My other heel hits the floor.

He tilts his head, his fingers caressing the silk, then the top of my thighs, then the detailed edge between them. “Are these from the fall collection?”

“Winter.” The word whispers out of me. “Please stop.” I’m so wet. He hasn’t even done anything, hasn’t even kissed me, and I am so needy, so desperate.

“You want me to stop?” His fingers stop their play above my thighs, and he slides one slow, sure hand in between my legs, his touch soft and teasing, my legs opening wider despite myself, my hips thrusting upward, begging for him to—

He brushes his fingers across my clit, and I whimper. He slides his fingers lower, in between my legs, pressing into the damp area, and when he says my name, it is a swear across his lips. “Stop,” I beg.

“I don’t know if I can.”

Him

I mean it when I say it. I don’t know if I can stop. Not when she sits on the edge of the stool, her skirt pushed up, knees spread, her legs limp and hanging open. I stand before her, one hand squeezing and caressing her thigh. My other hand is seriously fucking with my mind. It plays with her pussy, her sweet pussy, a thin bit of my lingerie the only thing between my skin and hers. I’m terrified to move those panties aside; I’m terrified, if I touch her bare heat, if I feel the smooth skin or silky hair, that I will lose all control. If I push one finger, or two, inside of her … god damn. How will I stop myself from yanking at my belt, my zipper? How will I stop myself from freeing my cock and thrusting it inside of her? I am just seconds away from being able to have her, from gripping her ass and pulling her onto me, from pushing deep inside and fully owning this incredible woman. I could fist her hair and kiss her mouth. I could taste her, have her, please her. I could spread her open on my counter and tease every part of her with my tongue, my fingers, my dick. I could tell her how I feel and plead for her heart. I could come inside of her, and have her for the rest of my fucking life.

I could scare her away and lose her forever.

Stop, she’d said. I pull my hand away and straighten, putting one foot, then two, between us. I have to stop. I have to. Against the zipper of my jeans, my cock hates me even more.

I turn away from her and take a breath, schooling my features, willing the raw need to leave my eyes. Had she seen it? How badly I want her? Of course she had. Touching her? What the fuck was I thinking?

It had been the news of her date that had broken my restraint, the way she had bounded inside, full of stories and smiles, as if this guy was a possibility, as if he could, in any way, make her happy. I had seen hope in her eyes, and a panic switch in my heart had tripped.

Stop, she’d said. I turn back to her and attempt the playful tone that has gotten me out of a hundred situations. “And you say I don’t follow directions.”

She faces the island, the contracts spread out before her, and I know what I will see when I step beside her—control. My beautiful girl loves it, the hiding of emotion, so many interactions a game where her words don’t match her features, and her meanings are never easily deciphered.

“Why did you care what I was wearing under my suit?” Her head doesn’t turn to me, it stays tilted down, over the contract, her fingers busy, pulling off and reaffixing SIGN HERE stickers that aren’t needed.

“I wanted to know if you were at least giving the guy some sort of effort.”

That causes her head to turn, and she looks at me as if I am mental. “It was our first date. A coffee date. He wasn’t going to see anything under my suit.”

“Because … you told him you were a serial killer?” I feign confusion, furrowing my brow and earning a smile from her.

“Because it was a FIRST DATE,” she intones. “We didn’t even kiss.” She taps the top of a page. “Come sign.”

“He didn’t kiss you?” This is alarming, and I sit, pulling the first page toward me and scrawling my signature across the bottom.

“No. Which kind of surprised me.” She tilts her head, watching me sign the second page, a slow smile spreading over her lips. “It was kind of nice, actually. He was such a gentleman about it.”

This I don’t need. Her gushing, her starry eyes, her fucking “gentleman.” What was the point of having IT hack into her eHarmony profile if it ended up matching her with comparable men? They were supposed to make her profile such a train wreck that she was only paired with losers. “What does he do? This gentleman of yours?”

“He’s a dentist,” she tosses out, pushing another page in my direction. “Or a tooth surgeon. Whatever that’s called.”