Pamela closed her eyes, sinking into the thrill of the tight grip around her throat. She hadn’t had this—the commanding presence, the compelling dominance—in a long time. It filled her with relief, along with other sensations she was truly thankful for. Even if this man did fail to bring her to climax, he’d do it with the slightest achievement.

“Tell me what you like,” he whispered.

She stiffened, the hard punch of disappointment hitting her without warning. So much for slight achievements. With the opening of her eyes she was back to square one, not willing to draw a road map.

“Forget it.” She shoved at his chest, her hands colliding with unyielding muscle.

He laughed, the humor brightening his harsh features. She didn’t care if he could pull off his tailored suit like a GQ model, or that his chin-length hair made her itch to run her fingers through it. Hell, she even craved the rough grate of his close-cropped beard against her breasts… But he was a jerk.

A goddamn asshole.

“Move.”

He continued to chuckle, the sound fraying her sensitive nerves as she shoved him again. His hands fell, his palms snatching her wrists tight and yanking her into his chest.

“You’re touchy,” he growled. “All this spite over a rhetorical question.”

“It wasn’t rhetorical.” She tugged in vain to free her wrists.

“Wasn’t it? Didn’t I just tell you I can read you like a book?” He flashed his teeth.

It wasn’t a nice smile. It was vicious. Nasty. And God help her, it made her chest constrict for all the right reasons. Or maybe they were the wrong reasons.

So very, very wrong.

She didn’t want to swoon over a guy who could laugh in her face with undiluted smugness. She shouldn’t swoon over a guy like that. Should she?

“If I were a smart man, I’d pose opportunities for you to show me exactly what you want without asking. Wouldn’t I?”

She shook her head in denial. “You’re messing with me, and I don’t appreciate it.”

“Yeah, you do. You’re looking for a fight.” His fingers pressed into her wrists, his power holding her captive in more ways than one. “That’s what you like, isn’t it?” His gaze searched hers, back and forth, back and forth, each swipe reading things she didn’t want to admit. “Don’t tell me other men failed to get such an easy reaction out of you. You’re practically shoving what you want in my face.”

“Stop it.” He was right. So right it hurt. She wasn’t usually like this. The need to spar was an anomaly he’d picked up on with flawless precision.

His strong hands turned her around to hitch one arm behind her back, the other forward between her breasts. He pinned her against him, his heated breath brushing her neck.

“I’m only going to say this once,” he spoke harshly in her ear. “I don’t do safe words. If you want to stop, all you have to do is repeat what you just said and I’m gone. I won’t stand here while you kid yourself about your dirty little perversions. If you want me to make you come, you need to own it.”

She whimpered. Lucas never made her admit the naughty things running through her mind. He never demanded that of her. To him it was roleplay, a fantasy, while this man made it reality. Being forced to vocalize her desire was torture—punishment of the most delicious kind.

“Tell me you want this.” He nuzzled her neck. “Admit you’re deliberately pushing because you want me to fight back.”

Her heart pounded in her throat. Breathing became an arduous challenge. Her body reacted to him like paper to a flame. She was scorched. Burning. Her edges singed from his affects.

She fought against him, ashamed and achingly aroused as she tried to wrestle her wrists from his grip.

“Good girl.” The arrogance tainting his voice made her pussy clench. “I love being right. It makes my dick hard.” He proved his point by grinding his cock against her ass.

His large, erect cock.

Damn him. The last thing this accomplished man needed was the asset to back up his ego.

“You’re an asshole.” She bucked her hips, and his grip tightened to the point of heavenly pain.

“I’m also better than you. At this, I’ll always be better than you.” He nudged her forward, leading her to the lockers. “Put your palms on the metal.”

He released her, trapping her between two immovable objects, one devilishly warm, the other chillingly cold. He kept her on her toes. Where had this man come from, and how did he get a cheat sheet on her body?

No. It wasn’t her body. It was her mind. He was fucking her from the inside out, his words entrancing her with arousal, his confidence inspiring arrhythmia-inducing hope.

“Put them on the locker, Ella.”

She bit her lip and raised her hands, freezing them in place against the metal. There was a heartbeat of silence, the quiet almost deafening when mixed with the rush of blood in her ears.

He lifted her skirt, the hem scratching sensitive skin like sandpaper instead of elegant fabric. Every inch of her responded in erotic fascination—her nipples tightened, her breasts ached, even the hair on the back of her neck rose, eager and greedy for more.

The sensations were foreign. Years had passed since her body had reacted this way. A lifetime.

The smooth graze of his fingers cut across the curve of her bottom, then lower, between her thighs. Slow and torturous.

“You’re soaked.” His teeth grazed along her shoulder, inspiring a shudder. “But how can that be, sweetheart? I thought you were an ice princess.” He nudged aside the crotch of her panties, the slightest brush of her sex sending a wave of pleasure from her core outward. “Turns out you’re just as eager for my dick as everyone else.”

A hiss of breath escaped her lips. She wanted to hate him. To despise his skill.

The exact opposite happened.

She was indebted to him, her orgasm so frighteningly close she was actually fighting it.

“On second thought, you don’t even need my dick, do you?” His derisive chuckle peppered her skin. “I bet I could get you off with one finger.”

She closed her eyes, unwilling to admit it would take a lot less.

“Should I prove it?”

A lone fingertip parted her folds, sliding with ease through her arousal. He learned her, trailing inside and out. Back and forth. Around and around. Never penetrating. Only teasing her to the point of silenced hysteria.

He didn’t rush, didn’t falter in his blissful assault. He was too good, too skilled, and not merely with his touch. His precision came from strategy—a game plan she appreciated whole-heartedly if the lust and adrenaline flooding her veins was anything to go by.

“Enough with the questions.” She bucked against him, fighting the mental connection and focusing on the physical. Instantly, she was pushed against the lockers with a responding jerk of his hips. She needed him to do it again, this time with his cock inside her. Over and over. “You talk too much.”

“Then I’ll stop.”

Panic flooded her veins. Shit. She wanted his voice. Needed it. The threatening drawl was the cause of her bliss, and she knew he was arrogant enough to withhold it from her. “I take that back. Keep talking… I-I need you to keep talking.”

“No, you don’t,” he whispered into her hair, each word softer than the last.

“I do.” She waited long moments, her hips circling to follow the trail of his fingertip. “Please.”

Christ, she was begging for sound. Pleading for him.

He didn’t respond. Not with words. Only movements. His finger continued to glide around her sex, outlining her pussy lips, then straight down to her core. He circled her opening, painfully slow, deliciously teasing.

She whimpered. Mentally begged.

He felt so good, but she needed the mental stimulation. The dirty words were necessary to get her off.

“Talk to me.” She shoved back against his chest. And again, when he didn’t answer. “You won’t make me come like this.”

That finger kept circling, turning her into a liar with the efficient way her orgasm hovered. She shot a pleading glance over her shoulder and their gazes connected in an instant. His confidence washed through her. There was no denying she was in skilled hands. Everything about him hit the right mark.

His touch.

His focus.

His understanding.

He was listening.

Finally, someone was listening. Not to her words, but to her.

Pressure slid over her clit, his thumb, the tight press holding the bundle of nerves hostage. A gasp escaped her, and he raised a checkmate brow in response.

Damn him. She turned away, closed her eyes, and rested her forehead against the locker.

His other hand trailed a path around her body, starting at her hip. He drifted over her stomach, through her cleavage, along her sternum to the base of her throat.

Her skin erupted in goose bumps; her lungs tightened. She tilted her head back, offering herself to his mercy. But he didn’t take it. He didn’t encase her throat in his grip as she wished. Instead, he wove his hand around her neck and fisted her ponytail, pulling tight.

She whimpered.

This man wasn’t merely reading her cues and responding, he was taking them a step further. Pushing her. Giving her something she didn’t expect.

“Talk to me.”

He refused. The only sound came from the upstairs door opening, the blast of dance music filtering in, before an abrupt disconnect. Footfalls and light chatter echoed forth as he pleasured her. People were approaching, and he showed no intent to stop.

“Whoa.” A man’s voice carried from the door. “Now this is what I call a proper greeting.”

A woman laughed, friendly and light.

Bryan didn’t falter. Didn’t even pause. He kept her hair in his grip, his finger still teasing her pussy. “Evening,” he drawled in greeting. “Look, honey, we’ve got visitors.”

She groaned at the gift of his voice.

Could he tell she enjoyed an audience? She didn’t know how or why, but this man had already learned so much about her.

“I said look.”

Her nipples tingled at his command, and she sucked in a breath to counteract the shock. His words made her sizzle. No. She had to keep reminding herself it wasn’t the words, it was the conviction in his tone. The pure authority. He spoke with no fear of her rejection. He issued directives he knew she wanted to follow.

“Come on now,” he purred. “Play nice.”

She whimpered and opened her eyes to see the couple standing a few feet away. The middle-aged woman bit her lip as she nestled close to her companion with a mammoth-sized erection tenting his pants.

Oh, sweet heavens.

Her pussy fluttered, her core clamped down. She panted, no longer capable of speech. The man stared at her, his gaze intent, his appreciation clear while Bryan’s lone finger continued to torment her pussy entrance.

“Say hello.” There was another tug to her hair, the slight pinch only increasing her pleasure. “Don’t be shy.”

She moaned and refused with a shake of her head.

Bryan’s breathy snicker caused a shudder to flow down her spine. He was loving this, thriving on her defiance.

“Now you’re just being rude.” His beard grazed the skin of her shoulder, and he tilted her head higher.

“Fuck you,” she muttered under her breath.

Fuck me.

Fuck everything.

She became mindless with the hunger for penetration. All she needed was…something. Anything.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” He ground his cock into her ass and sank his finger deep into her heat. “You’d fucking love it. Coming all over my dick. Milking me with this tight pussy.”

She didn’t want to show him how right he was, but her body refused the order. She shuddered, a mere breath away from orgasm. He was so fucking good. Too fucking good.

Her core throbbed, over and over, igniting a release she couldn’t abate.

“Christ.” The word was a breathy exhale. It was relief and pleasure and torture. Closure and rapture and desolation.

Pure, carnal release.

She clawed at the locker and failed to keep herself upright as her pussy contracted, tighter and tighter, clinging to the single digit sheathed inside her. She sank one inch, two, only to be pressed harder against the cold metal, his body helping her stand. Her core spasmed on a continuous loop, one convulsion after another as she panted and gasped for air.

“That’s it,” he coaxed. “Show me how good I am.”

She ground her teeth in defiance, but it was too late. He’d already won. The height of orgasm had been and gone, each contraction now shorter than the last.

Everything became heavy—her arms, her legs, her chest. Relief turned into an uncomfortable tightening beneath her ribs. She’d waited so long. Hope had been fleeting. Now… now, this smug ass of a man had reignited her libido, and she couldn’t be happier.

She turned to face him and tried to ignore the rapid rise of his appeal. They’d been left alone, their audience nowhere in sight as she struggled to regain normal breathing.

“I guess my work here is done.” He winked, his fingers fleeing her panties. “And you thought I wouldn’t get a quick thrill or a boost to my ego. Turns out I got both.”

She let him revel in his victory, wishing the blissful hum of her body wasn’t adding fuel to his blazing bonfire of arrogance. He was a jerk. No doubt about it. But Jesus fucking Christ, he was an accomplished jerk.

Her knees buckled and she slid down the cool metal of the lockers, landing in a heap on the floor. Relief overwhelmed her, making her gasps for air turn into gulps for mental stability.

“I’ll see you around, Ella.” He backtracked, his heated gaze making her self-conscious about her disheveled state before he turned and strode from the room.

She couldn’t even find the breath to correct her name. It didn’t matter, anyway. He was gone, the upstairs door to the nightclub soon opening and closing with a burst of loud music.

Questions and eager observations filled her adrenaline-fueled mind as she relived what had just happened. He’d opened his own forum in her brain, a mass of squealing groupies pointing out his achievements like they were worthy of Olympic gold.

He hadn’t even sought relief. Hadn’t even mentioned reciprocation despite the hard, thick length of his erection that had been an unmistakable presence at her ass.

“You good?”

Pamela blinked from her trance and focused on Shay in the doorway.

“Yeah.” She cleared the gravel from her throat. “Better than good.”

The bartender sauntered forward, her smile wide. “He did great, didn’t he?”

Pamela laughed. She couldn’t explain it. Couldn’t describe it. She didn’t think she even wanted to, because the idea of complimenting the arrogant ass was a despised prospect. Then again, he kind of deserved all the praise bubbling in her rapidly flowing bloodstream. She never would’ve thought an orgasm with minimal penetration was possible. Not even when Lucas had been alive.

All Bryan had needed was one finger.

One. Damn. Finger.

“I’m glad.” Shay held out a hand and pulled Pamela to her shaky feet. “Does this mean you won’t be canceling your membership?”

She blinked, too shell-shocked to know the right answer. “It means there’s hope. And that’s enough for now.”