Make Me, Sir

karate classes.”

“You almost died,” she said. She pushed her head against his arm, shaking inside so hard she might shatter. She’d gotten past most of the aftereffects, but the nightmares of those few minutes hadn’t lessened. Cesar yelling, “Fucking cunt.” Her body no longer her own. Freezing. Marcus’s yell, “Gabi, down!” The crack of the pistol. “If I’d dropped like you ordered, you…” The sound he made, the blood, so horribly red. “I’m sorry, Marcus. You worked so hard on getting me past freezing up, and still I didn’t move and you-I’m so sorry.”

“And you’ve felt guilty ever since.” He actually chuckled, and she looked up to see the amusement on his face. “Did you really think one evening would fix you all up? A problem like yours doesn’t disappear so easily, Gabi, and if you were thinking straight, you’d know it, Miz Counselor.”

She stared at him. “You don’t blame me?”

“For something you have no control over? Hardly. And if you’ll trouble yourself to remember, one minute before you froze, you kept me from getting shot. That bullet probably would have killed me. We’re even, darlin’.” He wiped the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs and smiled down at her. “Besides, taking a bullet in a successful FBI operation has made my reputation in the DA’s office.”

“Oh. Well.” Men. Strange, strange creatures.

“Anything else we need to discuss about the fight?”

She shook her head. So that’s why he’d wanted her naked-to check her injuries. All her worries about having to tactfully refuse him were silly. Relieved…and disappointed, she reached down and picked up her jeans and thong.

“Nope.” He pulled them out of her grip and pointed to the center of the bed. “Put yourself there.”

“But-”

“We’re not finished yet, darlin’.”

Chapter Twenty-five

She opened her mouth to argue, caught his “I’ve spanked you once and I can do it again” stare, and slid backward on the bed to the designated spot. Pulling her legs up, she wrapped her arms around her knees, feeling very exposed. When she noticed his leather toy bag sitting by the headboard, a quiver shook her. Sneaky. What was the sneaky lawyer planning? Her hands started to sweat, and her heart thudded hard enough to do damage to her rib cage.

He shrugged out of his shirt and tossed it over a chair. Joining her on the bed, he leaned against the headboard. “Now we’ll discuss you and me. Come here.”

Why did he get to keep his jeans on? But it was…a little reassuring. Maybe he didn’t plan to make love. Then why couldn’t she put her clothes back on? I’m so confused. “I think I’d rather stay here. Marcus, can’t you understand this won’t work? There is no you and me. We’re totally incompatible.”

He snorted in exasperation, snagged her arm, and pulled her gently onto his lap. At the feeling of his hard arms around her, she felt her eyes blur with tears. Again. Don’t do this to me, Marcus.

“What we have here is a failure to communicate,” he said, his dark, rich drawl thicker than normal. “You best tell me why you ran away from me and sent Galen with a letter.”

“I didn’t run. I came here to stay with my parents.”

“Do not even try to bullshit me, Gabrielle.”

The sound of the less than polite term halted her thoughts for a second. His darkened expression and the dangerous look in his eyes warned her his tolerance had reached a limit.

She pushed away her internal “don’t do this” voice and gave him the simple truth. “I’m not a sweet submissive, Marcus.”

“I do believe I have grasped that fact.”

“You don’t want a brat. You don’t want the problems or the troubles. I know that and…” She stared at her hands. “I thought about pretending to be a sweet, quiet submissive for you, but…after staying with my parents, I know I wouldn’t be able to do it for long, and it’d break my heart to put that look in your eyes again.”

He put one hand on each side of her face, and his thumbs stroked over her cheekbones. “What look, sugar?”

“Disappointment,” she whispered.

“You’re going to disappoint me sometimes,” Marcus said. Her gaze got caught in the blueness of his. “If I disappointed you, Gabi, would you want me to leave?”

“No. But it’s different. I know who you are, and I wouldn’t want you to change.”

“There we go. Gabrielle, I don’t mean for you to change. I love who you are, little brat.”

Her breath caught, and joy spiraled up inside her like a whirlwind of glitter. Love? He loves me? Me? And then she shook her head. “No. No, you don’t.”

“Contrary little sub-never accepting anything. Why am I not surprised?” He smoothly reversed positions with her so her back rested against the headboard and he straddled her bare thighs. “Gabrielle, over the last month, you’ve made every sweet, obedient submissive seem boring.”

The spurt of hope faded quickly as logic returned. “You hate when I disobey you. I saw that.”

“Sugar, when you were acting and I didn’t know it, you drove me crazier than a june bug,” he agreed.

Absentmindedly he ran his hands over her breasts, distracting her. Damn him, she craved his touch like a drug, wanted to be in his arms, under him. She closed her hands on his wrists, needing him to hear her. “I wasn’t pretending all the time. Don’t you understand?” she said. “And-”

“I do understand, Gabi.” His lips curved. “I’d guess only about half of your bratty behavior was an act.”

She blinked. He knew? “Then why are you here?”

“I discovered I like matching wits with you. I like your honesty. I like seeing you struggle to submit, and sometimes winning and sometimes losing.” He tugged on her blue lock of hair.

Everything in her body started to turn to mush. But this couldn’t be right. He had to be confused. “No.”

“Oh yes.” He frowned. “But I want you in Tampa. Or me in Miami. And you in my house.”

She remembered how Vance had mentioned he could get her transferred to Tampa. No. Leaving now.

His lips curved. “If I wake up needing to beat on a little sub in the morning, I want her bottom available.”

The glint in his eyes said he was joking-mostly-but not all. She swallowed hard, imagining his hand spanking her butt. The flash of heat bunched her nipples into jutting peaks.

He glanced at her breasts and raised his eyebrows. God, that smile of his. “I reckon you like the idea of a morning beating,” he murmured.

“No, I don’t.” Hope and fear fought, drowning her in churning emotions. I can’t think. She clung to the one fact-he needed to understand it couldn’t work. “I won’t cooperate. Not always, and then you won’t like me.”

“You’ve set your teeth into that notion, haven’t you?” He pulled a huge wrist cuff from his bag and a roll of gauze. “Best we test it, then.”

Wait. “No. We’re not going to do this.”

Ignoring her struggles, he pinned her with his weight, captured one hand, and held it securely. She couldn’t fight him and chance hurting his shoulder, but trying to yank her arm out of his grip got her nowhere. After he wrapped gauze over the abrasions on her left wrist, he buckled the cuff on. “Nolan happened to own an extra wide set of cuffs,” he commented. He lifted her arm and snapped the cuff to a rope attached to the headboard.

How could she not have spotted the restraints? But nooooo, she’d been too busy staring at him.

He did her other wrist and patted her hand. “These shouldn’t rub on your arms where you’re still sore.” He snapped the right cuff to another rope and sat back.

He’d restrained her wrists against the headboard on each side of her head. She tugged at them and winced when the movement pulled on her ribs. “I can’t believe you!”

“Oh, I’m not done yet, sweetheart.” The big corner post of the headboard had a rope wound around the wood…and a cuff attached.