Текст книги "The Persuasion of Molly O'Flaherty"

Автор книги: Sierra Simone

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Текущая страница: 4 (всего у книги 10 страниц)

Seeing my solicitor and banker had taken all morning and all afternoon, and by the time I left, the day was already fading into a hot evening, accompanied by a listless breeze and the racket of carriage wheels on the road.

I had wanted to spend the day otherwise. I told myself that I’d wanted to spend it meeting up with friends and acquaintances, but truthfully, I’d wanted to spend it with my face under Molly’s skirts. I’d left the Baron’s last night with a raging erection that refused to abate, despite the two times I’d stroked myself off. Last year—hell, even last week—I would have found a woman to take care of it. I would have charmed her into my bed and fucked her until we were both limp and sweaty.

But for reasons I couldn’t quite articulate to myself, I abstained. I settled for my hand and then woke up as hard as an adolescent boy as a result (and was forced to settle for my hand again.)

So I was already miserable this morning when I heard the rumors at a breakfast with Rhoda and Zona, rumors that infuriated me and frustrated me and made me even more miserable.

Hugh and Molly. About to be engaged.

Thus the trip to the solicitor’s. Contingency plans, my father used to tell Thomas and me as he managed the business of our estate. The secret to success is to always have a contingency plan.

And so here I was. Contingency plan in place, although I desperately hoped it wouldn’t be necessary.

I didn’t feel satisfied, or even relieved, as I took a cab back to my townhouse, mostly because things were still so uncertain. There were only rumors, hearsay, the one thing that travels faster than the wind. And since this Mr. Cunningham I’d wanted to meet with had decided that our meeting should be put off until tomorrow, I would have no real answers until then.

It wasn’t until we pulled onto my street that I realized there might be someone else who had real answers, someone close to me.

Which was how I ended up in Mercy Atworth’s house, waiting for her in her front room, pacing the rug with long strides. I practically jumped on her the moment she entered, but I backed away when I noticed she was wrapped in a silk dressing gown and nothing else.

My groin—already aching from last night’s neglect—filled with blood.

“Silas, how unexpected. And wonderful. I’m sorry it took me a couple minutes, I needed to send word to a friend about something.” She raised up and kissed my cheeks in the Continental fashion, her nearly-bare breasts brushing against my chest as she did, the thin silk of her wrapper doing nothing to hide the erect peaks of her nipples.

I took a step backward. And then deciding that wasn’t enough, spun around on the pretense of examining the clock on her mantel.

“What brings you here today?” she asked. “Are you lonely already? I figured there would be plenty of women at the Baron’s who—”

“You’re close with Hugh, aren’t you?” I interrupted her. “I mean, you spend lots of time together. You were on the train together two days ago.”

Mercy cocked her head a little, her chestnut hair sliding easily over her silk robe as if her hair were made of silk too. “Yes. We are close. Why?”

“Has Hugh offered to marry Molly?” I couldn’t keep the urgency out of my voice, and I didn’t really see the point in trying anyway. Soon, everybody would know what I was after here in London.

“Oh,” Mercy said, her eyes widening as if suddenly everything had become clear to her. She walked over to a sofa, and I tried not to notice the enticing way her ass and hips moved under her dressing gown. She sat and patted the seat next to her.

I obediently sat down, trying to keep as much space between us as possible, even as my cock lengthened down my pant-leg, as if trying to reach for her.

“Yes,” she said. “Hugh has proposed to Molly.”

I swore.

“And…” she looked a little hesitant “…he also approached the board of her company and got their approval. He’s the endorsed suitor for her hand now.”

I let out a long breath between my teeth. Fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck.

Hugh—I should have fucking known from the possessive way he acted at the Baron’s. I should have known he was doing more than escorting Molly for the night. He wanted to marry her.

“She hasn’t said yes,” Mercy said soothingly. “He proposed two nights ago, and she still hasn’t given him an answer.”

“She hasn’t said yes?” I repeated, hardly daring to believe it to be true.

Mercy nodded.

“The board,” I said. “Do they really support him? Can they force Molly to marry him?”

Mercy looked thoughtful. “I suppose it depends how badly Molly wants to keep her company afloat. Marrying is her only way to save it, and if Hugh is the only man they want her to marry…”

My face must have fallen, because she laid her slender hand on my shoulder. “But maybe she’ll decide her independence isn’t worth it and abandon her company. Or maybe she’ll stay and let them sell all of their shares. There’s no way it would stay solvent after the board left, but maybe she can start something new?”

I shook my head. “You don’t know Molly. You don’t know how much she loves that company—it was everything to her father, and now it’s everything to her. She’ll die before she gives it up.” My heart clenched. Was this it, then? Was this the death knell to my courtship, ringing out its demise before it had ever even started?

“Maybe you can meet with the board,” Mercy suggested. “And get them to change their minds?”

I did have a meeting with Frederick Cunningham tomorrow, the man I understood to be the informal leader of the board. “Maybe,” I said doubtfully. “It has to be worth a try. I guess if it had to be anyone, Hugh isn’t the worst. At least I won’t have to worry about him taking advantage of her and her company since he has so much money already—”

Mercy snorted and I looked at her. Her face straightened immediately, and she leaned forward, letting her dressing gown fall open. Heavy, ripe tits spilled out, the nipples dark and hard.

I shifted, my dick surging at the same time as my mind remembered Molly’s eyes last night, the gloriously furious way she’d yelled at me.

God. It was like I was two different people, and I wanted to be the good one, the one who only wanted one woman. Why couldn’t I just be the good one?

“You must really care about Molly,” Mercy said, her hand moving from my shoulder to my chest, from my chest to my abdomen. Her dressing gown opened further, exposing the smooth, soft planes of olive skin and the tiniest glimpse of dark, silky curls at the bottom. “I never thought I’d see the infamous Silas Cecil-Coke wanting to marry.”

“It’s a business arrangement,” I said automatically. My mind was chanting get away get away get away. “A partnership between friends.”

“You really know how to woo a girl,” Mercy teased and then her hand was lower and lower and fuck that felt good.

“Oh, dear,” she murmured. “You’re so hard. Silas, you poor thing.”

You know what? I was a poor thing. The woman I wanted didn’t want me, and she was probably about to marry a man I despised, and I would never be able to find anyone like her again, and I was so hard that I couldn’t think straight.

I gave Mercy a pouting look.

She moved like water, like satin folding against itself, smooth and silent, until she was kneeling on the floor in between my legs, looking up at me with dark eyes.

But when she reached for the buttons of my trousers, I stopped her, breathing hard. “Mercy, I want this, believe me I do, but it’s not right for me to do it when—”

Mercy raised an eyebrow. “When what? When Molly went home with Hugh last night? When Molly has been fucking him the entire time you were away in France?”

Jealousy only made my dick harder. “Shit,” I hissed as she ran a palm over my length.

“And didn’t you fuck women in France?” Mercy asked. “What’s so different now?”

Because I’ve seen Molly again.

Because I’ve told her I want to marry her.

Because no matter how many women I fucked in France, I could never forget that Molly was the one I really wanted.

But the words had trouble making their way to my mouth. Because she was stroking and squeezing me, and it felt so goddamn good, and maybe, if I was a little honest, I wanted revenge in some way. I wanted to erase the image of Molly and Hugh together with the image of me coming in Mercy’s mouth.

She unbuttoned my trousers, and I raised my hips to work them down far enough to free my cock, and then there it was, veined and rigid, framed against Mercy’s beautiful face and luscious lips, and then all of a sudden, they were on me, around me, and my cock was in a bed of wet, hot suction.

My balls drew up, my body ready to release the intense ache I’d been carrying since I impaled Molly’s cunt on my fingers last night, but my heart was pounding in my chest—not the pleasant thud of impending climax, but the sickening thud of wrong wrong wrong.

I didn’t want this silky brunette between my thighs. I wanted my redhead, freckles and temper and voracious sexual appetite and all. And I didn’t want impersonal release. I wanted to soar with Molly, I wanted her blue eyes locked on mine as I came. I wanted to fall asleep wrapped around her slender body, and I wanted to wake up before she did so that I could pamper her with tea and breakfast.

I did love Molly.

And I didn’t want anybody else.

Oh my God. I didn’t want anybody else.

It was so obvious, so blatantly apparent, and yet I had missed it. I had blamed my unhappiness on a variety of reasons, blamed the lackluster sex on the women and my boredom, and all along repeated my mantra: I don’t love Molly O’Flaherty. But who crosses the Channel and tries to marry someone they don’t love?

“Mercy, stop,” I said. And when she didn’t, I placed my hands on either side of her head and lifted, my dick stone-hard and wet as her mouth left it.

“Mercy,” I said again, ignoring the voice that told me to stick my cock right back in her mouth and fuck her throat until this erection was finally vanquished. “I really like you. But I just can’t. I’m sorry.”

But she wasn’t listening to me. She wasn’t even looking at me. She was looking past my shoulder at the entryway to the parlor, her expression surprised, and then I turned my head to see Molly standing there.

I stood abruptly, which was an idiot move, since my cock was still out. It was still hard, and worse, still wet from Mercy’s mouth, and now on full display for Molly, who looked murderous.

Maybe murderous wasn’t the right word. She looked like she could obliterate worlds, like the Hindu god Shiva, and every self-preservation instinct I had told me to run away. I had no interest in once again testing the boxing skills an impoverished Molly had learned as a girl in the gutters of Liverpool.

Instead, I buttoned myself up and walked towards her, debating what to do. After all, I’d told her when I’d proposed that we wouldn’t have to live as man and wife, and clearly since she was cavorting around with other men, she didn’t feel the need to prove her loyalty to any one person, so why should I? Our group had never been about sexual exclusivity. Even Julian had shared Ivy with our friends and me.

On the other hand, I had just realized something important, something huge, and it meant that I had betrayed her. I loved her and I let another woman put her mouth on me. Not just any woman, either. The woman who had driven us apart the first time.

Guilt crawled up my spine and lodged itself in my throat.

I stopped just short of striking distance, deciding on cautious honesty. “Molly, I can explain. But before anything else is said, you need to know that I—”

Hugh stepped out from behind her, and it was clear he’d been hovering out of sight the whole time. The pompous needledick.

“Silas,” he said, sliding an arm around Molly’s waist. “Fancy seeing you here. How’s your face feeling?”

I wanted to rip his throat out. “Marvelous. Look, it didn’t even bruise.” I tilted my jaw so he could see how little damage his punch had actually done.

He looked sour, and that give me the smallest micron of pleasure. I turned my attention back to Molly, trying not to notice the way Hugh’s fingers splayed against her rib cage, trying not to think about them going home together last night, trying not to think about her fucking him like I so wanted her to fuck me.

“Molly,” I tried again. “This—I know this looks bad. And it is bad, I’m not denying that, but I realized something when Mercy was…” I trailed off. Fuck. There was no way to have this conversation without completely driving home the fact that I’d been, once again, caught fooling around with Mercy Atworth.

Molly didn’t say anything to fill the silence, but she met my eyes, and what I saw there punched me in the chest. Pain and betrayal and rage, and the same deep, deep sadness I’d seen in her last year. The kind of hopeless despair that seemed so unlike her.

“Will you say something?” I pleaded. I was used to people talking to me, I was used to people smiling and laughing around me, and I had no idea how to handle this silence. This stone wall of O’Flaherty. Say something, you idiot. Make her laugh or make her blush or make her mad—anything is better than this silence.

I decided just to go for it. To just tell her. “Molly, I love you.”

If the words sounded grand and important in my head, if I imagined them accompanied to music like they were part of a Gilbert and Sullivan show, I would never admit it to another soul, because in reality they came out weak and defensive and a tad bit manipulative. They in no way sounded noble or heartfelt or even genuine—they sounded like a kid telling his parents he loved them to avoid a strapping.

Molly responded predictably; whatever despair had been there before was now entirely wiped out by a fierce anger. She stepped forward, and it was only with great courage that I held my ground, bracing myself for the inevitable strike. But she didn’t hit me. Instead, she leaned forward and said in a voice so low that I knew only I could hear it:

“Get. Out.”

“Molly—”

“Clare,” she seethed.

Clare.

Fuck.

With one last glance—a glance that was more like a glare on her end—I left.

I met Frederick Cunningham over lunch at the Cafe Royal. The venue was my choice, as it was primarily frequented by a younger, more fashionable set than Mr. Cunningham was likely used to, and I wanted him to feel out of place. I also wanted to meet him on familiar ground. Home territory.

I watched his face crease with distaste at the ornate pillars and brightly frescoed ceilings, and at the women dining beside men, all in a jostling swarm of Bohemians, journalists, and military officers.

Good.

The more unsettled he was, the more defensive he’d be. And defensive people often revealed their weaknesses.

I stood to shake Mr. Cunningham’s hand as he approached, and then we both sat down, him appraising the restaurant while I casually appraised him. Mid-forties, good-looking—if a little prettyish for a man. Undoubtedly wealthy, given the expensive cut of his suit and the fob watch gleaming under his jacket. But as I watched him condescendingly place his order and then sip tiny, Lilliputian sips from his wine glass, I deduced that whatever power he held came solely from his money and nowhere else. He didn’t possess an innate respect for his fellow man—which meant that underneath his arrogance, there was a deep-seated and unconscious insecurity. And nothing about his carriage or demeanor belied anything but bored derision. No intelligence, no perception, no idea of his own soft spots. No inherent strength of will.

Plus, he drank his wine like a schoolgirl, and I made it a point never to trust people who were weak drinkers.

“So, Mr. Cecil-Coke, to what do I owe the pleasure of this meeting? I was rather surprised to receive a letter from you, given that we haven’t been previously introduced.”

I’d kept my letter requesting our meeting purposefully vague, mentioning only that I had a lucrative business proposal for him. I’d done it because I wanted to see his face and hear his voice when I mentioned Molly. I wanted to know how he felt about her. Contemptuous? Jealous? Completely neutral?

I leaned forward, smiling as widely as I could. I wasn’t unaware of the effect I had on men as well as women. Beyond the sexual, I’d always found that people responded much better to friendly charm than to brooding threats. (Which was the reason I’d always had more friends than Julian Markham.)

“Mr. Cunningham, I’ve heard that you and your company are looking for a man to marry Molly O’Flaherty. I would like to be that man, and I want to discuss terms with you to see how we can make that happen.”

Mr. Cunningham blinked for a minute, and in that minute, I saw everything I expected to see—scorn and avarice and a glint of lust. “Well, Mr. Cecil-Coke, I’m sorry to say that you are too late. The board has already approved of a suitor.”

“I heard. The Viscount Beaumont.”

His blond eyebrows lifted. “You know that? Where did you hear that?”

“Mutual friends,” I said vaguely. Until our lunch was finished and he inevitably hunted down any and all information about me, I didn’t want him to know how close I was to Molly, since I suspected that would work against me at the moment. Let him just think I was a wealthy, run-of-the-mill suitor chasing after an inheritance.

He made an indeterminate noise. “Mutual friends, you say.”

“What did the viscount offer you?” I asked. “If it’s money, I have plenty. If it’s connections, I have plenty of those, too. Just name your price—and then any extra you would like to keep for yourself beyond that—and it’s yours.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Why are you so eager to wed Miss O’Flaherty? Maybe you don’t spend much time in London, but her…ah, spotted…reputation is quite well known among certain circles here.”

“My own reputation is quite spotted, Mr. Cunningham,” I replied, not bothering to tell him that Molly and I had earned most of those spots together. “I’m not threatened by not having a virgin bride.”

Mr. Cunningham actually shuddered. “I can’t imagine. I made a physician ensure my wife was a virgin before we were married.”

I was beginning to hate this man—and I hated very few people on this earth. But that kind of ignorance was so goddamn infuriating…

“And so I presume that you were also a virgin on your wedding night?” I said easily, giving him a smile as my eyes conveyed exactly the amount of dislike I had for him.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he huffed. “It is a man’s natural inclination to—”

I interrupted him. “Mr. Cunningham, about my offer—please. What will it take? Tell me your price.”

I didn’t have fathomless funds, but between myself, Thomas and Julian—and possibly even the Baron—there wasn’t a number that I was afraid of this man naming. And yes, there was the small issue of Molly hating me more than ever after Mercy’s house, but now that I knew I loved her, how could I stand idly by and watch her corralled into marriage with Hugh?

I had to act.

Mr. Cunningham wasted no time cutting into the steak the waiter set before him, and I could see him savoring both the meat and the words he was about to say.

“There is no price, Mr. Cecil-Coke, no amount of money that you could pay me or the board to change our minds. We are very, very set on the viscount marrying Miss O’Flaherty.”

I nearly choked on the bite I’d just taken, hiding my surprise with a drink of wine. “Really?” I said evenly, after I’d swallowed and regained control of my thoughts. “No price at all? You must like this viscount very much.”

A slyness slipped over his features. “We do, Mr. Cecil-Coke.”

I didn’t answer him, partly because I was still shocked he hadn’t responded to my bribery. But also partly because a new suspicion was igniting, one I couldn’t quite articulate, but one that spoke of a connection between Hugh and this man.

“And why is it that you like him so much?” I pressed. “I must know.”

“He is simply the right fit for the company.”

“And I suppose it doesn’t matter who is the right fit for Miss O’Flaherty?”

Mr. Cunningham scoffed. “This has never been about individual needs, Mr. Cecil-Coke. This has been about the company, and what is necessary to keep it profitable in the long term. And the answer is not to have a woman dictating decisions simply because she owns a majority of the shares. She needs to be bridled.”

I planned on being the only man to put a bit between her teeth, and even then, it would only happen in the bedroom and with her begging for it. “And what decisions is she making that are so detrimental to O’Flaherty Shipping Lines? If you don’t mind me asking.”

He dabbed at his mustache and upper lip with a napkin. “She’s soft-hearted, like a woman. She pays the dockworkers too much and the investors too little. She gives the workers Sundays and holidays off—she even gives them a break for lunch! When I think of the money that could be saved if we merely dropped our wages to what our competitors pay…” He shook his head. “It’s appalling. But when she marries, the shares will legally belong to her husband. And then we will be able to move forward without all the…” he waved a hand around the table “…interference.”

“I see.” And I did see. This man was reprehensible. And the board was equally so, if they all thought like him. I felt a spike of pride for Molly, who had battled Mr. Cunningham and his friends in order to run the company the way she wanted. Who had run her company generously and ethically. All those years we’d spent lolling around Europe, petting and playing with each other, she’d also been contending with this board. She’d been single-handedly wrangling control of her company, and I’d never had any idea.

“And so you believe the Viscount Beaumont will be of service to you, then? More than I could be? Because I would certainly help you in your goals as much as possible.”

I thought I sold the lie rather well, but Mr. Cunningham simply shook his head and sipped the last of his wine. “We’ve already found our man, and there’s no changing our minds at this point. And with that being said, I’m not sure there is much more to discuss,” he informed me as he stood. He tossed his napkin onto his half eaten steak. “Thank you for lunch.”

I inclined my head but didn’t stand. I wasn’t sure I would be able to restrain the urge to bury my thumbs in his eye sockets if I did. “It was my pleasure,” I said instead. “It was most enlightening.”

It had been four days since I went to Mercy Atworth’s house and found her sucking Silas. Four days and I was still furious.

And the worst thing? I wasn’t even furious with Silas. I was furious with myself.

I walked through the Baron’s hedge maze more or less aimlessly, cataloging all the ways I’d been stupid in my life. And most of them involved Silas.

Did you really think he had changed? Did you really think he meant all those things he said, those sincere-sounding things, and meant them so much that he would forget about any woman other than you?

But the problem was that I hadn’t realized that I did think those things until it was too late. I had thought myself so blasé, so indifferent, and then I saw Silas with Mercy and discovered that all along I’d been harboring the hope that something had changed. That maybe he’d arrived here in London just in time to whisk me away from this nightmare.

Oh, how wrong I’d been.

And then he had the nerve to tell me that he loved me!

A little scream of frustration tore from my throat, and I kicked at the hedges with every ounce of strength I could muster, which only resulted in getting my skirt and my new white boot tangled in the tiny, twisting branches.

“Fuck!” I yelled, tearing at the fabric. “Fuck!”

“That’s a good way to ruin a dress,” a voice said from behind me, and everything in my stomach and chest collided into a dense ball of iron, and then sunk to my feet, where it threatened to explode.

I wanted to whirl around and scream at him, or reach out and hit him. But then he was kneeling in front of me, his long fingers skillfully unhooking my skirt from its hedge prison.

“What are you doing here?” I challenged.

“Looking for you,” he replied honestly, glancing up at me with those crystalline blue eyes before looking back down to my dress. His palm moved up from my ankle to my calf to support my foot while he extricated the boot. And even through my stockings, I felt the heat of his skin like a brand. Something deep within me tightened and twisted. It was something like lust, but a much, much deeper itch than lust.

Hating my traitorous body’s reaction, I abruptly withdrew my leg from his hold. “I thought if I gave you my safe word, you would stop pursuing me,” I muttered, more to myself than to him, but he must have heard, because he finished unhooking my skirt and stood up, his expression guarded.

“You’re right,” he admitted. “But I had to see you one more time. I had to talk to you.”

“What could there possibly be to talk about?” I asked, keeping my voice cold to hide the heat that flamed in my deep in my stomach.

“I saw Mr. Cunningham,” he said, and that hateful name was like a bucket of ice water on my desire. I hugged myself and backed up a few steps.

Silas didn’t chase me, his features uncharacteristically serious. “We talked about marriage. And Hugh. And he rejected my suit entirely.”

“You asked him if you could marry me?” I asked.

“Well, if the board would support my suit for you, yes.”

“And this was after you had Mercy Atworth fucking you with her mouth. You still thought you would try to marry me.” My voice was flat, and I didn’t care. Let him think I was completely unaffected by him. Let him remain oblivious to the turbulent waves of heartache and lust he stirred in me.

“Yes.”

“Goddammit,” I swore. “Why? Why can’t you just leave me alone? Isn’t life bad enough without you coming back here and breaking my heart all over again—”

I broke off, suddenly realizing that I’d inadvertently revealed too much, and there was no hope that Silas had missed my slip, because he was now pacing steadily toward me, a dark cast to his face.

“What did you say?” he asked, his long legs covering the distance between us. I felt like a gazelle slowly being circled by a lion.

He thought he could intimidate me? Fuck him. “You heard what I said,” I said defiantly.

Something between a growl and a hiss rumbled up from his chest.

“Say your safe word, Molly,” he said, coming closer. “Tell me to stop.”

God, that face, with that chiseled jaw and those carved cheekbones and the firm, masculine lips that were currently pressed together in determination.

“What are you going to do?” I dared. “Fuck me until I say yes to marrying you? There’s not a chance in hell, especially after you and Mercy—”

“Say. Your. Safe. Word.” His voice was almost menacing, almost mean, and Lord help me, I felt my response to that dampening my thighs.

“No,” I said haughtily. “I won’t.”

He was on me then, his arms like steel bars around my back, pressing me close to him. I was forced to lift my face to see his; he glowered down at me, his eyes like the heart of a flame, hot and blue and deadly. The last time he’d looked at me like this, like he wanted to eat me alive, had been last year…

“Say it,” he demanded. “Make me stop.”

Was it stubbornness or lust that made me dig in my heels? I wasn’t sure. But I could feel his erection grinding into my corseted stomach, feel the possessive way his hands roamed across my back, until he dug his fingers into my hair and forced my head back even farther. My pulse pounded everywhere—my exposed throat, my wrists, my empty, wet cunt.

It pounded for him.

“I’m not saying it,” I said. “You can’t make me.”

“Oh, is that the game?” he growled. “I have to make you?”

He bent his head down and nipped at my throat, and my whole body sang. Sang with righteous fury and pent-up resentment, maybe, but it sang nonetheless, singing for him and him alone. The nip turned fierce—a real bite—and I hissed, raising my hands to shove him away even as my center clenched with want.

He caught my hands before I could push him, and then his mouth was on mine, searing and marking and angry. Why he was angry with me, I didn’t know, except that maybe we were always destined to be angry with one another. And then his mouth parted my own with insistent, needy force and his tongue slid against mine, licking and fluttering and plundering my mouth.

My knees seemed unable to hold my weight, and without breaking our kiss, he reached down and hooked his arm behind my legs and I was swept up into his arms. He carried me to a nearby bench and sat down, and for a moment, I felt the twin tugs of desire and disappointment. The kiss was deep and urgent and I never wanted it to end…but I couldn’t have this with Silas. This greenery and blue sky and this pleasant bench in the cooling shade—this was what lovers did and we were not lovers. We were…something else, maybe. But not that.

Then he pulled away and in the space of an instant, I caught his blue eyes, as dark and inscrutable as the midnight sky. And then I was summarily flipped over onto my stomach on his lap, my forearms braced on the bench and my feet hanging off the other end.

“Silas,” I protested, struggling, and he pressed a firm hand on the small of my back as the other worked to lift up my skirts. I realized what he was doing a second too late; his palm cracked against my ass with a noise that rang through the maze.

“No!” I shrieked. “Let me go!”

His hand on my back held me tightly in place. “You know what you have to say, Molly. Say it. Say it, and I’ll stop.”

I froze. Saying it was admitting defeat, and I hated defeat. I liked to win—I loved to win, and if Silas thought he could spank the safe word out of me, he was dead wrong. Besides, there was the way that my ass felt after the slap—warm and glowing—and the way my breathing sped up as he shifted under me and the way that my nipples tightened as his fingertips ran lightly over my thighs.

But.

But.

I wasn’t used to being spanked. Hell, I wasn’t used to being dominated at all, had never let a man run my body this way, not since Mr. Cunningham had bought my virginity from me for five hundred thousand pounds when I was fourteen.