Page 3 of King of Temptation

Or, impossible as it seems, more turned on.

“I understand.”

“Good girl. On your knees.”

His growled praise, coupled with his command, echoes through my veins as I do as I’m told and slide to my knees in front of him. There are tears on my lashes, slightly blurring my vision as I stare up at him, and I can only imagine how I look, my hair and makeup ruined, on my knees for one of my father’s men.

But if Leo is at all put out by my rumpled state, it doesn’t show. If anything, he’s looking at me now with more affection than he ever has as he reaches for the buckle on his belt.

“You took your spanking very well, princessa. Now you may apologize for being such a naughty, naughty girl.”]

* * *

Sitting back in her chair, Goldie blinked at the screen in front of her. In ten years of writing, she’d written plenty of scenes exactly like what she’d just written. But something about this one just felt different, and she wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.

Or the fact that she was currently more turned on than she’d ever been in her entire life.

Reaching for her mouse, she dragged the cursor over the words she’d just written, her other hand hovering over the delete key.

But no matter how badly she told herself she wanted to ditch the scene, she couldn’t bring herself to actually press the damn button.

Fine. If the muse said she needed the scene, she’d keep the damn scene.

Bossy fucking muse.

She’d polished off her donut while writing, and now she was feeling antsy all over again, so she shoved away from her desk and wandered into her kitchen in search of the special bucket where she kept her ‘author on a deadline’ snacks. Which basically consisted of the junkiest junk food she could get her hands on.

Grabbing a sleeve of cookies, she made her way back to the computer, where she tried once more to focus on the words in front of her. But even the crisp, chocolate-cream goodness couldn’t distract her from the ache between her thighs.

As she munched on her snack, her gaze slid to the box of toys she kept beside her desk for inspiration. Some of them were duplicates of the ones stashed in her nightstand, while others were a bit too intimidating for her tastes, like the giant octopus tentacle one of her author friends had sent her as a gag gift a couple years back when they’d gotten a wild hair and teamed up to write a series of alien romances—featuring heroes with plenty of tentacles, of course.

No. Giving herself a mental shake, she refocused on the computer screen in front of her. She was not going to interrupt her workday for a self-love session because some stupid scene from her own damn book had her all hot under the collar.

Right. It’s totally just the scene and not the man you were thinking of while you wrote said scene.

Her inner voice was a total bitch.

After twenty minutes of continued distraction, she gave up on the idea of getting any more writing done. Stashing her cookies back in their box, she grabbed her purse and headed for the door.

She just needed a bit of fresh air. A walk to the park, maybe. Oh, and there was that new bookstore in the shopping district she’d been wanting to check out. It was still up in the air whether she’d tell them who she was—especially in the south, she’d found it was better to go nosing around first, see how the owners felt about smut. Over the years, she’d developed a pretty good radar for that kind of thing. People who displayed the spicier romances proudly in the front window versus hiding it on the back shelves—or, as was sometimes the case, not carrying it all—tended to be more open to the idea of stocking her books and potentially partnering with her for a signing.

Buoyed by the prospect of a new business partnership, she stepped outside, giving herself a moment to stop and breathe as the sun warmed her skin. The shorter winters were one of her favorite perks about living in Charleston, though she could do without the brutal humidity of summer. It was a tradeoff, though, and one she happily accepted for not having to live somewhere the air hurt her face in the colder months.

The walk helped, at least with the more… physical aspects of her current predicament. Her mind, however, still wandered to Brody. To the ruddy stubble on his chiseled jaw, to the way his pale eyes had bored into hers when he’d had her pressed up against that brick wall, warning her to stay far, far away from him.

To the way his breath had smelled faintly of peppermint, and how warm it had felt on her cheek as he’d issued his warning.

He was the last man on Earth she should be obsessing over. And the only man she’d never been able to get out of her mind.

She wasn’t, and never had been, boy-crazy. When all of her friends had been drooling over a new guy seemingly every week in high school, she’d simply nodded along, though she’d never quite understood the appeal. It wasn’t that she didn’t like men, she’d just never experienced that sudden rush of all-consuming lust and obsession, as much as she’d wanted to.

Even the two times she’d been in love had been slow, steady. Friends who’d gradually morphed into more over the years. Sweet, low drama, no angst from inception to end.

Brody O’Rourke was nothing but drama and angst. So why the hell was she so hung up on him?

That question and more plagued her the entire walk to the bookstore. But the moment she stepped inside, her worries vanished, as they often did in such spaces. Something about being surrounded by all that magic in the form of the written word calmed her soul, before she even picked up a book.

Unfortunately, it only took her about five minutes to strike this particular store from her list of potential business partners. Their ‘Romance’ section, such as it was, consisted of exactly three shelves of books with sweet, demure-looking women on the covers, a few even sporting bonnets like she’d seen pictures of Amish women wearing.