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This time, my hands know exactly what they're doing, which is why it's slow. Deliberate. A kind of warning.

I put my mouth to her jaw. I like the way my stubble scrapes against her skin and she doesn't pull away.

I am years out of practice with everything this is.

“We could spend a little time together, couldn't we?” The words come out quiet, private. It’s not a tactic, just true, which is worse. “I wouldn't hurt you, lass. Unless you liked it.”

I put my mouth to her neck, and I'm not thinking about strategy⁠—

She turns her head.

Her mouth finds mine.

I stop moving.

The sound that comes out of me is years of waiting. It's everything I didn't let myself want in that cell because wanting is a vulnerability, and vulnerability is something other men use against you. I spent years turning myself into a weapon, and this woman has just…

Her tongue touches mine. Her hand slides down my chest, her thumb finding my nipple, and every wall I’ve built comes down at once.

“Fucking hell.” I breathe against her mouth. “Jesus, woman.”

I know exactly what she's doing. I can see the move. I can see the play. I can trace it back to the moment she turned her head and made the calculation. Here I am, seeing it clearly, and I cannot make myself step back from it.

I pull back and look at her, and my voice comes out rougher than I mean it to. “What the fuck are you doing? Aren't you afraid of me?”

“Not as much as I should be,” she whispers.

Something moves through me that I don't examine.

“Feels fucking good,” I say, because I don't lie. Not about that. “But you never answered my question.”

Her eyes spark at me. “Maybe I’m not going to listen to you. Seems to me, I might be the one in charge here.”

In my life, I have been many things to many people. I have been someone's worst nightmare. I’ve been the last face someone saw. I’ve been inside a prison for years for something I did, something I don't regret, something that needed doing. I have sat across tables from men who wanted to kill me and kept my face entirely still.

She isn’t my enemy.

I want her.

“You can punish me again.” Her eyes don't move from mine, and what's in them is a dare so naked it should be criminal. “Maybe you'll use your belt this time.”

The sound that comes out of me isn't quite a laugh or a growl, but something in between. She knows exactly how much control she has right now.

My hands are on her. I'm not thinking clearly, and I know it, but I do it anyway. Mountjoy taught me that clarity is a luxury and momentum is a survival mechanism. Right now, momentum is all I've got.

“I apologized for that spanking you deserved, didn't I? When I should’ve kept going. When I should’ve been harder on you.”

I shake my head… at her, at myself, at whatever this is.

“You liked it, and so did I,” she says, her lashes fluttering. She’s playing a game—I know she is—but I don’t want to stop her. “Maybe you should sit back in that chair.” Her voice drops to something low, deliberate, and aimed. “Maybe you should spread your legs and let me show you how sorry I am.”

I scoop her off the bed, careful with her foot, and set her down in front of me. “Get on your fucking knees.” I lean forward, elbows on my thighs, and keep my voice at that register that makes men go quiet. “You think you're going to seduce me? You think you're going to use me? You think you're the one in charge here?”

She licks her lips.

She is years of everything I wouldn't let myself want, looking up at me, and I am holding the fraying end of whatever I'm made of with both hands.

“They told you I was a virgin.” Her eyes don't leave mine. “That didn’t mean I have no experience.”