Richer Than God - Amelia Wilde Page 0,14

flat of my hand. Reya will get the idea. I’m close enough now to touch Brigit’s face, dragging my fingertips down the side of her cheek and to the delicate hollow of her throat. Her pulse is a beating wing, and my own heart matches pace. “You’re so pretty when you say please.”

“That’s not true.” She’s barely breathing, but her heart—her heart doesn’t know the difference. “You pretend, but you like the teasing.”

“The fucking audacity of you.” It is nothing to wrap a hand around that throat. It’s everything not to squeeze, to show her just how easy it would be to have complete control over her. I have it already, but she doesn’t know. She still thinks there’s a way out of her cage. “How would you know what I like? How would you fucking know?”

Brigit dares to glance down to the front of my pants.

“That’s nothing.” A dick gets hard for a nice pair of tits.

“It doesn’t look like nothing.”

Brave words from a slim piece of flesh who’s trembling in my grip, which is the lightest possible grip, which is the gentlest touch. She has no fucking idea. I’m a body of fireworks, explosions in a dark sky, and she can’t know, because if she knows….

“I don’t find this particularly amusing.” What I do find amusing is pressing my thumb into that hollow, counting her heartbeats. “There are other things that would entertain me better. Things that would make you cry and squirm. Things that would shock even the women in this house.”

“Wouldn’t we need an audience for that?”

I laugh out loud, because otherwise I’ll combust, curling up into a suit briquet. “You’ve made your choice.”

“Did you make yours?” She swallows, and I feel it under my thumb. I’m surrounded by ledgers and sex twenty-four hours a day, and I’ve never felt anything as sexy as that nervous swallow. “About what you’re going to do to me?”

“With.”

“What?”

“When you’re with a client...” Fuck. I cannot even picture it. I cannot imagine another man between her legs, or with his hand on her neck, or kissing her collarbone. “Say with. What you’re going to do with me.” I trace my thumb down and down until I can slip it underneath the collar of her uniform. She’s still, or at least she’s trying to be and failing.

“What if he’s not that kind of man?” Another swallow, and the tip of her tongue peeks out between her lips. “What if he’s like you?”

“You’re assuming I’ll do things to you, then.”

“Yes.” A breath. In and out. Another. “I am assuming that.”

I lean down, because I can’t help myself, which is a rare situation to be in. I’m not fond of it. But I am fond—so fucking fond—of breathing her in. She smells like the plain soap we keep upstairs and a sweetness underneath that has to be all her. I don’t know her last name, but I know that. I’ll find out her fucking last name when it matters. And it doesn’t matter now. “Do you know what, Brigit? I know exactly what I’m going to do to you. I know what your first lesson will be.”

A small noise.

“You’re right.” I drop my hand to her wrist and pull her across the room. She gets a hitch in her step each time we pass one of the round sofa chairs. Those are for displays, not for her, and I can feel her wondering, pausing. “Those are only for—”

“The girls who pass inspection. I know.”

We go around behind my desk, and I lift her onto it, perching her there. It’s a desk made for me, so I shouldn’t be surprised at the frank obscenity of her bare feet dangling from the side, but I am.

Shocked.

And hard.

Harder.

Fuck.

I take my seat, her eyes following every move. She’s put on the same expression as last night, but it doesn’t convince me nearly as well this time. It’s a fake. A front. What taught her to make that face? I want to know, but I want other things more.

“Spread your legs.” Her knees press together instead. “You know that’s not what I want.”

All her teasing amounts to nothing, and she blushes, hands gripping the edge of the desk. “Here? On your desk? Shouldn’t we do this on a bed?”

“Stalling for time isn’t as cute as you think it is.” Brigit opens her mouth but says nothing. Instead, she closes her eyes and edges her knees apart. “For fuck’s sake, keep your eyes open.”

She keeps them closed. “I can’t.”

“You