the door to find him bent over the desk with a stack of papers under one hand and his hacked computing tablet under the other.
His scowl faded when he glanced up, but frustrated tension still knotted his shoulders. "Lex."
His gaze raked over her, and she welcomed it. All the other bullshit aside, she turned him on, quick and hard, so at least she wouldn't be the only one twisted up. "I came to discuss my duties."
He frowned. "Duties? Really?"
"Hmm, maybe not." She dropped into a chair and crossed her legs. "You made it pretty fucking clear last night this is all about appearances."
"Is that what I did?" He shoved the papers aside. "Why don't we back on up to the beginning of this tangle?" He pointed at her tattoo. "Don't pretend I'm the one who set this off."
After the humiliation of the night before, she'd pretend whatever she pleased. "I got a little ink, and you jumped at the chance to put me in my place."
"No, I took you up on your invitation."
"Did you?"
"Yeah. But I made a mistake." Dallas jerked open his desk drawer, rummaged around, and pulled out tobacco and rolling papers. "We skipped right over the important part, and I know better."
She watched his hands, mesmerized by the leashed strength there. "The negotiation, you mean."
"Mmm." He measured out the tobacco with easy, absentminded movements, most of his attention focused on her. "You put me in a hell of a spot, love. Normally, I'd tell you to take that collar off until you agree to what comes along with it, but you forced my hand a little, didn't you?"
Lex would have admitted as much--hell, she had the night before, but now... "I didn't force you. You had other options."
"Forced my hand, not me." He paused with the tobacco-filled paper pinched between his finger and thumb and gave her a level look. "Let's cut through the bullshit. We've been dancing around this for years, but until last month, I never thought you'd consider a collar. Because you don't get to be just another girl in my bed, Lexie. None of the others has been one of us. You know where this puts you."
He'd had women in and out of his bed, always collared and always outsiders, women who came and went like clockwork. Shift change, Lex had ruefully called it.
No more.
"It means I have duties," she said, feigning a patience she didn't feel. "Is it the word that offends, or the fact that I'm not slobberingly focused on the many things I get to do to your dick once you deign to let me touch it?"
His gaze dropped to her throat, where her fingers had come to rest on the collar. Lex tensed but refused to jerk them away, and he clenched his jaw as he turned his attention back to his task. "All right. Duties is fair enough, as long as touching my dick isn't one of them."
As if she'd been the one to deny him. "That's the funny thing about these collars." She scratched one fingernail over the rough surface of the O'Kane emblem. "Most men put them on women they plan to regularly fuck the shit out of."
His lips twitched. "I put them on women who get off on having me fuck the shit out of them however, wherever and whenever I want."
Even the words tightened her nipples, raised goose bumps on her skin. "But you think that isn't me."
"You can flip the submission on like a switch, darling, but you sure as fuck weren't getting off on it last night."
She crossed her arms over her chest. "Noelle likes punishment. I don't."
Dallas finished rolling the cigarette before offering it to her. "That wasn't punishment, which proves my damn point. We both know better than to play games when no one knows the rules."
He kept talking in circles, and they were getting nowhere. "Okay, I'll play along." She leaned forward and snatched the cigarette. "If keeping me off your dick wasn't punishment, what was it?"
His lighter was shiny silver and etched with a skull, and it reflected the light as he swept it up and flicked it open. "Foreplay."
Lex glared at him over the flame. "We've had six years of that. Do we really need more?"
Dallas grinned. "And here I thought you girls trained us this way on purpose."
She rolled her eyes and lit the tip of the cigarette, puffing until it caught in a gentle smolder. "Rules. You show me yours, and I'll show you mine."