Page 7 of Knox's Boy

I sank onto the fabric and almost moaned. It was soft, really fucking soft, swallowing me up. I tried not to look too comfortable, but it was impossible.

Knox didn't sit. He stood in front of me, blocking the view of the city. He put his hands in his pockets, and my mouth almost watered at the sight of him. He looked down at me, his black eyes too dark.

"Let's discuss why you are here."

He paused, letting the words settle. I tried to nod. I tried to make a professional face.Yes. Me, Florian Freeman, I did that a thousand times before. A million times even! You aren’t the first man, no, sir. I could do it. Yes.

"I understand what your profile offered. But I want to be very clear about my interests, Florian. And I want to know about you as well."

My breath hitched. I nodded a jerky nod. Maybe I wasn’t looking that professional after all. I was pretty sure I looked absolutely terrified.

"I require total submission," he continued, his tone conversational, as if he were discussing a stock portfolio. "Tonight, I intend to take you over my knee. If you allow me, I’d like to spank you until you are sore. I want to see you cry. I want to see you struggle, and then I want to see you give in."

He took a step closer, towering over me.

"After that, I’d like to take you to my bed. I will fuck you. No condoms, unless you insist, though I am clean, negative, and vasectomized. I expect you to be negative as well. I will be rough, and I will be thorough. But I'll take care of you afterwards. I never leave without aftercare. You are free to use your safewordsat any moment as well. Red means I'll stop, completely, at any given moment. Failing to use your safeword when you need means you'll break my trust entirely, and you'll never be hired again."

The crude words, spoken in that voice, hit me hard. It was the contrast, the pristine room, the expensive shirt, and the raw, animalistic promise of violence and sex.

Not that I didn’t like violence and sex. Those were my thing as well. It was just that I couldn’t stop shaking, even if I really, really tried.

"Is that understood?" he asked.

I opened my mouth to speak, to sayyes, to sayplease, to sayI'm scared. But nothing came out.

"Would you like a drink before we begin?" he asked, tilting his head slightly, going softer. "Water? Wine? I’ll also need to know your hard limits."

Reality crashed down on me then. The enormity of it. This wasn't a fantasy on a screen. This was a man, a stranger, a giant, standing in his castle, telling me exactly how he was going to break me apart. The clinical way he described my body, my pain, my pleasure, stripped away the bratty armor I wore.

My muscles locked. My throat closed up tight, choking off my air. I stared up at him, wide-eyed, my heart hammering a frantic, erratic beat against my ribs. I couldn't move. I couldn't nod. I was frozen, pinned to the expensive gray fabric by the gravity of his presence and the terrifying realization that I had walked willingly into the lion's den, and the lion was hungry.

Chapter 5. Knox

I had seen fear before. In the boardroom, in the way their eyes couldn’t stare into mine anymore. In the bedroom, it was a delicious spice, a shiver of anticipation, a sharp intake of breath before the impact. But what I saw in Florian’s eyes as he sat frozen on my gray fabric sofa was neither of those things. It was the primal, blind terror of an animal that realized the trap had snapped shut.

Florian didn't move. He didn't blink. His chest had stopped rising and falling, his breath hitching in his throat. He couldn't swallow. Couldn’t breathe. His pupils were blown wide, swallowing the blue of his irises.

My own pulse, usually so steady, stumbled. I had miscalculated.

I had assumed the bravado at the coffee shop was a layer of armor over a willing, even if inexperienced, submissive. He said he had experience in our messaging. I had assumed he understood the dance, and that he was a professional. But looking at the trembling boy before me, and he looked so terriblyyoung in that moment, stripped of his bratty facade, I realized I had been horribly wrong.

The desire that had been curling low in my gut evaporated instantly. It was replaced by a cold, sharp clarity. The predator in me retreated, making way for something older, something more fundamental to who I was.

I wanted to take care of that frightened little thing.

I moved. Not toward him, but around the coffee table. I sat on the sofa beside him, closing the towering height difference that was clearly terrifying him.

"Florian," I said. My voice was no longer the command from the doorway. I pitched it low, soft, to soothe.

He flinched. A violent, full-body jerk, as if I had struck him. His hands were gripping his thighs so hard his knuckles were white, the tendons standing out like wire beneath his pale skin.

Poor thing.

I reached for the cashmere throw draped over the back of the sofa, also gray, very soft. I shook it out and settled it over his shoulders. He didn't resist; he didn't seem to notice it at all, staring blindly at the abstract painting on the far wall.

"Florian, look at me."

He couldn't. His breath was coming in short, shallow gasps. He was hyperventilating.