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“It doesn’t have to be, but in my experience it usually is.”
Displeasure flickers in his eyes, on his face, but it’s gone almost as soon as I register that it’s there. And then we’re back to waiting and watching each other silently.
“You like your job,” he finally says. I’d congratulate myself for making him break the silence, except I’m learning that Sebastian never does anything he doesn’t want to do.
“I like the money it brings in.”
“Is that all you like about it?”
I’ve never really thought about that before, about whether or not I like the job I’m doing. I like not being under my father’s thumb. I like being away from the violence and the darkness that is a way of life for my family. I like making my own way in the world, even if it is precarious. But the job itself? Do I really like it?
“It’s not bad,” I hedge. “It pays the bills and I’m good at it.”
“You are good at it,” he agrees. “But you could be better.”
“Oh, really?” Now I’m insulted. Maybe it’s the overachiever in me, the girl who always made top of her class—even at one of the most competitive universities in the world. “And how is that?”
“You lack control.”
“Excuse me? I’ve worked here for over a year and last night was the first time I ever lost my temper.”
“I didn’t say you lacked self-control.” He inclines his head, narrows his eyes at me until I feel like I’m being toyed with. “I said you lacked control.”
He drains his beer, sets it aside. Then he stands up and reaches a hand out for me. I start to refuse—I’m annoyed and the last thing I want to do is touch him right now. But there’s something in his face, something in the way he looks at me that makes my stomach flip and my breath catch in my throat. That makes me think it would be a very bad idea to refuse the hand he extends to me.
So I take it, allow him to pull me to my feet. Then I let him walk me over to the huge picture window that makes up the entire back wall of his office. It’s nine o’clock and darkness has finally come to the desert. Not that you would ever know that if you were thirty flights below us on the Strip, where the lights burn so brightly that most days it feels like you’re at the top of the world where the sun shines twenty-four/seven.
Sebastian is behind me again, his long, powerful body pressed to mine from shoulder to knee. He’s warm and solid and—despite everything I’m thinking—it feels so right to lean against him. To bask in the warmth and command that roll off him in waves.
“I’ve spent too many hours today looking at the video of you from the other night,” he whispers in my ear as his fingers gently stroke my hip, my stomach, the outsides of my thighs. “Too many hours today watching you work.”
“You’ve been spying on me?” I try to sound offended, but it’s hard to pull off when I’d felt his eyes on me all evening. It’s even harder to pull off when my body is literally melting into his.
“I’ve been observing you.” He bends his head until his lips are only an inch or so from my ear, his breath hot against the nape of my neck. “And do you know what I saw?”
“What?” I can’t stop myself from asking any more than I can stop my body from responding to his. Nipples peaking, blood pounding, sex aching. I don’t know what it is about him that revs me up so much, but it’s like my body recognizes his. Like it knows something that I don’t.
“Someone who craves control as much as I do. Someone who wants control over herself, her life, her world.”
“That’s—that’s not true.”
“Isn’t it?” he whispers.
“No. I just—I don’t want to be at anyone else’s mercy. I want to live my life the way I want to live it and answer to no one.” Why is my breathing so erratic? My heart beating so fast?
“Control,” he tells me again. “Discipline. Restraint.”
The words frighten me even as they turn me on. Or maybe that’s just the way he’s holding me, touching me. The way his lips skim up my neck and across my jaw.
“I don’t—” My voice breaks. “I don’t know what you want from me.”
“It’s not what I want from you,” he says even as he presses hot kisses against my cheek, the corner of my mouth. “It’s what I want to give you.”
“And what’s that?” I force the words out of my too-dry throat.
“Tell me, Aria. How much does control mean to you? How far will you go to get it?”
