Page 1 of Cash

PROLOGUE

By my count, Cash Phillips fucked me no less than five times.

And he had yet to lay a hand on me.

This was a ridiculously stupid mistake. And I didn’t make mistakes, especially not ridiculously stupid ones. Missteps left you vulnerable. Slip-ups could get you killed. But mistakes like this had far greater ramifications.

Yet there I was, fully participating in the madness.

It was like a compulsion, and those were bad, too.

He was a compulsion.

An addiction.

One I both hated and couldn’t get enough of.

It wasn’t that Cash oozed sex—or at least that wasn’t the only reason. I’d known plenty of good-looking men, all suffering from varying degrees of inflated ego. And I’d enjoyed those men and their arrogance—that was, if their skill actually measured up to their conceit. What I had never enjoyed or partaken in was throwing barbs and banter.

There was flirting with the intent of seduction, then there was verbal fucking. Cash had the first down to a science, but the second he understood better than any male I’d ever met. He was so well-versed in the art of conquest, I feared if I wasn’t careful, I’d do what I’d never, ever done with a man.

Submit.

By careful, I meant I needed to get the fuck away from him. And by submit, I meant fall to my knees and beg him to override my control, beg him to overwhelm, command, dominate.

Just once.

I just wanted to experience it once—what it would be like to not be in control of everything. To know what it felt like to let go and be free.

And that was dangerous.

That went beyond filthy, lewd, indecent sex. I knew those things—I’d done them—but I’d always been in control. Every interaction had been under my power. I’d never, not once, allowed a man to ever have authority over me in any way.

The mere fact I was thinking these thoughts was perilous—no, they threatened to crumble the fortress I’d spent my life painstakingly erecting. The walls that had kept me safe.

And now kept the most important person in my life safe, too.

So now, more than ever, no matter how sexy he was, how much he called to me on a primal level that felt like it dated back millennia, I could not give in. Even if I knew the man who called himself King was indeed the only man I’d ever bow to, I couldn’t allow it. Because he, too, would be the only man on the planet who could ruin me.

In another life, he would’ve been mine. If I wasn’t who I was, who I’d been made to be…a woman who would never be safe, or free, or find redemption, or know love, I would absolutely be his.

But I never would be.

No matter how desperately I wanted to, I couldn’t be his woman.

I was once nothing more than a pawn.

I fought and lied and scratched and killed to make my way across the board.

Now, I was the Queen.

And I ruled my kingdom…never to have my King.

I was doing it again.

What I swore I’d never do, yet there I was, standing toe-to-toe with Cash while his sexy fucking mouth hurled insults shrouded in innuendo.

“That’s all you got, baby girl?” Cash taunted.