Page 126 of Dose

I take my time. Longer than she expects, perhaps longer than she wants, but I will not turn her impatience into injury. I keep one hand on her hip and make her tell me what changes. When she asks for my finger, I give it to her. When her body tenses, I stop moving until it loosens around me.

“Strange,” she says. “Not bad.”

“Color?”

“Green. More.”

I warm the smallest plug in my palm, coat it with lubricant and ease it in by increments. Her gasp is sharp enough that I stop.

“Pressure,” she says before I can ask. “Just pressure. Keep going.”

“Ask properly.”

Her eyes flash. “Please keep going, Daddy.”

I do.

Once the base rests safely against her, I give her time to adjust. She tests the fullness with a cautious shift of her hips. The uncertainty on her face becomes surprise, then hunger.

“Touch me,” she says.

I lower my mouth to her clit.

The orgasm catches her quickly. She clenches around the plug and cries out, one hand closing in my hair while I hold her hip still through the aftershocks.

When her body has softened again, I remove it slowly, clean her, and check for pain or blood. There is neither.

She lies with one arm over her eyes, smiling.

“Excellent data,” she says. “Publication recommended.”

“Peer review will be limited.”

“Coward.”

On the third morning, Dominic reports that he identified one of Korte’s Chicago vehicles and lost it beneath an overpass before he could see who was inside. Isla listens to the rest of the review, tests the release and chooses to stay.

For the longer denial scene that afternoon, she schedules a two-hour break and tells Marcus she will be unavailable except for an emergency.

Her work is not mine to dismiss because I want her attention. If I want two hours of her time, I ask for them.

She chooses the remote vibrator and slips it into place herself. I control it from across the room while she makes tea, paces the annex and beats me twice at cards. Low vibration becomes stillness without warning. Stillness becomes eleven seconds at an intensity that makes her grip the table and glare at me.

“You counted,” she says.

“Of course.”

“I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

I prove it by raising the setting again.

By the end of the first hour, she has stopped pretending the game matters. She kneels between my legs, flushed and furious, and asks permission to come.

I make her ask twice.

Then I grant it.