Page 17 of Suite 7

“I’m asking because once we start, I won’t be gentle. I’ll push you. I’ll make you give me things you’ve been holding back.”

“Good.” She takes one step forward, closing the distance between us by half, and everything in the room pulls taut. “Because I’m not asking you to be gentle. And I’m not going easy on you just because I know you, Sinclair.” That spark of defiance flares back into her eyes. “You want my submission?”

Her chin lifts.

“Earn it.”

My lips curve.

Years of restraint held in exactly two words: “You’ve been waiting for someone who could actually handle you. Tonight you find out if I’m him.”

Her breath catches.

“We’ll see,” she manages. Breathy. Uncertain.

“Final question,” I say. “Do you trust me?”

She doesn’t hesitate.

“I hate that I do.”

My smile is slow. “That’s enough.”

I step back from the bed. Put distance between us.

“Stay there.”

I watch her receive it, the almost-imperceptible moment her body decides to obey before her mind can argue.

She stays.

She watches me cross to the door with eyes wide. I don’t look back. I don’t need to. Her gaze follows me the whole way.

4 Vera

This is insane. This is Kane. The man who once spent twenty minutes explaining why my preferred coffee shop has “structurally unsound seating arrangements.” Except the way he’s looking at me right now, dark and controlled and absolutely certain. This isn’t that Kane at all.

And I have no idea what to do with that.

My mouth is dry. My skin feels too tight. And every nerve ending is screaming contradictory instructions.

Run. Stay. Stay quiet.

I retreat to the thing I do best when cornered in the same room as Kane Sinclair.

“Are you going to stand there all night, or actually do something?”

He rolls his shoulders. When his eyes find mine the man I’ve been talking to is still there — but underneath, something certain and unhurried has arrived that takes up all the space without apologizing for it.

This is Dom Kane. The one I never knew existed.

“Kneel.”

My knees want to buckle before my brain catches up. One word. No negotiation. No room for argument.

Years of fighting him, and the reflex fires before I can stop it.

“Make me.”