Page 101 of Missile Strike

“Are you sure?” His voice had dropped to a rasp.

She licked lips gone dry. Her heart banged in her chest.

Excitement?

Fear?

Maybe both.

“Yes.”

His hand slid down her arm to tangle with her fingers, the paperback falling to the floor. He tugged her up the stairs.

Inside her bedroom, he stood in front of her, attention locked so tightly it was as if he were trying to read her thoughts.

“We won’t do anything you don’t want to do.”

She drew a careful breath, even as a raw, aching need loosened her limbs.

Her choice.

Her decision.

Not his.

He opened her nightstand drawer and took out the vibrator she kept there.

“How did—?”

“I guessed.” His grin was pure sex. Predatory. “A woman who reads the kind of books you do has to have a toy hidden somewhere. Bedside table was the most obvious place.”

The glint in his eyes appraised her.

“Any other hidden toys you’d like to show me?”

“No.” Because she wasn’t that interesting.

He searched her room, stopping at her spacious closet. “Scarves?”

Heat crept to the tips of her ears and behind her eyes. Her mother had given her several, purchased during trips abroad. Ones she rarely wore. Opening the top drawer of her painted dresser, she pointed to several neatly folded swathes of silk.

“Perfect.” Danny selected two long, skinny scarves—one in a deep rose pattern and the other a navy-blue floral. Then he picked up a third scarf—this one a square-shaped leopard print. “These will do.”

He placed them on her nightstand next to her vibrator.

“Come here.” Taking her hand, he led her to the bed, and when she sat, dropped to his knees between her legs.

Her fingers itched to dive into the silken strands of his hair. She stretched out her hand.

Danny captured it. Brushed his lips across her knuckles.

The intensity of his gaze held her immobile. “Before we do this, I want you to think of your consent as a traffic light system—if I ask you how you’re doing, green means all good. Yellow is slow down or you need a break. If you tell me red, that means I stop, immediately.”

His fingers tightened on hers. “I know you value control and it can be a difficult thing to let go of.” The blue in his eyes shifted from sky to sapphire. “But I’m going to take care of you.”

God, his voice. That low, sexy rasp, laden with both promise and threat. Heat rushed to her core.

Butterflies fluttered their wings, sharp and fast, beneath her ribs.