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“Don’t be absurd!” she snapped.
But he could see that she wasn’t as sure of herself as she’d been in all their previous encounters, and that amused him more than anything else could have. Perhaps it had dawned on her that for all the years they’d played their game of cat and mouse, she’d relied as much on the fact they were in public while they danced around each other as she had on his restraint. And now they were stranded here, together.
This was his home. His rules. His game.
“Act like a child and I will treat you like one,” he told her after a moment, when he thought he could have heard her heart thumping if he’d only stopped to listen. “I’m not your father, Mattie. I’m far more proactive. I’m not going to spoil you on the one hand, ignore you on the other and hope for the best.”
A best that had included Mattie’s well-photographed “wild phase,” which still irritated Nicodemus more than was warranted or, he was aware, fair. A best that had also included making no provision for his own children in the event of his own death. What had Bart been thinking?
“You’re not really going to beat me.” She’d reverted to that bored tone of voice again, but he could see the hectic sparkle in her eyes.
“It’s not a beating if you end up begging me for it, I don’t think. Certainly not if you enjoy it. Though you can call it that if you like.”
“I won’t submit to something like that, obviously,” she said coolly, though her gaze was anything but. “It’s barbaric.”
Nicodemus smiled, and he realized it was with actual fondness, which should have terrified him. It should have brought back his history with Arista and all the red flags he’d ignored that first time. But instead, he filed it away and concentrated on the woman before him, whose outrage had thawed the frozen shell she’d been wrapped in since their wedding ceremony. Another victory, he thought.
“Is it?” he asked then. “If I reach between your legs, will I find you as desperate for me as you were on that plane? Wet and needy and mine already?”
She did nothing for a long moment but breathe, trembling where she sat, all fists and fury and that sizzling lightning just beneath it, blinding him. Tying him in knots. Making him nothing at all but greedy.
Soon, he promised himself. It will be soon enough.
“I’ll clean up the glass,” Mattie said in a low voice. “But there will be no spanking.”
“Not today, then,” he said, relaxing back into the sofa. “I understand. Trust takes time.”
She looked at him with loathing—or what would have been loathing, had he not been able to see that spark of need in her dark eyes. Not only for sex, he thought—which was one of the reasons she got beneath his skin. All the more that lurked in her, that called to him. She got to her feet stiffly and started toward the mess she’d made, and he let her walk a few steps. He doubted she knew how she looked in that dress. Not at all like a widow or a wraith as she’d obviously intended. The gray suited her, made her flashing eyes and glorious hair something like glimpses of clear sky through lovely clouds, and he wondered why any bride wore white, instead. But then, not every bride could possibly look like his.
God help him, the ways he wanted this woman. Only the fact he’d held on to his composure for so long already allowed him to keep doing it.
“Stop,” he said when she’d moved far enough into the center of the room, and though she scowled at him when she turned to look back at him, she obeyed. And he liked that as much as if he truly was the barbarian he knew she thought he was. “Stand right there.”
He simply studied her, watching as her scowl deepened. And then, moments later, as she shifted from one foot to the other, in some mixture of impatience and anxiety, and he wanted to taste both.
“What now?” she asked tightly. “Aren’t menial chores and threats of physical abuse enough for one day?”
“Don’t move,” he ordered her. “I told you there were two options. And if you are as adamantly opposed to my spanking you as you’ve claimed, that means you’ve chosen the other by default.”
“Is it really necessary to play these dictatorial games, Nicodemus?” she asked, and there was something more than her usual provocation in her voice then. Something real. Raw.
“I don’t know. I asked myself a similar question many times over the past ten years. Do you have an answer?”
“I wasn’t playing games. I didn’t want you. I don’t.”
“That’s what I thought you’d say.” He smiled. “You seem very fidgety, Mattie. Almost nervous.”
