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She starts to shake. I watch her throat rise and fall heavily as she tries to swallow the lump caught there. And when she turns to stare at me with wide, horrified eyes and a face completely devoid of color, I almost feel bad.
Almost.
But my tolerance for people who use me is pretty fucking low.
“Keep denying it, please.”
She opens her mouth, but nothing comes out before it slowly closes again, dread dripping down her face.
“Wh-what do you want?”
Her voice is so small and frail. The usual haughty, bored, disdainful tone she typically uses when speaking to me isgone.
On one hand, it’s almost disheartening. Because for all the way we needle each other, I actuallylikeher usual all-business, take-no-shit attitude. Honestly, it’s a turn on.
That said, on theotherhand, seeing her shrink a little bit, and watching her…dare I say…submitto me is…
Well…alsoa turn on.
A huge one.
“What do Iwant…” I muse, swirling the wine in my glass. “Hmm…I wonder now.”
When she turns to eye me with a cold, terrified look, I grin wickedly and waggle my eyebrows up and down. Instantly, heat floods her face.
“Don’t even think about it,” she hisses quietly.
I feign shock. “Don’t even think aboutwhat? Jesus, Elsa, where didyourbrain go with that?”
“That you’re going to blackmail me,” she mumbles. “It’s not going to work.”
“Oh, I think it would definitely work. But also, who do you think I am?”
“A criminal psychopath?”
“I mean, don’t hold back or anything,” I growl.
She swallows, chewing on her bottom lip.
“Hades…” Elsa hugs herself, looking pale. “I…my career…If you tell them about Venom…”
My brow knits. “Wait, exactly how repressedareyou that you’re worried about your bosses knowing that you had consensual sex?” I smile thinly. “I really don’t think they give a shit—”
“What do you want? I mean for you to not tell them about seeing me at Leo Stavrin’s place.”
There’s that small, broken tone again. Part of me wants to laugh. I mean, shit, she’s a rockstar lawyer. She probably breaks this tone out all the time in court to get little old ladies out of vehicular manslaughter charges because they can’t see over the steering wheel anymore. I bet judges and juries eat it right the fuck out of her hand.
But I’m generally pretty damn good at reading people. It’s one of my superpowers. And when I look into Elsa’s eyes, I don’t see bullshit and practiced lines and a rehearsed tone right now.
I see fear. Real, actual fear.
And instead of my brain going to dark places involving making her submit to me—say, for instance, on her knees whimpering “yes daddy, please daddy” with my cock in her mouth—I find myself inexplicably switching tracks.
Suddenly, I don’t want to use this against her. Rather, I want to save her from whatever is scaring the hell out of her so much right now. And she’s right. It’s obviously not the part about having been to Club Venom, and everything that happened there. It’s not evenme, though I’m pretty sure Elsa would like nobody in the world to know she slept with me.
No, it’s Leo. Or possibly Gavan. That’s what’s scaring the hell out of her. And when I see that fear on her face, I find myself wanting to protect her from it.
I want to stand between her and whatever’s just shaken the strength right out of her.
