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“We all have a monster inside us.” I rush to get the words out as the vein in his neck pulses, his anger rising. “But we have free will too. It’s up to you to decide—”
“You don’t know what he did.” His words echo off the walls, ricocheting around us like shrapnel. “To my mother. To my grandmother. They were subservient to his monster, and any wife of mine would be too. It’s the path I’m destined for.”
“Bullshit!” I hurl the words back at him, my voice choking desperately as he stalks toward me in a fury. “That’s not who you are. It’s just the lie you tell yourself.”
“Shall we test that theory?” He cages me in against the stone wall with his arms, his breathing ragged, his voice unrecognizable.
“Threaten me all you want.” I bring a trembling hand to his chest, settling it over his beating heart. “I know what’s in here. I’ve seen it.”
“God, you really are delusional.” He laughs mockingly.
“Fuck you.” I shove him hard to provoke him. “You want to be an asshole, then do it. Hurt me. Give it your best shot. But I should warn you, you better come prepared to top the great Lorenzo De La Rosa. Unless you carve scars as deep as his in my flesh, then I’ll see you as nothing more than weak.”
Judge’s nostrils flare, and he seizes my wrist, yanking me so close his breath feels like fire against my lips. “Do. Not. Fucking. Test. Me.”
“Oh, but I want to.” I lean up on my toes, snaring his lip between my teeth before I bite and taste the copper of his blood. “Come out and play, beast. Show me your worst.”
He drops my hand, his palm whipping toward me to wrap around my throat, collaring me. “Is this what you want?” He rumbles in my ear, his voice a mixture of sensual and sinister.
“Yes,” I wheeze. “Fuck me like you fuck your courtesans. Show me what you like.”
A low growl reverberates from his throat as his eyes flash. “That’s what you want?”
“Yes,” I say, less certain this time.
“Careful what you wish for.” He drags a thumb over my lips in what feels like a possessive way, but then all too soon, his demons summon him back to them. “Take off your clothes and get on your fucking knees.”
There’s a moment of hesitation on my part, and he sees it. He relishes it. Because he wants to win. He wants to scare me and prove his point. I want to challenge him and prove mine. But only one of us is drunk right now, and there’s an uncertainty in me about how far each of us will go to win the war.
Still, I started this battle, and I refuse to back down. So with trembling fingers, I pull off my clothes and toss them onto the overturned table. Judge stares at me, cold and appraising before he steps forward. Without warning, he slaps my breast hard, and I hold back a yelp.
“I told you to get on your fucking knees.”
Biting back the retort on my tongue, I force myself to remember this is a game. And I’m determined it’s a game he’s going to lose.
I lower myself to my knees, the cold stone rough against my flesh. Judge circles around me, stroking my hair and then my face. Against my will, my eyes seem to flutter shut, soaking up that moment of affection that’s so rare from him. But all too soon, he snatches it away with a harsh command.
“Is this how you greet a Sovereign Son?”
His unspoken request rattles me. I know what he wants. What he expects. This is our world, and even if I am a Society daughter, he will always rank higher. Always be more. It takes everything inside me to bow forward in the way I was taught. I’ve never done this for anyone, but I’ve seen it done at weddings. I’ve seen the way wives kneel at their husband’s feet, showing their respect to the gods who walk among us.
“Dominus et Deus,” I whisper.
Judge’s gaze burns into the top of my head, and I know by the long silence, he’s not going to let me half-ass this.
“Is that all the respect you have to give me?”
“No.” I lower my head further, doing the one thing I swore I never would. I kiss his shoe and then the other, silently at war with myself.
When his fingers caress the nape of my neck, it soothes some of the sting, and I realize something I could never confess out loud. He’s the only man I would ever do this for. He’s the only man I’d even consider worthy of my submission. And I wonder if he’s thinking about it too. I wonder if he’s imagining me doing the same before someone else, and if it bothers him.
“Does it please you?” I ask him softly.
Silence is my response.
“Do you think it will please my husband too?”
“I think you have a long way to go in learning how to please a man,” he answers coldly. “But you can start by sucking my cock.”
