“So?” she challenged, toying with the label on her water.
“So, I thought we settled that little situation last night.” He leaned against the granite-topped island, feeling more than just physically tired. Resisting Charli was wearing him down like an iceberg grinding rock. “You said you needed a favor.”
She straightened in her seat, and he couldn’t help but notice how fucking cute she looked with his too-big hat on her. He wondered what she’d look like wearing only his hat.
“It’s kind of a big favor.”
Maybe he should have put bourbon in his water. “Okay…”
She rolled the plastic bottle between her palms, her hands belying her nerves despite her steady voice and gaze. “Is Colby available for private lessons?”
He damn near choked on his own spit. “What?”
“Well, I was thinking about those women last night and how…graceful and feminine they were. And if I could learn to capture even ten percent of that thing—whatever that thing is that those women have—I think I could turn things around at work.” She peeked up at him from beneath the hat, but then trundled on, not giving him time for a response. “There’s an anchor position coming open soon. Those positions are a big deal. There’s no way they can pick someone who doesn’t have rock-solid sports chops. I already have the knowledge and a big story brewing. And I know I’ve got what it takes to be on camera. I just need some, I don’t know, refinement. Some softening.”
Grant’s thoughts were banging together in his head like cymbals. Crash. Crash. Crash. She wanted sub training? With Colby? “But you’re not a submissive.”
“Who says I can’t learn? I can be a good student.” She squared her shoulders. “I graduated salutatorian in high school, you know.”
“It’s not simply a skill, Charli,” he said, his protest coming out more emphatic than he intended. “It’s like a bone-deep thing, a part of who a person is. I’ve spent years in this world. I can sense it in people. And with you, I don’t.”
Her eyes narrowed dangerously, and he could feel her digging her heels in on the topic. “So what, you’re like the Sorting Hat in Harry Potter? You’re the be-all, end-all decision on which group I belong in?”
“No, I—” He stood, this whole conversation knocking him for a loop. “You don’t even know what you’re asking. That training is about more than kneeling and looking dainty. It’s about being a sexual submissive. You ready to have Colby tie you up, spank you, and have you suck his dick in front of a room full of people?”
Her already sun-pink cheeks went full red, and he thought he’d succeeded in scaring her.
But then her nipples hardened beneath her T-shirt, and the pulse at her throat visibly quickened. Subtle signs, but ones that were his instinct to notice. He blinked at her, his own blood surging below his belt. Fuck. What he’d said had turned her on. She was having a submissive response.
At that realization, the need he was trying so hard to keep locked down jumped to the surface, uninvited but undeniable. All the urges he’d been failing to feel each time he interviewed a potential sub trainee flooded him like they’d just been lying there in wait for this moment, ready to yank him under. He stepped closer and braced his hands on the counter, inches from her. He needed to back away, to kick her out. Her response was probably a fluke, a reaction to the mention of sex. But he couldn’t move.
She was holding her breath, but he didn’t sense any fear. He sensed…want.
His voice was deadly calm when he finally managed words. And they weren’t the words he’d intended to say. “Are you thinking about Colby doing those things to you, Charli? Is that why your body is coming to life?”
Her hands had stilled against the bottle and the hum of the refrigerator seemed deafening in the silence. She stared at the patch of counter in front of her, her normally defiant gaze not venturing upward. “No. Not him.”
A slew of emotions came with her answer. Relief that she wasn’t hot for Colby. Dread over who she was interested in. And fear about the swiftly dwindling control he had over his own desires. “Damn, you’re bullheaded. Didn’t you hear anything I said last night? I can be tough and mean, freckles. I don’t just like to dominate a submissive; I like to own her while she’s in training with me. You think I’m bossy now? You have no. Fucking. Idea.”
She looked up at him, a glimmer of honest fear finally inching into the green depths of her eyes.
He took his hat off her head and tossed it to the side. “You need to go back to your cabin and forget about this plan. You’re in over your head.”
She stared at him with a go-to-hell in her eyes and a fuck-off hovering on her lips. He thought she was going to traipse off in a huff. But after a few pregnant beats, she tilted her chin up. “Try me.”
The response didn’t even compute in his head. “What?”
“Go ahead and dish it out, cowboy. I’m tougher than you think. If I can’t handle it, I’ll never bring it up again. If I can, you agree to train me.”
She leaned back in her chair, sassy with courage now.
Which only made the crotch of his jeans go tighter, that haughtiness of hers taunting his most primal instincts. The sleeping tiger inside him stirred and lifted a dark eye, his prey in sight.
This was wrong in so many ways Grant had lost track. Charli was Max’s sister. Non-submissive. Someone Grant was supposed to protect. They had no contract between them, no carefully negotiated limits. She was a D/s virgin, for God’s sake. It was everything he was against.
But the switch had been flipped, the temptation too much.
He would have her.