"Forty-two?"
I glower.
"Forty?"
My fingers tingle. What I wouldn’t give to take her across my lap and have my palm connect with that gorgeous derriére.
"Thirty-nine?" She clears her throat.
"I’m thirty-six," I growl.
"Ah." She raises her shoulders. "I’m twenty-two."
"I thought you were eighteen."
She huffs out a laugh. "Nice try, but I’m still not going to sleep with you."
"We’ll see." I close the door, then walk around and slide into the driver’s seat. I ease the car out onto the road.
Twenty minutes later, we pull up in front of the theater. I shut off the engine, then turn to face her. "What?" I ask.
"How did you know where I was going to perform?"
I allow my lips to curve into a smile. "Do you really have to ask me that?"
"Is there anything about me you don’t know?" she retorts.
"I don’t know if you’d prefer me to take your ass first or your pussy."
Her gaze widens, her jaw slackens, and a telltale blush rises on her cheeks. She opens and shuts her mouth, then turns and shoves the door of the car open. I push my own open, walk around the front of the car, and follow her to the door of the employees’ entrance of the theater.
She wrestles with the heavy door, and I close the distance between us to slap my hand down on the wooden barrier.
She whirls around to face me. "If you think, by being mean to me, you can worm your way into my pants, you are sadly mistaken."
"Admit that it turns you on when I talk dirty. And it’s closer to a python."
"What the—" She opens her mouth again and gapes.
"Seems the only way to shut you up is to shock you, Angel."
"It’s not the way to woo me, though."
"First, not trying to woo you. Second, you’ve forgotten that you already agreed to marry me—"
"—fake marry," she interjects.
"And third, I can do with you what I want. You’re hardly in a position to refuse."
"But you won’t."
It’s my turn to stiffen.
"For all your dirty-talking, full-on-dominance persona, you won’t push against me if I say no."
I dig my palm into the wood that’s been burnished by age, much like the way she’s worn me down into a shell of myself, without even trying. It’s true. In the face of her needs, I’m a slave, someone who won’t push past her request to stop. Doesn’t mean I’m going to surrender to her wants without coercing her to see otherwise.
"You underestimate me, Angel." I bend my knees and peer into her eyes. "I can be very persuasive."