She stared up at him, said nothing, her eyes wide. To see her better, he snapped on the bedside lamp. She trembled beneath him as he straddled her hips. He’d never seen the navy blue leggings or blousy, white button-down top, the material thin and sheer. The black bra beneath was a front-clasp.

He fastened her other wrist, then, with the rope around the center of the cuffs, he secured her by the wrists to the headboard just as she’d done to him. “You still have a chance. Just tell me to stop.” He put his face right down in hers. “Better yet, tell me who that woman was,” he murmured, his lips on hers.

“Do your worst. I’ll never tell.” Now her eyes sparkled wickedly in the light.

He wanted to laugh. They sounded like Snidely Whiplash and Nell. “Last chance.” Then he shoved his hands beneath the long shirt, grabbed the top of her leggings, and pulled them off her hips. Her thong panties came with them, baring her pussy. As he yanked the clothing all the way down her legs, her high-heeled shoes slipped off, too, hitting the carpet with a soft pffft.

Then he gazed up the length of her body. “God, you’re so pretty.” The awe lingered in his voice, but he didn’t let that stop him from slapping a nylon cuff around her ankle and securing her leg to the bed with one of the ropes she’d used on him. “She set my blood on simmer,” he said, pulling her legs apart, and tying her spread-eagled. “You’re going make it boil.” He inhaled the sweetness of her pussy, then lifted his head to look at her. “You’re going to make me come hard. You’re going to make me scream. You’re going to prove how much better you are than she was.”

Her breath puffed. Her pussy glistened, beckoned. He shimmied up her body, covering her, then reached between them to undo a shirt button, slowly, then one after another.

She wrapped both hands around the rope above her head. “I don’t have to prove anything. I am better than her. But the only way you can get a piece of my ass is if you tie me down.” She wriggled beneath him, making him hard.

“I hear a challenge. You’re going to beg to come.” He rubbed his pelvis between her legs. “You’re going to beg me to take a piece of your ass.”

She closed her eyes, and though he felt her resistance in the fine tremors of her body, she couldn’t stop the involuntary sigh of need and pleasure. Yet she fought him. “No man makes me beg.”

He smiled devilishly as he unhooked the bra and pinched her nipple. “I will,” he promised.

She squirmed, moaned, then smirked at him. “You’re going to have to do better than that.”

This was so much sexier than the earlier silent episode. He craved her feisty comebacks, the tease, the challenge. In the dark and the silence, she’d fucked him in anger, he knew that now. Residual anger over his lie of omission. Those emotions had been all wrong. But despite her words, she wasn’t angry anymore. She wanted, needed, enjoyed the fight and the tug-of-war. She was engaged, part of the act, not just an automaton fucking him for physical release. This was what he’d craved, her total involvement with him.

“What’s your biggest fantasy, the one you’ve never told me?” he demanded. He’d asked in the bar with Shane. She’d never answered, and dammit, he needed to know, now, right now.

“It sure as hell doesn’t include you.” She bucked, tried to throw him off.

“Feisty little bitch,” he muttered.

She bared her teeth, then kneed him. It landed on his thigh, doing little damage.

“Do whatever you want,” she jeered. “It doesn’t matter to me,” she added when the physical didn’t have any effect on him.

Her fantasy suddenly became as clear as if she’d said it aloud. To give up her control, to let him have anything he wanted. That night in the bar, she’d been in control with Shane, teasing them both, egging them on, yet there’d been an underlying need fulfilled when Dominic took over, made her come.

This, tonight, was one step further, allowing him the right to decide how to push her limits. If she hadn’t wanted it that way, she wouldn’t have come back. She might never admit it, maybe she didn’t even know it, but she was entrusting him with her body and her spirit, challenging him to give her what she couldn’t ask for aloud.

He held her chin, forced her to meet his eyes. “Struggle all you want, but you’re taking whatever I dish out.”

“I’ll scream,” she whispered.

“In ecstasy,” he replied, then took her lips. Everything was about taking, forcing. He plunged his tongue deep into her mouth, tasting the heady sizzle of peppermint as if she’d been sucking a candy. She moaned, pressed her body into his. Then she backed off and nipped his lip.

It wasn’t hard, a sexy love bite, while at the same time upping the stakes of their skirmish.

Her panties were gone, her breasts bared. He slid a hand down between them to her pussy, their battleground. “Bet you’re hot and so fucking wet.”

“It’s nothing more than a natural physical response.” Her lips were moist, full and red from the heat of that kiss.

“Let’s see what else is natural.” He slid the tip of his finger between her folds to find the button of her clit. It was full, plump, needy. He circled, watching the dilation of her eyes. “Aren’t you going to scream?”

She loosed a breathy sigh as he slipped deeper, finding her creamy and warm. “What’s there to scream about?” she muttered.

He chuckled. She wouldn’t scream even when he made her come. She’d fight him all the way. And they would both get off on the game. Still pinning her to the bed with his body, he shifted slightly for greater access between her spread legs. “So you’re saying that doesn’t feel good.” He caressed, rubbed, circled, taking in the heightened color of her skin.

“I can do better with my vibrator.”

He had to admit he loved her vibrator. The abandon with which she’d used it for him in the past made his blood sizzle. “Did you bring it with you?”

She hesitated a moment too long. “Why would I bother?”

He glanced over his shoulder at the bag she’d dropped in the middle of the carpet in the short hallway by the bathroom. Big enough to hold a few tricks such as a box of condoms, rope, restraints. And a vibrator.

Sliding off the bed, he padded to the bag, stared at it, then back at her, smiling. “What surprises do we have in here?”

“Don’t you dare touch my things.” She growled in her throat, but it came off sounding closer to a purr.

Flipping on the overhead chandelier, then crossing once more to the bed, he upended the bag. Everything tumbled out between her splayed legs.

“Bastard,” she said.

“A vibrator.” He held it up just in case she missed seeing it. “And what did you plan on doing with that?”

“Using it on your ass,” she snapped.

He turned the vibrator this way and that. “That’s an interesting thought.” Then he pointed it at her. “But it would be so much better to use it on your ass.”

“You wouldn’t dare.” She glared, her eyes sparking in the light from the chandelier’s teardrops.

He clucked his tongue. “Another challenge.” He pointed to her bound wrists. “You’re not in a position to issue any challenges. Tied up the way you are, you’ll lose.”

She shot him a careless grin. “I might be now, but at some point, you’re going to let me loose. Then you better watch out.”

“Promises, promises,” he mocked as he poked through the other items. A bottle of warming gel. She’d used that on him, the liquid heating on contact. He held it up, watching the play of light through it. “I wonder how that will feel on your clit?”

“It won’t do a thing,” she sneered.

Everything she denied was something she wanted. He would give it all to her. Then he spotted a rapid transit ticket. “You took BART?”

“I didn’t want to hassle with parking in the city.”

She’d planned to drive home with him in the morning, he was sure. Or . . . He wondered what had been in her mind? Later, when the game was over, he’d ask. Then again, the mystery of it might be fun.

He laid the vibrator beside her on the bed. “For the right moment,” he said, setting the gel on the side table.

She gazed at him with a skeptical eye.

He wanted to say he loved her, wanted to tell her this was the perfect scenario, that he would make everything good again.

Instead, he stripped off his jeans and briefs and climbed between her legs. “Prepare to scream when you come.”

Then he blew warm breath on her pussy.

Erin trembled with need, his dark head and broad shoulders so miraculous down there between her legs. “Only in your dreams,” she scoffed.

Dominic was capable of making her scream, but she wouldn’t, mainly because she didn’t want the people next door complaining to management. Besides, it was more fun to fight him.

But when he put his tongue to her pussy, she forgot about the desire to fight. There was only sensation, the caress of his smoothly shaven chin against her thigh, the swirl of his tongue, then the thickness of his fingers entering her. He licked and rode her G-spot in tandem. It was more than double the heat. Then he was gone, leaving her gasping for the unattainable peak.

“Bastard,” she muttered.

“I thought you said you wouldn’t like it.”

“I didn’t.” Which wasn’t a lie. She’d loved it. God, yes, she was glad she’d come back for more. Her original plan had been to do him in the dark, go home, and pretend she’d sent him a woman. She’d even thought about getting angry with him, acting jealous.

This was so much better. Since they hadn’t mutually agreed for sure that it was her in the dark, she could still do the jealousy thing later. There were so many possibilities. He made her feel like a different person here in this room.

Maybe feeling like someone else was all she needed to set her free.

She snapped her eyes open when he drizzled the warming gel on her pussy, letting it drip down over her clit. It heated, tingled, and when he put his finger to it, she almost shot off the bed.

She couldn’t help the moan that escaped. Oh God, this was delicious.

“Like that, don’t you?”

“I can take it or leave it.” If she agreed, he’d stop. If she said she hated it, he’d force it on her. “And licking me with it on your tongue isn’t going to do anything either.”

He laughed, a hot, sexy sound that thrummed along her nerves endings. In the last couple of weeks, he’d laughed more. It had all been about sex, but maybe that was okay.

“I’m not going to put the gel on my tongue,” he said, a gleam in his eye. Then he held up a tin. The mints from her purse. “I’m going to use these.” He slipped one on his tongue.

She bit her lip to keep from smiling. They were extra strength and made her mouth tingle. God, what would it be like on her pussy in combination with the warming gel he’d already poured on her? She shuddered in anticipation.

For a moment, she had the crazy notion of thanking him. For this, the sex play, the game, taking her out of herself, making her feel, making her forget, but she didn’t want him to know how hard it was just to get up in the mornings sometimes. She didn’t want to remind him. Or remind herself.

“It’s not going to do a damn thing for me,” she groused.

“You’ll sing, you ungrateful little bitch.” He sucked her before she had a chance to form a comeback or an insult.

“Oh God.” Her head lolled on the pillow with the exquisite torture. The mint sent a zing through her whole body, hot, sizzling, overwhelming. He swirled it all around her, and for a moment, she truly went mindless. When he thrust two fingers inside her, hitting her G-spot unerringly, she capitulated and screamed out his name.

The orgasm shot through her like a starburst.

“You screamed,” he murmured, idly stroking her cleft, a smile of supreme satisfaction curving his lips as he crunched the last of the mint between his teeth.

“I was yelling for you to stop.” She yawned. “I’m really not interested.” There were no thumps on the wall. Hopefully she hadn’t screamed too loudly.

“You came”—he blew on her, eliciting a shudder—“you screamed”—he swiped his tongue one last time over her clit—“and now you’re going to beg me to fuck you.”

She snorted, but she needed to feel him inside her. What she’d done to him in the dark hadn’t been enough. God, make me feel, she whispered only in her mind.

Dominic slid slick fingers along her pussy, down beneath her, then stroked her ass.

“Don’t you dare,” she murmured. They’d never done ass play, though sometimes he’d tried, especially after she’d had a margarita or two. But it was taboo. She couldn’t say why. Then she had to smile. So ass play was taboo, but letting Dominic make her come in a bar was just fine?

“You’re smiling. I know you want it.”

“I’m not smiling.” She lifted her head to look at him down between her legs. “I’m smirking because you’re so transparent.”

“Liar, liar,” he chanted softly, and probed her gently, not entering, just slow, rhythmic circles, pushing lightly.

She wriggled and dislodged him. “I’m done. I’m going to sleep.” She closed her eyes.

She didn’t know if she wanted it. She didn’t want to decide. She just wanted him to do it, make her come, make her scream, make her feel.