Page 59 of My Rose

“How’d you know?”

His arms constricted around me a fraction, keeping me pinned between him and the pool table like I’d flee if he didn’t. His hips pushed into me from the back, and I all but moaned as my hips dug deeper into the wood, his length hard behind me.

I pushed back against him, hoping he had other plans than this game. “Because, Rose.Ipay attention to you.” I knew the words he wasn’t saying—unlike him. UnlikeAugust, who probably had no idea I was left-handed. How Briggs picked up on that, I wasn’t sure. Maybe it was when we were drinking? Or when I was stitching up his hand?

That was probably it.

“I saw you using both hands, though.”

He pressed in deeper, forcing my chest closer to the table and pulling my hips back to him with one hand as he positioned my hold with the other. My body was completely at his mercy. I hoped it was driving him just as mad as it was making me. I wanted him to push his teasing, low-slung sweatpants down past the defined lines of his hips that dipped to his cock and fuck me right there. I never thought about what kind of person I’d be in the bedroom, but I knew from the moment he slapped me in the shower, reddening my breasts and pussy—I knew I desperately wanted more of exactly that.

I shook my head discreetly, clearing it before my cheeks could heat further as he answered, “Yes. That takes practice.” He snaked his hand up to my elbow, pulling it up and back, then removed his fingers from my hips to push my hair back from my neck. “Right here. This is how you hold it. Is that comfortable?” he whisperedinto my ear, and just like that, all efforts to not think about him fucking me went down the drain.

“Ye—mhmm,” I replied and his low chuckling breaths grazed my neck.

“Now, using this hand, make your fingers”—He made aVshape with my fingers, then moved onto my thumb—“just like that. You’re doing great, baby.”

“I feel like you’re better at this than August thought you were,” I blurted, going still when his fingers stopped along my wrist. “I guess—not that it really matters what he thinks. I watched your last shot and saw how good you were.”Goddamn word vomit.I looked at the numbered balls in the wooden triangle set up in front of me before Briggs spun me around to face him. I was still holding my stick with shaky fingers as I looked up at him apologetically. “I’m—”

“No, you’re not,” he said, his voice stern and authoritative—a tone he used with me that I was beginning to feed off like a starved, depraved animal. He started inching forward, forcing me back with him. His hands moved quickly, taking the stick from my loose hand and tossing it back on the table behind me with a thud. Briggs towered over me, and my back arched to simply stay on my feet.

“I’m not…” I braced my palms back, my arms shaking. Not from fear. From…something new. That electric current zapped through my body, traveling so far down it made my toes curl.

“I don’t want an apology from your lips, Rose. But I think talking abouthimanymore ends right here, right now.”

“W-what are you going to do?” I whispered, resisting the urge to grind against him to gain the frictionI needed.

Before I realized what he was doing, he gripped my thighs with bruising force, lifting me onto the table. But his hands didn’t stop there. They started inching down towards my knees, and my breathing hitched.

“Have you ever been punished, Rose?”

“Like…grounded?” I squeaked out.

“No.” His lip curved to the side, that crooked, devilishly sexy smile of his making me want to reach forward and kiss him. But I held back, digging my teeth into my bottom lip hard enough to hurt. His hands pivoted, his rough fingers moving to the insides of my thighs where I was still trying to push them together.

“Spread your legs, baby,” Briggs ordered, and without any force from him, I did so. His fingers continued moving up my parted thighs, the cool air harsh along my slick entrance. “I think you need that name scrubbed from your mouth, Rose. There’s only one man’s name I want to hear on your lips when we’re through here, do you understand me?”

I nodded weakly as his thumb reached up to my bottom lip, freeing it from my teeth before he pushed his thumb in. I immediately wanted to take more of him, but right as my tongue lapped the tip, he pushed down on my teeth. His other hand was in my hair in seconds, wrapping the length of it around his fist before yanking my head back, forcing my jaw to open more against his thumb.

“I should fuck those words right from your mouth, shouldn’t I?”

My eyes struggled to meet his with the tight hold he had on me. If anyone else had ever said that to me, I’d probably throw something like I’d treated August’s guitar when he came to my house topopmy cherry. I still wanted to hurt him for that. August deserved more than a busted guitar. But the way I wanted Briggs to do exactly what he just suggested was making me feel powerful in a way I wasn’t used to. I nodded as much as I could with his hand still woven in my hair.

“Look at you, so eager to please me.” Briggs twisted my hair in his fist, pulling harder. His eyes grew wide before mine fluttered up to the ceiling. “But I think you need something else first.”First?The tip of his tongue swept over his bottom lip. “Give me your permission to do what I want with you when I want for as long as you’re mine. I promise you won’t regret it.” He released my jaw, allowing me to speak.

He loosened his hold on my hair, and I lowered my chin. “What if I say no?”

His face softened. “If you say no, then that’s that. But you’ll like how I make you feel if you say yes.” His hands rubbed my spread knees. “I know you want to say yes, baby.”

I inclined my head softly. “I trust you, and I want this. So, yes.”

He pressed his erection into me in approval as he muttered a curse. “If it gets to be too much for you, any of it, I want you to tell me so. Don’t be afraid to use that tongue of yours to let me know your limits. Otherwise, the only thing I want to hear out of your mouth is my name. You may also beg for more or simply sayyes, sir.Do you understand?”

My fingers curled over the edge of the pool table, taking in the way his eyes were hooded, the color shifting in them as they glossed over. I made a weak effort to close my thighs, but his body was positioned between them, keeping me from covering how obvious it was thatI wanted whatever he was about to do to me. There was no way in hell I was going to refuse to let him do whatever he wanted. That was what I wanted, too.

“Yes, sir,”I breathed out.

My hair unraveled from his fist, and he reached past me, pushing the balls to the side as if they offended him. “Lean all the way back and position your head just under those holes on the side.” The warmth from his sweatpants was gone, making me whimper as I did what he told me to do without hesitation. “Put your hands above your head, but lay them flat on the table, palms up.”

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