Page 8 of Leather & Lies

“You’re mine.” The words ghost across my neck, raising goosebumps in their wake. His free hand slides up my torso, mapping my ribs through my dress like he’s gentling a wild thing. Every touch leaves fire in its wake. “Your body already knows it. Time for your mind to catch up.”

Hate and desire tangle in my chest as his fingers find bare skin. My body betrays me with every touch, even as my mind rebels. His thumb brushes my nipple through the fabric and a whimper escapes before I can strangle it. Heat pools low in my belly, an answering ache to the hardness pressing against my hip.

His hand skims lower with agonizing slowness, then hikes up my dress inch by torturous inch. Each brush of his fingers against my thigh makes my muscles jump, a mare fighting the bit. He reads my responses like I read my most difficult cases—every twitch, every hitched breath revealing weakness to exploit.

When his fingers finally find slick heat, I’m already embarrassingly wet. He groans against my throat, the sound vibrating through me. “You fight me, and still, you open for me. So desperate. So wet.” One thick finger circles my entrance without pushing inside, testing, teasing. “Dripping for a man you claim to hate.”

I try to shift my hips, seeking more pressure, but his other hand tightens on my wrists above my head, the gentle warning holding me still. “Let me go,” I whisper, hating myself for breaking so easily.

“No.” His voice drops, something dark and knowing threading through it. “I’ll never let go. Not now that I finally have you exactly where I’ve always wanted you. Now beg.”

“Fuck you,” I snarl, even as my hips chase his touch.

“Not yet.” His thumb brushes my clit with devastating lightness, sending sparks shooting up my spine. “I want you desperate first.”

A voice screams in the back of my mind to shove him away, to stand up and flee, that nothing is worth this degradation.

But I don’t.

He works me, precisely, maddeningly, bringing me to the edge only to back off just before I crest. My thighs tremble with strain, sweat beading on my skin. I’m panting now, reduced to incoherence as he plays my body like a finely tuned instrument.

“Look at you,” he murmurs, voice rough with satisfaction. “You claw and bite like a wild thing. Stunning.” His fingers curl inside me, finding that spot that makes stars burst behind my eyes, only to withdraw when I start to tighten around him.

Tears of frustration streak down my cheeks. I’m so close, hovering right on the knife’s edge of pleasure, but he won’t let me fall.

“I can’t—” I whine, pride shattering under the weight of need. “Jackson, I can’t—I need?—”

“Beg me for it.” His fingers slow to an agonizing pace that draws a broken sound from my throat. “Or you get nothing.”

“Please.”

A dark chuckle. A cruel, circling thumb. “You think that’s begging, little hellcat? That’s nothing.” His rhythm turns punishing, thumb circling my clit as his fingers drive deep. “Come for me,” he growls against my mouth, relenting. “Show me how thoroughly I own you.”

Release crashes through me like a flash flood, violent and overwhelming. My muscles clamp down on his fingers as wave after wave of pleasure wracks my body. He works me through it relentlessly, drawing out every aftershock until I’m sagging against him, utterly broken.

Tears of shame and ecstasy blur my vision as reality reasserts itself. The contract sits innocent and white on the table, waiting for my surrender to be made permanent. My thighs are still quivering, my center throbbing with echoes of pleasure I didn’t want to feel.

His fingers grip my chin, forcing me to meet eyes that hold triumph and something darker. “Mine,” he growls, thumb branding my bottom lip like a cattle iron. And god help me, my body pulses in response—my hatred and desire now impossible to separate.

He steps back, straightening his tie with meticulousness that only emphasizes how thoroughly he’s disheveled me. But I see the slight tremor in his hands, the way his breathing isn’t quite steady. Maybe I’m not the only one who’s been branded by this encounter.

“One year,” he rasps.

I walk back to the table and read the contract again, my fingers shaking as I scan each line.

“This is—” I swallow hard. “You can’t expect me to agree to all of this.”

“I expect complete submission.” He taps the page detailing his rights to my body. “Available whenever, however I want. No limits. No discussion.” He bares his teeth in a facsimile of a smile. “Unless you’d prefer to lose everything your family built?”

I scoff. Complete submission. Living on his ranch. Deference in public. Even defining my meals—three squares a fucking day. And punishment—my eyes scanned the page, shocked at the descriptions of what he could do to me if I didn’t obey—spankings, canings, whipping me with his belt.Fucking hell.The only silver lining was the contractual obligation to let me continue to train, even if it included the requirement to trainhishorses, too.

But at the end of the year, the ranch I’d grown up on would be mine again.

With a shaking hand, I sign my name, knowing I’ve just handed this ruthless man everything he needs to break me completely. The truly terrifying part is how fiercely I want him to try. How much I crave the dissolution of my carefully constructed control under his hands. How fucking grateful I was to have my father’s debts lifted from my shoulders—the ones Jackson knew about anyway.

Shame rushes through me as I drop the pen on the table.

“Tomorrow,” he says, voice rough. “My ranch. Dawn.” His eyes rake over me one last time, possessive and hungry. “Don’t make me come collect you.”

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