Page 89 of Bad Girl Dilemma

His hand fists in the hem of the shirt. His voice is gravel. “Is this you paying me back for calling you little, baby?”

I look up at him through my lashes. Grip the cock tenting his towel. Stroke stroke stroke. “Maybe. Just alittle.”

He groans like he’s in pain. “Careful, Dahlia. Payback might just backfire on you.”

I grin, impossibly smug. “Has that ever stopped me, Master?”

Five minutes. That’s all it takes to topple my Dom when I take him down my throat.

“Jesus! Fuck! That was…incredible.”

Yup.

I fucking win.

Next Day

I’m naked.

Except for the plug snug inside me—polished obsidian, rimmed with rose gold—and the digital interface flickering across the table like it’s just another lazy Saturday morning.

Dante’s hand rests against the back of my neck. Warm and steady and possessive in the way only he knows how to be. His thumb brushes my skin in slow, idle circles, like he’s reminding me I belong to him—that he belongs to me, too.

I’m half-curled in the big leather chair of our upstairs lounge, one foot tucked under me, a stylus dangling from my teeth while I tap through firewall overlays and biometric backdoors like I’m shopping for shoes.

Three tabs are open—each one tied to a potential entry strategy—and our audience is already casting their votes.

It’s become a bit of a tradition.

One year since we burned Vesper to the ground, and now we’re semi-retired... sort of. Just the occasional job. For the right cause. The right thrill.

And tonight?

Tonight’s a good one.

“Oh look,” I chirp, shifting slightly so the plug presses deeper, making me squirm. “Option C is winning by a landslide.”

Dante’s gaze doesn’t flick to the screen. His focus stays glued to me. It always does. “Option C is a death trap,” he says mildly.

“Which means...?” I glance at him out of the corner of my eye.

He smirks. “So obviously, you’re going to do it.”

I flash him a grin. “What can I say? Our followers have excellent taste in mayhem.”

He leans down, mouth brushing the shell of my ear, his voice rough with promise. “If you make it back without a scratch,” he murmurs, “I’ll fuck your ass so hard you won’t be able to sit for a week.”

My breath catches like it always does when he talks like that—casual filth in that velvet-dark voice that makes my thighs clench and my brain short-circuit.

God, I love this man.

I pretend to ponder. “Hmm. So what you’re saying is... Ishouldn’tsabotage the escape route to spice things up?”

His hand tightens slightly at my nape in warning. “Dahlia.”

“Fine, fine.” I wave him off playfully, tapping through another encrypted node. “I’ll behave. Ish.”

He sinks down onto the ottoman in front of me, still shirtless from this morning’s workout, the scars across his chest catching the light like runes of power and blood. His eyes lock on mine with that look—half amusement, half menace, all Dante.

---