The Secret in Room 823. Dani Collins

it. ‘I brought some new things that interested me.’

      ‘So did I,’ he responded, making a fear-laced excitement curl in the pit of her belly.

      She searched for a clue in his expression, but he only held that confident look of being entirely in control of the moment.

      That was the source of his power over her, she realised. She held onto her control twenty-nine days out of thirty and this was her time of release, when she let go and relaxed. She only did it here, though. Behind this door, where he was the only witness. She abandoned her tense grip on her control and after complete collapse, she slowly found herself, gathered her strength and took up the load again.

      His holding of the door was a dare to take that beyond this room. She wouldn’t. Couldn’t. It stayed here. Just between the two of them.

      So even though she loathed him to the core for forcing her into submission, she peeled the wig off her head and threw it towards his bare feet.

      ‘Good girl,’ he said with a patronising smile, making her grit back a scream from aggravation. She hated those words, but the case was picked up and set inside the door.

      The door slammed and locked. He flicked the extra catch, something he’d started doing since housekeeping had almost walked in on them three months ago.

      ‘Want to tell me why you’re so bitchy today?’ he asked, crossing his arms and giving her his full attention.

      ‘Want to tell me why you are?’

      A flicker of surprise went across his tough face. ‘I didn’t think you ever noticed how I felt, milady.’

      ‘I notice,’ she said with a deliberate look at the bulge in his jeans. But a spiral of guilt and longing went through her. It took everything in her to resist asking him about himself, to curb the desire to see more of him. That’s not what this was and it could never be anything more than this. ‘And don’t call me that.’

      The first time he had, she had blurted out her safe word, insisting, That’s not what I am here.

      No? he’d questioned after a considering pause. Why not?

      Do I look like one? She’d been tied to the headboard, ass in the air, knees spread. Drawing his attention to her position had been a suitable distraction from his delving into her bent psyche. It hadn’t come up again, until just now.

      ‘I thought we were playing commoner and Lady of the Manor,’ he said, adding broadness to his normal Irish accent.

      He was eating her up with his eyes, despite his belligerent stillness, which was the kind of reassurance she needed right now. Nevertheless, she could tell he was as wound up as she was and she had to curb the impulse to insist he tell her why.

      ‘No,’ she replied instead, unable to help that she sounded like an Earl’s daughter with all the privilege that entailed. Running her hands through her brunette waves, she fluffed it from being flattened by the wig. ‘We’ll play what we always play.’

      ‘The shrew who needs taming?’ he said with a tight smile, coming towards her so the sting of fight or flight released in her arteries. They were nearly eye to eye when she wore heels like this, but he was so layered with muscle and radiated such mental power, he was always intimidating.

      He stood close enough for the heat of his chest to warm the cooled skin of her naked breasts. She felt branded, aching with need to be crushed hard to his chest, but he only tangled a hand in her hair and pulled her head back so her lips were offered to him and her throat exposed. ‘The bitch who thinks she’s in charge and isn’t?’

      Her answer was a scratch of her nails down the sides of his rib cage.

      He quickly caught her wrists and pinned them behind her back. ‘You are in a mood.’

      She pushed her tender mons against rough denim, delighting in the small catch of his breath before he controlled her with a hand on her hip, his other hand tightening with deliciously tested discipline over her crushed hands behind her back.

      ‘I wasn’t sure if you’d be up for what I brought, but I can see you are.’

      Kiss me, she thought. Throw me on the bed and have me hard and fast. Sometimes she thought that might be enough for her, but she needed the other, too.

      As if he could hear her thoughts, his pupils flared and his breath released in a humid warmth against her lips. His hands tightened again on her, making her nipples prickle in reaction and wetness release between her thighs.

      But a shadow passed behind his eyes, a kind of helpless inevitableness that made her think, He needs this too.

      ‘But since you’ve annoyed me,’ he said with an edge of sandpapery roughness on his tone, ‘You’re going to stand in the naughty corner a few minutes while I get ready.’

      She told him what she thought of that idea in two stark words.

      ‘Now, now,’ he taunted, forcibly walking her towards the corner with a grip of threatening pain on her arms. ‘You know I like the look of a red arse and talk like that will get you one. Is that what you’re after today?’

      No. They’d dabbled in paddles and crops and she didn’t like it. He’d never spanked her again after the first try, but he wasn’t afraid to bring up the prospect when he was in a terse mood. She knew him well enough not to push when he did. Hayes never threatened. He promised.

      They knew each other’s limits so well it was frightening, considering they only came together once a month. But he always seemed to bring her right to the edge of her endurance, instilling a frisson of fear right before he drew her back. That skill of his had built trust between them, brick upon brick, so even though waves of apprehension went over her as he planted her hands against the wall and nudged her feet open so she was spread like a criminal awaiting frisking, she let him do it to her.

      He rewarded her with a little fondle of her ass, taking a proprietary feel of each cheek in turn, his palm so hot and possessive she couldn’t help pushing into his caress.

      He trailed his touch lower, searching out the dampness painting a line down her inner thigh. His fingertips strolled, teasing lightly so she clenched with need, her sex calling for his attentive fingers to rise into her hot waiting depths, but he didn’t appease her and she ached deep between her legs, hurting with being ignored.

      ‘I hate you,’ she told him in a whisper.

      ‘I hate you too, love.’ And there was that softer tone, the tender one that made her shut her eyes tight and fight the need to turn into his arms and beg him to be everything to her, not just an escape. Not just the wall she had to batter herself against so she knew it was strong enough to protect her.

      He walked away and she hung her head. A distant voice inside her wondered what the hell she was doing. They were nearing a year of these monthly assignations and she didn’t even know how it had started or continued or would finish.

      Well, she rather knew how it would finish. This week had been a fresh assault from her family, from Great Granny on down to her young cousin, all asking when she would marry. I’m twenty-three, she wanted to scream. Ask in another ten years.

      But eligible men would be paraded before her and she would choose one, sooner rather than later if her parents had anything to do with it.

      And this would be over.

      A pang of deep anguish opened in her centre, making her fight a wrenching sob of loss.

      ***

      As Hayes drew the nylon rope across the room, his hand trembled and he missed the hook twice, gaze too fixed on Lady Hamilton-Smythe’s ass to look away and see what he was doing. Male hunger—desperation really—had his attention returning again and again to the shadow where he knew she was wet and sweet and hot. For him.

      His head swam with the knowledge, weakening his knees and making him want