“Is there a particular reason you wanted me at your table, Mr Borden, or am I just your entertainment for this evening?” I asked curtly.

He leaned forward, his large frame taking up my entire vision as his large hands clasped together. His face was halfway over the table and he drank me in with that stare as if he’d been deprived of the sight of me.

In a low voice, he huskily said, “If you were my entertainment for tonight, you’d be limping out of here – and it wouldn’t be from the kind of beating you’re thinking of.”

My breath thinned at his statement said in such a blasé way, and my cheeks heated, and not out of flattery, but out of shock! While a tiny, itty bitty, unnoticed and uncaring part of me wondered what these activities consisted of exactly, I focused on my outrage.

I leaned forward too, enjoying the adrenaline from the anger he’d incited in me. Quietly, I retorted, “I would never be a willing participant in what you find entertaining, Mr Borden.”

His smirk intensified as he eyed my lips. “We’ll see, Miss Warne.”

Was that a challenge?

“No we won’t,” I bit back. “We agreed to part ways, remember?”

“I remember everything we agreed to, doll.”

“Nothing changes, right?”

He tilted his head to the side, scanning my face as if he was trying to figure something out. I was too busy trying to control the nerves from turning me into a walking earthquake. I’d already dug my nails way too deep into my skin fisting them beneath the table to stop from shaking.

“You’ve always been hard, haven’t you?” he asked, out of nowhere. “From a kid ‘til now, you’ve got thick skin. I like that about you. Makes you worth having around.”

I blinked in surprise. “If it’s brought me back to your table, I don’t see how that’s a good thing.”

He chuckled again. “I’m not going to hurt you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Just going to threaten me?”

“Why would I threaten you when you’re so good at slapping me for it? That was certainly a first for me, Miss Warne.”

I fought the smile on my face and looked away, gripping the napkin now. I wanted to take that opportunity and ask him why he kissed me for doing it, but then that would mean acknowledging I kissed the cocky asshole in the first place.

He had a ghost of a smile on his lips. “Why won’t you look at me?”

“You’re intimidating.”

“Certainly doesn’t stop you from talking back at me.”

“That’s just years of being defiant.”

“I like your defiance,” he said even lower, that sex voice returning.

Enough to turn you on? I wanted to ask.

“You also like power, don’t you, Mr Borden? And being in control.”

He shrugged, absentmindedly. “I don’t like it at all, actually.”

I pinched my brows together. What did he mean by that?

“What you just did to Joel,” I started, searching his face for any kind of emotion, “you didn’t like doing it? Is that what you’re saying?”

His eyes settled back to mine, and completely disregarding my question he said, “Why didn’t you talk to the police officer?”

Where was he going with this?

“Because,” I muttered.

“Because what?”

“Because…” I paused, already getting the gist of what he was saying. “I was scared.”

“And now that you know I don’t harm women, will you be running off to one?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m… still frightened of you.”

He nodded. “Right. Once that fear gets under your skin and settles inside your bones, it’s not something you can switch off overnight. You learned the fear from rumours spread throughout the city, but you experienced it the night you found my men thrashing a man that owed me money around. I own you now.”

My jaw dropped and I looked perplexedly at him. “You own me?”

“Yes. It’s how I control everyone. It’s the reason I’m at the top. You’ll do whatever I say because of your fear.”

“And is that what’s happening? Are you going to make me do something I don’t want to do?” Fuck, did he want my body? This could be why he was doing all of this, I realized.

He frowned, irritated. “I don’t fuck women forcefully, if that’s what you’re referring to. I don’t need to, either. I have enough throwing themselves at me, and a body is just a body at the end of the day. Sorry to disappoint.”

My shoulders slumped in relief, but I still glared at his egotistical remark. “I’m not disappointed, Mr Borden.”

“Of course you are. After your display in your boss’s office, I’m inclined to think you’d do anything for more.”

“I’m not the one that kissed you first, Mr Borden.”

“But you certainly didn’t stop it either, did you?” Another smirk.

I seethed. “I had no choice, and I certainly didn’t want it.”

“Don’t lie. A part of you is curious about me, alley cat. A part of you wants to know.”

“Know what?”

“What it’s like to be fucked by me. Because if one kiss feels that good, imagine the rest. I’m still surprised by how fast you melted into me, like butter. Sweet, melted butter. Fucking tasty, if I’m being honest.”

Jesus, he was good.

He was killing me.

My whole body heated in embarrassment. It took everything in me to mutter out unconvincingly, “I’m not curious to know what you’re like at all, and I think you’ve read a little too much into it.”

That was a lie.

A blatant fucking lie, and he knew it too. I felt like an open book. It was impossible for him to know how many hours I’d wasted the past few nights looking him up, reading through those rumours, staring at pictures of him and those lips, trying to figure out the mystery that was Marcus Borden. Yet here, right now, it was like he knew it all.

And did he? I suddenly worried how he might have gotten this information, or if he was simply capable of reading me meticulously.

One second I’d been too scared to make eye contact with him, and now I couldn’t turn away from those blue irises if I tried. He drank me in with a captivating look, one that was trying to scratch beneath the surface of my being. Why was my mind and body suddenly roaring with both indifference and interest for the man? It was so easy to rationalize how insane he was when I was alone, but here, with him so close to me, he was so magnetizing. I felt lured in, probably like all the helpless women before me, vulnerable and ready to explore him.