“Don’t even think about it,” he said as he pulled me toward him, pinning my arms at the base of my back. “I know all of your tricks.”

“You don’t know me as well as you think you do.”

He walked me backward until he had me trapped between him and the balcony railing. “I know everything about you. And sending me the rings told me you wanted my undivided attention. Now you have it. What do you want to tell me, Nyx? Besides ‘fuck off.’”

“That I don’t respond well to orders.”

“Liar.” He shifted my wrists to one hand and then ran a finger over my swollen lips before brushing his mouth against them. “What happened only moments ago proves it. And if I check your pussy, I bet I’d find it dripping.”

“That’s not the same thing, and you know it.”

“It’s still a lie.” He traced his fingertips down the column of my throat, over the open neck of my dress, across my abdomen, only stopping when he reached the hem at my thigh.

“You don’t scare me.” I jerked my arms, but his grip was too firm.

“Another lie.” His palm pushed under the fabric above my knee. “You gave up your freedom to stay with me, and now you want to run. What does that say?”

“I hate you,” I said through gritted teeth and immediately cried out as he slid inside my underwear and cupped me between my legs, intensifying the pulsing deep in my core.

“Another lie. Would your cunt drip like this for someone you hated?”

“Simon, please. I don’t want to do this right now.”

“Too bad. You don’t have a choice.” He teased my wet pussy lips, stroking up and down and causing me to whimper.

“I can’t think when you’re touching me like this.”

“Do you ache? Do you need to come?”

“Sssimon,” I moaned.

“That’s not an answer.”

“Yes, please.”

He plunged a finger deep into my core, followed by another, and then a third, making me gasp and my body bow. The pleasure-pain of it was almost too much for me to handle, and if Simon wasn’t holding me up, my legs would have given out.

He pumped in and out, working me in a way meant to drive my need higher and higher.

I couldn’t help but rock against his wicked hand as a sheen of sweat broke out over my brow. His thumb strummed my clit, bringing me closer to the peak I needed to go over.

Just as I felt the spasms of the muscles deep in my pussy, he eased his tempo, dropping me out of the release I needed so desperately.

“What are you doing?”

“You know exactly what.”

Tears burned the back of my throat. “I do hate you.”

“Look me in the eyes and say it.”

He knew damn well I couldn’t do it.