“Brenden, listen, I’m…I’m shorry.”

“Shorry? About which part?” Enlisting all his self-control—necessary at this point—he sat down on the edge of the bed, feet planted flat on the floor, fingers flexing at some unnamed emotion clawing at him from the inside out. He just couldn’t believe how he’d found her. Just couldn’t believe how hard he was. “Shorry for stealing my car? Hanging up on Mother? Or the part where I catch you flirting with that jerk thirty minutes after my tongue was in your cunt? Oh right, that was to teach me a lesson.”

“If I wanted to theach you a lesson, I’d pinch your ass with these.” She brandished a handful of long, strong-looking, all-natural fingernails.

Damn woman. Fired his blood, his temper. Made him jealous and mad and crazy all in one evening and yet he still wanted her like no other. Had a pure steel cock to prove it.

Determined to have his way, he reached to his left where a portable telephone rested on an end table and picked it up. “Now this part is entirely up to you. Either you can come here, hike up that dress, take down your panties and receive the punishment you so deserve, or I’ll call the cops and have you arrested.”

He heard her suck in a sharp breath then slowly release it. “That’s blackmail.”

He turned the phone on.

“Brenden, please. Don’t.” Hiccup. “What’s with you and phones, anyway?”

Jeez, in the half-hour it’d taken to catch up with her, she’d tied one on already. How’d she get so buzzed so fast?

Didn’t matter.

He dialed the nine, the one…suddenly she was on her feet and scrambling around the bed.

Now that was more like it.

“You’re really going to call the cops on me?”

Not a chance, but she didn’t know that. She needed the incentive. The excuse. Brenden motioned to his knees, feeling something clench in him as he noted those sunglasses still hadn’t come off and she pitifully chewed her lower lip. Nervous as hell, but truth was, if she truly didn’t want this, she’d walk right out that door, police or not.

“Take the glasses off. Look at me,” he told her, but she only stared at the floor. “Sara.”

Reluctantly, she shifted her gaze toward his but made no move to remove those ridiculous sunglasses. In that moment, shades or not, Brenden felt as if he could see right through her, maybe because he’d been there once himself, before Tara and Ayden came along. Wanting, needing, but not knowing it could be more than a fantasy.

“Don’t be afraid of yourself.” It wasn’t fear of him or the spanking holding her back. It was her own desire that scared her most.

She acknowledged nothing. Looking like a little girl lost, she lifted her dress, hooked her fingers in her underwear and tugged the white lace down. Only when the laughably innocent panties hit the floor did Brenden hang up the phone, kick off his shoes and scoot a little farther back on the bed, again motioning to his legs.

“Over them, now.”

“Brenden, I’m beggin’ you, please don’t make me do this.” She completely sucked in that lower lip, finally whisking away those glasses to reveal desperate blue eyes. Eyes that pierced him to his soul. “Pleash.”

In some remote part of his brain his conscience screamed at him for doing this. For feeling he had to.

For wanting to so badly.

She was half drunk and shaking, almost trembling with fear…but much as she denied it, he knew she wanted it. Had all evening long. Needed a good spanking, same as a lady such as herself needed a real man to deliver one on occasion.

“I’m not,” he reminded her, snatching those glasses, folding them and placing them dangerously close to the phone. “You have a choice. Just as you chose to steal my car rather than have a really, really big orgasm.”

“That was stupid.”

“No kidding.” He actually smiled, smiled because he knew he had her right where he wanted her.

“Well, you didn’t havta be so…so…”

“Sexy?”

She shook her head and rolled her eyes and released a ragged sigh of resolve. “Your phone shoulda been off.”

A comment he ignored because maybe she was right, but it was a good thing he’d had that phone along, now wasn’t it?

Several seconds of tense quiet passed between them, her staring him down, him not budging.

He wanted that spanking and, damn it, so did she.

Finally she nodded. “Fine. Get it over with."