Dominate me

Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

The leather interior of my armored SUV felt like a cage. I sat in the backseat, staring out at the rain-slicked neon streets of the city, my hands folded tightly in my lap to hide the fact that they were still trembling.

The heat of his mouth was practically branded into my skin. My collarbone still tensed where his fingers had dug in just moments ago. I had asserted my dominance, I had walked away victorious, but my body felt entirely unsatisfied, aching with a frustrating, lingering friction.

"The northern docks are secure then, Boss?" my underboss, Mateo, asked from the front passenger seat. His eyes caught mine in the rearview mirror.

"For now," I replied, my voice smooth and detached, the perfect mask of a cartel leader. "He knows what happens if he crosses the line. Keep the perimeter guards on high alert. I don't trust him."

"Smart," Mateo muttered, turning back around. "The East Side has been getting desperate. Their supply lines from the south are completely choked. If they lose the northern ports, their entire economy collapses by next month."

I leaned my head back against the headrest, closing my eyes. *Good,* I thought. *Let them starve.* If his syndicate fell, my cartel would rule the entire territory unchallenged. That was exactly what I wanted. What my family had fought for generations to achieve.

So why did the thought of him losing everything leave a hollow, heavy ache in my chest?

By the time we pulled into the gated compound of my private estate on the West Side, the adrenaline had faded, replaced by a cold, heavy exhaustion. I dismissed my guards, needing absolute solitude, and walked up the grand staircase to my master bedroom.

I stripped off my ruined silk blazer, throwing it onto an armchair. I unbuttoned the top three buttons of my shirt, catching sight of myself in the full length mirror. My lips were slightly swollen. A faint, flushed warmth stained my neck. I looked like a woman who had been thoroughly wrecked, not a boss who had just won a territory dispute.

"Damn him," I whispered to the empty room.

I poured myself a glass of neat bourbon, swallowing the amber liquid in one burning gulp, trying to wash away the taste of him. It didn’t work. He was an intrusive thought, a brilliant, dangerous virus that had slipped past my defenses. He was entirely irresistible, and the fact that he let me hold the power only made him more addictive.

A sharp, sudden vibration from the bed made me freeze.

I didn't use my personal phone for business. The burner phone I kept hidden in my desk drawer was reserved strictly for emergency cartel communications. But the vibrating wasn't coming from the desk. It was coming from the nightstand.

I walked over slowly, my pulse instantly spiking. I picked up the sleek, black device. It was a completely secure, untraceable line. There was only one other person who had this exact frequency.

The screen flashed with a single incoming message.

*You left your fountain pen on the table, Boss. Or was that an invitation to bring it back to you?*

My breath caught in my throat. I stared at the words, a slow, dangerous heat blooming in my stomach all over again. He was testing me. Even after being pinned down, even after I had walked away and left him hanging, he was already pushing the boundaries, trying to claw back the control.

I typed a response, my fingers steady but my heart hammering against my ribs.

*Touch my things again and I’ll have your hands taken off.*

A second passed. Then two. My phone lit up again instantly.

*I’d like to see you try. Midnight. The abandoned shipyard at Pier 4. Come alone, or I’ll ensure your precious northern docks are up in flames by morning.*

It was a blatant threat. A direct challenge to my authority. If I went, I was playing right into his hands, risking my life and my empire for a midnight rendezvous with the enemy. If my men found out I was meeting the East Side boss alone in the dark, they would think I was betraying the cartel.

But as I looked at the message, the memory of his heavy hands on my waist and his ragged breathing against my neck flashed through my mind. He knew exactly what he was doing. He was drawing me out.

I deleted the messages, cleared the log, and tossed the phone onto the bed.

The rain had slowed to a miserable, freezing drizzle by the time I cut the headlights of my matte black sports car. I parked three blocks away from Pier 4, tucked into the shadow of an empty warehouse. Going alone was a death wish. If this was a setup, if he had brought his hitmen to eliminate the West Side queen, my empire would fall before sunrise.

But I didn't call for backup. I checked the hidden holster inside my trench coat, ensuring my compact pistol was loaded, and stepped out into the damp, heavy night.

The abandoned shipyard looked like a graveyard of rusted iron and rotting wood. Fog rolled off the dark water of the harbor, thick and smelling of salt and decay. The economy of this entire city relied on these shipping lines, yet out here, it felt completely isolated from the rest of the world.

I walked down the cracked concrete of the pier, my heavy boots clicking softly against the ground. The silence was suffocating.

Then, a small spark of orange light cut through the darkness.

He was leaning against a massive, rusted shipping container, a lit cigarette held between his fingers. The glowing tip illuminated the sharp angles of his jaw, the dark stubble, and those calculating eyes that watched me approach. He had changed out of his blazer. Now he wore a heavy black leather jacket that made his broad shoulders look even more imposing. He looked entirely in his element out here in the grime and the cold.

He took one last drag, dropped the cigarette, and crushed it beneath the heel of his boot.

"You actually came," he said, his deep voice carrying over the sound of the lapping waves. There was no smirk on his face this time. Just a raw, intense focus that made my skin prickle. "I half expected you to send your underboss to handle your dirty work."

"Mateo would have put a bullet in your head the second you blinked," I replied, stopping a few feet away from him, keeping my hands buried deep in my coat pockets, right next to my weapon. "I prefer to handle my garbage personally."

"Garbage?" He let out a low, rough chuckle, taking a slow step toward me. He didn't look like a man who had been pinned down on a boardroom table two hours ago. He looked like an apex predator reclaiming his territory. "Is that what I am to you, sweetheart?"

"You are an inconvenience to my bottom line," I snapped, refusing to back up as he closed the distance between us. The scent of his smoky leather cologne mixed with the salty sea air, hitting me with a wave of frustrating familiarity. "You threatened my docks. I am here to tell you that if you try to burn my supply lines, I will personally ensure your syndicate doesn't survive the week."

He stopped right in front of me, so close I could feel the heat radiating from his massive frame despite the freezing wind. He lowered his head, bringing his dark gaze level with mine.

"I don't care about the docks tonight," he murmured, his voice dropping into a rough, gravelly register that went straight to my thighs. "And neither do you."

"Don't flatter yourself," I said, my voice cold, forcing every ounce of my cartel authority to the surface. "I am the boss of the West Side. I care about my business. Always."

"Then look me in the eye and tell me you didn't think about what happened on that table the entire drive home," he challenged, stepping even closer, completely invading my space. He didn't touch me yet. He was testing my boundaries, waiting to see if I would use the power I claimed to have. "Tell me you don't want to finish what you started."

My breath hitched. The urge to pull my weapon and press the cold steel against his throat was warring with a much more violent, desperate urge to grab his leather jacket and pull him down to my mouth. He was completely, maddeningly irresistible, and he knew it. He was using his body as leverage, trying to break my focus, trying to see if the queen would bend.

"You think you can play with me?" I whispered, my eyes narrowing as I stared him down, my voice dripping with lethal promise. "You think because I let you taste what it's like to be under my thumb, you get to dictate when and where we meet?"

"I don't want to play," he growled, his gaze dropping to my lips, his breathing turning shallow and heavy. "I want you to admit that you're just as addicted to this sickness as I am."

He reached out, his long, heavy fingers wrapping slowly around my wrist. He didn't pull me. He just held me there, his thumb pressing against my racing pulse, catching me in the act of wanting him.