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his, as he dipped his head and lips near. “So you’ve been thinking about it?”
    “Thinking about w-what?”
    “The wall. This afternoon. Being trapped. Being controlled. By me.”
    “Of course not!” She turned her face away. He followed without hesitation or mercy, pressing his mouth against her cheek, scuffing her skin with his beard, scratching deeper into her mind, whether she wanted it or not.
    “I think you’re lying. I think you’ve been thinking about it all afternoon. Just like I have.”
    His confession turned her thoughts into a deeper mess. “What are you doing to me? Why do you want to do this to me? We can’t— I can’t—” His mouth traced closer, thickening the mental fog. She couldn’t go back to that place again. She wouldn’t. “Please…Senator— Mark—” She huffed, frustrated. She didn’t even know what to call him anymore!
    “Sir will do, Rose. I love the word when it comes off your lips. Especially when they’re this flushed and beautiful.”
    The mental morass worsened as he raised a hand and ran a slow thumb along her mouth. Confusion stormed her mind, body, senses. She tried to find her way out, trying to break free from him. “F-for one thing, m-my lips aren’t beautiful…and…and—”
    “And that’s a perfect place to start.”
    He didn’t give her a second to breathe, let alone argue anymore. Not when he jammed his mouth against hers, opening her with a sweep of passion, filling her with his tongue and even his teeth, shredding all the logic she had left. She tried to break free, but he buried a hand in her hair, securing her in place as he plunged, sucked, crushed, commanded. When he finally broke away, she actually gasped from the loss, until he stole even that from her. Her breath broke into a shocked cry as he hoisted her into his arms, then strode deeper into the gym with her.
    “What the hell?”
    “I think you mean, what the hell, Sir ?” He plunked her down on a padded sit-up bench.
    “Wh-what?”
    She might as well have spouted Swahili for how much he heeded the retort. She was too stunned to move, watching him stalk to a rack with a dozen jump ropes, then wrench half the inventory off their pegs. “Why are you— What’s—”
    “Are you now ready to tell me you how beautiful your mouth is?”
    He stood back in front of her, legs braced, a pair of the jump ropes stretched between his hands. Despite his ominous stance, she fired off a deep glower. “No! What do you think—”
    “Suit yourself.”
    His serene intonation gave her no clue what he intended next. Before she blinked again, he twisted a rope around one of her wrists, crisscrossed it, and then captured the other arm too. He pulled that truss tight with one hand, then looped the second rope through the small gap between her wrists. Once he was able to hold her tight with one hand, he grabbed her waist with the other. His hold relayed pure strength, solid control, and no patience for a struggle. Still, Rose couldn’t believe she complied without a word as he turned her over and laid her flat on the bench, her face down and her arms now stretched over her head. In another second, he looped the rope around the bench peg, securing her into that position.
    “This is crazy! What do you think—”
    “The subject isn’t me right now. It’s you.”
    She pivoted her head to glare at him but was stopped short by his face, now tilted and just a few inches away again. And the look on it…was a transformation. A spell of golden magic. His mouth twitched with sexy-as-hell adoration. His eyes were twin hearths of warmth and wonderment. The bastard made it damn hard to figure out what she felt right now. Pure fury or pure fascination?
    “What in all of hell are you doing?”
    He actually looked like he fought back a chuckle. “Hmm. Not as interesting as your previous outbursts, but still enchanting. Especially because you’ll be issuing no more statements like it for a while.” She drew