The clipped command sent both a whisper of fear and some other unidentifiable emotion through her. She shivered beneath his grip, which apparently didn’t go unnoticed by him. He gave her the side eye and the hard line of his mouth dipped into a full frown. But he stayed silent until they’d gone up an elevator, down another elegantly decked-out hallway, and into cozy sitting room, complete with a stone fireplace. Through another open door, she could see a bigger room with a desk and large plate-glass windows that looked out onto the black night. Grant’s office.

He let go of her arm and shut the door they’d come through, then pinioned her beneath an iron gaze. “Sit.”

“I’m not a dog.”

“Charli, it’s been a long night. You’re trespassing after I explicitly told you not to, and you’ve taken me away from something important tonight. Do you really want to play word games right now?”

She sat, suddenly feeling the true extent of his anger. He was always a bossy son of a gun but here, at this place, she sensed that part of him had dialed up from low buzz to rattle-and-hum mode.

Then it hit her.

Grant was like Colby.

She remembered the way Grant had made her hold the bar in the shower, the way he’d taken control.

He was one of the men who made women kneel for him.

Charli thought of pretty, subservient Stella, and her stomach plummeted like she’d been thrown from a bridge. No wonder Grant had left last night. She was everything girls like Stella weren’t.

She looked away from him, staring at the unlit fireplace. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I shouldn’t have come over here.”

“Damn right, you shouldn’t have,” he replied, his angry voice hitting the wood floors and reverberating around her. “What the hell were you thinking? I told you I have security. You didn’t think the staff would see someone hopping the fence?”

“I thought this was a swanky resort for rich families,” she protested. “I didn’t think I was going to stumble into some, some…”

“Some what, Charli? Say what you think this is.”

She glanced up at him, meeting the challenge in his eyes. “Some, I don’t know, sex club, brothel, God knows what.”

He smirked. “You think I’m running a whorehouse?”

“Why else would you be training people how to kneel?”

He closed his eyes briefly, as if reining in the desire to shake her. “Because those people are submissives who want to learn how to please a dominant. This is a fantasy resort. BDSM being our speciality.”

Her brows lifted. “BDSM? Is that the same as S and M?”

He blew out a breath, sinking onto the couch opposite her, the fight visibly draining from him. “That’s the older term for it. But yeah, basically. Bondage, dominance, submission, and sadomasochism. And this is supposed to be a place where I guarantee people the highest level of privacy to practice it. If my members knew that I’d allowed some nosy reporter to sneak onto the property…” He leaned back in his seat. “It could ruin my entire reputation.”

Her teeth had gnashed together at the nosy reporter comment, but she tamped down her response when she saw how weary he looked. This was obviously a very big deal here, and she had been the one to break the rules. She pushed back all the snarky things she wanted to say. “I’m sorry. Really, I am. I’m not going to pretend I understand all this, but I had no right to come over here. Sometimes my curiosity gets the better of me.”

He eyed her. “You think?”

“Damn. Okay. I get it. I said I’m sorry. What do you want me to do? Grovel for forgiveness?” The words were out before she could snatch them back.

His head tilted, mischief in his eyes. “Not a totally unappealing idea. Maybe you learned more in that training class than I think.”

Her neck burned, the heat traveling up like mercury in a thermometer.

“What were you doing kneeling in the intro class anyway?”

She studied the tops of her hands, his inquiring gaze suddenly too much to take head-on. “I sort of got persuaded by Kelsey.”

A soft chuckle. “Ah, Kelsey. She’s new to my staff, but a very promising domme. If she can persuade you to do something, maybe she deserves a raise.”

Charli’s head lifted, her eyes narrowing. “Right, of course, because I’m nothing like those women in that room.”

He leaned forward, forearms braced on his thighs. “No. You’re not.”

For some reason, the words pierced her like barbed wire. She herself had been thinking in the session she was nothing like those women. But hearing him say it with such conviction lashed at the same battered spot her boss had created when he’d told her she hadn’t gotten the on-air position. Not good enough. Not pretty enough.

She hauled herself up from the couch as if the furniture had caught on fire beneath her. The telltale stinging sensation of impending tears seared her throat. “I want to go back to my cabin.”

He mouth dipped. “We’re not done here. We need to talk about last night, and I need to know that you’re not going to—”

But she was no longer listening as she moved toward the door. She had to get out of here. Right. Now. She wasn’t exactly sure why she felt ready to fall apart. All she knew was she was not going to do it in front of Grant.

She reached for the doorknob but a large palm landed against the wood over her head, preventing the door from opening. “Charli, stop. Why are you running?”

She stared at the door, the polished wood blurring in her vision and Grant’s body heat radiating against her back. He was so close. There was no way she was going to escape without him seeing her tears. She pressed her palms against the door. “Please. I need to go.”

But the words were choked, cracked, revealing what she was trying so hard to hide.

“For God’s sake, freckles. You’re crying?” He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her around. “What’s going on? Is this about last night? Because I am so sorry about that.”

“Yes. No.” She shook her head, staring at his boots because she was too mortified to look up at him.

“Tell me, Charli.”

She didn’t want to talk to him. Didn’t want to lay her shame bare. But in that moment, she couldn’t stuff it down any longer. She swiped at her ridiculous tears. “I’ve spent my whole life working hard, proving myself. And no matter what I do, everyone always wants what I’m not.”

“What are you talking about? Is this about your job?”

“My job, my mother…you.”

“Me?” he asked, sounding genuinely perplexed.

She raised her gaze to him and managed a well-duh smirk. “If I didn’t make it embarrassingly clear last night in the bathroom, I’m attracted to you. And of course, you can’t be a guy who would just want to have a quick fling with someone like me. No, you want the epitome of all that is stereotypically feminine. The gorgeous goddess on her knees.”

The lines around his mouth deepened. “Charli.”

She raised her palm. “Please. Don’t. If you say some pitying comment, I’m going to punch you in the face.”

His shoulders sagged with a heavy sigh. “That’s not what I was going to do.”

She stepped around him, walking to the window on the far side of the room and putting her back to him. “Right.”

She heard his boots against the floor as he turned around, but he didn’t come any closer. “Believe what you want, but let me say my piece. Since the night I found you out on the road, I haven’t stopped imagining what it would be like to get you in my bed. Every time you talk back to me, I want to hush you up in all kinds of creative ways. And last night, it took every letter of my moral code to walk out and not take full advantage of the situation.”

Her blood seemed to halt in her veins, her whole body pausing as if to make sure she’d heard him right. His footfalls sounded behind her, and then his scent was invading the air around her.

“Attraction is not the issue.” His hands were on her shoulders again and she let him turn her around. His blue eyes found hers, the stark desire in them stripping her defenses. “But I don’t have simple flings. I don’t do simple anything. My tastes are intense and specific. And beyond the fact that I don’t want to mess with my friend’s sister, you’re not a submissive. I don’t do the vanilla thing.”

Her heart was a hard, pounding knot in her throat. He was too close for her to get her thoughts in order. “Vanilla?”

“Regular sex and relationships. I’m not satisfied in that kind of dynamic.”

She blinked, her tears forgotten. He didn’t do normal sex at all? And…“Wait, you think I’m attractive?”

He laughed and lowered his hands to his sides. “Good grief, freckles. Is that your first question for me after my big I’m-a-kinky-bastard confession?”

She crossed her arms. “Yes. I need to hear what you think. The truth.”

He looked to the heavens as if pleading for some divine patience. “The truth? You’re hardheaded, you wear clothes too big for that body of yours, and you have awful taste in wine. But yes, I wanted you so badly last night that I could barely make it back to my cabin before wrapping my hand around my cock and jerking off to thoughts of you.”

Even the tips of her ears went hot at that. “Well, there’s a backhanded compliment if I’ve ever heard one.”

He shrugged. “You wanted the truth. Would you rather I bullshit you?”

She glanced down at her comfy T-shirt and loose jeans, seeing her clothes through his eyes instead of hers for the first time. “No. I can take it.”

He tucked his hands in his pockets, his expression turning resigned. “Go back to your cabin, Charli. Don’t tell anyone about this place, and we’ll move on.”

“So that’s it?”

“We’ve got nothing left to discuss.” He turned around and headed through the side door that led to his office. He picked up the phone, keeping his back to her. “Marc, can you come to my office and make sure Ms. Beaumonde makes it back to her cabin safely? Thanks.”

And with that, she was dismissed.

So they were attracted to each other and it didn’t matter. Because she wasn’t some dainty, submissive girly girl.

If she were, then he’d probably have his mouth on her right now. And hell, she’d probably have her promotion, too.

The thought was like a match being struck. She peeked over at Grant again, a small smile forming on her lips.

Tonight, she’d let him be. But tomorrow…Tomorrow he’d find out just how hardheaded she could get.

Game, set, match, cowboy.

NINE

Grant grabbed the rag he’d thrown over his shoulder and wiped the sweat off his face. After the night he’d had, the only cure he could think of this morning was working his ass off in the fields. At least the grapes were doing well because everything else was going to shit. He’d had another failed interview with a potential trainee last night and then Charli had, once again, thrown a grenade into his evening.

Lord, seeing her kneeling there in that class had taken the floor right out from under him. For a moment, he hadn’t been able to decide what action he wanted to take more—drag her to his office to yell at her or haul her off to his play space to discipline her in a much more inventive fashion. His body had wholeheartedly decided on the latter, but his brain had overruled.

This time.

He trudged through the last of the brush to get back to the main path, but muttered a curse when he saw Charli sitting on the fence near his cabin. Think of the devil and she shall appear. Charli had hooked her feet onto the cross post and that red mane of hair was blowing around her like wildfire. If trouble could be photographed, that’s what it would look like.