The Alpha's Fine Print novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Test

In the ranch office she tests her no and then her yes, and he learns to ask before he touches.

He kissed me.

One hand went into my curls, and the other settled on the small of my back.

My glasses knocked crooked against his cheekbone.

He tasted like coffee and woodsmoke, and he kissed with his whole mouth, slow and then deep.

I grabbed his flannel in both fists.

I had not been kissed like that in four years, and I had not known how hungry I was until he started.

He backed me out of the dining room.

His boots found a door, and he shouldered it open without breaking the kiss.

It was Hobart's old office, a narrow room with a rolltop desk and a green banker's lamp.

I knew it at once, because I had seen it in a photograph on Hobart's wall.

The desk was bare.

Lorcan lifted me onto it.

My heels hit the wood, and the skirt of my suit rode up my thighs.

He stepped between my knees and kissed down my neck.

I heard a sound come out of me that I had never made in my life.

"Tilda," he said against my collarbone. "Tell me what you want."

"I want to know if it's real," I said.

"What is?"

"The clause."

His head came up.

His eyes were gold and bright, and a little frightened.

"You want to test it," he said. "Now."

"I need to know what I'm holding."

"Then test it."

He put both hands flat on the desk on either side of my hips.

He was breathing hard through his nose.

I looked at his mouth, and I said, "No."

He didn't move.

He didn't move at all.

His mouth was an inch from mine, and he leaned toward me, and I watched him run into something invisible and stop.

A tremor went through his shoulders.

The cords in his neck stood out.

"You see," he said, hoarse, "it's not a game."

"I wasn't playing."

"I know. Do it again."

I felt strange and a little sick.

The power in my hands was real, and I did not like how easy it was.

"Can you breathe?" I asked.

"I'm breathing."

"Can you want me?"

He laughed, one short rough breath.

"Lawyer," he said. "I've wanted you since you read that clause out loud."

"Yes," I said. "Go ahead."

The tension went out of him all at once.

He kissed me again, and it was a different kiss, grateful and wild, with a groan low in his chest.

"Now I know the difference," he said. "No is a wall. Yes is a door."

"Don't be poetic. I'm a contract attorney."

"Then here are the terms," he said, and his hand slid up my bare thigh.

"I touch you only where you say. You'll tell me every time."

His fingers stopped at the edge of my skirt, where the fabric bunched.

"Here," he said. "Say it."

I had never in my life been told what to say in that voice, by a man I wanted this badly.

"Yes," I said. "Touch me."

He pushed the skirt up to my hips.

He looked down at my navy underwear, plain cotton.

I had dressed for a lease signing and not for this, and he made a low sound.

"Look at you," he said. "Soft. Perfect. These are coming off."

"Yes."

He hooked his fingers in the waistband and drew them down my legs, slowly, and dropped them on the floor.

The cool air touched me, and then his palm did, warm and rough from the scar across it.

He cupped my pussy and didn't move, only held it, and I felt my own wetness against his hand.

"You're soaked," he said. "Is that for me?"

"It's for whoever asks nicely."

"Then I'll be so nice."

His thumb found my clit and rubbed one slow circle.

I gasped.

My hips jerked on the desk, and my glasses slid down my nose.

He took them off, folded them, and set them carefully on the blotter beside the lamp.

Then he slid one finger inside me.

It was thick, and long, and warm, and I clenched around it without meaning to.

"Oh, fuck."

"Yes," he said, soft. "That's good. Tell me how it feels."

"Full. Tight. More."

He added a second finger.

His thumb never stopped, round and round on my clit, and his other hand held my thigh open.

He watched my face.

He looked at me.

"I'm going to make you come on my hand," he said. "Right here, with your skirt around your hips."

"Don't you dare stop."

He curled his fingers inside me, that perfect hooked pressure, and I cried out into his shoulder.

"There," he said. "There it is. You're going to come for me. Come on my hand, Tilda."

I came harder than I had in years.

It hit me in long waves.

I clutched his neck and bit into his flannel while my whole body rocked against his hand.

"That's it. Good. So good. Let it go."

When I could see again, he was still holding me.

His fingers were still inside me, easing slowly, and he was trembling.

I looked down.

The front of his jeans strained against a hard, thick shape, and his whole body was shaking with the effort of staying where he was.

"You didn't take anything," I said.

"You didn't give it."

"And if I say no to you coming?"

His eyes closed.

"Then I don't come," he said. "Not tonight. Not until you say."

I understood, in that second, exactly how dangerous this was.

I could not order him into a bed.

The clause gave me only the no.

Nothing in it would make him want me, or buy a single touch.

He was here because he chose to be, and I was here because I did.

I slid off the desk, and my legs wobbled, and I put one hand on his chest to steady myself.

His heart was going.

"Lorcan," I said.

"Yes."

I picked up my glasses and put them on, and the room came into focus.

I saw him clearly.

Big, lean, wild with wanting, hair coming loose from its tie, gold eyes fixed on my mouth.

A man who would do anything I asked him, and who was begging me, silently, to ask.

"Kneel," I said.

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