“I haven’t,” he continues, apparently unconcerned that I have yet to say a word. “You in yellow, as bright as the sun shining through the car window. You unbuttoning your dress, revealing yourself to me. Touching yourself, teasing yourself. And it was me you imagined, wasn’t it, princess? Me who filled your thoughts. Who made you hot. Who made you need. Open your eyes,” he demands, and I do, surprised to realize that I had shut them in the first place.
He is right there, so close I can feel his heat. So near that all I would have to do is lean slightly forward to feel him warm and hard against me.
I do the opposite, leaning back, my palms flat against the wall behind me as I desperately wish that I could sink into the drywall and simply disappear.
“Tell me you remember, princess. Tell me you remember how it felt.”
I want to stay silent—to prove to him that even though he thinks that he took control the moment he walked through my doorway, it isn’t true.
Except, of course, it is. I may have hoped to keep the upper hand, but I should have known better. I know the man, don’t I? And I know myself, too.
“Tell me,” he repeats.
I tilt my head back. I meet his eyes. And I give him the answer he’s looking for. “Yes. I remember. And I remember you wanted me, too.”
“I did. I do.” His smile is thin and cunning and just a little bit wicked. “Looks like I’m about to get what I want.” As gently as a summer breeze, he brushes his fingertip over the swell of my breast.
I draw in a breath, determined to fight against the heat that even so simple a touch is fueling in me.
“I think you’re going to get what you want too, princess.”
“I want the resort, Jackson.” I meet his eyes, making sure that mine show nothing but cold calculation. “The resort. And like you, I’m willing to do whatever it takes to get exactly what I want.”
As far as I can tell, my words don’t faze him at all. If anything, he seems amused. “And that’s why your new dress is red. You’ve lost your innocence, princess.”
“Stop calling me that.”
He cocks his head, as if considering. “My rules,” he says. “Or had you forgotten already?”
“Dammit, Jackson.” I don’t know why the nickname bothers me when his touch did not. There’s nothing in a name, after all. And it is his touch—and my reaction to it—that reveals so much.
Even so, I don’t like the endearment. And the extent of my distaste bothers me enough that I push away from the wall and then push past him, away from this corner in which he’s trapped me and where my face and body reveal far too much.
I hurry through my small living area and stop by the patio door. It’s down, and I place my hand on one of the glass panes as I look out at the world. That’s where I want to be—out there, not trapped in here with my past and a man I cannot deny I want, but can no longer have. A man whose mere presence makes me just a little bit crazy even though I need to hang on tight to cold rationality.
I do not hear his footsteps, but I see his reflection, and I am expecting it when he places his hand on my shoulder. Even so, I close my eyes as if in defense against the powerful surge of longing that cuts through me when he bends his head and kisses the back of my neck.
“Don’t,” I whisper.
“Don’t? I believe the terms of my offer were clear.” He takes a step back as he pulls his phone out of his pocket. His eyes meet mine in the reflection. “So you tell me. Do we have a deal? Or should I call Damien and tell him I’m not your guy, after all?”
“Dammit, Jackson. Why are you doing this?”
“You know why.”
I shake my head, though that is a lie. Because I do know. It’s retribution. It’s punishment.
I saved myself from one type of hell only to be thrust headfirst into another.
“No? Well then, let me tell you. I’m doing this because I want you to remember.” His lips brush my neck again, then move up to dance lightly upon the curve of my ear, making me tremble with sensual longing.
“I’m doing this because I want you to understand what you gave up.” His hands stroke my shoulders, then down over the short sleeves of the dress until he reaches the bare skin of my arms. He continues, finally finding my hands and twining his fingers with mine.
“I want you to know the future that you threw away, princess,” he says, as he lifts our joined hands to cup them over my breasts.
I stiffen, my body a riot of emotions and sensations. I want to lash out against him—to tell him to go to hell, because I damn well know what I gave up. I know it as well as I know that I had to. And at the same time I want to melt into him. To let his touch take me all the places that I’ve imagined over the last five years. To let him have me so fully and completely that I am used up and there is no room for fear or nightmares or memories.
But that, of course, is impossible.
Most of all, I want to turn in his arms and kiss him. I want the Jackson I once had, not the one who stands here today. Not the one who sees only the woman who hurt him, and not the woman who could have fallen in love with him.
And so I do nothing. I just stand there, trying hard to ignore the sensation of my hands upon my body—of his hands upon my own. Trying to breathe. Trying to get centered.
And trying desperately to remember that it had been my plan all along to take charge of this night, and wondering how things could have turned so horribly sideways.
Finally, I push my hands back down to my sides, then force myself to turn around even though he doesn’t step back. He’s so close that our bodies are brushing, and I have to tilt my head back in order to see his face.
“That really is what this is about, isn’t it? You just want to punish me.”
“Hell yes,” he says. “And I think that’s what you want, too.”
“Excuse me?”
“Maybe you feel guilty about ending it the way you did. Maybe that’s why you’ve agreed to my terms.”
“I haven’t agreed to anything. You ambushed me.”
For a moment, I think I see compassion in his eyes. Then they go cold again. Good. I want them to be ice. I want them to freeze me. I don’t want to melt for this man. I don’t want to feel the heat. I don’t want to succumb to the guilt that he is so damn right about.
“I see right through you, princess,” he finally says. “And you can play games all you want, but you and I both know that you’re fighting. Well, guess what? I am, too. And I’m not accustomed to losing.”
He reaches out and ever so slowly undoes the top button of the dress.
“What are you doing?”
“What you’re letting me do.”
“I—”
“You can stop me, princess. Just say the word.”
I lick my lips, but I do not move and I do not protest. I tell myself that I cannot back down—I cannot give up the resort.
But that isn’t the only truth, and I know it as well as he does.
The truth is I want this, too. And since I can’t willingly give it, then I will acquiesce to letting him take it.
“Good girl,” he says, as he flips open the second button, then the third to reveal the black lace of the demi-cup bra, the swell of my breasts, and my very erect, very sensitive, nipples.
“Like I said,” he murmurs, then bends close to take my nipple between his lips. He sucks, drawing it in, then grazing the tender flesh with his teeth and sending coils of red-hot desire spinning though me to throb with violent intensity between my legs. “You want this as much as I do.”