“You left Atlanta. You went to work for him.”
“Yes. Because after Reggie fired me I contacted human resources at Stark International and asked them to put my application back in the active file. I told you I’d applied for a job with him. And I got it. The old-fashioned way—by having a solid résumé. I didn’t leave you for Stark, and I swear on my life that I have never slept with that man.”
He pulls me to him, the motion so unexpected that I gasp, and as I do, he closes his mouth over mine. The kiss is wild and hard and almost painful. Teeth clashing, mouths burning. It is a claiming, not a kiss. A battle, not a seduction. And when he backs away, I am breathing hard, a little bit aroused and a lot lost.
And Jackson is himself again. Cool and controlled as if the last few moments haven’t even happened.
“This is the way it’s going to work. You’re mine. Wholly and completely. You’re ready for me when I say. How I say. Do you understand?”
“Do I have a choice?”
He doesn’t even bother to answer. We both know what the answer will be.
“On the bed,” Jackson says, and for a moment I do not move.
This really is it, I think. I can walk away right now, and save myself the pain of my memories. The misery of being with a man who wants only to punish me for our past.
I can walk—and I can lose the resort, which is the only thing that has truly mattered to me in years.
I look at him, struck hard by the irony. Because five years ago, Jackson mattered to me. He’d bent time with me, cramming what felt like a lifetime of emotion into just a few short days.
But that’s the past, and the resort is my present. And I cannot risk losing it if I have the chance to save it.
And so I do as he asks. This was the deal I made, after all. And, yes, I cannot deny that despite the memories that I fear will creep back into my dreams, I want what he has promised. I want the release. And, god help me, I want to shatter against this man again even though it is not real, and even though in the end, I know that I will get hurt.
“Good girl,” he says once my head is on the pillows. “Now stretch out your arms.”
I do, though I’m not sure what he’s planning. I find out soon enough, though, because he steps into the bathroom, then comes back with the white cotton sashes from two hotel robes.
I shake my head, feeling panic rising. “No,” I say, but he doesn’t stop. He simply takes my wrist and knots one end of a sash around it. The other end he ties to a lamp that is fastened to the wall right at the side of the headboard.
“Jackson …”
My protest seems to echo in the room, but he does not heed it. Instead, he moves around the bed and repeats the process with my other arm.
I lick my lips, not liking how vulnerable I feel. I squeeze my thighs together, then whimper when he shakes his head.
“No,” he says. “Wide. I want to see how wet you are. I want to see how much you want me.”
I swallow, but I say nothing, because what is there to say? But as he draws his fingertip along my leg and up my inner thigh, I feel my body clench with need. I see the small smile touch his lips. And I know that he has seen the extent of my arousal. That he knows what he is doing to me. That he has damn well won because no matter how much I want to keep a tight rein on myself—my body has its own response, and I’m desperately, hopelessly, completely turned on.
He touches me mercilessly, trailing his fingers over every inch of my body until I feel as though my skin is alive with need, and all the more so because I cannot move. I can only submit to this pounding of desire.
And when he goes to the living room and returns with a glass of wine and a small bowl of caviar, I cannot help but wonder what new torment he has in store for me.
And torment it is.
He slowly dribbles the thousand-dollar wine over my belly button, then uses the tip of his tongue to taste it. He lifts the glass to me and lets me have a small sip, and the tang of it on my tongue seems to match the way my entire body tingles with need for him. And when he puts a tiny spoonful of caviar on each of my breasts and then closes his mouth over me to suckle, I cannot help but arch up from the pure, overwhelming, erotic sensations.
He moves lower then, kissing his way down my belly until he reaches my sex. He looks at me, his eyes hard on mine, before kissing me oh-so-intimately.
“For a man who wants to punish me,” I say on a wild breath, “you’re doing a terrible job.”
“I told you,” he murmurs, “I want you to remember. I want you to know pleasure. And I want you to think about everything you tossed away.”
“Jackson—”
But he is not listening, and when his tongue attacks my clit once more I really don’t even care. He takes me to the edge, his mouth working magic on my senses, turning my body into nothing but sensual awareness, a mass of erotic energy just waiting to explode.
Waiting … and waiting still …
And when he pulls his mouth away—when he sits up on his knees to look at me—I think that I really will scream.
“Tell me what you want,” he says, but there is such tension in his voice, I have no doubt that he wants exactly the same thing. And I want it badly enough that I have no shame.
“Fuck me. Please, Jackson. Just fuck me now.”
He gets off the bed and comes to stand closer to me. For a moment, I fear that he is going to deny both of us. “Please tell me you have a condom,” I say.
For a moment, he says nothing. Then he takes something out of his pocket and sets it on the side table before stripping off his clothes. I turn my head, managing to see that he’s put a condom packet there. But there’s something else beside it, and that’s what he picks up now.
It takes a moment, and then I realize that it’s a blindfold.
“Oh, no,” I say. “No way.”
“Oh, yes,” he says. “My rules, remember? And right now, I own you,” he says as his fingers dance over my skin, highlighted by the sensual tones of his voice. “You’re mine to pleasure. To take. To fuck. And right now I want you to experience nothing but the feeling of me touching you,” he adds as my body clenches with need in response to this new seduction. “Of me inside you. You’re mine, remember, and tonight, I want you to know it. Fully and very, very completely.”
His words seem to crash over me, echoing through my memory.
While you’re here, you’re mine.
You’re mine, you’re mine, you’re mine …
Familiar words that once made me sick, but right now I can’t deny that I am wet. That I am on fire.
And that the goddamned flame on my breast is a symbol not that I am the one in control … but that if I’m not careful, Jackson will reduce me to ashes.