“I didn’t make love to you.” I stood straight, temper crackling down my spine. “I fucked—”
“Yes, yes, you taught me a lesson by fucking me senseless.” She waved her hand. “Consider me terrified.”
“I—”
Goddammit, this woman.
I opened and closed my mouth, not quite sure what to volley with. My temples pounded, and I struggled to keep track of what we were arguing about. Wait, was this even an argument? I was confused and horny and dangerously close to just grabbing her and doing whatever I wanted. I wanted her ever since latching that cuff around her ankle. I’d wanted her every fucking second or every fucking day, and the fact I hadn’t taken her yet confounded me. I was no stranger to forced sexual contact. It was easy to get others to grant whatever twisted pleasure you were in the mood for. I should know. I’d been summoned far too many times to count. Yet for some idiotic reason, the longer I kept her—choosing to care for her like any good owner would his pet—the harder I found it to take her.
Probably because, no matter her denial, I’d never actually forced her. That time by her car had been entirely fucking mutual. And the second time in her car...shit, that’d been hot as hell, devastatingly erotic, and Christ, I needed back inside her.
Running both hands through my hair, I scowled. “What’s your point? I’m assuming you have a point? Or did you just feel like being a bitch for no reason?”
Her hands balled at my slur, but she kept her chin high and voice clipped. “My point, oh incredible master, is just like I don’t seem to have the power to kill you, you do not have the power to kill me.” She marched into me, stabbing my T-shirt with her finger. “Ergo, we are both doomed to live with threats and ultimatums but both too stupidly weak to do anything about them.”
“Speak for yourself.”
She snorted. “Okay, fine. Good luck proving me wrong.” Stomping off, she only got a few feet before the chain around her ankle yanked on the one around my waist, making us both grunt with discomfort.
Swallowing back rapidly unfurling anger, I stalked to her side. “I’m glad you’re so full of energy. That’s going to be convenient for the next task.”
She scowled. “What task?”
“That.” I pointed toward the river with its crystal water. Parts of the blue waterway followed sedately with barely a ripple, while just before the calm pool, rapids danced and bounced over rocks. Those rapids were responsible for eighty percent of all electricity power at Fables, and whatever had damaged the hydro plant needed to be fixed well before ice arrived.
Luckily, the rapids were the last part of the river to freeze, normally waiting until early spring to turn solid completely, meaning the solar panels could pick up the slack as sunlight hours increased. However, during the dead of winter, every kilojoule generated by this river was valued and sorely needed.
“Come.” Tugging the leash around my waist, I gave her no choice but to follow me to the water’s edge. She came grudgingly, her body tense and lips pursed in frustration. My heart chose that moment to skip a stupid beat as the memory of her in the foyer slammed into me. “Tell me what we need to do.”
We.
In that second, she’d accepted that there was a we. That whatever separate paths we’d been on were now unarguably threaded into one.
That memory vanished as quickly as it’d arrived, dumping me back by the river.
And fuck me, I couldn’t remember how I’d gotten there or why.
For a terrifying second, I glanced around at a foreign land, and I didn’t have a goddamn clue who I was, where I was, or what I was supposed to be doing.
Oh, God.
Clammy sweat drenched me.
I sucked in a shallow breath.
Panic flowed swift, only to screech to a halt as my mind suddenly flooded with answers.
My valley. My river. Me.
Gemma.
I spun to look behind me, my heart unwilling to beat in fear that she’d been a mirage this whole time. That I’d made up the past few weeks. That I didn’t have anyone to call my own.
But she was there.
Watching me warily, her forehead pinched and teeth chewing on her bottom lip. “What? What happened?” She balled her hands as if she didn’t want to ask but felt like it was her duty after nursing me through the worst. “Are you...are you okay?”
Was I okay?
I don’t know.
What just happened?
I was used to my mind being riddled with barricades and embargos so memories couldn’t suck me down, but I’d never been so vacant before. Never forgot the fundamental pieces of my life.
It’s over.
You’re fine.
Don’t let her know.
Grunting, I cocked one shoulder as arrogantly as I could. “Of course, I’m okay. It’s a beautiful day and I’m with a beautiful girl.”
“Beautiful prisoner, don’t you mean?” she muttered.
“Beautiful regardless of ugliness between us.”
She sucked in a breath.
I didn’t like how I felt...tight and hot and needy. And I definitely didn’t like the words that’d spilled uncontrolled out of my mouth. I hadn’t meant to say such things. I hadn’t meant to have a blackout while still awake. I hadn’t meant to be this screwed up, fucked up, and totally floundering for help.
“Get naked,” I snapped. With our eyes locked, I reached behind my neck for my T-shirt and yanked it over my head. “Now.”
Her eyes trailed over my chest despite her annoyance. “Is this a striptease? Do you expect me to swoon at your feet?”
I smiled thinly, unbuttoning my jeans and shoving the zipper down. “You saying my body could drive you to swoon?” I kicked away the denim and, in the same move, shoved my black boxer briefs down my legs to join them on the pile.
She choked as her eyes fell on my naked cock. My very hard, very eager cock. “So this is where you plan to force me—”
“I told you, I have more important things to worry about.” Of course, if she showed a minuscule amount of interest in having me, I’d pounce on her and have her on her knees before she’d even said my name. The name she still hadn’t earned the right to use.
Do you want me like I want you, Gem?
I paused, searching her face for any sign that, beneath her exhausted fury, she was as wet as I was hard. The moment stretched, then ended. I nodded with disappointment, slowly growing black inside.
How long would I let her deny me? How soon would I snap and take her anyway? How would I cope knowing she’d hate me even more when I finally did? Did she think living with me came for free? She was only alive because I found her irresistibly attractive, conveniently arriving at a time when my body was making my life a living hell.
She’d been the pawn in which to bypass all the dirty shit inside my head. She could touch me; I could not. She could make me climax; I would never give myself that pleasure.
That was all I wanted from her, regardless of all the messy new thoughts and strangeness inside me. The moment my heart got in the way of my orgasms, then we had a whole other disaster to deal with.
“Undress,” I barked.
She bared her teeth. “No.”
“Fine.” I was in too much pain for another argument. Heading straight to the river, I waded in and exhaled heavily. God, it’d been too long since my last swim. The water never failed to calm me, clean me, and give me a sense of clarity from the tar inside my mind.