In more than a few ways, maybe this was what they both needed anyway. Maybe this would put the final, satisfying scratch on their electric itch. Once she experienced the true depravity of his dark side, she’d be ready to flip off her switch for him and then fry all the wires. And once he knew the full force of her disgust, it’d be easier to think about getting off this island.
It had to be this way.
It was better this way.
So what the hell? He might as well enjoy the freefall.
“You’ll find out when you find out,” he finally said, addressing her question with deceiving ease. She didn’t hold back on telling him what she thought of the purposeful enigma, narrowing her glower and pursing her lips. Dear fucking God, she was adorable at the height of her feist. “But I guarantee it’ll all be fun…at least for one of us.”
Her reaction was better than what he’d fantasized. Her eyebrows leapt back up, her mouth popped open, her breaths quickened to the point that her breasts bobbed with an alluring new cadence.
He was hypnotized by the sight—but only for a handful of seconds. He hadn’t been lying. They were only getting started. He had some lofty, nasty ideas for this woman’s gorgeous body, and new waves of creative inspiration were hitting by the minute.
But first, one more moment of beholding her face.
How brave she was trying to keep it, despite all the new quirks of fear his promise had brought on. A subtle but palpable flush crawled its way up from her chest, mixing with the bright blue dye dots from the foils still hanging out on her head. Her new color was going to be seventeen kinds of messed-up, especially after the new adventure he was concocting next, but he was beyond caring. A painfully hard dick could do that to a man, especially with an extraordinary woman who forced him to accept every drop of his testosterone.
The hormones that had him wrapping a hand to her nape and hauling her flush to him again.
That had him squeezing hard and jerking on the dry strands at the back of her head, silently ordering her to look up at him.
That had him falling into her beauty all over again, plunging his mouth solidly over hers.
At once, she opened for him. Like he was giving her any choice about it. Nevertheless, he reveled in the willing greed of her dancing tongue. All the gorgeous moans that came with it. All the passion he needed so badly, in every inch of his body and soul.
He needed…
And was going to take.
Until the ache persisted too hard. Or he straight-up died.
But damn it, what a way to go. This was good. So fucking good. She was so fucking perfect.
He necked with her like that much longer than he’d intended, but she tasted so much better than he remembered. Her natural jasmine and roses were sweetened by something else. Something with…caramel? Coffee? Tea? Candy? He didn’t care. The odd combination was his new crack.
But even junkies had to come down if they wanted their highs to be better.
He groaned, forcing his brain to accept that. Though he abhorred even the few inches between them now, he concentrated on the good shit to come.
The things he was about to command of her.
The erotic places he was going to take her to.
The no he prayed she’d banned as much as him.
“Checking in, sweetheart. You still okay?”
Finally, an easy request the man asked of her. As she answered him with a silent, steady nod, Jayd hoped the orders from here would be just as simple to heed.
But in so many ways, she didn’t.
Aside from the last week and a half, she had led a fairly charmed life. She was the first to admit that—and, concurrently, to hate it. Even her latest push at the boundaries, which had taken her all the way to Paris, hadn’t felt like a trial as much as an adventure.
Now that she wasn’t actually a princess, she still knew not if she even had the mettle of one. The courage to persevere through pain. The willingness to face her own fear and overcome it.
Granted, this was not like going into battle—but maybe, in many warped ways, it would help her with some of those blank pages.
Best of all, she would be doing it for Brickham. For his pleasure and approval. Right now, they both felt like everything.
“Good,” the man himself crooned, leaning over to buss her forehead. “That’s so good to know, because here we go.”
She was getting good at conveying questions with her gaze. Go? To where?
“As I said before, you’ll find out when you find out. But the first place you’ll travel is to your knees. Right here.”
Thank the Creator, another simple one. He made the moment even better by stripping off his shirt while she lowered to the tile. No way could she resist gazing up his massive body to admire the sculpted male triangle of his upper body. So many hard hills and etched valleys. There wasn’t a single soft spot on the man—a description that also applied to the part of him that supported the sharp tent in his cotton pants.
The part she also could not ignore. Oh no, not at all.
“You like looking at that, Pixie?” His soft snarl was tinged with rough pleasure now. He liked it when she gawked at him. Somehow she truly knew that. He teased her more, working the green fabric around his bulge. He tautened the fabric until it outlined its hard, heated girth.
“You like knowing what you’ve done to me there? How every inch of my cock clamors because of you?”
As Jayd watched, he kept working at the material against his erection. The rest of the world fell away. All she wanted, all she needed, was right there, pulsing with power and hardening with lust. All for her. All because of her. The thoughts made her dizzy. Fuzzy. Set her on fire with equally bright yearnings…
“You want a better look?” he husked at last—but she had no more nodded with eagerness before he said, “Well, you’ll get it soon.”
She rocked back on her haunches with a groan. The sexy bonsun before her responded with a similar sound. This could not be any easier for him, yet he was holding back—somehow, in some superhuman way—to give her all this. To show her his darkness. It was the bed she’d made, so now she would lie in it, though she prayed that took the form of her giant bed in the next room over, with Brickham pounding her into the mattress.
As if the man had also gained the ability to read her mind, he said then, “First things first, little pixie. If your hair dye was mud, we’d already have a filthy barnyard in here.” He gestured toward the bathtub with an elegance that was new for her. Gods of goodness, the force of nature could move like a summer breeze. If his goal was not to spoil her for any other man, he was miserably failing.
“Ready? Good.”
He stacked the words like splintered pallets, though that was less jarring than the action that accompanied them. His hand at the back of her head, anchoring into her scalp so he could guide her over to the tub. Yes, that forcibly. Yes, even with the three-day-old bullet wounds in his body.
“On your hands and knees is fine, sweetheart. I’m enjoying the view of my handiwork.”
Thank the Creator it was not too late to reconsider the spoiling her part.
The distance to the tub seemed twice as far with unusual parts of her slapping the tiles. She took no measure to hide her angry and embarrassed grunts, timed with every degrading moment of the ordeal. But between her peeved bursts, she became aware of another sound. Brickham’s bestial hums. The recognition that her servitude was bringing his pleasure.