Chapter Five

Jewell closed her eyes and tried to think, tried to get her head around what was happening. “You don’t want me,” she told him, not sure if she was trying to convince herself or trying to convince Blake. “You know you don’t.”

“Yes, I want you, Jewell. Just as much as you want me.”

“I’m always sure, and I’m always to the point. By the way, I became acquainted with some facts after you were gone.”

Yes, facts. Had he learned that she’d been telling the truth? Whatever. She couldn’t help but correct his language. After you were gone? “You mean after you screwed me on your truck and then dumped me off, like the trashy whore I am, at the back door of Relinquish Control.”

He laughed, actually laughed at what she’d just said. She wanted desperately to reach out and slap the smug look right off his face. How dare such a worthless, perverted man laugh at her? He was in serious danger right then, and from the continued mirth she saw dancing in his eyes, it was apparent that he knew that — and wasn’t in the least worried.

“Calm down, Jewell. We’re not getting anywhere with your little burst of temper. Though, I must say, it turns me on to see such fire light up in your eyes,” he said with a wink. “You’re cute when you’re mad. But we can certainly put your heightened emotions to better uses than venting.”

Oh how she wished she could be as cold and unaffected as this ice sculpture of a man. He wouldn’t know true human emotion if it were right in front of him — which it was, since she was aching inside and out. And that was insane. She now had no idea about her own inner self, her own inner passions, so she had to throw her confusion back at him.

“Why are you the way you are, Blake? How can you be so cavalier, so unfeeling? Don’t you care at all about anyone but yourself?” She was vulnerable, angry, and struggling with other emotions she didn’t even know how to name.

“I see nothing wrong with the way I act,” he said levelly, refusing to back away despite her words. As a matter of fact, he drew nearer, and there wasn’t much nearer to go. “I like who I am, and I know that you lose any sense of control when you’re anywhere near me. No one can make you feel any emotion, Jewell. We choose how we feel; we choose what we think, what we want, what we desire. You can choose to enjoy this, or you can choose to run from it. But either way, you are mine, and I know you want me. I know you want all of this. To try to escape when we’ve come so far together would be the act of an airhead. And I know you’re not an airhead.”

The way his breath whispered over her flesh, across her cheek, her lips, her neck, made her shiver. To even try to deny it would be a wasted effort — they’d both know she was lying.

Jewell instead did something she knew she’d later regret — or maybe not — but she acted with emotion, with rage, with desire. She clenched her fist involuntarily and watched, almost as an outsider looking in, as her fist rose and slammed into the side of his face.

And yet his expression remained neutral, and though he flinched, it was almost imperceptible. He simply stared at her with eyes that were still knowing. That was outside of enough. And then she was pulling back and slamming her fist into his jaw again.

When she still didn’t get a reaction from him, she lost all vestiges of sanity, and lifted both hands, her claws coming out as she reached for him and tugged on his hair. She was beyond reason and control now, lost in a blaze of fury. The past few months had come to a head.

Who in the hell did he think he was? It wasn’t fair that that he could mess so easily with her emotions, and that he even got to choose her destiny. He had no right to make her feel anything. She’d thought she could spend the next month as a hollow shell, devoid of any feeling, whether good or bad, but how could she possibly be like that with Blake? This was a battle she couldn’t win. And what she’d just done, when lost in a blaze of fury, made her utterly ashamed. Was she really that kind of woman? No better than an animal?

But for some reason she couldn’t retreat entirely. But her next words — “I hate you!” — which she almost screamed when he still showed her no reaction, didn’t do her proud.

Then, so quickly that she had zero chance of stopping him, he thrust out one hand and grabbed both of hers, then jerked her arms up while the fingers of his other hand snaked behind her head and tangled in her hair.

Before she could even think of struggling, she was being pulled up from the chair and shoved backward until she was flat against the wall, his body a mass of steel boxing her in. Her arms were stretched high above her head, her heart thudding and her breath gone yet again.

Blake displayed just a hint of emotion as he pushed against her, and she couldn’t mistake how hard their struggle had made him. That somehow turned her rage into a burning passion — a passion she despised herself for feeling.

Before she was able to recover, to firmly lock away anything other than hatred for the man who had trapped her both financially and physically, his eyes grew narrow and he went on the attack. He bent his head down and captured her mouth in a kiss of pure — and impure — possession.

The three months they’d been apart evaporated in an instant and she was right back with him, right where they’d been their last night together, where anger and frustration had morphed into heat and ecstasy.

His kiss was masterful, and it didn’t take him long to part her closed lips and access the warm recesses of her needy mouth. There was hunger, danger, and so much more in the way he held her body, the way he completely devoured her, leaving no room for thoughts of anything or anyone but him.

One feeling merged into the next as he plundered her mouth, intimately reacquainting himself with the feel and touch of her, making her knees grow weak, her heart beat erratically, and her core heat to the point of boiling. This was pure sex at its most basic level.

His fingers tightened in her hair and he moved his body rhythmically against hers, his arousal pressing as intimately against her womanhood as their clothes would allow. She was ready, so ready, for him to take her.

“I want you, Jewell; I want you more than I’ve ever wanted any other woman. You make me burn,” he said when he pulled back for air. He trailed his lips down her throat after his words made her insides seem to dissolve.

Jewell tried to remember why this was wrong. She tried to regain her equilibrium, but she couldn’t think, couldn’t move, couldn’t even breathe, let alone try to resist this pull he had on her. She knew she would hate him and herself even more, but she couldn’t stop herself from responding.

The only way this would end was if he put on the brakes.

But Blake obviously wasn’t finished yet. He freed her hands only to let his fingers glide down her body, stroking the sensitive flesh of her sides, hips and ass. Her head fell back and a sigh escaped her lips while he caressed the skin of her neck with his mouth.

It took a moment for her to realize he had finally stilled. He rested his hands on her hips, and his mouth no longer made its seductive way along her skin. She slowly tilted her head forward and once again found her eyes captured by his ardent gaze.

It must have been an eternity that the two of them stood there, neither saying a word, their breathing now returning to something like normal — though Jewell’s body would never be normal again. She didn’t know what to do or say, and she still couldn’t think with his hard body pressed against hers.

But the silence was getting to her, and when she thought she couldn’t take it another second longer, she finally opened her lips, ran her tongue slowly along their swollen edges, and then took a deep breath before she spoke.

“That didn’t prove anything” was what came out, but not nearly as strongly as she’d intended.

Blake threw her a hint of a smile and leaned a little closer. When he finally replied, his mouth was back to within inches of hers.

“I think it proved exactly what it was supposed to, Jewell.”

“And what is that, Blake? That you have power over me? That no matter what I do or say, you’ll still get exactly what you want? Well, if that’s what you’re trying to prove, congratulations, you did it. Yes, you can force me to do what you want. You’re bigger, stronger, and far more manipulative than I am. And anyway, this is what you paid for, right?” She hoped she’d infused her voice with as much disdain as she possibly could.

“You’ve developed some bite in the time we’ve been apart,” he said, his voice smooth and sounding almost … impressed.

She wasn’t sure she liked that. She was trying to sound fierce, intimidating, frightening. She wasn’t supposed to be turning him on even more.

“Yes, I have. In the months since you discarded me so carelessly, I’ve developed a bit of a spine. You’ll find that I’m not the same submissive little girl you abused to your heart’s desire. Oh, sorry — you’ve never had a heart. But so you see, you’ve wasted your money, Blake Knight, because I won’t be what you want.”

“Oh, Jewell, I know exactly what I want,” he said, running his hand through her hair again. “And it’s most certainly you. Besides, wasn’t I promised anything I want for the next thirty days?”

A shudder ran through her. She needed the money that this month would bring in, and they both knew it. But she hadn’t counted on how much she loathed the idea of being some man’s toy, any man’s toy. But Blake’s especially, because she knew she wouldn’t be able to keep her emotions out of it.

“You did buy me, so, yes, I guess you get to do whatever you want. But I won’t enjoy it; nor will I try to make it better for you. Be warned.”

“That’s where we’ll agree to disagree,” he whispered. “I know for a fact that you’ll not only enjoy it, but beg me for more. And more. And more.” With those last six words, he brushed his lips against hers. “And I’ll definitely give it to you.”

What he said made liquid heat course through her veins. Yes, he’d given her pleasure, pleasure beyond anything she could have ever imagined. But he’d also given her so much pain. And the pain was what she was afraid of. She’d suffered enough emotional trauma to last her a lifetime.

He could destroy her so easily — she had no doubt of that. But he owned her, at least her body, and there was nothing she could do about it. Why fight it? Why even try? Because even though he owned her body, he couldn’t own her mind, her heart, her soul, or at least what pieces of those things she still had.

“You know I’ll hate you forever, Mr. Knight.” Knight! Pschaw! No shining armor here.

Only a tiny spark igniting in his eyes showed her that her words had registered. When his lips parted, she waited for the backlash. She didn’t get it.

“I don’t require any emotion from you except for passion,” he said almost dismissively. “A nice, basic animal response.”

The words stung more than she’d ever admit.

“Then we’re on the same page,” she told him, “because you won’t get anything other than my body.”

How desperately she wished that he would give her just a bit of breathing room.

“Ah, Jewell, the fire in you is what made me come back, what made me have to see this through to the end.”

“You mean until thirty days are up, don’t you, Blake? That’s when I’ll be free of you, you know.”

He stared her down in silence, showing nothing in his ice-cold eyes. She wouldn’t break the silence, though. This was up to him.

“No, Jewell. We won’t be done until I’m finished with you.”

Jewell had no idea what that could possibly mean.