I look out the small, oval-shaped window to my right and see nothing but an endless expanse of inky black ocean flecked with bits of moonlight. To my left, Lindsey is sitting with the same expression she has been wearing for the past few hours. Her eyes are wide, fingers are gripping her knees so tightly her nail beds are white, and her lips are parted.

It amused me at first to see her in a state of shock, but I’m actually starting to worry that she’s still not seeming to comprehend what’s happening. I meant what I told her this morning. I’m going to fuck her, but I want it to happen the way I want. She’s going to know full-well what she’s walking into. She’s going to have a clear head and all the time in the world to feel the inevitability of it. When I bend her over once and for all, I want her to have fought and clawed with herself to resist me and to have failed.

It will be a surrender like nothing she’s ever felt.

A defeat, but a defeat so sweet she’ll spend the rest of her life having dirty dreams about it, pinching her legs together in public places when the shadow of the memory skids across her consciousness. She’ll touch herself when she thinks about it in the shower or at night when she lays next to whatever guy she ends up settling on and marrying years from now.

In a lifetime full of dull, half-bright moments and missed opportunities, it will be like her sun, a memory so fucking blinding and intense that nothing else before or after will ever seem worthwhile. It will ruin her, and she’ll never forgive me for it, but she’s going to love it so much that she’d never change it.

So the least I can do is show her a little mercy on the flight to Germany. Yeah. I decided the whole European promo tour thing wouldn’t be so bad after all, as long as I could bring Lindsey. It’d give me something to keep me occupied during all the travel. I even went as far as inviting my sister, but she couldn’t come until tomorrow, so once my plane drops Lindsey and I off outside Prague, it’s going to loop back to grab Lydia.

I haven’t exactly filled Lindsey in on all the details yet. I decided to test her devotion to the whole ‘do anything’ idea and told her she had four hours to pack enough luggage for two weeks and to bring her passport. Thankfully she had one, or I would’ve lost a bit of the dramatic effect.

I fidget in my seat, glancing over at her for what feels like the hundredth time. She feels off-limits to me. It’s not a feeling I’m used to, and it’s going a long way toward making her develop into the only thing in the world I want. Call it simple-minded, but when you can have everything in the world for the right price or the right smile, there’s nothing more desirable than the one person who is still willing to say no. Even if their willpower is faltering by the minute.

A few days ago, I was starting to think what I was feeling for her was emotional, that maybe I was getting soft with the mountain man act. It’s not that, though. I was starved of stimulation out there. She came along and was the only thing to occupy my attention. That’s it. No emotional baggage. I’ll prove exactly that to myself when I decide to seal the deal.

For now, I think I’ll keep toying with her, because it’ll be that much sweeter to take her the way I want if I don’t have to resort to the big guns to prove she’s no different than the other girls.

“You okay?” I ask.

She gives me a strange look. “Why? Worried you may not have traumatized me enough for one day?”

“You look tense,” I say. “I’m not trying to traumatize you, you know.”

“Really?” she asks, voice dripping with disbelief.

I shrug, grinning a little. “Okay. I’ve tried a few times.”

She surprises me with a half-smile. “You know you’re not that bad when you let your guard down.”

“No? I’d better keep it up then. I don’t want you turning groupie on me again.”

She rolls her eyes, but I can see a flicker of amusement still pulling at her features. “Groupie for T.S. Barnes… Maybe. I just might let you have that one. But please don’t ever try to say I am a Chris Savage groupie.”

“What?” I ask. “Didn’t like the book?”

She turns her head, leaning it against the back of the seat and closing her eyes. “Hated it.”

“But you read it?” I ask.

She swallows before answering, clearly trying to think of what to say. I smirk.

“I did,” she admits. “But it was only for my job.”

“So you reviewed me on your blog?”

She looks back at me, eyes narrowed. “When did I tell you about my blog?”

Now it’s my turn to stall for time, because I forgot that little nugget of information was a result of my own digging. I may have searched her on the internet when I was a few beers deep into some self-loathing. So I also know she clearly did not like my book, because she ripped it a new one in her review. She probably thinks I’ll be pissed if I find out she blasted my book, and I have no plans to convince her otherwise; watching her squirm is too much fun.

“Looked you up,” I say, deciding to go for the unapologetic approach.

“What, were you doing a background check on me? I thought I was supposed to be the psycho stalker here.”

“My next-door neighbor practically broke into my house two nights in a row. How was I supposed to sleep at night? I had to make sure you weren’t a serial killer or maybe escaped from a mental asylum.”

“So you know about the bodies in my backyard then?” she asks.

“All I know is you had some fun playing big-time critic with my book.”

The color drains from her face, but she seems intent on sticking to her guns. “Are people not allowed to hate your book?”

“If they aren’t, then I’d be in trouble,” I say.

“Wait, you’re trying to tell me you don’t even like it?”

“Hate it.”

“Wow,” she says. “Maybe you’re not so bad after all.”

I chuckle. “What, you thought I was going to try to convince you it was a good book? It was shit. A money grab.”

“So that’s what T.S. Barnes was? What you’d write if you didn’t care about money?”

I shift, feeling suddenly uncomfortable to have the magnifying lens on myself. I put a lot of fucking effort into not trying to understand my own motives, so I feel oddly under-qualified to explain my own reasoning. “Don’t think so,” I say after thinking a few seconds. “Just something to do, I guess.”

“And the manuscript?” she asks.

“That’s enough about me,” I say, putting my hand on her knee and looking her in the eye, daring her to move it. It’s an asshole thing to do—shifting the conversation away like this, but I’m not in the mood to dig deep. Truth is I don’t expect some therapy session fifteen thousand miles up to suddenly uncork my creativity. No, that’s what I’m hoping her pussy will do. The thought turns my stomach a little. I’ve been shitty to Lindsey. I know I have, but I never asked her to come barging into my life. I didn’t want anyone to try to fix me. Besides, I’ve been transparent with her, and she’s still here. At some point a grown woman has to take responsibility for herself, even if she can’t understand what she’s really walking into, right?

To my surprise, she plucks my hand up by lifting it up with her thumb and forefinger like it’s a dead rat. “No touching,” she says.

She almost convinced me she’s unaffected by my touch. Almost. Until I see her squeeze her thighs together a few seconds later and shift in her seat. I smile to myself. This is going to be too easy. Too fucking easy.

Lindsey didn’t seem impressed by my private plane or the limo that picked us up from the airport, or even the fact that paparazzi managed to find out I’m in Germany and organize a small mob outside our hotel all in the span of thirty minutes. More points in her favor, I guess. Anything she can do to separate herself from the faceless mob of groupies in my memory is a plus, and I don’t think I’ve met a woman yet who wasn’t itching to open her legs for me as soon as she got a sniff of my money. Guess I wasn’t looking in the right places.

“This is you,” I say, dangling a room key in the air high enough over Lindsey’s head that she can’t reach it.

“Really?” she asks in a dry voice. “So your confidence that you’re going to fuck me comes because you’ve mastered middle school flirting?”

I laugh, dropping my arm and handing her the key. “Maybe I want more than a fuck,” I suggest.

She frowns, snatching the key and looking surprisingly hurt. “Look. I’m already feeling jet lagged. I’m trying my hardest to stay civil, but I’m thousands of miles from my sisters with practically no notice. And you still haven’t even given me a proper explanation for what we’re doing over here. I’ve made a fool of myself in front of you more times than I can count already, but please don’t assume that means I’m an idiot or some dumb fangirl you can just manipulate at will. If you want to play Mr. Bad Boy and talk big about wanting to sleep with me, then fine, but don’t even pretend you’d ever want more than that.”

She slips the keycard into her door, drags her small suitcase inside, and closes the door on me, leaving me standing like an idiot in the hallway.

I drag my shit into my own room and toss it on the bed before sitting down on the floor, back to the wall. I’ve heard worse from women before. Far worse. But Lindsey’s tongue-lashing stung more than I’d expect. I’m left with nothing to do but think about how I’ve actually treated her since we met. It’s easy to see it from my side, to justify all the sleights, but for her?

Fuck.

I hop to my feet, resolution solidifying in my chest as I leave my room and cross the hall to bang on her door.

“Lindsey,” I say. “Just want to talk.”

She opens the door with red eyes and a glare.

“Can you open the fucking door all the way?” I ask, trying to talk through the narrow sliver of space she’s giving me.

She closes the door to pull the lock back and opens it. “If you’re not here to apologize—”

“I’ve been an ass,” I say.

She raises an eyebrow. “But…” she says slowly.

“But I’m not apologizing for that. Not exactly,” I say with a sigh. “I’m…” I rub my hand across my nose, chewing my lip and searching the ceiling for the right words. “I’m working on it.”

She gives me an unimpressed look. “You’re working on it?”

“I’m not great at this whole apologizing thing. Haven’t exactly had much practice. I’m just saying I’ll try to go a little easier on you, from here out.”

“So you’ll drop all this macho crap about how you’re going to sleep with me?”

“I didn’t say that.”

She shakes her head, but there’s a glint of laughter in her eyes. “I guess I’ll have to take that. For now. I have to ask though. Why should I believe you actually want to sleep with me?” The way she can’t seem to hold eye contact with me after she asks the question exposes a kind of self-consciousness she has kept well-hidden. And damn, it’s probably a good thing, because it’s sexy as hell to see a woman so fiery let her weaknesses show. The longer I spend around her, the more determined I am to get one taste of her before I…

Before I cut her loose?

It’s what I’m planning, isn’t it? So why does it feel so shitty now? My mouth moves ahead of my brain, making sure I don’t have a chance to back off from what I’ve said by doubling down, despite my doubts.

“Why would I want to sleep with you?” I ask. “I never said anything about sleeping with you. I said I wanted to fuck you. There’s a difference.”