His free hand skated over my side, caressing my contours, touching the globes of my breasts flattened on the table. “I’m also reminding myself that thanks to your little ‘outburst’, the amount men will pay has just quadrupled.”

He chuckled blackly. “Men are all the same, you see. We pretend we want amiable and capable. We tell poised and powerful women that we are proud and find their independence such a fucking turn-on. But really…we want a fight. We want claws and disobedience because then it gives us the right to retaliate.” He grabbed a handful of my ass, squeezing brutally hard.

I’d have bruises. I’d remember his possessive grip for all time.

“You’ve had a chance to tell me your truth, now…allow me to return the favour.” His hand slipped to my crack, tracing the sensitive, personal area and making me squirm uncomfortably. “Because you are new here, you lack appreciation of how rare it was for me to request the company of a girl. I never bother myself with a goddess once they’ve arrived. I leave their initiation and training to the highly qualified and obscenely paid staff who ensure my girls are content and my guests are sated and well catered to.”

“You’re not god, you know. Let me go.”

“Hush. Your time of talking is over.” He dipped a finger into my crack, pressing my underwear tight against my flesh. “It’s time to listen, rebellious Jinx.”

Not allowing me any leeway, he shoved his free hand up my dress and found the waistband of my lacy peach knickers that I’d found in the wardrobe in my villa. Without any request or hesitation, he yanked them down.

I clamped my thighs together.

It made no difference.

He kept pulling until air licked my exposed skin and the horrid sensation of having pieces of me stripped away once again made angry tears burn my eyes.

“You act as if I’m the worst human alive. You paint me as the villain, even if your life wasn’t as perfect as you make it out to be before you were stolen. You detest me.” Keeping his one hand clutching my nape and pinning me down, he bent as much as he could and jerked my knickers to the floor.

They locked around my ankles as he kicked my legs apart, acting as shackles, reminding me I was his prisoner, whether I wanted it or not.

His hand clamped on my hipbone. “Do you know my goddesses would be insanely jealous if they saw you? If they saw us.” He rocked his groin into me, hinting only his clothing stopped him from taking anything he wanted. “I have eavesdroppers. They report on what my girls discuss.” His voice lowered to a whisper, sharing a secret with me. “They plot for ways to seduce me. To trick me into falling in love with them.”

Bending over me fully, his suit brought stagnant heat and unbearable weight against my back. “Want to know why? Why bought and sold women no longer hate me but devise ways to make me keep them?” He bit the shell of my ear. “Because, little Jinx, they want access, not just to my fortunes, but to this very island they call home. They never want to leave. They don’t want to stop being free in their pleasure. They want to fuck and orgasm for the rest of their godforsaken lives. And they think by fucking me, they’ll get their wish.”

I moaned against my will as his hand trailed between my legs, stopping dangerously high on the inside of my thigh. “Are you wet?”

His question was short and sharp, unlike his lulling storybook of lies from before.

I bared my teeth with rage. I struggled to look into his eyes, unable to turn my head with his unyielding hold. “No, I am not wet, you cretin. You didn’t force-feed me that drug, so hell no, I’m not wet. I will never get wet for you.”

He chuckled low and vain. “Never is a challenge.”

“Never is the truth.”

His eyebrow cocked. “I think I’ll find a different truth.” He laid more weight on me, making it hard to breathe. His mouth found my ear again, but this time, he didn’t speak.

He kissed.

His lips were soft and coaxing, gentle and confiding. His tongue traced the shape of my lobe, trailing down my throat, pausing over my pounding pulse.

“Get off me!”

He made a guttural noise as I bucked beneath him, hating, hating, hating that heat swarmed outward; an intoxicating melting in my core that had nothing to do with this perverse punishment and everything to do with hardwiring of skin and synapses and the unbreakable connection of touch and want.

It was as debilitating as taking a drug to hijack my brain’s pathways. Yesterday, he’d used my mental desire against me. Today, he conjured entirely physical. Both I had no control over, even though I hated him to the point of tears. Even though I would willingly stab a dagger into his black-crippled heart. “Stop.”

“Not until I prove a point.”

“There is no point.”

“There is if you’re wet.” A smile tainted his vibrating timbre. “Wouldn’t that just topple you further from your self-imposed grace?”

“Don’t mistake a bodily function for anything other than what it is.”

“So, you’re saying I should just fuck you and not hold myself back because it’s just a bodily function?”

I tried to hide my fearful quake. I didn’t succeed. “You can do anything you want to me. You’ve proven that over and over again. You could fuck me. You could kill me. There is no one to stop you. But you’re lying to yourself if you think I want you just because my body might do something against my will.”

“So you don’t deny I’m making you wet.”

“You have nothing to do with it. It’s—”

“I have everything to do with it.” His lips skated over my throat again, making me shudder. “You’re flushed. In another few minutes, I guarantee when I insert a finger inside you, you’ll want it.”

“I’ll never want it,” I growled as much as I could with him stopping my ribcage from expanding for air. “A man gets hard because of blood flow to the area. A woman gets wet because of the same thing. It’s just biology.”

“It’s stimulation.” He unsheathed his teeth, scraping sharp canines along the path he’d just kissed.

“It’s manipulation.” I bucked again, wedging my hands under me against the table, trying to push up.

He pulled back a fraction, giving me space to inhale a large suck of oxygen. The life-giving air made my head swim, and for the first time since waking after the most horrendous day of my life yesterday, I noticed how weak I was.

How my biceps wobbled without much strength. How my stomach fluttered around emptiness. How my entire body started to shake, almost uncontrollably—not because of Sully’s nasty experiment, but because my blood sugar levels had finally crashed.

Whatever leftover energy I had vanished in a single breath, leaving me woozy, nauseous, and feeble.

I’d never let myself get to this level of starvation before. I was a smart traveller and always had muesli bars, trail mix, or a sugary drink in my bag, just in case we were exploring too far from a food source.

But here, I hadn’t eaten since arriving. All I’d had was some stale crackers in a plane crate. God, how long ago was that? This monster thought he looked after his possessions. He gloated about his girls wanting to seduce him so they became his for eternity when he couldn’t even stop torturing me long enough to ensure I wouldn’t die from malnutrition.