My knees unlocked, breaking my frozen state and making me pace.

She kneeled there quietly, waiting.

Once again, I faced a fork in the road, giving me another chance to choose a different path. And yet again, I refused.

Forcing myself to stop in front of her, I crossed my arms. Threateningly, aggressively, all the while fighting the debilitating urge to shove her onto her back and climb inside her.

The sunburn only added another dimension to her. It made the hidden parts of me want to soothe her, heal her, be responsible for her happiness as well as her pain.

“If you feel something for me…why did you run?” I struggled to say such revealing things.

“I didn’t run.” She held my stare even though she trembled. “I waited for you in full view.”

“I’m not talking about this afternoon.” I ran a hand over my mouth. “And you waited for me to land because you knew you had no choice.”

“I did. I had a choice of you or death.” Her teeth bared, a spark replacing the sudden softness. “I chose you.”

I swallowed my snarl, but it still echoed in my voice. “Wrong decision.”

“Is it?” She cocked her head. “I’m not so sure.”

“All I’m sure about is you ran the moment my back was turned.”

“I had no choice.”

“Of course you had a fucking choice!”

Her eyes glossed with more tears, but she refused to let them fall. “I had to try, don’t you see? You talk of value. You speak of money. But what about the cost of my own self-worth?” She went to stand, but I clamped my hand on her shoulder, keeping her bowing before me.

She shivered at my touch.

My fingers blazed with biting, burning fire.

I let her go, shaking out the agony.

She shook her head, confusion and calamity ripe between us. “I couldn’t stay without at least attempting to escape. I could never have lived with myself—despite what I may or may not feel.”

I stood upright, crossing my arms. “And what do you feel?”

“I don’t know. What do you feel?”

“I’ve already told you.” My voice lowered with a growl. “All I feel is inconvenienced.”

“Liar,” she hissed.

“Be careful, Jinx. Be very fucking careful.”

“Just like you’re careful around me? I see two sides to you, Sully Sinclair. I know there’s something between us—”

“There is something between us. It’s called a fucking contract, and the fact that I bought you.” Punching myself in the chest, I snarled, “That’s it, Eleanor Grace. Don’t romanticise this situation. Don’t mistake my islands for a backdrop of some fairy-tale. You work for me. You belong to me. I will do what I please with you, when I please it. If I want you in my bed, I will have you in my bed. If I want you to serve my guests, then that is what you will do. That’s all that’ll ever be between us. Understand?”

She clenched her teeth, glaring at the grass cushioning her naked body. “I will never understand how you can treat animals with such kindness yet hurt your own kind with such contempt.”

“Oh, believe me.” I chuckled blackly. “That part is easy.”

“None of this is easy!” She swiped at a lonely, glittering tear. “Why can’t you admit that—”

“I admit that I’ve been moronic when it comes to you. But this, whatever this is, ends. Right here. Right now. Accept that I will never treat you any different. Accept that whatever exists between us is over. I own you. That is the extent of our connection.”

A defiant whisper tumbled from her lips. “I don’t accept.”

I leaned closer, taunting her. “I’m sorry? I didn’t catch that.”

Her eyes locked on mine, blazing with smoke. “I said, I will never accept that you own me. You don’t own me. You will never own me.”

“Oh, no?” Ripping at my tie, I yanked it off and, with quaking hands, collared it around her throat. Pulling on the remaining length, I growled, “I paid money to receive you. I have the bill of sale. You eat my food. You sleep in my bed. You sunbathe on my goddamn beach. And now…now you wear my leash.” My nose almost brushed hers, our breaths mingling, our chemistry igniting. “If you aren’t a paid pet, then what are you?”

“I’m not afraid of you.”

“So why are you trembling?”

She panted as my gaze locked on her mouth. Her sweet, perfect, delicious fucking mouth. “Why are you?”

“Because I’m seconds away from either fucking you or killing you, and I don’t know which will win—”

Swooping up, she crashed her mouth to mine.

The second her lips touched mine…everything I’d fought for collapsed.

My control.

My willpower.

Gone.

Dust.

Desire.

Digging two handfuls in her hair, I jerked up. She rose to her knees, completely at my command. Deepening the kiss, giving her no leniency or kindness, I took and fucking took.

Her fingernails dug into my wrists, holding onto me as I plunged my tongue into her mouth.

Just like our previous kisses, there was nothing soft or sweet. It was war. Vicious and fiendish, sending lust licking like a whip.

She moaned and tried to stand, but I kept her hovering, subservient and submissive, trapped and tormented.

Our teeth clacked together. She fought back. Her tongue swiped against mine. Everything else vanished. The fact that I had to be back later for a guest’s arrival. The fact that I’d commanded the pilot to collect us after I’d disciplined my goddess. The fact that I’d flown halfway across the goddamn planet, only to turn around again the moment I thought I’d lost this girl.

All of it. All my mistakes and downfalls disappeared as I turned the kiss into raw violence.

She cried out as I crashed to my knees and kissed her harder. She tried to get free, but I held her firm, sucking out her oxygen, her soul, taking everything she refused to give me.

I’d bought her, yet I couldn’t control a fucking thing about her.

I can’t control myself.

That had to change. She had to understand she couldn’t say no to me. No to my authority, my requests, my guests. No to anything I wanted.

And what I wanted was her.

No matter how much I denied it, refused it.

I want her.

Beneath me, beside me.

I need her.

She gasped as I kissed her so deep, our noses pressed into corresponding cheeks. I suffocated on her, and she suffocated on me. We tried to inhale, but all we could steal was each other. Sharing air. Partaking in the other’s lust.

Because it was lust that drove this battle.

She couldn’t hide the way her nipples pebbled to hardened stone. She couldn’t silence her cries as my hands slipped from her hair and fisted her breasts. She couldn’t disguise the way her body turned to liquid as I shoved her backward, spreading her out on the grass as I crawled over her.

One hand dug into the earth by her head while the other swooped from her breast to cup around her throat.

Her pulse pounded against my thumb. She arched up as I kissed her deep, deep, deep. She spread her legs as I lowered myself between them.

Our argument and denial shredded any illusion that this potency, this wicked punishment, wasn’t filled with things we refused to admit. We had chemistry. Chemistry that only appeared when two corresponding pieces met. A hum. A force. A link that vibrated at a frequency that knitted blood to blood, bone to bone, soul to fucking soul.