by Melody Anne
“I don’t want you to leave,” he said, removing his hand and resting it on her shaking stomach.
“I…I can’t think, Blake. Please stop touching me.”
The hint of desperation in her voice made him pause. Though it pained him to pull back, he did, but only after thrusting his tongue out to get one final taste of her nipple before he released her.
“You don’t need to think, Jewell. When you’re in my bed, all you need to do is feel.” Okay, he could admit that sounded corny! To save face, he was left with no choice but to accompany his words with a cocky smile, one that instantly irritated her.
For some reason, he couldn’t seem to stop pushing her buttons, even when he actually wanted to stop. Maybe it was because the fire in her eyes turned him on, and maybe it was his armor locking into place, but whatever the reason, he could see that she was pulling back from him. He refused to show her that it mattered to him.
“I came here for a reason,” she said, reaching for a blanket and covering herself, much to his disappointment.
“And that reason was accomplished,” he told her with another confident smile.
“I didn’t come here to screw you, Blake,” she told him, scorn dripping from her tongue.
He leaned in even closer, making her eyes fly wide open and her breath hitch. “Oh, Jewell, don’t lie to me or to yourself — I won’t allow it. You can’t honestly tell me that you didn’t come here knowing you’d end up in my bed.”
When her breath caught in her throat and she was at a loss for any comebacks, only then did he sit up and fold his hands behind his head as if he had nothing more important to do than hang out in his bed with a raging erection while the two of them chatted.
Blake had to grin when he noticed her eyes straying to his arousal before darting back up to his face. “You can climb on and take me for a ride if you want to,” he remarked, and those words earned him a glare.
“How can a person think about nothing but sex?” she said with a frustrated sigh.
“I find it very easy when I have such a captivating partner, Jewell.”
“We have to talk,” she told him.
“That is the last thing I’m in the mood for right now,” he replied.
“You can only keep me in a sex coma for so long, Blake.”
Throwing up his hands in defeat, he backed off, which surprised him. This woman made him do things he wasn’t willing to do, and what bothered him most about that was that it didn’t actually bother him.
“So, what do we need to discuss?” Blake finally asked her.
“My brother. What else?” she said as she gripped the blankets tightly against her luscious breasts. He’d so hoped that she’d let the damned covers slip.
“I told you I’ll help you get him back.”
“But how? I want to know how.”
“I know people,” he said. He couldn’t tell her his plans yet, couldn’t make things happen too quickly, or she would be gone the minute she had her little brother in her custody. That he couldn’t allow. Not yet, at least.
His arousal died down as the depressing topic drove away any thoughts of sex. Blake stood up and yanked on his sweats, frustrated that his evening wasn’t going the way he had hoped.
“You got your sex. Now give me my brother,” she demanded, her words stopping him where he stood at the foot of the bed and causing his eyes to narrow briefly.
He carefully turned his face into a blank so she wouldn’t see what her words were doing to him. He did want sex, that was true, and for her to trade her body for her brother is what he’d asked of her. So why did he feel as if he’d been punched in the gut?
Ridiculous. That’s what it was. He wouldn’t tolerate weakness in himself. If she wanted to play dirty, then dirty is what she would get.
“Do you really think I’m that easy, Jewell?” he asked in a deadly cold voice. She flinched and he refused to let it make him feel a single thing.
“Yes. I think that you’re an emotionless drone and you’ll do anything it takes to get what you want. You wanted sex. You got it. I want my brother. I think I’ve earned the right to get what you offered.” Her chin tilted up in the stubborn way it did when she was terrified but trying to hide it. How was it that he knew so much about her when he’d spent so little time with her?
He couldn’t answer that question. Maybe it was because he hadn’t seemed to be able to think of anything or anyone else but her since the moment he’d walked into that sleeping area at the escort agency and seen her sitting up in that small bed.
“Do you really think you’ve done enough for me to let you go? I have you for an entire month, Jewell — at least.”
Again she flinched, and again he refused to back down. If she saw how weak he really was when it came to her, she would be the one with all the power. That was simply unacceptable.
“I do,” she said, the words barely above a whisper.
“You aren’t a stupid woman, Jewell, not at all. So why do you want to act like one?”
“I’m not acting stupid. I’m trying to get you to honor your word,” she replied.
“If you think I’m letting you go this easily, you are behaving stupidly. Don’t forget that I paid a quarter of a million dollars for the privilege of doing anything I want with you. Your services didn’t come cheap, sweetheart. Mine won’t either.”
He turned away as he took a deep breath. Unbelievably, this conversation was taking a lot out of him. It shouldn’t. He was letting her upset him and that wasn’t even a little okay.
“So you threaten me, bribe me, then get what you want and won’t hold up to your word?”
That made his hands clench into fists. When he felt the urge to slam them into the wall, he knew this conversation had best end soon. It wasn’t going at all the way it should. Finally, he turned back around and the look on his face must not have been as composed as he had thought it was, because she seemed to shrivel down into the bed.
“Believe me, Jewell, if I threaten or blackmail you in any way, there will be no doubt. I don’t need to hide my words in secret meanings. I don’t need to beat around the bush. I will express myself very loudly and clearly, and I will get exactly what I want,” he said harshly.
“But I did what you wanted,” she practically cried.
“You haven’t even tapped the surface of what I want!”
She glared at him as she tried to find words, and he was eager to hear what she would say next. With Jewell, he really had no idea. She was obviously feeling forced into a corner, but that was good right now. Sometimes that’s what it took to make people go outside their comfort zone. She wanted him. She just felt that she had to be pushed to accept that. He could live with being the one to push her.
Her expression hardened. “How long will you want me in your bed, Blake?” She was waiting for a number.
The question made him smile. No, not a real smile, but a smile of a shark about to snatch its prey.
“Do you really want to hear my answer, Jewell?” he asked, his lips turning up even more.
“What? A month? A year?”
“Ah, Jewell, you underestimate yourself. Do you really want your brother? Will you really do whatever it takes to get him?” He refused to even think about the small sting of regret his atrophied conscience might try to make him feel over his next words. Look, this was just another business deal. It didn’t make him a monster.
“Yes, I’m willing to do whatever it takes, Blake. You obviously know that.” Her voice dripped with loathing.
“Good.” He said the word and then turned his back on her as if the conversation were done.
She jumped from the bed, jerking on the blanket and wrapping it awkwardly around her delectable body.
“Don’t walk away from me, Blake. Tell me what you want,” she demanded.
He faced her again and pulled her into his arms, kissing her breathless before he spoke. “If you want your brother, then you will rip up this contract, and you will remai
n mine.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m not letting you go, Jewell — maybe ever. Quit planning your escape, quit trying to leave me, and just agree to belong to me.”
“I don’t belong to anyone. And what makes you think that I would keep my word? I could tell you anything you want to hear right now, and then walk out anyway,” she pointed out.
That stopped him for a moment. She was correct. What could he do that would ensure she wouldn’t leave him? He paused as he looked down at her and then he got an idea. No. That was ridiculous. It was something he’d vowed never to do. So he was just as shocked as Jewell when the next words emerged from his mouth.
“Marry me and I’ll give you your brother.”
When her mouth dropped open, she was incapable of speech, so Blake decided to kiss her again. In his book, after all, she’d just consented and it was time to seal the deal.
Chapter Eleven
Whoosh! Her lungs were robbed of oxygen. She really had to have heard Blake wrong — he couldn’t have just told her the price she’d have to pay to get her brother back was marriage to him.
Why in the world would he want to marry her?
When he finally released her from his grasp, she stumbled backward, still clutching the blanket to her as if her life depended on it. Maybe it did. Everyone talked about security blankets. This blanket represented her sanity, and if she lost her hold on this fine bit of fabric, she would also lose her hold on her mind. Heck, that made as much sense as Blake’s demand that she marry him.
And yet these strange thoughts gave her new determination, and she changed her focus. She wouldn’t reply to his off-the-wall proposal. If she didn’t reply, then it was a nonissue, right? Of course it was. So instead of even looking at the wretched man, she moved away from him and went off to get her clothes, which were strewn around back in his front hall. Somehow managing to keep a grip on her blanket, she reached out with her other hand and gathered up her clothing, some of it rather the worse for wear…and tear.
Maintaining a resolute silence, she walked to his bathroom, and firmly shut the door. The next thing she knew, she was in the shower. How had that happened? One second she was thinking she needed to get clean, she had to get clean, and then the next, hot water was cascading over her.
When she realized she was still clutching her so-called security blanket, she let it fall to the shower floor and kicked it into the corner, where its luxurious silk now lay ruined. She peeked through the glass doors and was grateful to see she’d at least dropped her clothes on the bathroom floor.
If she hadn’t, she’d be wringing them out and putting them on as they were, and then wandering outside cold, wet and confused. Just to cap everything off, of course, the police would surely pick her up and haul her down to the station, and they’d probably treat her like the prostitute that she was. With those happy reflections, she washed her hair and kept scrubbing her body, and when the bathroom was thick with steam, she shut off the water, climbed out of the massive shower, and took her sweet time in toweling off.
When her clothes were back firmly in place, offering her a measure of protection from Blake — yeah, right, just like they had earlier — she decided she couldn’t hide out in his bathroom any longer. She needed to get out of his apartment so she could try to figure out what in the world she was going to do next.
Why had his words shocked her so much? She didn’t know. It wasn’t as if she planned on marrying someday — especially now, given her recent job history — so why should a piece of paper upset her? Maybe because at one time in her life, marriage had actually meant something special. It had been a cherished dream of hers to fall in love, have a dream wedding with a meaningful church ceremony, and then have a few children and two cats in the yard. But that dream had seemed to die around the time she buried her mother.
But maybe there was still a small piece of her that held hope of a “brighter tomorrow.” But with Blake eclipsing the sun from her life, that wasn’t likely. Maybe she just needed to accept that some people didn’t get the fairy tale they thought they deserved.
Yet Jewell knew deep down inside, and had known it even when in her darkest moments of despair, that life would change, that someday things would eventually even out and she’d have days of true happiness. Sometimes, though, that seemed a deluded fantasy.
What Jewell really didn’t understand at all was what he’d get out of marrying her. He could have anyone; he could be with the wealthiest of the wealthy, with landed aristocrats, and even with royalty. What in the world would ever make him even think of tying himself down with her? She was a nobody who could do nothing for him.
When she finally slipped on her shoes, she got ready to flee, but when she reached the front door, she found him standing there, his face a mask.
There was no way of escaping unless she suddenly developed some prize football prowess and could knock him on his ass and rush over his stunned body. That thought nearly made her smile — almost, but not quite.
“I need to go,” she said, standing far enough away that he couldn’t snake out his arms and grab her.
“You haven’t responded to my request yet, Jewell. You’re the one who wanted to talk, and when I did talk, you rushed off into another room for an hour and then you headed straight for the front door. To me, that’s not talking.” He had propped himself up against the door, and the doorknob was hidden behind him.
Taking a calming breath, Jewell looked at his nose, knowing better than to meet his eyes. “Yes, I wanted to talk. I was wrong. I…this…I can’t think,” she stammered, frustrated that she couldn’t find the words she wanted to find. “You already have me in your bed. I don’t understand why you want more than that. It doesn’t make sense, and my head is too muddled right now to try to make anything make sense, so I need to just be alone. Please.”
He didn’t move.
So much for attempting to reason with him, she thought bitterly. “Look, Blake, I’ll do anything to get my brother back, but that doesn’t mean you have to marry me to continue getting me in your bed. You paid for me, remember? Of course you do. You reminded me of it earlier in your inimitable way. Hell, I know that I wouldn’t quickly forget paying a quarter of a million dollars for someone or something. Ms. Beaumont was quite specific: I have to make you happy. But now…I just…I need to go right now.”
He still didn’t move, which made her even more nervous.
“Why don’t you want to marry me, Jewell?”
She stopped squirming and finally looked in his eyes, but as usual, his expression showed her nothing.
“Because even though I’ll probably never get married, the act of marriage still means something to me. It’s not a charade, and though a lot of people seem to see it as simply a virtually meaningless piece of paper legally binding two people until they tire of each other, I was taught that it’s more than that…”
“Our marriage will be real,” he told her calmly.
“There won’t be a marriage, Blake. I don’t know when or how you got this idea, but it’s not going to happen,” she said, her voice rising.
“I met with the judge, Jewell, and he told me that because you didn’t meet with the conditions the court set, you would have zero chance of getting your brother back unless you were married to a solid member of the community.”
What he said knocked her feet right out from under him. This was too close to what the attorney had said to her.
“I…I…How can they put that sort of condition on getting custody? It’s wrong,” she said, her head spinning.
“It is what it is, Jewell.” He was speaking so casually — as if he had conversations like this everyday.
“What’s in this for you?”
He looked at her intently and for several moments she didn’t know whether he was going to answer her or not. She remained silent, too, since she didn’t know what she could possibly say at this point.
Then when he finally opened his mouth
, she wished he hadn’t.
“I’m working on a big deal with a company in a conservative country,” he said. “The owner doesn’t trust bachelors, thinking they are either gay or out to collect other men’s wives. So, you see, this works for both of us quite nicely.”
“Why me, though? Why on earth would you marry someone like me? I’m sure you could find a hundred other women — socially acceptable women — who wouldn’t hesitate to take your name, and you’d lock in this deal with no problem.”
“But I want you. And you need me. It’s that simple,” he said. “This way we both get something important to us, and you won’t have the constant urge to run and hide.”
“I could still run, even if we were married,” she pointed out.
“Not if we both have custody of Justin.”
“You actually think I would give up my rights to him as soon as I get them back?” she gasped.
“You won’t get them back without me, Jewell.”
This was what she’d been afraid of. If what he was saying about the judge was true, she had no hope without Blake. So, why even fight this anymore?
“What sort of man are you?”
“I’m the sort of man who knows what he wants and goes for it.”
“Well, you can’t own another person, Blake.”
“You’re very wrong there, Jewell. I can own you. I do own you,” he told her coldly, and the shiver that ran through her veins had nothing to do with the temperature of the room.
Her eyes narrowed and flashed danger. “I do so hate you,” she grated out.
“I don’t need love from you, Jewell. I need your compliance, and I need your body,” he said with an unreadable smirk. “And I’ll even give you a day or two to think about whether you’re willing to give those things to me.”
Gee, wasn’t he magnanimous!
“Do you really know what you’re trying to get yourself into? Do you know how much work caring for a child is, especially one who has been through the traumas that Justin has? You can’t do whatever you want whenever you want to if you have one living in your home. They are messy, they are demanding, and they are exhausting. Why don’t you give me back my brother, and then go and find some easy woman, one who is willing to bend all the rules for you? Why are you hell-bent on making a bad situation even worse?”
