by Melody Anne
Chapter Fifteen
Silence.
That’s what Jewell experienced for the next few days after Blake’s strange dinner visit and even stranger exit. After three days passed and she heard not a single word from him, she began to wonder if he’d finally decided that one night of great sex more than a week ago was enough. But he was more playing a game with her, trying to drive her insane. He would make her so crazy she would just collapse in a puddle at his feet and beg to do his bidding.
Jewell woke up each morning with her body tense but this morning something was really off. She could feel it, and she was terrified of opening her eyes. Lately, she’d so often been delighted to wake up, to leave behind the disturbing dreams that seemed to fill her mind every night, but this morning she wished she were still asleep, because she knew she wasn’t alone.
“You might as well open your eyes, Jewell. I can tell you’re awake.”
Her body went instantly from tense to a stiff as a board. That voice had been in her dreams, in her thoughts, every minute of every day for months — ever since she’d met him.
She kept her eyes closed and shifted restlessly on the bed, but after a minute she gave up and spoke. “What are you doing here, Blake?”
“I have given you enough time to think, Jewell. More than enough. I’m done waiting.”
Jewell finally opened her eyes and found him leaning over her.
“You can’t just walk into somebody’s home, especially their bedroom, while they are sleeping,” she said. She was sure she looked terrible, with her hair a mess and dark circles under her eyes. This wasn’t exactly the time to entertain company.
“But I own this apartment, Jewell.”
“You don’t own me,” she retorted before clapping her hand over her mouth. Of course he did, and he didn’t hesitate to remind her of that unhappy fact.
“You can say that all you want — but I do own you, Jewell,” he whispered. “And you’ve even admitted it on occasion.” Then, as if to prove his ownership, he slipped his hand beneath her covers and cupped her breast on the outside of her nightshirt.
Her traitorous body instantly responded to him, her nipple hardening, her stomach quivering, and her breath hitching. And there was no hiding those reactions.
“Just because you can make my body respond, it doesn’t mean that I want you.”
Blake’s pupils dilated. “I think that’s exactly what it means, darling Jewell,” he said. “You can either get up and come out with me for the day, or we can just spend it right here — in this nice warm bed.”
While he spoke, he withdrew his hand from her breast, making her want to scream and tell him to put it right back where it had been, but then she felt his warm palm slip under her shirt and travel upward until his fingers were on her bare breast.
When he squeezed her nipple between his thumb and forefinger, she whimpered, much to her distress and shame. Yes, he turned her on, and yes, he knew it.
“You love my touch, Jewell. No matter how much you deny it, you can’t fool me,” he told her. He lifted her shirt without removing it and his mouth took the place his hand had just occupied.
She couldn’t help but moan. She’d tried over and over to claim otherwise, but oh how she wanted him. She couldn’t even hate him for it. When they both lapsed into silence, he stopped touching her and rose from the bed, then began to undo his shirt. She knew that if she said nothing, they’d end up making love, and her body was just screaming for sex.
So she was shocked when she spoke. “Let me shower, Blake. I’ll be ready to leave in thirty minutes.”
“Too bad,” he said with a sigh.
He stepped closer and lifted her hand, placing it where his hardness was pulsing beneath his pants. She nearly changed her mind.
But somehow she found the strength to get out of bed and head to the bathroom. As the warm spray caressed her sensitive skin, she wished she had the courage to call him in so he could relieve the ache she was feeling. But she finished her shower alone, got dressed, and found Blake in the kitchen drinking coffee.
“Where are we going?” she asked, pouring herself a cup and taking a sip.
“To the marina.”
“Why? What are we going to do there?”
“You’ll see. I have plans,” Blake told her.
After finishing her coffee, Jewell went with him to the front door. He took her jacket from the coat closet and helped her into it, then led her from the apartment.
He said nothing as the two of them stepped into the elevator, and then suddenly it was as if a dam had broken, because Jewell found herself pressed against the elevator wall, with Blake’s body covering hers and his head descending.
The kiss he gave her left her knees weak. His hands traveled up and down her back, and her body melted underneath the possession. What had she been thinking when she turned down lovemaking in favor of going out?
The bell on the elevator chimed, and he stepped back and quickly helped her tug her clothes back into place, though the glow in her cheeks would make any onlooker aware that she was a woman who had just been thoroughly kissed. The two of them got off the elevator in silence, proceeded through the lobby of the apartment complex, and walked out onto the street, where Blake had a car waiting.
“To the marina, sir?” Max asked.
After Blake and Jewell climbed into the backseat, he lifted her hand to his mouth and feathered kisses across her knuckles, making her stomach twist.
Max said nothing; he didn’t so much as look in the rearview mirror as Blake attempted to seduce Jewell right there in the car. Suddenly she was angry. This miserable man came and went as he pleased, left her feeling wanted and then unwanted, made sure she didn’t know where she stood, and he still had the ability to make her pant for him in a matter of seconds.
It wasn’t right and she didn’t want to have anything to do with it. She tugged her firmly away and sat on both hands so he couldn’t gain access to either of them.
“Hmm, playing hard to get?” he whispered in her ear, and then leaned down and warmed her neck with his hot breath.
“Maybe I don’t appreciate you touching me,” she said — what a ridiculously obvious lie!
“I think you enjoy me touching you anytime, anywhere,” he countered, his hand now on her thigh and slowly traveling upward.
“You did pay for me, so I guess you bought the privilege,” she said nastily, and he paused for a moment before leaning even closer.
“Yes, I did.” Though she’d been the one to point it out, having him confirm it didn’t make her feel any better. “Open your thighs, Jewell.” That wasn’t a request; it was a command. “If you want to be treated like a whore, I’m more than willing to oblige you.”
Tears stung her eyes, but she turned to glare at him before she did as he asked. His expression showed nothing as he moved his hands up the inside of her jeans-clad leg, and then ran his finger on the outside of her core, sending shivers all through her.
“I can take you whenever I damn well feel like it. Don’t forget that.” He removed his hand and turned away from her.
He didn’t touch her again while they traveled down to a part of the bay where only the richest of the rich stored their yachts. The car stopped and Max came around and opened the back door.
“Let’s go,” Blake said gruffly.
Jewell had no idea what he was thinking, but she suspected that she’d put him in a very bad mood. Good. She was hurting, so it was only fair that she’d spoiled his fun, too.
If only she really felt that way. They walked in silence to where the huge boats bobbed on the water. Jewell fought tears as she waited to see what would come next.
Chapter Sixteen
Blake was furious. He was trying to treat Jewell better and she wasn’t allowing it. If she wanted to throw in his face that he owned her, then he damn well was going to show her exactly what he could do with his property. He knew he could try to handle this a bit differently, but for some reason h
e reverted back to the hard asshole she expected him to be, and he couldn’t seem to stop it.
That thought made him even more furious. Here he was trying to be a good guy — he was taking her out on a freaking date! — and she wasn’t being cooperative.
He’d been rock hard since the moment he walked into her bedroom and saw her lying there, her body restless, the blankets falling away, and her sleep shirt not offering much of a barrier to his view.
He wanted her, and yet he’d given her a choice on waiting to have sex. But the choice was out of her hands now. If she wanted him to be controlling, controlling was exactly what he would be. As much as she protested, maybe, just maybe, she liked having him take command.
Her world had been spinning out of control since she’d lost her mother, and maybe what she needed was someone to stop the spinning, someone to pull her from the whirlwind she was trapped in. Whatever the reason, she seemed to settle down only when he gave her no other choice.
None of that shaky pop psychologizing mattered at the moment, though. All that mattered was that he was hungry for her, and he’d had enough waiting. His brother had made him think, but Blake wasn’t about to change who he was — not for his family and certainly not for this woman, a woman who made his world spin out of control too, and did it every time she was near.
“Wow!”
Blake stopped his internal rant when Jewell’s feet stopped moving and he heard her exclamation.
“What?” he asked. He couldn’t tell what had made her so excited.
“Are you really so used to this much wealth that you don’t see what’s right in front of you?”
Blake looked at the yacht gently bobbing at the dock in front of them. Was what she’d said true? Did he really not notice these things anymore? That wasn’t something that pleased him. There’d never been a time when he was poor, but he still appreciated all he had. Or did he really? When it came down to it, was there any more excitement left in his life?
If there wasn’t, there would be now. He decided it was time to create some. Instead of going to his own boat, he moved her toward the one she was admiring.
“Let me show you the inside,” he said, once again taking her hand as he helped her aboard the nearly two-hundred-foot vessel.
“I didn’t know private boats were made this big. Does this belong to you, Blake?”
He decided not to answer that question yet. “Many people own large boats. They become a sort of second home. You can live on them if that’s what you choose,” he told her.
“Sort of like Tom Hanks in Sleepless in Seattle,” she said with a nervous giggle.
“Well, his wasn’t quite this size.”
“Yeah, that’s true.” Her voice was hushed as they climbed on board.
He tried to see the boat through Jewell’s widened eyes as they passed top-of-the-line furniture and exquisitely laid tables. Blake was more than ready to claim Jewell again. He rushed her through the boat and stepped inside what seemed to be the main stateroom.
She gasped in delight. The walls were mahogany; wide-open windows and gleaming glass doors led out to a private balcony. The ceiling was gilded; it was as if they were floating in a classic English country house. The room had in its center a huge four-poster bed that he was going to get her into — if he made it that far.
“Jewell…,” he said, and she didn’t hear him. “Jewell…,” he said again and she turned, her face the picture of awe.
“Sorry. What?” she asked, looking around the room again.
Walking up to her, he placed his fingers beneath her chin and backed her against a built-in bookcase filled with rare books, books he’d love to explore at any other time.
“I’m going to peel your clothes away, piece by piece, slowly and completely, and then I’m going to take you hard and fast. And then we’ll start all over again and do it all night long. I can please you in ways no one else ever could.”
“But…this…here?”
“Right here. Right now.” Blake pressed body up against hers, letting her feel how ready he was to take her right this instant.
“This is your boat, isn’t it?” She looked around nervously, as if finally realizing that the décor wasn’t exactly his style.
“Why would you ask that? Are you afraid of being caught?”
“Yes,” she said nervously, looking away from him over to the door he’d shut firmly behind them.
“That’s part of the appeal,” he told her, and his excitement built.
“Why are you doing this right now? Why here?”
“Because I can.”
Jewell’s eyes widened. His body pulsing with need, Blake grabbed her for a kiss she wouldn’t soon forget. He knew he’d never get enough of this woman. And, surprisingly, he didn’t want to.
Chapter Seventeen
Fire and ice. Jewell was frozen to the spot when Blake took her into his arms, but she was also burning up. His body was an exciting new world that she wanted to explore, wanted to know so much better than she already knew it. She couldn’t resist this man, and she was tired of trying to.
The air weighed down on her lungs, and her entire body throbbed with desire. His power, her loss of control, the pure lust shining from his eyes should have disgusted her, should have filled her with fear. They hadn’t. She was his.
After he pinned her against the bookshelves, all she could do was reach for him, desire him, crave him.
“This is why you’ll eventually see things my way, Jewell. You are as powerless as I am to resist what is happening between us,” he said before sinking his teeth into her shoulder, making her cry out in pain and pleasure.
“Stop talking,” she panted. She was trying to get her brain to work and she couldn’t. Had he just said he was powerless? Before she was able to focus on that, his hands smoothed down her backside and made her forget all about his words.
“Do you want to stop?” he asked, and she didn’t know whether he was bluffing or not, but no, she didn’t want to stop.
She might just perish if they even thought about it. She wouldn’t say that, though. Instead, she slid her hand down between them and she cupped him, desperate to feel the raw power residing between his legs.
“You can keep silent all you want, Jewell. Your body talks plenty for you,” he said with a laugh. That laugh turned into a gasp as her fingers squeezed his thick staff.
As he continued seducing her, her clothes began falling away. Her shirt was now lying on the floor, and her jeans a puddle at her feet, leaving her standing before him in only the thin lace of her panties.
He stepped back and gazed reverently at her. “You are so unbelievably gorgeous.”
She wanted to repeat those words to him as he unbuttoned his shirt and let it slide downward, revealing his magnificent chest. Then he undid his belt and the top button on his pants, and her mouth watered in anticipation of seeing him in all his naked glory. But he didn’t undo any more buttons, making her want to scream.
“Lie down on the bed,” he demanded. “Leave your panties on, but spread your legs for me.”
“No.”
His brows rose at her refusal.
“You finish undressing first, Blake.”
“That isn’t how this works, Jewell. You do what I say,” he told her, his eyes burning.
“Maybe I want you to do what I say,” she replied. Her own boldness stunned her.
His lips turned up. “I love it when you fight me, Jewell,” he said, then he moved toward her with lightning speed, spun her around, and trapped her hands behind her back.
“Let go,” she told him fiercely. She knew better than to challenge him, but it wasn’t fear she was feeling anymore; it was pure, unadulterated excitement.
She heard the low whoosh of his belt slipping through the loops of his pants, and then she felt him wrap the soft leather around her wrists.
And now she felt a sliver of fear, too. “What are you doing, Blake?”
“Whatever I want,” he wh
ispered into her ear. He pushed her forward, making her knees come in contact with the bed. It was only seconds before he lifted her up, leaving her derrière high in the air, her face on the bed, and her hands secured tightly behind her back.
He caressed her backside with his hands, then slipped a finger inside the edge of her panties and felt her undeniable wetness, wetness proving how turned on she truly was.
“See, Jewell, you can lie with words all you want, but your body tells me exactly how much you enjoy this, exactly how much you want me.”
Then his palm came down and she let out a shocked cry when he made contact with the tender flesh of her backside. The blow wasn’t hard enough to hurt her; it was just enough to warm her skin and send a ripple of pleasure through her core.
“I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to take you hard and fast. I want to take you over and over again until you can’t possibly stand another minute. I won’t let you come until you’re begging me to do so,” he said, and he bent and gently nipped her buttock.
“I won’t beg you,” she said through gritted teeth. But would she be able to keep her word? She didn’t know.
“Oh, you will beg me, Jewell. I guarantee it.”
Before he was able to say anything more, they heard a pounding on the door, which instantly sent a cold chill through Jewell’s body.
“Who’s in there?” someone yelled. “Why is this door locked?” The pounding grew in volume.
“Go away,” Blake shouted, his powerful voice enough to scare most people into doing exactly what he wanted.
“I watched you use a card to get on these docks. I thought this was your boat,” Jewell gasped.
“I most certainly will not go away,” the person called out. “This is private property — my boss’s property — and you’re trespassing. I’m calling the cops.”
“You don’t have permission to be on here?” Jewell said as she squirmed to try to get away, but Blake had his hand tightly on her hip.
“It belongs to a business associate who is selling it. It will be mine in one minute,” Blake said, and he released her, though all she could do was roll onto her side. The belt around her hands didn’t allow her to even cover herself.
