Paris
The hotel shower feels like heaven after my close call with hell. I turn the nozzle until the water approaches scalding, savoring the heat raining down on me and cleansing my pores of sewage slime.
My hair’s been shampooed three times today, the suds like my sins bubbling up before washing away in a cleansing cluster down the drain.
I dry off then wrap the big fluffy white towel around my body, luxuriating in its softness. The high-end toiletries—like the amazing green tea–scented body lotion that leaves my skin smelling like paradise, along with a feathery-soft bed dreams were made of—make this expensive hotel room worth the extra euros. And thanks to Mama’s savvy investments, I never have to worry about money again.
As I do so, I assess the damage. A blister is forming on my right foot from running back to the hotel in a wet leather sandal. There’s a scrape on my left elbow and the beginnings of a bruise on my thigh. Even wet, my hair looks amazeballs.
There’s a spring in my step as I move around the bathroom. I’m going to be better prepared for my next sojourn down into the belly of Paris. Figures that Prick’s operating out of some underworld hellhole. But now, I know what to expect.
The bedroom’s dark as I enter . . . yet the shades were . . . oh sweet hell.
I’m hit from the side and tackled down to the carpet. The wind’s knocked out of me as his weight lands on top of me. Using the heel of my hand, I punch him beneath the chin and roll, dislodging him.
He grunts.
I crab-crawl backward. But he’s too fast, and launches himself onto me, taking me down flat onto the carpet.
Balling a fist, I punch him in the face, nailing him in the cheekbone.
He slaps me in return. Although he could have done worse damage by returning my punch, my temper nevertheless explodes.
I try weaving my fingers through his blond hair but he’s cropped it shorter then I’m used to, styling it in a military crew cut that further accentuates his high, bruising, cheekbones.
Damn. I pause a second too long to consider this and now he’s worked his fingers into my newly sheared locks. With a jerk, he tugs my head back.
I clap my fists hard, boxing both his ears.
He yanks my hair so aggressively it feels like he’s tearing it from my scalp.
“Asshole,” I spit out.
“Bitch.”
“Be still,” he orders. “Or I’ll rip your hair from your scalp.”
I wiggle with renewed vigor.
“Fuck,” he grounds out, yanking my hair so damn hard, tears spring into my eyes. “Still a stubborn ballbuster.”
“And you’ve begun fighting like a girl,” I hiss.
“I warned you long ago to get a grip on your temper.”
I attempt to knee him in the groin, unsuccessfully. “Get. Off. Me.”
“Or what? You’ll kill me?”
Damn him. I tear up for the second time in thirty seconds and stare up at his handsome face. So familiar; I’d spent an entire morning covering it with butterfly kisses. Before he took over, as usual, and took my playfulness to an entirely different level.
How I dreamed of him.
Kissing those lips.
Loving him.
He’s alive. Alive.
One. Two. Three seconds. Where time seems suspended between the past and present. Where I want nothing more than to open my heart and my legs to him. Draw him out of himself and whatever this is, and deep into me. Touching him. Feeling him. Loving him. Forever and always.
He must have read something in my face because for a fraction of a second, his hold on me slackens. Then the air is sucked bone-dry from the room as he glares down at me in such an ugly, unfamiliar way.
Jaxson hates me.
I stiffen, aching deep within my heart and soul—it hurts, God, does it hurt—but I manage to move my palms flat against his chest. Hoping to dislodge him and distance myself. His muscles flex beneath my fingers. Jesus, he’s a wall of solid muscle, harder, stronger than I remember. More dangerous than ever on so many levels. I swallow back my resistance as my will goes a bit wild. And instead of pushing him away, I’m touching him. Tracing the pads of my fingers over the muscled hill of his pecs, stopping short of his nipples.
His chest flexes beneath my palm and he sucks in a breath.
A breathe of life. He’s alive. Sweet heaven, alive. Just like that, I make up my mind. He might hate me now but by the time I’m done with him . . .
This thing is going to happen, I repeat the promise he gave me so long ago.
He takes me by the wrists and pins my arms overhead, clearly wanting nothing more to do with my touch. But I’ve learned from the best. A master seducer. A man-whore tried and true.
I shift beneath him, and feel the towel catch, then unravel. Now if he’d only raise his chest, even a fraction of an inch . . .
Jaxson doesn’t simply lift up, he sits up, straddling my thighs with his own. Without missing a heartbeat, his gaze feasts on what I’m offering.
I keep my arms where he’s left them, high over my head. Exposing myself, offering myself to him.
“I might have been tempted by that beautiful body of yours once but now I’m immune. I feel nothing. You know why? You’re as good as dead.”
Reality crashes down and smashes my hopes at reconciliation to smithereens.
I spring to me feet, leaving the towel behind as I dive for the gun on the bedside table. But he’s too fast.
He wraps an arm around my chest and hauls me back. I jump when I feel his hand between my thighs, cupping my happy place as he lifts me high off my feet. Turning in his arms, I grab his earlobe between my teeth.
He growls deep in his throat. For a second, I think it’s him reacting to how sensitive his lobes are, remembering how I’ve done this very same thing before . . . foreplay, sex play, our aggressive way of getting down and dirty, while he was turning on the charm or deep inside me . . . but then I feel it, the tip of his finger sliding between my damp folds.
Sweet Jesus, help me.
“Draw blood. I dare you, sweetheart,” he says threateningly but without emotion.
Grrr. . . . so we’re back to this sweetheart crap? I bite down harder and am rewarded with a hiss.
He thrusts his finger deep inside me, and I immediately regret my antagonizing him. He pushes a second finger in, then tightening his hold around my body, rubs his thumb across my clit.
It’s like lightening’s struck me straight between the thighs.
“Fuck, you’re soaking wet.”
Yes. “No.”
“Always the liar.” He bounces me high against him and his fingers sink fully inside my slick channel. “This what you want, you deceitful bitch?”
Yes. “No. Put me down,” I whisper huskily. God, this is so screwed up. My wanting him this way.
He drags his fingers out until only the tips remain.
Long ago, he’d murmured sweet promises to me. “I’ll get up inside you fast and furiously, anyway I can.” But now? Even now when there’s so much to be said? When he’s beyond furious. When he hates me?
“So what do you plan on doing?” I demand with false bravado. “Fingering me then killing me?”
He slams my back into the bathroom doorjamb. The heel of my foot presses against the arm of the expensive Louis XIV chair next to it and gives me leverage to arch back. The force of his actions drives his fingers deeper. My muscles contract around him as a climax builds up from some unfathomable place inside of me. “Jaxson,” I moan.
Everything is there in my tone. My needing him. Wanting him. My agony. My shame. Shattering any hopes at self-preservation.
“Damn you,” I hear him hiss. A warning, yet I’m too far gone to heed it.
He pressed his body into mine, pinning me to the doorjamb. With one hand he pumps his fingers into me and with the other, he grabs me by the throat. “Some women get off on pain.” His fingers tighten, and my eyes widen as the truth hits me full force. “What do you say, pleasure before pain?”
Jesus. What happened to the smug charmer I fell in love with? This isn’t the same smug man who never took much of anything seriously. This man is dangerous. Cruel. A stone-cold mercenary, like Declan.
“I’m sorry,” I manage to say.
He withdraws his fingers, then his body, releasing his hold on my throat.
I slip onto my feet, my knees shaking and my heart breaking.
He wipes his fingers on his pants with what can only be disgust written all over his face. “You can keep your sorry. Ever hear of the expression once bitten, twice shy? And that was one hell of a bite you pulled on me.”
“I didn’t . . .” I grit my teeth. Damn him. He’s not ready to listen. What the hell was I thinking? Seducing a man like him is like throwing rocks at a boulder.
We stare at each other.
It’s hard to tell what he’s thinking.
And there’s no way he’ll pick up on my next move because I don’t have any.
Dumb. He’s going to kill you.
I feel a familiar anger fill me, driving away every other fickle, useless emotion that’s made me stupid.
“Like I said, you’re as good as dead.”
Get your ass in gear. Escape.
I shift on my feet, acting nervous. Feeling nervous but not enough to show it. My foot catches in the discarded towel and I stumble backward, my hands wrapping around the arms of the Louis XIV chair as if to stop my fall.
Ignoring the FAITES ATTENTION!/BE CAREFUL sign on the wall behind it—no, it couldn’t be the real deal, right?—I hoist the small, decorative chair, turn in a full swing, and club him in the head.
He didn’t seem surprised in the least, I think as his unconscious form falls to the floor. Jaxson made that far too easy for me. I shrug my shoulders. Stupid is as stupid does.
Crouching, I feel his pulse. Normal. He’ll have a nasty bump. I’m getting tired of knocking him out. Although I wish things had gone down much better.
I hastily dress and pack my bags.
Then I check on him one last time. Stealing precious moments to run a finger across his bruised cheek. Wincing and letting regret grip hold of me. “I never wanted to hurt you, Jaxson,” I mumble. I take a few more seconds to press my lips against his. “If you ever surprise me again,” I promise, “I’m going to let this thing play out. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll come to understand the choices I had to make.”
His eyelids blink and I hastily rise to my feet. “Nothing is impossible to a willing heart,” I murmur, before running for the door.