“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 he 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.