“Afghanistan,” she replies in such a blasé tone, I’m not quite sure if she’s joking with me or not.
“Afghanistan?” Not hiding the incredulity I’m feeling.
“Yup. About three years ago, I think. Got hit by some shrapnel from an RPG blast.”
I’m so startled by this revelation I bolt up ramrod straight, which pushes Willow away from me. It’s good since I need to see her face.
She twists to frown at me.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I bark.
Her brows knit together, not quite happy with my glare. She speaks slowly… as if she needs to explain something to a third-grader. “I’m a photojournalist. Sometimes, I work in war zones.”
“The fuck you do,” I retort, not sure if I’m asking a question or ordering her to obey.
Her expression causes a tiny voice in my head to start screaming, Abort, abort, but I choose to ignore it.
“You handle student protests and risk getting hit by a thrown tomato,” I remind her as if I’m privy to all the mysterious secrets that make up Willow Monahan when, in truth, I know nothing. “That’s what you do as a photojournalist.”
“No,” she drawls, irritation clear in her voice. “I go on any job I choose to go on, some of which happen to be in dangerous areas. Sometimes, tomatoes are thrown. Other times, it might be grenades.”
“That shit stops right now,” I almost shout.
And then… Willow laughs. Head thrown back, eyes squeezed shut, she actually clutches her belly as she cackles hysterically.
My jaw locks, teeth starting to grind.
Luckily, she doesn’t laugh long. Opening her eyes, she pins them on me with a coldness I’d never seen before. “No one tells me what I can and can’t do.”
This simply isn’t true. In the past few weeks, Willow has bent to any number of demands from me. I know, without a doubt, I could take her by the head and push my cock in her mouth without a single word… and she’d take it like a champ.
But even I realize this is different.
That’s sex and I’ve already figured out Willow likes me taking charge when we fuck.
But this is Willow’s life, and I have absolutely no say in it.
Still, like a dumbass, I press on, trying for a calmness I don’t feel inside.
“I get you love what you do, Willow. Admire it even. But don’t you think that maybe you should reconsider that line of work?”
“Why?” she demands, scrambling up to face me fully. Cascades of water and bubbles sluice off her body, revealing its glory to me but for the first time since I met her, I’m not interested in that beauty.
“Because you could die,” I reply.
“Could get hit by a bus tomorrow,” she points out.
“I’d say chances of that are far less than getting blown up in Afghanistan.”
“I’m not arguing with you about this,” she replies hotly, pivoting to step out of the tub. I don’t expect that, and I hastily rise to climb out after her.
She nabs a towel, wraps it around herself, and stomps off into the bedroom.
I grab a towel, then hastily tuck it in around my waist. By the time I catch up, she’s nabbing her clothes from the floor where they’d been discarded earlier.
Grabbing her arm, I halt her progress, forcing her to face me. “What are you doing?”
“Leaving,” she replies.
“Why?”
“Because I’ve got to get ready for the next job I’m taking. I fly out tomorrow.”
“What?” I ask incredulously. “Where? Why are you just now telling me about it?”
She jerks her arm out of my grasp, then shrugs out of the towel. Leaning over, she starts stepping into her panties she’d snatched off the floor. “Because I wasn’t going to take the job until just now.”
“What job?” I bark.
She shimmies the panties over her hips and looks me directly in the eye, a glimmer of defiance there. “Democratic Republic of the Congo. Some political unrest there. Could be very, very dangerous.”
She’s fucking taunting me, yet I know she’s not exaggerating either. The urge to grab her, toss her on the bed, and tie her there so she can’t escape is overwhelming.
“So you’re taking a dangerous job just to spite me?” I growl. “Real mature, Willow.”
“No, to prove to you that I am my own woman and you own no part of me.”
Wrong fucking words, Willow.
Too much challenge as well.
“You’re wrong about that,” I promise as I advance, the sensual rumble of my words making it clear my mind is no longer thinking about war and danger.
“Dominik, no,” she says, her palms held outward to ward me off. She backs toward the bed, which is actually perfect.
I pounce, snagging her around the waist and throwing her on the bed. She tries to scramble backward, but I come down on top of her.
Our eyes lock for a moment, and I tell her a truth she’s never going to forget. “I do own a piece of you.”