I stay … and he gets anything and everything he wants from me.
But fuck, I never realized what that meant.
How hard he’d make this.
How much I’d start to yearn for things I shouldn’t ever crave.
“Don’t walk away from me,” he says.
I grind my teeth.
“You’re mad at me,” he adds.
No shit.
After what he did, he should be glad I haven’t punched him yet.
“I’m fine,” I lie.
“Stop lying to yourself,” he says. “You’re not fooling anyone.”
I turn to face him. “What do you want?”
There’s a darkness in his eyes that’s impossible to ignore. “What I’ve always wanted …”
Me.
And that makes me furious as hell.
“First you treat me like a captive, then you’re suddenly all nice and show me around town like I’m your girlfriend or something, and then you, you—”
My words are cut off by my own rage bursting out in the form of a roar.
“I what?” he says, stepping forward through the forest slowly, meticulously planning his footsteps while his gaze is on me at all times. “Tell me.”
“You brought me to that water just to make me get naked, and …”
I can’t even say it out loud without feeling like there’s a cotton ball in my throat.
“Say it, Jas,” he says, stepping even closer until it’s impossible to look at anything other than the bulging, tattooed muscles hiding underneath that flimsy, wet shirt.
“You made me … you made me … ugh!” I’m blushing like crazy, and I hate it. “Why do you do this?”
“I made you …” he murmurs, walking even closer until we’re only a few feet away. “Want me.”
I suck in a breath.
No. That can’t be true. Right?
“You’re playing with my mind,” I retort, trying to ignore the thumping going on in my pants. “I never gave you permission to do that.”
He snorts. “You make it too easy, Jas.”
“We made a deal. I would stay and do what you wanted. Why don’t you just take it?”
His head tilts. “Take it?”
Shit … Did I just say that out loud?