out of my head.”
Her muscles heated and began to soften. “But…” She struggled to think but was coming up blank, so she went with the obvious. “You kidnapped me. I can’t reward you for that. You can’t take a woman’s choices from her this way. You know that.”
He looked at her over his shoulder as he shrugged out of his jacket. “Take your clothes off.”
Oh, God. As inconspicuously as she could, she pressed her thighs together to quell the ache that sprung up in her core. If he were asking her, she’d have been better able to refuse him. But he was demanding, and she wanted to obey him.
She couldn’t allow this. She couldn’t cave for this bully. Not when he was going about this all wrong. As much as she wanted to be with him again, she couldn’t just give in and let him get away with this type of behavior. He was treating her with zero respect, and she’d promised herself she would never take that from another man.
She spun around and tried the door, both handles. Nothing. She looked around the fucking massive—gorgeous—room for an alternate exit. There was a door across the way, but she could see a glass-encased shower stall through it. Two other doors led to what were absurdly large closets. Fuck, was she out of her element here or what?
“Draga? Begin, please.”
Aw…fuck it. Trapped, and totally confused about what she should be feeling, she did the unthinkable. She gave in. “Um, okay. Listen. I think we’re both aware of how attracted I am to you. Sleeping with you again won’t be a hardship.” Are you seriously saying this shit? her morals screeched through the desire hazing her brain. She looked everywhere but at him while she bartered her body. Why did it feel so different this time? “If we do this, if we spend a few hours in bed; then will you take me home?”
As he came to her, his shirt partly undone, she stared at the exposed patch of skin on his chest. It was smooth with only a dusting of hair. His tattoos were in a language she didn’t know, which surrounded the head of a black lion. The work of art covered his entire front, she remembered fondly.
He reached her and tipped her head up by pinching her chin between his thumb and finger. She had no choice but to look into his stern features, and drown in his earthy scent that reminded her of walking past certain boutiques in Soho. The ones she could never afford to enter. But all the money in the world couldn’t capture that one delicious note of power she smelled whenever he neared her. One whiff and she was enthralled. One taste and she was sent to her knees.
“There will be no taking you home until I am ready to take you home. I will treat you well and see to your every need. And know this.” He whispered a kiss over her lips, a kiss she felt right down to the tips of her toes. “If you try, even once, to leave me and I have to come after you, I will soon have you regretting your foolish mistake.”
Fear smothered the arousal pumping through her. “You have to stop talking like—”
He cut off her words by placing a finger over her lips. “Shh.”
The condescending action had her slapping his hand away and trying to shove him back. “You know what? No. Forget it. If you’re going to act like this, I don’t want to do this with you.”
Yes, I do.
She made a funny sound, unsure if she was growing angrier with herself or him. “I don’t know whether to be amused, scared, pissed off, or turned on. You’re making my head spin.”
He gave a half nod, as if in understanding. “I appreciate your honesty.”
“Really? Then you’ll love this; I think your grief is fucking with your sense of what’s right and wrong. I don’t think keeping me here against my will is what you need to be doing right now.”
“You are an expert on what I need, Yasmeen?”
His hollow tone had goosebumps flowing down her arms. “No, but, you’re obviously very upset about Markus, and I understand that, but it’s no excuse for talking a woman’s freedom from her. It’s no excuse for—”
“I am very upset?” The dark sound he made might have been a chuckle had it come from anyone else. “I am so far beyond upset. I am ready to take