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  At the graze of his knuckles, I let my eyes flutter closed. “Oh. Well, um, carry on, then.”

  With a soft chuckle, he backs away, leaving me bereft.

  I open my eyes and find him staring at my legs.

  “How was the ride?”

  “An experience.”

  His eyes lift from my legs to my face. I know I’m blushing.

  “Why do you own a bike if you hate them?” I ask.

  “I don’t. It’s Collin’s,” he explains. “I bought it for his birthday last year.”

  My mouth forms an O. I nod. That sounds about right. I can totally see Collin speeding recklessly down the highway on a motorbike, flouting the laws with no helmet and wearing a wide, cocky grin.

  Seizing my hand in that tight-grasping way of his where his strong, masculine fingers dominate all five of my slender ones, Jaxon leads me up the stairs and into the house.

  Invisible embers burn between our palms whenever we hold hands, and it’s addictive. Him holding my hand gives me silent assurance that he’s completely aware of me and wants to remain aware of me by maintaining constant physical contact. And the more he holds my hand and leads me, the softer and more submissive I become.

  Is it the attention that I’m addicted to? Or do I just enjoy having him take the lead and free me from having to think all the time? From having to be so smart and wise and on guard all the time?

  I want Jaxon’s attention. All the time.

  I want him touching me. All the time.

  I want him. All the time.

  And that’s…that’s deleterious.

  Nadine’s presence on the couch in the living room watching the telly catches me totally off guard and shatters my moment of bliss.

  What the hell is she still doing here? Practically naked in nothing but a nude lace bra and tiny black boy shorts.

  As we walk into the house, she twists around on the couch. Her eyes, as they sweep up and down my body, are much like Jaxon’s—flat and expressionless. When they zero in on our joined hands, though, I glimpse a flash of resentment, but it’s fleeting.

  At once, her eyes snap up to Jaxon and stay there. “Having fun, King?”

  His hand tightening around mine, he keeps moving. “You’re not blind. You know I’m not.”

  Nadine’s scoff follows us down the hall while I suck in a breath as the burning ember between our palms turns to a shard of iceberg.

  He isn’t having fun? I’m experiencing one of the best nights of my life, and he’s just flat-out denied that he feels the same, while holding my hand?

  I attempt to break my steps, attempt to extricate my hand from his, but he just reinforces his grip and pulls me along like he owns me.

  “You’re not having fun?” I hate how pathetic my voice sounds.

  “Not with you. No.”

  Digging my heels into the floor, I try again to twist free of him. “Let go of my bloody hand, then.”

  He stops, turns, but doesn’t let go. “What’s wrong with you?”

  I glare at him. “What’s wrong with me is that your bloody girlfriend is here, on your couch, in bum shorts and a bra, and you’re dragging me off to your bloody bedroom. What is this? What kind of—” I break off and shake my head, furious. “You know, I was willing to have fun with you tonight, then send you back to her. But seeing as I’m a complete bore to you, I might as well go back and find Col. At least he enjoys being around me.”

  Jaxon’s head tips to the side. “You planned on having fun with me tonight?” Now he lets go of my hand and crosses his arms. “What kind of activities will this fun you plan on having with me entail?”

  “I— I don’t— We would…uh…maybe— I d-don’t know!” I stutter. Because, really, what the hell do I know about having fun?

  “And then you’d send me back to her.” He’s doing that intimidating staring thing. “Isn’t that what you said?”

  “Well…” I shift on my feet. “You’re not my bloke. You’re hers. So…yeah.”

  His hands drop to his sides. “I’m not interested in having fun with you. So I’ll just go and have fun with her, instead.” He steps around me. “You can have the room.”

  Gob-smacked, I stare after him.

  Did he really just…?

  Oh, God, I’m such an idiot!

  How could I have let it get this far? Far enough for him to take a dung on me and flush off.

  I know he’s a liar. I know he’s a player. I know he’s a muddler. And still I swam to the surface and allowed myself to get caught into the net.

  I deserve every needle of pain I’m feeling in my chest right now, because I let my guard down. I let myself be human. I submitted to being a typical female with typical female urges. And this is the result.

  Pain I don’t particularly care to feel.

  Ever again.

  I stomp off to his room, kick off my shoes, storm into the closet for a nightgown, and storm right out of the room again.

  He’s on the couch with Nadine. He’s sitting on the far end, elbows on his knees, his neck bent as he scrolls on his phone.

  Nadine doesn’t have his attention. And while hers is ostensibly on the TV, I see her foot inching closer and closer to his thigh.

  She wants him.

  Biting back a thick block of jealousy, I breeze through the living room and stalk up the stairs. Collin’s door is unlocked, thank heavens. I stomp in and firmly turn the latch after me.

  Knowing Collin, he might sleep out at one of his girlfriends’ houses tonight, but I’m hoping he doesn’t. I need someone to rant to.

  Not Melanie. I’m too ashamed to admit to her that I’ve cocked up by focusing on the wrong mission. The mission to score, rather than the mission to find the music box.

  I strip and take a quick shower, washing my hair with rigor to expunge Jaxon’s touch from my bangs.

  I’m not even pissed at him. Hell, he never promised me a damn thing. I’m pissed at myself for dropping my guard so low he was able to get in and hurt me.

  I’m smarter than this. I know better.

  As I amble from the bathroom towel-drying my hair, I halt and pause in mid-action.

  Jaxon is in the room. Leaning against Collin’s dresser, his legs crossed at the ankles, a half-eaten peach in one hand. He brings it to his mouth for another bite, his eyes fixed on me. Looking as if he’d had them trained on the bathroom door, just waiting for me to walk out.

  I could slap myself upside the head. Of course he knows how to pick a lock. He’s a damn crook! Why did I think simply turning the latch would keep him out? He breaks into places for a living, for crying out loud.

  A chair under the door handle. That’s what I should have done.

  “Something wrong with my shower?” he asks conversationally, as if nothing in the world is wrong.

  Ignore him.

  I pad to the bed, pluck up my knickers and shimmy them on under the towel. With the towel still wrapped around me, I pull on the nightie, removing the towel only when it is fully on.

  Tossing the towel aside, I glance across the room, and the despicable sod is openly leering at my chest.

  I shift my gaze to my reflection in the dresser mirror, and I see what he sees. My breasts are full and overflowing from the midnight-blue satin nightie that has lace at the hem and the cleavage. Damp hair tumbles around my shoulders and down my back, sticking to my skin. Skin that is stung red from the hot shower.

  I admit, I look…desirable. Even to myself.

  But I don’t want him to see me. Not anymore.

  I don’t want his attention. Not anymore.

  On the heel of that thought, I go to the dresser, grab one of Collin’s T-shirts, and haul it over my head. It falls a few inches lower than the nightie. With a spiteful smirk, I flick my gaze across to him.

  He’s hardly perturbed as he takes another bite of peach and chews slowly, watching me.

  “Do you mind?” I gesture pointedly to the door. “I’d like to go to bed, please.”


  “I gave you the room. Why are you up here?”

  “Your room smells like you. I don’t want to smell you.” I cross my arms. “And your girlfriend is downstairs, so why are you up here?”

  “She doesn’t want to smell me,” he muses to himself. “Do I smell bad?”

  “Very. You smell like games and lies and knavery and immorality.”

  “Hmm.” His lips turn down at the corners. “That is rancid.”

  With a scoff, I pick up the damp towels from the bed and amble into the bathroom to dump them into the hamper.

  As I return, he takes the last bite of his peach and shoots the gritty brown seed across the room, straight into a trash can in the corner. “How unfortunate that you’re gonna have to sleep in my stench, anyway.”

  Before I can determine what he means and take pre-emptive action, he’s across the room, and I’m off the ground, thrown over his shoulder.

  “Hey!”

  With my head upside down, my damp hair dangling down his posterior, he stalks out of the room with me.

  “Jaxon King, put me down right now!”

  He descends the stairs.

  “Jaxon!”

  He strides through the living room.

  I glimpse, through my curtain of limp strands, Nadine still seated on the couch. Pointedly ignoring us.

  Once in his room, he dumps me on the bed. “As long as you’re living here, this is where you sleep.”

  “Bloody wanker!” I squall. “You can’t manhandle me like this! Who the bloody hell do you think you are?”

  Instead of answering, he reaches down and grabs Collin’s T-shirt with both hands—frightening the crap out of me—and, in one strong movement, he rips it clean off me.

  Tossing the shreds to the floor, he grumbles, “I hate seeing you in his shit.”

  “What is wrong with you?” I demand.

  “Relax.” He coolly plucks up the remote from the nightstand and powers on the telly. “Go to sleep.”

  As he turns and starts for the bathroom, I give an unladylike snort. “I don’t think so, mate.” I scramble off the bed and beeline for the door.

  Before I can get through it, I’m snagged around the middle, hoisted, and dumped right back onto the bed.

  Cursing under my breath, I roll over and glare hard up at him looming over me.

  Sans expression, he stares down at me. “Stay.”

  “No.”

  He begins to undo his belt buckle.

  It’s hotly distracting.

  “Move again, Timber, and you won’t like it.”

  Once more, he turns and starts for the bathroom.

  I move again.

  And I don’t like it.

  Because he catches me. Transports me back to the bed. Except, this time he also gets on the bed, sits astride me, forces my hands over my head, and binds them to the bedframe with his belt.

  When he’s done, he sits back on my thighs, calm, without so much as a hitch in his breathing. As if he does this—chases women and ties them up—as often as brushing his teeth. “There. That should keep you in place.”

  I’m actually mortified. Why am I liking this so much?

  Mary and Joseph, why do I like this?

  I don’t want him to know. I don’t want him to know how turned on I am from him straddling me and the idea of being helpless against him. So I struggle against the belt. I grunt and growl at him, and even throw a death glare into the mix.

  “Feel like a hostage now? Do you prefer it this way?” He smiles. Pleased with himself. “Because I’ve no problem keeping you bound and confined for the remainder of your stay.”

  “Piss off!” That’s what my mouth says. But there’s a pressing ache between my legs, pulsing unbearably. I want to squeeze my thighs together to quell the ache, but I can’t because he’s sitting on them.

  Oh, God, I’m going to implode.

  Of their own volition, my legs stiffen beneath him, my toes curling.

  He feels it—just kill me now—and looks down at my body. Slowly, his eyes come back to my face.

  Ashamed of myself, of my weakness, I close my eyes and turn my head to the side. I can’t look at him. No matter how many truths and rightness and rationality are in my brain, my body doesn’t give two craps about all that when Jaxon’s around. It just acts on its own, begging for what it wants, in its own language.

  I hate it.

  I love it.

  I fucking resent it.

  The pillow dips on either side of my head, and his mouth is at my ear, hot breath on my lobe. “You really do like it this way, don’t you?”

  Eyes tightly shut, I breathe out a sigh. “Not really. It’s just…you.”

  No response for several long seconds, then suddenly, I’m free of his weight. I hear him move through the room.

  Minutes later, I hear the shower running.

  Only then do I open my eyes, squeeze my thighs together, and breathe.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  On the TV, a program is on called I Survived—a documentary about real survivors of brink-of-death experiences. Not exactly the kind of thing I wish to be watching while belt-buckled to a bed, though it does remind me to value life.

  Some twelve minutes later, Jaxon emerges from the bathroom, a towel slung low around his hips.

  “Can you change that depressing documentary, please?” I beg as he takes his first step in. “Switch it to Discovery Channel, or something.”

  He eyes me, then the TV. Listens for a few seconds as a victim recounts the chilling story of her encounter with a serial killer and moves to get the remote with a mumbled, “Sorry.”

  He scrolls down the guide, reads, scrolls, reads, scrolls, reads, scrolls, reads…until he finally settles on HBO.

  “What’s that?”

  He throws down the remote. “The Great Gatsby.”

  On a half sigh, half moan, I shift at an awkward angle to transfer the pressure to my left shoulder blade. I’ve been alternating sides to share the aching discomfort equally for the past ten minutes.

  He moves to the foot of the bed. “Arms hurt?”

  I hike my brows. “What do you think?”

  He slinks his long fingers back through his wet hair. “Will you try to leave again if I untie you?”

  For his own safety, I don’t want him to unbind me, so I say, “Yes.”

  Also because I’m afraid I might embarrass myself attempting to make sexual advances.

  Looking frustrated, he shakes his head and disappears into the closet, returning a minute later with leather cuffs. Actual leather sex cuffs, complete with lamb’s wool lining.

  Shite.

  From my angle, he’s like a skyscraper, arching over me as he undoes the belt and, with nimble deftness, frees my right hand while cuffing my left hand to the bed.

  He then picks up my right hand and begins to massage my wrist, easing the tension there, and I swear to the high heavens I feel his touch down to my very bones.

  “Better?”

  I glance up. Up the planes of his naked chest. Up his strong throat. Up into his blue eyes. “Why is she still here?”

  “Hmm?” His gaze is on my wrist. I know he hears and understands the question. He’s just being a jerk.

  “Why is she still here?” I repeat. “And why are you forcing me to sleep in your bed while she’s here. It’s weird.”

  “Why is it weird? You’ve been sleeping in my bed for weeks now.”

  “Because she’s your girlfriend, you slimy sod.”

  Just barely, his head shakes. “She’s a girl. And she’s my friend.”

  My chin jerks up. “And what am I?”

  He smiles something mischievous. “The possibilities are endless.”

  I scowl.

  He sighs. “She’s sleeping over.”

  “Why?”

  “She’s my partner. We work together. She lives on Long Island, and we have a critical meeting in the morning with our boss. It’s practical for her to spend the night he
re.”

  Partner? Boss? Critical meeting? What else is he into, separate from the Unseen? I frown. “She’s your work partner.”

  “Yes.”

  “As in, different from your bed partner?”

  He lets go of my hand so it falls to the bed, and he strides across the room to shut the bedroom door. Moving to the dresser, he opens a drawer, his back to me. “Remember when I first took you to lunch?”

  My eyes feast on the musculature of his back. “Uh-huh.”

  He picks out a pair of black boxer briefs. “You remember asking me about Nadine and other girls?”

  “Yeah.” Vaguely. I recall something about accusing him of being a hypocrite. But truthfully, at the moment I’m finding it difficult to remember my own name.

  His towel drops. My heart stops.

  His arse is—

  I swallow. Oh, sweet sins, I want to go over there and bite it. I want to touch and squeeze it to see if it’s as tight as it looks.

  “Remember me dropping you home and leaving again, right away?” he continues.

  My eyes glued to his bum, I’m speech-impeded. I’ve never seen a man’s bare arse before. In real life, that is.

  It’s glorious.

  “Remember?” he prompts when I don’t answer. Yet, he doesn’t glance over to check if I’m all right…which proves he’s doing it on purpose. To muddle me.

  “Hmm? Um. Yeah. I do. Remember.” See? I’m all muddled.

  He flags out his boxer briefs and proceeds to put one foot in, then the other, pulling the fabric up his strong legs and over his tight bum, robbing me of the view.

  Tease.

  Bending at the waist, he picks up the towel pooled at his feet and turns. His gaze lands on me, but there’s nothing in his expression. No amusement or mischief. Just his typical I’m-not-giving-shite-away mien.

  He strides coolly across the room, disappears into the bathroom, and returns without the towel.

  He climbs into bed, flips on his side to face me, his head propped up with one arm. “I wasn’t being a dick that day. The way my brain works, whenever I feel the urge to do something, that urge takes me over, and I can’t function until I get it done.”

  Okay…I’ll bite.

  I shift to find comfort, my cuffed hand starting to ache again. “What did you need to do that day?”