A defiant whisper tumbled from her lips. “I don’t accept.”
I leaned closer, taunting her. “I’m sorry? I didn’t catch that.”
Her eyes locked on mine, blazing with smoke. “I said, I will never accept that you own me. You don’t own me. You will never own me.”
“Oh, no?” Ripping at my tie, I yanked it off and, with quaking hands, collared it around her throat. Pulling on the remaining length, I growled, “I paid money to receive you. I have the bill of sale. You eat my food. You sleep in my bed. You sunbathe on my goddamn beach. And now…now you wear my leash.” My nose almost brushed hers, our breaths mingling, our chemistry igniting. “If you aren’t a paid pet, then what are you?”
“I’m not afraid of you.”
“So why are you trembling?”
She panted as my gaze locked on her mouth. Her sweet, perfect, delicious fucking mouth. “Why are you?”
“Because I’m seconds away from either fucking you or killing you, and I don’t know which will win—”
Swooping up, she crashed her mouth to mine.
The second her lips touched mine…everything I’d fought for collapsed.
My control.
My willpower.
Gone.
Dust.
Desire.
Digging two handfuls in her hair, I jerked up. She rose to her knees, completely at my command. Deepening the kiss, giving her no leniency or kindness, I took and fucking took.
Her fingernails dug into my wrists, holding onto me as I plunged my tongue into her mouth.
Just like our previous kisses, there was nothing soft or sweet. It was war. Vicious and fiendish, sending lust licking like a whip.
She moaned and tried to stand, but I kept her hovering, subservient and submissive, trapped and tormented.
Our teeth clacked together. She fought back. Her tongue swiped against mine. Everything else vanished. The fact that I had to be back later for a guest’s arrival. The fact that I’d commanded the pilot to collect us after I’d disciplined my goddess. The fact that I’d flown halfway across the goddamn planet, only to turn around again the moment I thought I’d lost this girl.
All of it. All my mistakes and downfalls disappeared as I turned the kiss into raw violence.
She cried out as I crashed to my knees and kissed her harder. She tried to get free, but I held her firm, sucking out her oxygen, her soul, taking everything she refused to give me.
I’d bought her, yet I couldn’t control a fucking thing about her.
I can’t control myself.
That had to change. She had to understand she couldn’t say no to me. No to my authority, my requests, my guests. No to anything I wanted.
And what I wanted was her.
No matter how much I denied it, refused it.
I want her.
Beneath me, beside me.
I need her.
She gasped as I kissed her so deep, our noses pressed into corresponding cheeks. I suffocated on her, and she suffocated on me. We tried to inhale, but all we could steal was each other. Sharing air. Partaking in the other’s lust.
Because it was lust that drove this battle.
She couldn’t hide the way her nipples pebbled to hardened stone. She couldn’t silence her cries as my hands slipped from her hair and fisted her breasts. She couldn’t disguise the way her body turned to liquid as I shoved her backward, spreading her out on the grass as I crawled over her.
One hand dug into the earth by her head while the other swooped from her breast to cup around her throat.
Her pulse pounded against my thumb. She arched up as I kissed her deep, deep, deep. She spread her legs as I lowered myself between them.
Our argument and denial shredded any illusion that this potency, this wicked punishment, wasn’t filled with things we refused to admit. We had chemistry. Chemistry that only appeared when two corresponding pieces met. A hum. A force. A link that vibrated at a frequency that knitted blood to blood, bone to bone, soul to fucking soul.
A groan ripped through me as her hips rocked against mine. She didn’t just lay there, waiting for me to hurt her. She participated. She encouraged.
My cock physically throbbed to be touched, to be freed, to be inside her.
I drove into her. My suit into her nakedness.
She moaned and accepted my ruthless kiss.
I yanked on the leash around her throat, reminding both of us of our places in this war. The dominant and the dominated. She was my conquest. She had not won. This was me taking what I should’ve taken the moment she landed on my island.
Maybe then I wouldn’t have my heart tangled with my desire.
Running my hand down her body, I arched my hips, fumbling at my belt and zipper.
My knuckles grazed her pussy, coming away with wet streaks of her need. My lust amplified to dangerous levels. My goddamn trousers refused to come undone. I needed to stop thrusting against her to get my cock free, but I couldn’t stop. Couldn’t deny the friction I needed. She needed. The inferno that consumed both of us.