"This?" He motioned to the faint outline of her bikini with his hand. "This is the kind of swimsuit you were wearing out by the pool?"
For the space of a few seconds, she'd thought he was angry because she'd gotten too pink, that maybe, just maybe, he was concerned about her. But no, that wasn't it at all. He was pissed because she'd had on, by his estimation, too little clothing.
In a move just as swift as the one he'd used on her, she pulled her bunched up t-shirt from his hand and wiggled out from underneath him, taking him by surprise, and landed on her feet by the side of the bed.
For some insane reason, she needed to get the shirt over her head. As she struggled into it, she knew the reason why. She felt completely and utterly naked without her shirt on, which she was, but the feeling wasn't a physical nakedness; it was an emotional one. She was emotionally naked without the shirt. He'd used her lower half so frequently and ruthlessly, that she was becoming immune to it. But not her breasts. Her breasts and shoulders were still hers, he'd yet to touch them, not even on that first night, and she wanted them covered up from him, like right now.
With the t-shirt firmly in place, she crossed her arms over her chest and stood against the far wall of the room, delayed shock running like cold water through her veins. He knelt on the bed, completely naked, his perfect biceps bulging and his erection jutting out from his body in a testament to both his need and his supreme manhood.
The sight of his perfect body, poised in ultimate arrogance and the very epitome of dominant male, pissed her off. "It's called a two-piece. And since when is it any of your business what the hell type of bathing suit I choose to wear?"
"You've just got to be fucking kidding me, right?" He slid off the bed and began advancing on her. "I own your little body, and you need to start understanding that and then you need to fucking remember it," he roared.
She sidestepped him with a darting move under his arm he wasn't expecting and ran around to the other side of the bed, feeling more comfortable with a large piece of furniture between them. "Bullshit. You have no right to tell me what kind of swimsuit to wear."
Stopping suddenly, he leaned against the wall, and crossed his arms over his chest. It was a move designed to appear to be lazy, unconcerned, but Jessica wasn't fooled in the least. She knew that behind his cool facade he was ferociously angry. And with his biceps in bold prominence, his erection pushing up into the air looking angry and threatening, she began to hyperventilate. His eyes ran down her length, and lowered to the vee between her legs that was on full display in her short t-shirt, and stared steadily at it. Slowly, she slid one hand down and covered herself there.
He shifted his gaze to hers, raised one eyebrow and began shaking his head. A slither of trepidation settled in her belly. She hated when he did that! She hated when he shook his head, tilted his head, and gave her non-verbal commands that she was supposed to jump at. She ignored the silent demand and continued to cover herself as she stood completely still.
"Get on the bed," he snapped.
She hesitated, and his expression became menacing.
"Are you refusing me, Jessica?"
Apprehension shooting through her, she shook her head jerkily, and keeping him in her line of sight, she put one knee on the bed and began to climb on.
"Take the shirt off."
Panicked at the new demand, she froze and turned fully to look at him. He was moving toward her, climbing on the bed behind her so she ignored his last command and flipped to her stomach, in the position she thought he wanted her in.
He came behind her. "I told you to take off the shirt."
She closed her eyes, relieved he couldn't see her do it, and began to shake her head frantically.
"Why?" he asked calmly, almost too calmly.
"You can't have my breasts." The low answer slipped from her trembling lips.
"What the fuck?" Anger, swift and strong, bled from his tone.
"No! You promised you wouldn't make me do anything that I don't want to do, and I don't want to take off my shirt." She kept her eyes shut and her face down.
He growled deep from his throat, his hands landed on her hips and he flipped her to her back before she even had a moment to react. Her eyes flew open in panic when she found him between her spread thighs, the head of his erection already touching her unprotected opening. "I want you to take off the fucking shirt."
"No!"
"Are you refusing to have sex with me?"
She bit her lip and shook her head, but to her horror, she felt a tear slide from the corner of her eye and drip down into her hairline.
With a low growl, he picked up her thighs and wrapped them around his hips, and then sank his hand into her scalp. He lifted her head a few inches from the pillow and shocking her silly, he dropped his mouth to hers. The pressure of his mouth on hers forced her lips open and his tongue plunged deeply into the recesses of her mouth.
It was the first time he'd kissed her since the very first night when he'd taken her virginity, and there wasn't anything she could do to stop him.
He groaned deeply, and at the sound she stiffened in his arms, expecting to experience the stab of his penis at any moment. She tried to breathe through the punishing kiss, she tried to loosen her muscles to prevent impending pain, but it was useless as her nerves were stretched too tight and all she could do was hang on to her sanity while she waited for the storm she knew was coming.
But it never came.
As the seconds ticked by, she slowly came to realize that she was crying beneath his kiss. She felt the dampness of her tears, heard the ragged sounds of her whimpering and the harsh panting of his breath coming roughly from in and out of his lungs.
She still felt the immediate threat, the strength of his erection at her opening, and knew she wasn't safe yet. She tried to get her tears under control as she managed to somehow breathe, even though his mouth still hovered over hers. It wasn't so much a kiss anymore, as simply a connection he wasn't allowing her to break.
A menacing rumble rattled through his chest, and he lifted himself an arm's length away from her and she knew he was staring down at her. "Son-of-a-goddamn-mother-fucking-bitch." She turned her head to the side and took a gasping breath as she halfway got herself under control. Her tears were silent now, at least, even though they flowed freely down the sides of her cheeks.
As she listened to his continued cussing with her eyes shut tight, he pushed himself off of her, threw himself from the bed, and she heard the bathroom door slam behind him.
Relief came first, panic almost immediately followed. What the hell had she done? She hadn't out and out refused to have sex with him, but from his reaction, that's exactly what had happened.
And that wasn't part of their playbook. She didn't get the choice of whether or not to have sex with him. And although she'd never said 'no', she had the dark suspicion that that's the way he would see it.
Because he'd definitely wanted to. He'd been ready, more than ready.
And she hadn't allowed him to get his money's worth.
Her tears dried up and dread took their place. She sat up in the middle of the bed, and clutched the sheet over her and waited for him to come out. She didn't know what to say to him.
Jessica wasted time on worrying about that because he never gave her the opportunity to speak. Connor walked from the bathroom and without a glance in her direction or even his customary, 'tomorrow', he sailed from the apartment, slamming the front door behind him.
It was very little consolation to her screwed-up brain to hear him securing the lock from the outside.
****
Thirty minutes or so later, Jessica roused herself from her lethargy and slid off the bed. It was too early to go to sleep, not that she'd be able to sleep anyway.
As if by rote, she went to the bathroom and ran a hot bath and tried to relax the tension in her muscles. Her nerves settled into a low hum instead of the loud, cacophonous noise that had been beating through her system onl
y half an hour earlier. She soaked in the warm water until it turned tepid, and then she climbed out, toweled her body, and slipped into a pair of panties and an old ragged t-shirt that she regularly slept in. She brushed her teeth and spread lotion over her body, enjoying the coolness against the heat of her sun-kissed skin.
She wandered into the dining area and looked at the container of tacos that earlier had tempted her appetite. Now, she felt nothing but slightly queasy at the thought of eating anything at all. She slipped them into the refrigerator, and stopped at the sink to drink half a glass of water. After what had happened with Connor earlier, she couldn't quit worrying about her immediate future. The last ten days or so had been tough, but at least there had been a rhythm and continuity to their relationship that had put her mind at ease about the days and weeks to come. But not so anymore, she was back to worrying.
She tried to finish the last few chapters of her book, but her brain was still way too keyed up to retain the words she read. She tossed it aside and walked around the apartment again, desperately wishing she had a television or a computer of her own. She'd never had enough money to buy a laptop, but luckily, almost every other student had access to one, so the university computers were almost always available for her when she needed one. But she didn't have that luxury here.
She didn't even have Internet on her phone.