Payback

Maybe I shouldn’t have cancelled that latest shrink eval. Maybe I was afraid of what might turn up.

I tossed my phone to the table and scrubbed my face, intensely aware that I was in the deep end of the pool but damn, the truth of it was...I couldn't bring myself to swim to safety.

If Hank knew what I was doing, he'd try to knock some sense into me.

But Hank wasn't going to know and I wasn't going to share.

Ivy.

Was this what obsession felt like?

I’d busted plenty of stalkers in my tenure and they all said the same thing: But I love her.

As if that erased a multitude of sins.

Fuck love.

Fuck emotional attachment.

I just wanted to go balls deep inside a hot pussy.

Sure, as long as that pussy belonged to a certain tiny blonde with the bluest eyes I’d ever seen in his life.

Hell...running from the truth had never worked out well for anyone but I was willing to give it a shot.

Once I got her out of my system, I’d be fine. I could walk away — no problem.

Like I wanted some chick hanging all over me, cramping my style.

I wasn’t the marrying type. Or the faithful type.

I liked the freedom to bring home whomever I chose — to bang whomever I chose.

And I was good at it.

Practice made perfect.

Ivy

I walked on unsteady feet to the front door of the house belonging to the address Jameson had sent.

The older neighborhood was quiet, unassuming. The houses on the street were maintained but not flashy in any way.

At one time maybe the neighborhood had been uptown but now, it was probably comprised of rentals owned by people who had long since moved away to Florida and maintained the homes for supplemental income.

I could still back out.

Just walk away. Turn around and get back in your car. Forget that you ever considered this disgusting exchange.

I hesitated…as if I was actually going to renege. But my choices were limited. I couldn’t let Frankie rot, even though it was his own choices that’d put him back in jail.

Way to personify an enabler, Ivy.

Great, now the voice inside my head was also disgusted with my actions.

Just get it over with.

I put on a brave face and knocked on the door.

I held my breath, hoping against hope that perhaps he'd decided to stand me up so I could chicken out without losing too much face.

But no such luck.

The door opened before I could blink and there he was, grinning, looking supremely pleased with the fact that I’d shown up.

I scowled. “Stop looking so happy. You’re an asshole for making me do this.”

“I’m surprised to see you keep your word. Frankly, I expected less from someone like you.”

“And what does that mean?”

“It means, I put little faith in your family’s ability to hold true to something.”

I clenched my jaw and stalked past him into the small living room. “Are you going to insult me all night or invite me in so we can get this over with?”

“If my proposal upsets you so much why are you willing to do this for that worthless brother of yours?”

I scowled. “Picking me apart for my choices isn't your right.” I gestured nervously. “Just take off your pants and let's get it over with.”

Jameson laughed. “In a hurry? Got a date?”

“Maybe I don't want to spend a moment longer than I have to with you.”

His smile faded and he pulled his belt free, leaving it to hang ominously from his fingertips. “Sweetheart, has anyone ever told you, that your sense of self-preservation was damaged as fuck?”

“It's been mentioned.”

“Let me scrub your head of whatever notion you have of what tonight is going to be like...I've never been a minute-man and I don't plan to start tonight. What I'm going to do to you will be slow, hard, and thorough. By the time we're through, it'll be a damn miracle if you can walk.”

The blood drained from my face. “You're going to hurt me?”

“Only if you ask me to.”

“Why would I ask you to hurt me?” I asked, baffled.

“Oh honey, sometimes a little pain sweetens the pleasure.”

I opened my mouth to snap but before I could say a word, his hot, greedy mouth was claiming mine, pushing me onto the mattress with the bulk of his heavy body.

I felt impossibly tiny against him and there was something darkly intense about the way my nerve endings came to life at his rough touch.

There was nothing sweet or gentle about Jameson.

He took what he wanted, no matter my feelings on the matter.

As if I belonged to him.

I whimpered as his hand gripped my throat, holding me in place while his other hand palmed my soft belly.

Trembles betrayed me as needy warmth funneled south, slicking my insides and turning me to jelly.

He had me pinned.

It was heady and scary at the same time.

Jameson mixed fear with lust and it was a combustible concoction, one I never would've admitted in a million years that made me slippery with mindless desire.

Desire I desperately wanted to fight.

I stiffened, purposefully shutting down the thoughts that jumped like rabbits escaping a fire through my mind.

Mustn't be aroused! This was sick! Jameson was the devil!

I pushed against him, breaking the kiss, breathing hard.

“I’m not a piece of meat you can just devour,” I said, my voice shaking.

“Wrong. You are mine to eat at my leisure,” he corrected me.

I had to catch my breath. I just needed a minute to regroup.

My gaze darted to the interior of his house, grasping onto the first thing I noticed.

A man definitely lived here.

Solid colors, bold, manly, and very little in the way of pictures or sentiment.

Did he live here or did he just sleep here?

“I doesn’t surprise me that you keep nothing in the way o

f mementos in your house,” I disdained, hoping my insult hit home. “People like you probably don’t have any true friends and any family you might have, have probably long since washed their hands of you.”

“Baby girl’s got claws,” he said.

“Stop calling me that,” I returned, hating the way my belly trembled when those stupid words fell from his mouth. “I’m an adult.”

“Oh yes, you are,” he agreed and I immediately regretted saying anything. His hot gaze roaming my body felt as primal as if his hands were touching me. He grinned. “Make yourself comfortable.”

“Let's get this straight — I'm not comfortable and I never will be. I just want this to be over with.”

He laughed at my insistence to just do the deed so I could leave and scrub my skin off.

Would I ever be able to completely scrub his touch from my memory?

Even as I wanted to shake with revulsion at the very idea, I was becoming hot and twitchy. My pelvis felt heavy and my vagina (I refuse to call it pussy, that’s just gross) was becoming slick.

I wasn’t stupid.

Those were classic arousal signs.

But I didn’t want to be aroused by him.

I think getting hot and slippery over Ghengis Khan would’ve been preferable to doing it with Jameson Reed.

Jameson's dark eyes narrowed but those damnable lips twisted in a dangerous smirk that sent my belly to quivering with something that wasn't entirely unpleasant. “I like a girl who knows how to get to the point.”

And then lightening fast, Jameson had jerked me into his arms. Those thick bands of muscle wrapped around me, lifting me off my feet, and I gasped even as he hoisted me onto his hips.

I had no choice but to wrap my legs around his torso and cling to him.

“What are you doing?” I asked in an agonized whisper.

Could he feel the heat at my center against his belly?

Would he know that I was shamefully turned-on even if I didn’t want to be?

His chest was like granite.

Everywhere my fingers went, I was met with solid steel.

Flutters of warmth tickled my insides as he gripped my behind, squeezing as if it were his right to touch me so intimately.

“Why are you still a virgin?” he asked in a low tone as he slowly walked to the bedroom.