Page 5 of Make Me Yours

“P-please, I’m sorry,” she says, her breath coming in swift, shallow pants. “I thought you were Mark.”

The words disappoint me for some reason. I guess a part of me was hoping this girl was different in other ways, too, thatmaybe she was intelligent enough to realize my nephew is a self-centered idiot, unworthy of her time and attention.

But that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Unless, of course, she’s lying…

She looks like she’s lying, her eyes darting around the room before returning to mine. “Please.” She gulps. “Just let me go? I’ll leave and never come back. I promise.”

“Do you always sneak in to join Mark in bed dressed all in black?”

She gulps again, and her voice is wobbly when she says, “I like black. There’s nothing illegal about black.”

“But thereissomething illegal about trespassing.” Higher education gave me tools I’ve used to make myself rich, but at the end of the day, my gut calls the shots.

Right now, my gut is screaming that this woman has something to hide.

Something big.

“What do you say?” I nod toward the bedside table, where my phone sits next to the darkened lamp. “Should I call Mark? Ask him if you have permission to board The Merry Way?”

She chews her bottom lip for a moment. “Please…”

I arch a brow, not saying a word or moving a muscle.

She sighs, searching my face for weakness she isn’t going to find.

When she apparently realizes neither of us is going anywhere until she gives me an answer, she whispers, “Please…don’t call Mark. I don’t have permission to board, but I can explain why I’m here. I’m not trying to hurt anyone or take anything, I promise.”

“Then explain.” I ignore her pointed glance up to her wrists, still pinned in place by my much larger hands. I’m not letting this woman up until I get some straight answers.

After a beat, she sighs again. “I texted Mark a picture earlier tonight, after I’d had a few drinks with a friend. It was a…suggestive picture.”

“A sext,” I supply, wondering how old this girl thinks I am. I may be a decade or more her senior, but I’ve received my share of racy texts. I have a few on my phone right now, in fact. An ass shot from Raya, my hook-up in the city, and an artistic nude from Angeline, my fuck buddy in Paris.

But it isn’t Raya or Angeline I’m thinking about as my captive shifts beneath me again, making me even more aware of her strong thighs and the full breasts beneath her hoodie.

“Right, a sext,” she says, and I swear I can see her blush even in the dim moonlight. “As soon as I sobered up, I was mortified and texted him again, begging him to delete the photo, but he didn’t answer. Then, I realized his number was still traceable on my ‘track my friends’ app. I saw he was spending the night here. On the boat. I thought if I could just sneak in and delete the texts myself, while Mark was sleeping…”

I hold her gaze, trying to decide if I believe her.

Her tongue slips across her lips, making them look even more plush and kissable. If she weren’t one of my nephew’s lovers, I would definitely consider it. Her shyness over sending a sext is cute, and her body is built for the kind of athletic fucking I haven’t enjoyed in a while.

Raya and Angeline are both model thin and too delicate to do more than wrap their arms around me and hold on for the ride.

But this woman could keep up with me, I’m sure of it, and the more I study her plush lips, the more I want to see them open in an “O” of pleasure while she comes on my cock.

“So…can I get up?” she asks after a beat, her voice a sexy rasp in the darkness. “I can find Mark’s phone, delete my embarrassment, and be out of your hair before you can say ‘I’m a big, scary man who likes to bully people half his size.’”

Her words send ice water rushing through my veins.

I don’t mind being called big or scary, but I’m no bully. I’m not my father and she’s not some innocent waif I pounced on while she was lost in the woods.

“You’re trespassing,” I say, my voice a low, ominous rumble. “In Maine, that gives me every right to defend myself. With force.” I curl my fingers tighter around her wrists, until I can feel her pulse racing beneath her skin. “That’s something you should have thought about before you walked into someone’s bedroom in the middle of the night without an invitation.”

“How do I knowyou’renot trespassing? This is Mark’s dad’s boat,” she says, proving she’s as brave as she is uninformed. “And you’re not Mark’s dad. Not unless you had a hair transplant and grew six inches.”

“No, I’m not Rodger,” I say, my jaw tight. “Rodger’s dead. Now, like it or not, everything that was his, is mine.”

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