Page 71 of Ruthless Scoundrel
“You like being chased and hunted?” He doesn’t wait for my response because I think he knows it. I think I know it, too. “You like being owned by me, Ohksana’amai?”
A tremble rolls down my body at the word and that deep chest ache ofyearningthrobs a little harder. But I need to keep him where I want him, not get caught up in it, too.
And I’m a brat.
I graze his earlobe with my teeth, and he hisses in a sharp breath. He swells impossibly bigger against my side, sending heat cascading through my body from the spot. I can’t help it when my mouth waters at the thought of being on my knees, tied and begging before him.
“I would rather be eaten alive by the Voice of the Abyss for all eternity than let you own me for even a minute.”
His fingers knead the base of my skull. “You are so fucking ruthless.”
“Guess who I learned it from?”
“I’m sure nearly twenty years at court taught you some tricks,” he says, then takes a deep inhale through his nose and groans. “Like how to lie.”
My heart thuds furiously in my chest as I try to resist falling under the spell we’re weaving together.
“No lies here. My body is just a mutinous little traitor.”
“I think we could help you come around,” he says, planting a soft, open-mouthed kiss where my jaw meets my neck. I suck in a gasp and clamp down on a moan.
“Luvine!” Alejandra barks from somewhere on the deck and I jump in his grasp.
Jasper pulls back slowly, his hand sliding from the nape of my neck to my chin. He turns my face so that my eyes have nowhere to fall but on his own.
“You will not hurt yourself anymore, or I will give you a reminder of whose body this is—who it belongs to—one that you will not soon forget.”
His threat has my center aching with the need to feel what he did to me that night on the beach under the stars. I don’t know if that’s what he’s promising, but I hope it is.
He steps back, leaving me clenching my knees together just to abate the throbbing that refuses to back down. In a swift pull, he adjusts himself to obscure just how much I was affecting him, then turns toward Alejandra.
“What can I do for you, Captain?” he asks as he leaves me at the taffrail.
The sailors on deck are all still working, but it’s obviously at half-pace because they were so distracted with whatweweredoing. I twist back around to the sea before anyone can see how red my face feels.
This is going to be alongcouple of days.
Chapter twenty-one
Jasper
“Land ho!” calls the lookout, and thank fuck.
Sleeping with Reina in a hammock, surrounded by other sailors, has not been good for my frayed nerves. I’ve wanted to punch more than one of them for looking at her, and one got so bold as to get handsy, and him…Well, I had to explain to Alejandra why he was overboard.
It’s been impossible for me not to hold her every night, wrapped in each other and sharing heat, her legs tangled with mine, my knee pressed between her thighs. I could practically feel her aching for me to apply a little more pressure, a little more movement. And how I wanted to. But we were surrounded by men and women who have no business hearing the noises she’d make, and I would’ve drowned anyone who did.
Reina’s absolutely loved every second of it, of course, since she can see it’s bothering me. This woman perplexes me. She hates me, yet she wants me to touch her, and then she absolutelyabhors being touched by someone else but delights in watching me squirm.
Unbelievable.
Finally, we can get ashore and away from Men. Then I can explain things to her properly. Perhaps that will stop the torture.
“I can’t wait for a bath,” Reina says as she looks out from the bow toward land. “We have enough for a bath, right?”
I shrug. “I could throw you in now and save the coin.”
She rolls her eyes with an audible groan. “You’re far moodier than usual. Bad morning?”
