Chapter Nine
CHAPTER NINE
H aisley curled deeper into the window seat, tightening the belt of her silky borrowed robe. She’d given up pretending to read after staring at the same page for an hour and failing to absorb a single word. Outside, the Caribbean sun gleamed off the stunningly blue water. It should have been beautiful, but like everything about this island, it was merely a facade, steeped in deceit and danger.
And it was sucking Nash in.
Since that horrific night in the Midnight Sanctuary when he’d been forced to claim her in front of an audience, something had changed between them. And she felt it casting a long, dark shadow over her heart.
After that shattering on-stage performance, he’d taken her to their suite, drawn her into the shower, and whispered his explanation in her ear. It had made sense. Of course they were being watched. Tested. He’d had to make the claiming real.
But no matter how gentle his touches or how sincere his apology, she hadn’t been able to shake off that awful night. She’d felt faceless, voiceless. Like a mere possession. Unimportant. Disposable. And knowing that he’d lied to her about the Jasper thing only magnified her feelings. She’d heard his rationale for the ruse. On some level, she even understood. But unlike that horrible claiming ceremony, no one had forced him to lie to her. To hurt her. He had chosen to do that on his own.
From the moment she’d stepped foot in this suite, it had become her gilded cage. And Nash? Her keeper. He came and went at all hours, offering no explanation about where he’d been or what progress he’d made in finding their escape. Most days, he barely spoke to her. Rarely touched her. Without that contact, she felt lost.
Last night before the movie, his phone had buzzed twice. Both times he’d stepped away, speaking in carefully generic responses. Afterward, he’d offered no information. He had simply plopped on the sofa beside her and tuned her out. This morning, she’d woken up alone.
Something had to give.
The operative who swore he’d come to save her no longer felt like the man she’d fallen for, but a stranger. Nash Scott had always been tenderly dominant and unflinchingly protective. Jasper King was cold and calculating, keeping her in the dark while he played spy games. She understood the need for secrecy, for caution. But why shut her out completely? Why not treat her like a partner instead of a pretty object he’d bought for an ungodly price?
She wanted to believe it was all an act, that somewhere beneath Jasper King’s ruthless facade, the Nash she’d fallen for still existed. But with each passing hour, her hope dimmed. Had she ever really known him? Or was she now seeing his true face—the covert operative who moved through the seedy world of danger and sin with shocking ease?
The decisive click of the suite’s door interrupted her brooding thoughts.
She whirled to find Nash standing in the portal, his massive frame blocking the light from the hall. From his stance and the set of his shoulders, she knew instantly that something had changed. His eyes were unusually cold. Predatory.
Her breath caught.
This wasn’t Nash, but Jasper King—the man who relished owning her, body and soul.
Wordlessly, he locked the door with deliberate slowness, the metallic clink highlighting the fact she was his cornered rabbit. Her heart slammed into her ribs.
“Strip.” His dark voice sounded like the crack of a whip.
“W-what?”
“Now. I won’t repeat myself.”
Haisley froze, clutching her book to her chest like a shield.
With a muttered curse, he crossed the room in long strides and seized her wrist, yanking her to her feet. The book clattered to the floor, splitting the spine. Pages scattered like the feathers of a broken wing.
His grip wasn’t painful, but it brooked no argument as he dragged her to the bed. The luxurious mattress that had cradled their uneasy sleep now loomed like an altar of sacrifice.
“Wait! What?—”
“No.” He ripped her silk robe away, leaving her clad in nothing but the whisper-thin nightgown beneath.
Cool air raked her skin. Goose bumps erupted. Apprehension surged.
“But—”
“Enough! It’s been pointed out to me that you may have perceived my patience as weakness. Or assumed that I care about your feelings. My goal was to break you slowly, but I see that I’ve been far too easy. That ends now.”
Horror dawned as his meaning became clear. Someone had gotten in his grill. They were probably being watched right now. Tonight was another show—and it probably wouldn’t be their last. But why hadn’t he found some way to explain? Or give her a sign? Weren’t they supposed to be in this together?
And why didn’t it seem difficult at all for him to treat her like a stranger he intended to use for his pleasure?
Her mind raced with possibilities as he stripped down to his underwear and followed her to the bed. He covered her body with his own and tugged up the sheet. She didn’t even have a moment to be grateful for the privacy before his hands were all over her, roughly stripping her bare and tossing her gossamer nightgown aside.
Haisley scrambled to shove his hands away and cover herself. He pinned her wrists above her head, his fingers spanning both her delicate bones easily as he scowled. “Don’t fight me.”
Knowing there were eyes on them, she tried to tamp down her terror and play along. After all, discovery and death would be far worse than whatever he had planned. But none of that stopped her very real fear.
The sheet tangled around them as Nash grabbed her thighs. “Spread your legs.”
Automatically, she resisted. “No.”
“I warned you,” he growled as he yanked her thighs apart, settled in between, and pressed her into the mattress.
His body was familiar—the same planes and muscles she’d memorized long ago. The weight of him, usually comforting, surrounded her. Enclosed her. Encaged her. She felt trapped. Everything inside her screamed.
“Please…” she whimpered before she could stop herself. Tears spilled down her cheeks.
Was he really going to do this?
Then he dragged his lips up her neck. Haisley’s head spun, tilting between shock and a spark of desire.
He shoved his underwear down to his hips. She tensed. But instead of penetrating her, he wriggled against her until the ridge of his cock found her clit. Then he rocked against her, slowly, rhythmically. To anyone watching, it must look as if he was taking her, maybe even hurting her. He wasn’t. His grip remained firm, but he merely used her body to create an illusion.
But soon, the skin-to-skin contact, his heavy breaths on her neck, and the friction against her most sensitive spots took its toll on her resistance. Her body, long ago conditioned to respond to him, took over. Her head told her the physiological response to his stimulation was as unavoidable as it was predictable. But it alarmed her. Confused her.
She fought, but the primitive, primal part of her brain took over. She found herself closing her eyes, moving with him, hips jerking to meet his strokes as her fear fell away.
He took her lips with a passion that stole her breath. Fire lit her blood. Her skin stretched tight, felt almost too sensitive as his free hand beneath the sheet turned gentle and caressed her.
Her breathing turned shallow. She let out another mewled “Please…” but this one wasn’t a plea for mercy; it was a plea for more.
He lifted his head from her neck and met her stare. The softness there… The arousal and the need? They connected her to him instantly.
Nash was inside Jasper King, begging for understanding and absolution—and slowly heaping an inexorably climbing pleasure on her.
“Feel me?” he growled as he dipped his hips and prodded her swollen clit again.
She couldn’t help but nod, her breaths rapid and uneven.
“You going to come for me?”
Was she?
Her brain shied away. She shook her head.
But her body had different ideas.
“No?” He prodded between her legs again. “You sure? That’s not what your face is telling me, baby.”
God, he’d always been so good at bending her desire to his will. It was as if he alone had the secret combination to her body.
And her heart.
Time lost meaning as he continued to grind against her, unerringly hitting that one spot that began unraveling her. As she turned wet and more desperate, he got harder—and more insistent.
“Mine,” he breathed in her ear. “All mine. Always mine.”
He gyrated against her again, slow and calculated—and fatal to her defenses. She gave herself over, unconsciously spreading her legs wider, pressing kisses up his strong neck, and aching to be closer to him.
“Look at you melting for me. That’s it…”
Nash was right; she was submitting. Clinging, even. Despite everything that had happened on this island, some part of her felt safe with him. It demanded her surrender and had her racing headlong toward orgasm.
Heat rose. Need chased it, pulling her body taut. Desire flooded her veins like the most addicting drug.
“More…” Her pleading little wail slipped out as she lifted her hips to him.
“You like me between your legs?”
Haisley didn’t stop to think, merely nodded.
He fisted her hair and tugged, forcing her to look at him. “Say it out loud. Tell me.”
“Yes,” she gasped as their stares met, his dark with need. “Yes…”
“Fuck,” he snarled in her ear as he paused to align his crest with her empty opening. “You want more? Tell me, baby. I’ll give you more.”
He was asking her permission. Unlike that night on the stage, he wasn’t simply taking her. He wanted her to want him. His eyes were begging.
Haisley wriggled against him, trying to join them together. Unless he filled her, she felt as if she’d fall apart. “Yes! Now.”
“Such a good fucking girl. Take every inch of me,” he commanded as he pushed inside her with a groan. “Yes, baby…”
She couldn’t fit all of him, not in a single thrust. But they moved together, driven by the need to not merely join but to connect. He couldn’t hide his clawing need to be one with her any more than she could deny the yearning firing her blood to feel him deep. His expression—like he’d die without her—sent her desire spiraling to a euphoric place where she could only feel him, could only taste his passion, could only smell his lust, could only hear his ragged demands mingling with her pounding heartbeats.
Everything between them dwindled to this moment where all she knew was Nash and the insane ecstasy straining for freedom inside her, about to rip off its chain.
“Oh, my god!” She flailed, frantic to get her arms around him, to pull him close. “I’m… I’m?—”
“Going to come? Fuck.” He pummeled his way inside her again. “Fuck. Yes… Yes! Do it. Now!”
Haisley couldn’t have stopped the orgasm from sweeping over her if she tried. The sensations converged between her legs, then burst, pulsing the drugging opium of ecstasy through her body. It ricocheted from her fingers and toes back to her pussy, which throbbed and contracted and lit up with the kind of pleasure that not only had her screaming her throat hoarse, but dismantled every bit of the facade she’d constructed since she’d been forced to the island.
As Haisley’s orgasm subsided, it wasn’t a blissful glow that took its place. Under Nash’s shuddering, growling body was the rawest form of Haisley. No defenses. No pretenses. No way to stop the gush of tears as he let go and exploded inside her.
Gradually, his harsh thrusts slowed, then stopped. His heart raced against hers as more tears spilled.
What the hell had just happened? What was he thinking? And where did this leave them?
Haisley closed her stinging eyes and turned her face away, even as she felt her pussy still clamping in gentle aftershocks around his slowly softening cock.
Nash grabbed her chin and tugged. “Look at me.”
She was afraid to. He’d stripped her so bare… What would he see in her eyes? Her confusion? A love that defied explanation? Or the shattering secret she’d been keeping from him for two long years?
“No.” She didn’t dare. Everything between them was already complicated enough.
Haisley felt his disappointment before he slowly withdrew and rolled away, leaving her trembling and exposed.
“Shower. Now.” He hauled her to her feet, his touch much gentler than his voice.
She stumbled to the bathroom on shaky legs, the mirror reflecting a stranger back at her—wide-eyed, pale, marked by his hands, claimed by his body.
Nash followed, turning on both the water and the sound system to cover their words before he shoved her in the shower stall and followed.
He planted his face in her neck. “I’m sorry. Gray was?—”
“Don’t.” She jerked away, shaking her head. “Don’t touch me.”
She couldn’t take it without falling apart.
His eyes hardened, not with menace but with a firmness that willed her to understand. And logically, she did. But tonight proved that no matter which face he wore or which persona he portrayed, he had entirely too much power over her.
It terrified her almost more than anything else.
“Stop fighting. Stand still.” He grabbed a bougie bottle of shower gel and washed her from shoulders to toes before he whispered in her ear, “Let me make you feel good.”
Before she could say a word, he covered her pussy with his soapy hand and rubbed until she gasped and clawed, clinging to him as she fell over the edge of ecstasy again, shuddering in his arms.
As she came down from her second soul-stripping surrender, she closed her eyes, focused on the spray pelting her burning skin and not his achingly gentle, excruciatingly perceptive touch.
By the time he turned off the shower and wrapped her in a towel, she felt drained. And so very lost.
Back in bed, Nash pulled her against him. She stiffened, terrified he’d get under her skin and steal more of her soul. But she didn’t resist. She couldn’t. Appearances had to be maintained. But every point of contact felt amplified. His hand on her hip, meant to look possessive for their audience, felt like a brand. His breath against her neck made her want to scream. To sob in confusion.
Damn it, she was breaking apart, splintering inside. He’d seemingly used her body like a prop in his performance, and she’d still given herself over to him with barely a whimper. He certainly hadn’t tried to moderate, much less explain, before he’d stripped her down and seduced her. Why didn’t she have any defenses against this man?
Because, no matter what, he owned her heart.
God, was this what their relationship had come to? Him, stripping her down to her naked soul while he made all the decisions about her body, her safety, her life? This violation felt more invasive than his catfishing. Far more. That had been about getting close to her. This had been about using her, however noble his intentions. And yet…she’d still given all of herself—body and heart—to him.
She was a fool.
Beside her, Nash’s breathing remained too controlled for sleep. She felt the tension in his muscles. The strain between them.
Desolation overwhelmed her. Even if they escaped this island alive, would there be anything left between them worth saving? Or had their enemies already won by turning them into intimate strangers?
In the darkness, tears slid acid paths down her temples. And Nash, the man who once would have moved heaven and earth to stop her crying, did nothing at all.
At eight the following morning, an unexpected knock on the suite’s door made Haisley’s heart stutter. Nash’s gaze met hers, a warning in their depths. So he wasn’t expecting anyone this early, either. That hardly reassured her.
Nash opened the door to reveal the female doctor with the pristine white coat who’d examined Haisley her first day on the island. Her smile held all the warmth of a scalpel. “Good morning. I’m Doctor Haynes. I’ve come to administer your breeder’s first pregnancy test.”
“Already?” Nash’s casual tone belied the tension in his shoulders. “I haven’t even been here a week.”
“Regardless, we give these tests every Friday. They are state of the art, Mr. King,” Dr. Haynes explained, snapping on latex gloves. “We’re able to detect hCG, the pregnancy-related hormone, within seven days of conception.” Her clinical gaze raked over Haisley like she was examining livestock. “Assuming, of course, you’ve actually tried to get her pregnant. My understanding is that you’ve been fairly…lax in that endeavor. At least until last night.”
Ice slid down Haisley’s spine. As Dr. Haynes arranged her medical supplies with military precision, Haisley tried to bury her shock. These monsters really were monitoring their every move.
Nash pretended to lounge in a nearby chair, the picture of indifference. But Haisley saw his jaw clench when the doctor roughly grabbed her arm.
“Sit,” Dr. Haynes ordered.
Haisley glanced at Nash, who hesitated, then nodded.
He was right; she didn’t have a choice but to comply. Neither of them did.
On trembling legs, Haisley made her way to the couch and lowered herself onto the cushion. The doctor’s needle slid home with little warning. As her blood filled the vial, Haisley’s mind raced. Could she be pregnant from that awful night on stage? What would Nash think? Would a child conceived in such horror be a blessing or a curse? Could she confront her past without it breaking her?
As fragile as she felt right now, Haisley wasn’t sure.
While the doctor processed her blood through a handheld device, Haisley tried to catch Nash’s eye. He stared fixedly at silent football highlights, but his white-knuckled grip on the armrest betrayed him.
What was he thinking? Was he worried she was pregnant with a child he didn’t want?
After five endless minutes, Dr. Haynes’s lips thinned. “Negative.”
“Not surprising,” Nash drawled, relief evident beneath his affected boredom.
“Perhaps not, but Mr. King…” Dr. Haynes’s tone could have frozen hell. “Mr. Gray has already expressed his concern about your lack of effort. We can provide medications if you’re having…performance issues. Or are you too distracted by our new hairdresser to focus on the breeder you paid so handsomely for?”
Haisley’s head snapped up, her stomach plummeting. Nash had been flirting with someone else while she’d been trapped in this luxurious suite of hell?
“That won’t be necessary. I perform just fine,” Nash insisted.
“Good to hear it.” Dr. Haynes packed up her bag with sharp movements. “Remember, you can’t leave the island with your merchandise until we’ve confirmed her pregnancy. I’ll return next Friday. I sincerely hope you try much harder in the next seven days to produce results. You can start by showing us your…enthusiasm with tomorrow night’s event.”
Event? Haisley hadn’t heard a word about that. The next auction was still weeks away…so what had Dr. Haynes meant? Haisley intended to get back to that, but first…
The door closed behind the doctor with a click. Haisley stood and rounded on Nash. “The hairdresser? Are you kidding me? What the hell?”
“Watch your mouth, woman!” Nash’s grip on her arm was urgent as he dragged her toward the bathroom with a growl. “Not another word.”
Haisley dug in her heels and dragged her feet, but she was no match for his size and strength.
He flipped on the shower. Steam filled the air as he turned on the music. This again?
She didn’t fight when he stripped her bare and shoved her into the shower before shedding his own clothes, stepping into the stall, and crowding her against the wall.
Suddenly, his lips were at her ear. “The hairdresser is one of our operatives. Hunter brought her in to help.” His hands framed her face, desperation lit his eyes. “These people watch everything. Question everything. You know that, right?”
“Yes, but?—”
“If I didn’t act as if I’m trying to hook up with her, what excuse could I give for us talking? What happens if they get suspicious enough to investigate? If Gray, Dr. Haynes, or their minions get suspicious enough to dig?”
Grudgingly, Haisley understood. But she hated it.
Hot tears mixed with the shower spray as she pressed her face into his chest. “You’re explaining? You’re risking your cover to protect my feelings?”
“Yes. I see this is breaking you.” His arms tightened around her. “But I can’t always do it. These people will kill us.”
He was right. She was putting him in a horrible position, thinking with her heart, instead of her head. She had to stop letting her emotions get the best of her.
“You’re right.” She lifted her head, meeting his concerned stare through the steam. “We can’t fight them if we’re fighting each other. I’ll try to be a better partner.”
“I want more than that.” His thumb traced her cheek. “After all this is over, I want us.”
Warm water sluiced over them, but Haisley shivered. Last night had proved that, no matter what, he owned her, heart and soul. She felt so uncertain, like a newborn fawn on wobbly emotional legs. But she had to get it together—for both their sakes. “We can’t know about tomorrow. Not now. But I won’t let my feelings put you in danger anymore.”
“Haisley, baby. You?—”
She stretched up and covered his lips with her own. “Later. We’ll figure us out then. Right now, we need to focus on surviving.”
He sighed. “I hate this. All of it.”
“Me, too. But I’ll try to help in every way I can. Any idea what Dr. Evil meant by an event tomorrow night?”
“I caught that, too, but I have no idea. Something tells me we’ll find out soon, and we’ll handle it.”
“Together. We have to.” The enemy had left them no choice. “I need to feel like more than a fixture. I need to know what’s going on.”
He nodded, then kissed her forehead. For a moment, they just held each other while the water cascaded over them. So much unsaid. So much uncertainty.
She only prayed her heart would survive whatever came next.