Debt Inheritance (Indebted #1)(42)
His touch seared through my jacket and maxi dress, sending unwanted intensity down my arms.
Do I believe it? Could I believe it? That everything I understood of this situation was reversed?
Mind games. Illusions. All designed to trip me up.
Shaking my head, I snapped, “No. I don’t believe it.” My blood pressure exploded, thundering in my ears. His focus was absolute, and it burned, oh how it burned. “Nothing you say will make you the victim in this situation. Nothing you show me will make this permissible. You think I believe a ludicrous debt that you say is over six hundred years old. Wake up! Nothing like that would hold up in a court of law these days. I don’t care that you’ve staged my disappearance, or following my family with a loaded pistol. I don’t believe any of this, and I certainly don’t believe you have anything law abiding on your side.”
Jethro scowled but I continued my tyrant.
“All I believe is you’re a bunch of sick and twisted men who made up some bullshit excuse to make themselves feel justified while tearing other’s lives apart. Show me where you have the right to own me. No one has that right. No one!”
He chuckled, gold eyes growing dark. His body language switched from stand-offish to oozing with sexual innuendo. It was like watching a glacial melt, shedding winter for volcano heat.
“I like it when you’re feisty. Your whole perception of the world is warped. You live in a fairytale, princess, and I’m about to destroy it.”
His shoulders softened, lips parting; his gaze caressed my face to land on my mouth. “You think we don’t have men in high places? Men who make what we say absolute law? You think we got to the level of standing in society or the obscene amount of wealth we have by not using the very same law you think will protect you for our gain?”
His voice whispered over me, threading with his heady scent of woods and leather. “So stupid, Ms. Weaver. We own more than your family. We own everything and everyone. Our word is unbreakable. And we have proof.”
He leaned in; the violence he emitted switched to dangerous lust, buffeting me harder against the wall. His eyes were rivers of fire, annihilating my argument, dragging me under his spell. “You think I can’t make you do what I want?”
I sucked in a breath.
He’d never looked at me like that. Never given any hint he might find anything about me exciting. He treated me like a leper. He looked at me as if I were a different species—a species not evolved enough to warrant his sexual attention.
But that’d changed.
His interest trapped me, consuming me better than threats and tightly restrained anger. This was unexplored territory. Lust and attraction and flirting were terrifying because I was the novice and he was the expert.
I couldn’t fight against something that made me feel.
Jethro’s nostrils flared, fingers twitching on my shoulders. His voice lowered to a husky whisper—a whisper best suited for seduction. “You think you deserve a life built on other’s blood? You think you’re worthy?” The rhythm and volume turned the horrible questions into a poem rather than curse.
Don’t fall for it. Don’t let him win.
He was already winning. He spun a tale of a lethal unstoppable force. His family’s legacy somehow granted him police approval, government blind-eyes, and the right over life and death.
Who gave him that right?
I still couldn’t believe it. But it didn’t stop my legs shifting, pressing together, trying to alleviate the strange ache building with every moment.
Our fighting coaxed my unseen claws to grow a little more. My temper made my legs firmer; my vision clearer. My body unknowingly found a cure from dreaded vertigo, all while embracing anger and rage.
Jethro noticed my tension, stroking my shoulders as if I were a skittish prey. “We’re simple creatures, Ms. Weaver. I know what’s happening to you.” He smiled gently, his gold eyes attempting to look soft but unable to hide the steel beneath. “Your skin is hot. You’re breathing faster.”
He ducked his head, murmuring, “You like this. You like being pushed past your limits.”
I shook my head. “You’re wrong. There’s nothing about you that I like.”
He sighed, his gaze whispering over my mouth. “Lying won’t work. I know you’re growing wet for me, wanting me.” His touch morphed from menacing to lightning, sending a rain of sparks through my blood. “Want to know how I know? Because I taste it in the air. I smell it all around you.”
My lips parted. My chest rose and fell, increasing faster and faster. I couldn’t look away; I couldn’t push him away. I couldn’t do anything but revel in the intoxicating melting, glowing, sparking need building rapidly in my core.
Closing my eyes, I swallowed hard, trying so hard to dispel the sick and twisted desire he conjured. “I’m—I’m not.”
He ran his thumbs over my shoulders, following my collarbone with infinite softness. “You’re not?” he breathed. “You’re not feeling the rush of lust or the knowledge you’d throw all your rules away for just…one…little…taste?” His lips came so close to mine, pulling away in the ultimate tease.
Yes. No. I don’t know.
I’d lost control of my body, hurtling straight for a cataclysm where everything was hot and sharp and intense.
Pepper Winters's Books
- The Boy and His Ribbon (The Ribbon Duet, #1)
- Throne of Truth (Truth and Lies Duet #2)
- Dollars (Dollar #2)
- Pepper Winters
- Twisted Together (Monsters in the Dark #3)
- Third Debt (Indebted #4)
- Tears of Tess (Monsters in the Dark #1)
- Second Debt (Indebted #3)
- Quintessentially Q (Monsters in the Dark #2)
- Je Suis a Toi (Monsters in the Dark #3.5)