“Spread your legs, baby. I’m going to fuck you hard.” I do, and true to his word, he spreads me wide and shoves his cock hard inside me, his powerful thrusts making me slide across the top of the car, giving me small friction burns on my breasts and belly.

I feel the buildup to his orgasm, and my body responds, claiming him, clenching hard against him, until finally, he explodes inside me, his low groan of pleasure echoing in the dark.

He doesn’t pull out, though. Instead, he holds my hip with one hand and uses the other to reach around our joined bodies and find my clit. I’m so turned on already that it takes very little, and soon the wild tremors of my release cut through me and my cunt clenches tight around him as he continues to tease and play me, not relenting until my knees are weak and it is only his hand and the car that are keeping me from collapsing.

When he has cleaned me up and fixed my clothes, he takes my hand and eases us both to the ground on the darker side of the car. I am limp with satisfaction as I curl up against him by the tires. His arm is around me, and I snuggle close, wanting there to be no distance between us at all. “Thank you,” I whisper. “Sir.”

He chuckles, but then says seriously, “I needed it, too,” revealing what I already knew. He presses a kiss to my forehead, and I feel a low buzz of pleasure from that simple touch. “I was so goddamn angry at your father.” He meets my eyes. “And at myself.”

I look away. I was furious when he told my father flat out what Reed had done to me. When he revealed that Reed was still tormenting me, this time by blackmailing me. And he made it damn clear that Jackson and I both know that my father knew all along that Reed wasn’t just taking innocent advertising shots of me.

I’ve gotten over the fury, but that doesn’t mean I want to relive the moment. But it does mean that I understand what Jackson is talking about when he says he needed it, too. He was angry. At my father. At himself.

He was angry and he needed a release.

I was angry and needed to be claimed.

I smile a little thinking about it, but my smile fades soon enough. “It scares me a little,” I admit.

“What does?”

“This. With you.” I tilt my head so that I can look at his eyes, and I see the confusion and the worry in them. “The way I let go completely. The way I want to be used. I get the root of it—I do. It’s about the pleasure that comes from giving up control. It’s fighting back against Reed, who stole that control from me over and over. And, honestly, the wilder it is the more I like it. The intensity—it keeps me grounded. It makes me feel alive.

“So I understand,” I continue. “I do. But I want to be stronger, Jackson. And this need to surrender to you is so powerful, that sometimes I’m afraid that I won’t be able to cope without you beside me.”

“You think giving yourself to me makes you weak?” He brushes his hand over my cheek. “The hell it does. Weak is closing yourself off. Weak is being too afraid to ask for what you want. Do you think being strong means not needing anybody else? It doesn’t. It means knowing yourself. Knowing your desires. And not being scared to demand what you truly want.”

“I want you,” I whisper.

“I know. But that doesn’t mean you can’t stand on your own. If you need to—when you need to—you will do just fine.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I know you.” He kisses me gently. “And sweetheart, I need to tell you something.”

I nod, fighting back a fresh wave of fear.

“I didn’t kill him.”

“What?” I’m not sure if my response is surprise at his statement, or bafflement that he’s brought the subject up now.

“I didn’t kill Reed. You’ve stuck by me, believing you knew what happened. It’s only fair I tell you the real truth.”

“Oh.” Relief overwhelms me, and yet there remains an undercurrent of some odd disappointment. Because the truth is that I liked the thought of Jackson being the one who erased the man who tormented me.

“So you don’t need to worry. The truth will win out, and I won’t go to prison. I’ll always be beside you.”

I nod, because I know that he is saying it to soothe me. But at the same time, it’s cold comfort. Because innocent or not, that is one promise that it’s no longer in Jackson’s power to keep.

fourteen

I wake up naked and alone in my bed, and I immediately sit up, afraid that Jackson changed his mind and decided to go back to the boat after all.