I stroke a finger down the inside of her thigh toward her knee, daring her to close her legs.
She cries harder and opens them another inch.
“Again,” I tell her.
Ashley’s got her fists around the hem of my shirt, grip tight. She sets her jaw under my hand, gritting her teeth. It’s not from my touch. It’s because she can’t stop making those sounds.
She can’t stop herself from trying her hardest to part those thighs a little more, a little more…
I cup a palm over her pussy and she slams into my hand like a magnet. There are no more tears under my fingertips. I feel her open her mouth to take quick, panting breaths, like she did on the water.
She’s warmer now. Hot. Perfectly smooth, the way I’d expect a rich socialite to be. I can feel all of her under my hand, all her delicate flesh, her clit swollen and so fucking needy. Ashley will never admit this out loud. She doesn’t have to.
I center the heel of my hand over her clit. She writhes underneath the pressure. It’s enough to let her know I’m there but not enough to get her off. A tease. Payback for trying to swim away from me so damn many times.
I drag my touch through her sweetness and take my hand away so I can shove my fingers accusingly in her face. “Wet. You can’t hide this, princess.”
She shakes her head, but not hard enough to break my grip. Almost like she’s testing it. Her lips open and close, eyelashes fluttering. No words.
I lean in and bite her bottom lip at the same time I aim my hand back between her legs in a stinging slap. “Stop trying to fuck me, or I’m going to think you want it.”
Ashley goes still in my hands. She didn’t know what she was doing until now. Didn’t know that her fight was nothing but another performance. Her stillness isn’t perfect. She’s holding the motion in her bones and shaking from it. All she can do is let go of the hem of my shirt with one hand and dig it into the mattress. Push her heels in, too.
She won’t close her legs.
She can’t.
I circle her hole with my fingertips until she starts making noise again. Small, pathetic things, slutty wishes without words. She’s wetter now. I’m braced over her, but I have enough room to put my foot on the ball and kick it away from the bed, creating tension in the chain.
Let her feel that.
She does.
Her body sags into the bed and she brings it back to neutral, trying her best to keep her hips from moving. She’s committed now. Not going to let on that she needs me. I laugh at her, giving my fingertips enough room to feel her swallow while I keep her head turned.
And then I shove two fingers inside her.
She gasps, those slick muscles clenching down around my knuckles, but she keeps her hips down. I can feel how badly she wants to move. Feel it in my palms and in the rest of me, too.
I draw my fingers out slowly.
Push them back in hard.
It’s another kind of torture, going slow. But that’s how I’ll break her of this nonsense. That’s how I’ll tease her enough to get some sort of satisfaction. Not nearly enough of it, that’s for fucking sure. She moans and I add another finger and twist.
Her cries have turned short and sharp. Begging cries. I let her do it long enough to shame her before I finally give her what she wants.
My thumb on her clit.
The moment I make contact she breaks her own rules. Ashley arches off the bed and into me, as close as she can get. As close as she was in the water, but she’s half naked and I’m fully fucking clothed and it is killing me. I finger-fuck her back across the bed until it’s not me she’s straining against, it’s the chain around her ankle, and I lean down to speak directly into her ear.
“Do you feel that?”
A sob. “Yes.”
I fuck her harder, as deep as I can get. “I’m not talking about my fingers, princess.”
“I—” Her eyelashes look so long in the moonlight, her cheeks so flushed and mortified. “I feel the chain too.” When she says it her hips rise off the bed and her pussy grips my fingers tighter.
“It must be embarrassing for you.” More pressure on her clit. More tiny circles.
“What must be?”
I won’t let her look at me. If I let her look at me, if I let her turn her head, then I’ll take her out of this bed right now and fuck her over my desk.
“Coming so much harder because there’s a chain on your ankle.”
“No,” she breathes, and then her entire body tenses and curves. She comes hard all over my fingers, her legs open wide for me, one hand on her shirt and the other clutching the sheets. The shirt goes up an inch, then another, and she shudders out the peak of it while I fuck her through it.
It’s hard to stop.
But I do it.
I pull my fingers out of her and wipe them across her shirt—my shirt—and stand up.
Ashley gapes at me, astonishment written all over her. You’re leaving? is written all over her.
Fuck yes I am.
Back on the deck I hop up on the railing and lean out far enough to get hit with ocean spray. I’d let myself fall, but I have a call to make. “Nicholas,” I bark.
Far down the deck there’s a creak of a hammock, and then he’s leaning on the railing next to me.
“You have my phone?”
“Yeah.” He hands it over.
I hook my feet through the bottom rung and swipe the phone open. The number I need is in the dossier.
“Who are you calling?” Nicholas asks.
“How the fuck is that your business?”
“Do you speak to your mother with that mouth?”
I swing a fist around toward his face and connect mostly with his cheek. My own ribs contract around my lungs. “Next time you give me that kind of lip I’ll jump down with you.”
“Why?” My first mate rubs at his cheek and plays sullen, but he’s curious.
“To hold your head under.” The words taste like lake water. “I’m calling the father.”
He drops his hand to his side. “Ransom?”
“What else?”
“I don’t know. I thought maybe you’d drop her off for free.” He heads back toward his hammock.
“You’re fucking funny,” I call after him, and then I dial.
Joseph Donnelly is waiting for me, or someone like me. I know, because I’ve dialed the direct line to his private office. No secretary to waste my time. There’s a hitch before the call connects. Empty space, and the hope of a worried parent. “Hello?”
“It’s good to hear your voice.”
There’s a brief scrambling on the other end of the line. “Who is this?”
“I met your daughter on spring break. She’s having the time of her life.”
“Do you have her?” I can hear the hope in his voice. The fear. The grief.
“How much do you miss her?”
Joseph curses under his breath. “Whoever this is, if you’re fucking with me—”
“I wouldn’t fuck with you. Your daughter, on the other hand, she’s much prettier. I wouldn’t mind spending time on a deserted island with her.”
A crash in the background of the call. “What’s your price?” He’s trying to be cool, Joey boy. But he’s not doing a very good job. “What’s your name?”