“Tell me why. You didn’t want to do this. You don’t even like to be in the same room as me, let alone touch me.” I shook her a little. “Have I made you feel like you have to repay me? I don’t need a pity blowjob.”

Her teeth ground beneath my hold, rebellion and secrets in her gaze.

I tightened my fingers, bruising her but unable to stop the frustration leaking through my hand. “Don’t touch me, Pim. I don’t want that from you.”

Her face crumpled before determination replaced her pain.

It was a cruel thing to say, but the truth. Only…not the complete truth. I didn’t want subservient sex. I didn’t know what I wanted, but fucking her against her will was not it.

Taking a deep breath, I amended, “I don’t want that from you unless you want it. Do you understand? I’m not going to take from you. Not like him.”

She struggled in my hold.

I let her go.

Instead of ducking for the sheet to wrap herself in, she stood seething with reckless calm.

I wished so damn much she’d talk to me, but her silence said everything I needed to hear. I cocked my head, disbelieving the reason I saw in her gaze.

Wait…

I narrowed my eyes, doing my best to see past her anger to the plan gleaming below. “You…you sucked me because you’re trying to bribe me…is that it?”

She sniffed, her chin soaring high in the air.

“Why? If not for misplaced need to repay me…then why?” I stopped myself as the answer came. Of course. Fucking hell, why didn’t I realise her thoughts would go in that direction?

Sitting forward, I glowered. “You think if I enjoy fucking you, I’ll keep you.” My voice lowered. “That I won’t sell you.”

She locked in place, her kneecaps the only thing trembling when the rest of her was stoic. If I couldn’t read her body language, I wouldn’t have seen her terror.

“That’s it, isn’t it? You thought whoring yourself out would make me want to keep you.”

Her lips parted at the awful word.

I stood, tucking my pounding cock back into its prison of underwear. “Don’t like being called a whore?” I invaded her space, our chests touching, her nipples kissing my dragon’s belly. “Then don’t act like one.”

I couldn’t be around her.

I’d do something I’d regret.

This night was fucking over.

“Next time you think you can bribe me to do something by offering sex, remember that I want other things from you. Your body is not my end goal, Pim. Your mind is.”

I didn’t look back.

A WEEK PASSED.

An awful, terrible week where Elder treated me like a member of his staff. We met occasionally on the deck where the sun shone bright and unhindered, glittering on the ocean all around us, but he merely nodded stiffly and ignored me.

There were no invitations to dinner.

No origami boats or roses.

The night I’d sucked him, I’d relapsed to the same brittle sadness I’d existed in for two years. The shame Elder smeared me with coated everything, and for all the awful attention Alrik bestowed upon me, I wished Elder would at least acknowledge my presence in some way. His temper and judgment over what I’d done drilled holes into me bigger and bigger as each day ticked past.

Not once in two years had Alrik made me feel cheap. He made me wish for death, but he prided himself on telling me how much I was worth and why that value meant he would never kill me.

Elder didn’t value me at all.

Was it so wrong of me to use the only skills I had to barter for my safety? Did I deserve to be called a whore?

The moon hung heavy in the sky as I stood on my balcony and pondered just how much I was willing to let this man destroy my soul. I’d already let one destroy my body. I didn’t think I could do it again even if the scars weren’t visible this time.

The black ocean slipped silently beneath my feet as the Phantom sailed to whatever destination Elder had in mind. We’d been at sea for ten days, and the longer we were away from land and cities, the more he seemed to relax.

But only when I spied on him from the shadows.

When he was aware of my presence, he spiralled tighter and tenser than a fighter ready to battle to the death.

Did I repulse him that much? Where was the man who’d found me intriguing enough, pretty enough, to threaten my owner for one night with me? Why now, that he had me to himself, couldn’t he even look at me, let alone talk to me?

Ugh!

I grabbed my hair, rippling in the wind. I didn’t want to think anymore.

“Just jump.” The two words fell from my lips like a caress. The thought of ending it was no longer powerful but borderline weak. But the sewage inside my mind would never leave. My bones might be healing but would my soul?

My hands clenched the handrail, pulling my body forward. It would be so easy to switch my centre of gravity—push up, teeter, and let the ocean have me.

You survived. Don’t give up now.

Sniffing back angry tears, I turned my back on the sea whispering its death-locker sanctuary and closed the door. Quiet descended in the suite, reminding me just how tired I was.

The night we’d set sail from Morocco after Dafford Carlton tried to buy me, the nightmares had begun.

Every time I closed my eyes, Alrik was waiting. He tormented me harder, faster, more brutal than ever before. I’d wake up in sweat-drenched sheets, my heart a chainsaw, and a silent scream lodged in my throat.