“I did and it scared the ever-loving shit out of me. You’re staying here tonight. No argument. I’ll disable your plane if I have to.” Relieved that she appeared to have accepted the fact that I wasn’t going to let her go sit in that freezing cold tin can she called an airplane, I moved into the kitchen to grab a towel. She was standing in front of the fireplace when I returned to hand it to her. “Now dry off, you’re going to ruin my floor.”
She whirled around and looked down at her boots. “You’re worried about your floors?” She tossed the towel at me and stomped toward the door. “Forget it. You’re impossible. I’ll go wait in the plane.”
I blocked her path before her third step. “I’m not sure if I should spank your ass for that comment or for being so reckless with your life.” The rage flared in me and I stepped closer to Anna, barely a breath away from her face. My eyes pinned her green ones, daring her to mouth off again.
She has no idea who I am.
I was the CEO of a multi-million dollar company. I had hundreds of employees, servants, money to burn. No one ever mouthed off to me the way she did. And something about her fire woke me up inside. For the first time since I’d walked away from Victoria and her lies, I felt something other than cold indifference for the world. Apathy melted from me as the fiery red-head before me put her hands on her hips and glared up at me.
“Spank me?”
“Spank you,” I repeated, imagining her round ass over my lap. I’d play with her pussy, of course. And not really spank her, not hard. Just enough to make her squirm and pant and beg me for more.
“You are out of your mind, Jack Simms.”
“Watch what you say to me, Ms. Jackson. You don’t know the half of my story, so don’t presume that you do.”
“So you’re the big bad caveman who will spank me for what? Speaking my mind?”
I grinned and lowered my eyes to her lips. “For that smart mouth, yes. If you were mine, I’d spread you naked over my lap and make you come with one hand while I spanked you with the other.” My nostrils flared and I watched as her eyes fluttered to my lips. She took a step back, but she was already too wound up to back down. I saw it in her stance, in the intensity behind her eyes, and my whole body buzzed with adrenaline, with lust, with the need to conquer all that fire and make it mine.
“You’re the pretty boy who can’t handle your life, running away from the world, hiding out here in the bush. You are a pussy, Jack. And you’re afraid of me. Afraid of a woman who lives and takes chances.”
“Risking life and limb in that storm wasn’t taking a chance, Anna. That was suicide.”
“I’ve been flying since I was old enough to walk. I know what I’m doing.”
Every week when she delivered my groceries, Anna brushed off my comments, made jokes about my poorly-cut wood, about my inability to perfect the art of fishing. I wasn’t an Alaska boy, born and bred, but damn it, I did well for a Seattle native who had never been this far out in the bush. Her comments fed on that insecurity, on the knowledge that I didn’t belong here—or Seattle—or anywhere. So I snapped. I walked forward, stalking her until she was pinned against the wood-paneled wall. “Hmm, no. You have no idea what you are doing.”
“Fuck you.” Her eyes were glazed and she had her hands in fists at her sides, the knuckles white. Her wet shirt stretched tight over her hard nipples and it was all I could not to lean over and take one of those pert tips into my mouth. I leaned forward just enough to surround myself with the scent of wet rain and woman. Leaning in close, I whispered in her ear, made sure my words were hot and heavy against her flesh.
“No. I think I’ll fuck you.”
She swayed toward me in a reaction I wasn’t sure she was aware of. In a calculated move, I leaned my body weight against her, my cock pressed against her hip. She gasped and turned to look at me. “I don’t understand you, Jack. What do you want from me?”
“I want that smart mouth, princess, all over me. I want to fuck you. Right here, right now.”
I thought she’d smack me, hard, but instead Anna nearly ripped out my hair in her attempt to pull me into a kiss. It wasn’t a chaste peck, it was a kiss filled with months of pent up desire and a shitload of frustration.
Our mouths moved against one another roughly, and I didn’t bother to be gentle. I was feral and so was she. We took it out on each other like animals; we ripped at clothes, tugged at hair, pinched flesh. We bit each other’s lips as our tongues crashed together and finally, finally, I moved my hands down to rip open her flannel shirt, buttons pinging on the wood floor as I pulled the fabric from her body.