Page 56 of Call It What You Want
“We both know I’ve owned you from the second our eyes first met, Ava.” His voice comes out raw, barely above a whisper. “Just like you’ve owned me.”
Those last words throw me completely, and I blink at him. Is the King of the Worldactuallyadmitting that someone has power over him? He’s such a force, always in control, I don’t know whether to believe him or not.
“A person can’t be owned.”
Not that I’m the expert on love or relationships.
“Oh, no?”
His grip on my face doesn’t loosen as he eases me down, guiding me until I’m flat on my back. I know what’s about to happen, and I hate myself for not fighting it. I could scream. I could lash out. But I don’t. I just lie here, looking up to him, waiting to see what he does next.
“Open your legs,” he says, his voice hard, all that vulnerability from five seconds ago completely gone.
My knees stay bent, clamped together until my thigh muscles burn. Maybe I’m not fighting back, but I’m not giving in easily, either.
With a large hand on each knee, he pries my legs open. I try to sit up and push him away with my foot, but he quickly stepsbetween my open thighs and pins me down with the weight of his body.
My fingers are splayed across his chest. I try to squirm out from under him, but he’s so big and so heavy, my efforts are a joke. “Fuck you, Jackson,” I push out.
He buries his nose in my hair and inhales deeply. “God, I need you like I need air…”
I freeze. Wait, what? Was that another admission? And was it a slip, or was it intentional? Honestly, Jackson has always been calculated. Nothing happens by accident in his world.
“Why do I get the feeling you say that to all your girls?” I say with more venom than I intended.
He pulls back a little and smiles down at me. “Mmm, baby. Is that jealousy I hear?”
“Hardly,” I scoff, and twist my head so I don’t have to look at his fuck-me face.
“Good,” he says with a low chuckle. “Because they should be jealous ofyou,they just don’t know it.”
“Jealous ofme…” I repeat, my voice cracking. Tingles sweep through my body, making it impossible to focus. “Why? You and I aren’t anything.”
The cold pendant around my neck reminds me thattechnically,that statement isn’t true. I’m his wife, so I guess we are something to each other. But his reason for marrying me was about control, not feelings. So in my book, our “marriage” doesn’t count as us being together.
“Because you’ve done what they couldn’t…” His hand curves over my breast through the thin fabric of my T-shirt, the pad of his thumb grazing my nipple until it stiffens. “Somehow you got past all my walls and crawled right under my skin. You make me feel something,” he says, his voice filled with anger.
The anger confuses me. It’s like I’ve committed some kind of crime by making him feel like an actual human.
“Am I supposed to take that as a compliment?” I choke out, trying desperately to ignore my already pulsing clit.
He doesn’t respond at all. Instead, he straightens and takes several steps back. My legs twitch involuntarily, muscles tensing to snap shut, but his hand catches my knee.
“Don’t.” The word comes out rough, barely controlled. He flicks his chin. “Take your shirt off.”
That’s when real fear slams into me. It’s not the sex or the intimacy that freaks me out. It’s the idea that he’d see me fully naked for the first time in three fucking years. So many things have changed since then. So. Many. Things. I’m not the same girl he knew back then, and my skin, my body, reflects that.
“Please don’t make me,” I say, my voice embarrassingly small.
My heart is beating so fast, it’s all I can focus on. I can’t even pretend to be brave right now. He’s a surfer with the frame of a linebacker, and he’s a million times stronger than me. We both know he could force me to do anything he wants.
Those green eyes narrow skeptically. “I’ve seen you naked, Ava. More times than I can count. The shape of your body is seared into my fucking brain.”
Okay, but that wasthen. This is now. And even when he saw me during the marriage/initiation ceremony, I was wearing a cloak, and it was dark. There’s no way he saw all of me.
His heated gaze flicks over my body. And I know what he sees beneath my oversized T-shirt: hips that are slightly wider, breasts that are slightly heavier, and about fifteen extra pounds.
“I’m not seventeen anymore.”
