Page 47 of Bought

His fingertips were warm on my skin. “I’ll make you work for your five hundred thousand and it won’t be easy,” he went on. “In return, for example, I’ll require answers to my questions.”

Oh, great.

“What questions?” I asked, even though I knew.

His thumb stroked over my chin. “What you’re doing in my bedroom, for example. The real reason, not the half-truth you gave me just now. And I’ll insist on knowing the name of the person who hurt you. Your name too, will also be required, and why you were selling your virginity, why you were so insistent you come home with me.”

I will turn you inside out…

The warning he’d given me the night before rang in my head and yet some part of me wanted to give him the answers he demanded. Because I was tired. Tired of holding onto them and guarding them, tired of having to pretend.

You’ll never get to Santorini if you do.

I wouldn’t get to Santorini if I refused either. But if I accepted…I might be able to delay the moment when I had to tell him the truth about my mission here, and that might give me enough time to search for the evidence I needed.

But that’s not all I’d get.

I’d get him too.

“It’s… a lot of money,” I said. “Are you sure you want to pay that for me?”

“Why shouldn’t I pay that for you? You don’t think you’re worth it?”

Of course, you’re not worth it. Why else did your mother leave you behind? Why else did your father hate you so much?

I ignored the thought. “I didn’t say that.”

His blue gaze was a spear pinning me in place, as if he’d heard every word of that doubt. “But that’s what you meant.”

He saw too much. It wasn’t fair, especially when I couldn’t read him at all. “You have no idea what I meant,” I shot back. “You don’t know anything about me.”

“Don’t I?” He settled me more firmly against him, and I could feel the hard length of his cock behind the zipper of his jeans, making his interest very clear. “You’re determined and stubborn. Smart and very brave. Yet you’re also desperate for my attention, for my approval. Why is that, hmmm?”

It was as if he was taking a scalpel to my skin and peeling it off, exposing all my nerves to the air, making me feel tender and raw. Why had he said all those lovely things about me and then ruined it with making me sound so desperate and needy?

He’s right though, you are.

I hated the thought. But…I couldn’t deny it. Yes, I wanted his attention and approval because I’d never had either of those things. Or rather, I’d had the attention, but it had been of the wrong kind and as for approval…had anyone ever thought I was any good at anything?

I didn’t want him seeing all that terrible doubt, so I tried to pull away yet again, but he was too strong, holding me fast.

“Keep still,” he said quietly and with so much authority that I obeyed, my breathing ragged. “You can want those things and I’ll give them to you, because that’s what a Dom does. But know this. When I buy something, I pay exactly what that thing is worth, nothing more and certainly nothing less. And if I think a weekend of your company is worth five hundred thousand dollars, then that’s what it’s worth, understand?”

I swallowed again, achingly conscious of his grip on my chin. Of the warmth of his fingers, of his body.

He thought I was worth that much money…

I could barely comprehend it.

“I haven’t agreed to anything yet,” I said in a scraped voice. “Don’t we have to have some kind of contract or something?”

“What? Like in the movies?” Disdain dripped from every word. “I think not.”

“But I—”

“Little one,” he interrupted with icy calm. “Know this. You belong to me this weekend. And I take care of what’s mine, understand?”

I take care of what’s mine…