me through the yacht. It pushes me through closed doors and down empty corridors, but promptly disappears when I burst into the library and see Raphael in the middle of it.
With a hammer in his hand and a nail tucked into the crook of his mouth, he doesn’t look up from the pile of wood at his feet. My pulse slows with my movements, and suddenly, I’m not really feeling the whole sassy independent-woman thing anymore.
I drop my clammy hands to my sides and curl them into fists, then watch as he tugs the nail out of his mouth and drives it into a wooden board with the loose crack of the hammer.
He doesn’t look up. “Did you get your clothes?”
“Y-yeah.”
His gaze skims up from the floor to my thighs and darkens. “You going to put them on?”
I don’t reply. Instead, I watch him, stupefied, as he hammers another nail into wood and splinters it. “Fucking IKEA,” he mutters under his breath, giving the plank a kick with his shiny leather wingtip. “You people have whole houses filled with this shit, you know?”
No, I don’t know. I don’t know who you people are, what he’s building, or what the fuck is going on. The tension swells in my chest and bubbles up my throat, before slipping past my lips in a much less sophisticated way than I had planned.
“What is this?” I blurt out.
He raises a brow. “A bookshelf.”
His answer catches me off guard. A bookshelf? From IKEA? Aren’t those built with those little wrenches? Okay, maybe he really has lost the plot.
I shake off the thought and scramble to get back on track.
“No, us.”
His hammer pauses mid-air, eyes tracking my hand as it darts back and forth. Me and him, him and me. His expression conveys I’m ridiculous for lumping us together in this way.
The next crack tenses my spine, and he slips another nail into his mouth to conceal his smirk.
“You’re staying here for a while.”
“Yeah, but why?”
He picks up a pamphlet from his desk and holds it up by the window. “You don’t happen to read Swedish, do you?”
I grit my teeth. “Tell me why, Raph—”
“Because I said so,” he growls back.
The sudden venom in his tone sweeps away my next breath. I suck in a lungful of air to steady myself, and roll my shoulders back, refusing to crumble.
“It doesn’t make sense,” I say slowly. “You hate me.”
There’s a bitter edge to his laugh. “That’s what you think, huh?”
My cheeks warm. “You think I’m unlucky, at least. Why would you want to be stuck on a boat with someone who’s bad for you?”
He glances up at me, indifference masking the chiseled planes of his face again. “You eat burgers.”
I frown. “What’s my diet have to do with anything?”
Crack. “You eat burgers, although you know they’re bad for you. It’s the same thing, Queenie. You’re bad for me—” his stare carves a hot path down the front of my hoodie-clad chest, lands on the hemline, then he licks his lips “—but I still want to eat you.”
Jesus Christ. There’s something about the way his silky voice sharpens on the word eat that sends an electric thrill through my lower core.
I dig my heels into the plush carpet and try to focus on Matt’s three tips, but they’re starting to grow hazy behind my eyelids. What order were they in again?
Another crack of the hammer splinters the corner of the wood again. He frowns, looking down at the tool in his hand, like there’s something wrong with it rather than the ridiculous amount of force he’s putting behind each blow.
I open my mouth to protest, but nothing aside from hot air comes out of it. This was not how I thought this conversation was going to go. I thought I’d sail in here, lay down my terms and conditions to this arrangement, and then after a little negotiation, maybe, just maybe, I’d get fucked again over a soft surface and under cleared air.
Now, I’m not so sure it’d even be ethical to have sex with him at all, because he’s clearly lost his mind. I’m about to tell him so when his cell buzzes against the desk, cutting me off.
“Yeah?” He glances at his watch. “Fine. Have the jet ready to go in an hour.”
A sour taste rises to my tongue, and suddenly, I realize I could have got this all wrong. He’s leaving?
He hangs up and glances over at me, irritation flecking his green eyes. “Problem?”
I stare at him. He really plans on leaving me on this boat while he flits off on a jet? Maybe I should have double-checked with Matt what enemies-with-benefits actually means, because my vision of steamed-up portholes and violent orgasms has just gone poof.
Self-preservation forms a wall around my heart. “What if I don’t want to stay here and fuck you?” I snap. “Did you think about that? I have a life, you know, and guess what? It doesn’t revolve around you and your personal problems.”
He tears his eyes from his IKEA project to me. After a few tense seconds, he spits the nail out of his mouth and leans back against the desk.
It’s the first time since I stomped into this room that he’s given me all of his attention. I’d forgotten how heavy it feels, how uneasy it always makes me.
“So tell me that, then.”
“What?”
He tightens his cufflinks. “You’re a grown woman, Penelope, and I’m a reasonable man.” Yeah, tell that to Blake’s lifeless body. “So, drop the hypotheticals and tell me what you want.”
Under the heat of his stare, I try not to shrivel. Instead, I steel my jaw and match his indifference.
“I don’t want to stay on this boat and be your fuck toy, Raphael.”
He nods once, jaw taut. “Okay, now tell me that again, but closer this time.”
I frown. “Huh?”
Without breaking eye contact, he unbuckles his belt. The thawp of leather passing through loops makes me stiffer than the loudest crack of a hammer ever could.
“Come over here and tell me you don’t want to fuck me,” he says quietly.
Ice freezes my veins. When I glance to the door over Raphael’s broad shoulders, he laughs darkly.
“Silly girl,” he rasps, gaze flashing with molten amusement. “Your eyes always give you away.”
A staggered heartbeat. A strangled moan. Then I kick the half-built bookshelf into his path and make a run for it.
