Drake Sisters 06 - Turbulent Sea

until there was only his strength and his hard body and the racing fire storming out of control. Her breasts ached, felt swollen and tender, the tips sensitive as they rubbed against his chest. The junction between her legs was hot and damp, demanding release. She slid along his thigh, applying pressure, seeking the relief only his body could provide.
    'No.' Ilya lifted his mouth from hers, his fingers reluctantly releasing her. 'Not like this. When you give yourself to me, it's all the way and forever. This is too easy.'

    Joley flung her head back, glaring at him. 'You're saying no to me?'
    'We're not doing this, not like this. You want to get off, you can come home with me and get into my bed where you belong.'
    She studied his implacable expression, wanting to belong to him, knowing he would take her over, knowing she couldn't live with what and who he was. She would end up loathing herself more than she already did.
    He was rejecting her . She'd flung herself at him after months of enduring his constant assault on her senses, she'd given in, driven by an obsession, a craving he'd planted, and he was rejecting her. Humiliation fed fury. She took a deep breath and flung back her head, chin up. 'Fine. I don't need you. I can walk into that house and go home with any man I want.'
    Ilya heard the complete confidence in her voice and knew she was stating the absolute truth. She looked passionate, untamed, so sexy his heart nearly stopped. Her eyes were fairly shooting sparks. Her hair was wild and disheveled, as if he had already made love to her. She looked wild and unpredictable and so beautiful he ached.
    Ilya caught her wrist again, turned over her palm. 'Do you see this, Joley?' His hand slid over her upturned palm, sending shivers along already sensitized nerve endings. 'I don't care what happened before I put my mark on you, but make no mistake, Joley, ever since I put this on you, you belong to me. I don't share well with others. Do whatever you feel you have to do, but be willing to live with the consequences. Just know you're going to make things unnecessarily hard on yourself.'
    'Why are you doing this to me?' Her palm, the one marked by his brand, itched to slap the tough angles and planes of his face. He led her on and then rejected her. 'You can't tell me no and then say I can't be with anyone else. Damn you to hell for this.'
    'You need a man, and I don't mean some spineless wimp who is going to give in to your every whim. You need someone who can rein you in and control your tendency to act before you think.'
    'That's so sexist. As if I can't take care of myself.' She gave a little sniff of disdain, furious with him. 'I'm a famous, highly successful woman who's been
    all over the world, Prakenskii, and I do a darned good job of taking care of myself.'
    He shook his head. 'You don't and you know you don't. Everyone thinks you're tough, Joley, because that's what you want them to believe, but you're not. And you're way too impetuous. You rush in to act without thinking. The Reverend and his pathetic excuse for bodyguards are a perfect example. What did you think would happen when you exposed him for his sleazy crimes on national television? He intends to pay you back. A man like that doesn't forgive and forget. He gets even.'
    'And you think I need a man to protect me?'
    'Yes. Call me sexist all you want, but in the end, it won't change the truth. You're running because you know you need me and you don't want to need anyone.'
    'Joley!' Brian called her name and she spun around. Denny, her drummer, was walking with him toward her, looking guilty.
    Joley loathed herself in that moment. She wasn't any better than Denny. She'd come here for sex with a man she was certain was the worst kind of criminal. And he had rejected her advances, humiliated her, threatened her, and she still was on fire for him. What did that say about her? She pushed away from Ilya and ran to meet Brian and Denny, choosing to escape before she did something she couldn't take back.
    Chapter Two
    'I've done something so stupid, Hannah.' Joley paced back and forth, skirting the furniture in her hotel room as she held the phone to her ear. 'Really, really stupid.'
    'I'm not going to mention that it's three in the morning and you're scaring the hell out of me,' Hannah said amid a great deal of covers rustling and her husband Jonas whispering in the background. Hannah shushed him. 'I know you're not hurt because all of us would know.'
    'I