Chapter 94
Jacob kept clutching her wrist all the time, without saying a word, but the low pressure emanating from him was almost suffocating.
The elevator went straight to the top floor, the presidential suite area of the hotel.
He dragged her down the plushly carpeted hallway to the very last door, swiped his thumb over the fingerprint scanner, and shoved her inside.
Elizabeth stumbled forward, her balance lost, and before she could regain her footing, the man behind her seized her by the shoulders. He spun her around with a jarring force and then, without a shred of mercy, pushed her hard.
The world tilted in a dizzying spin, and she landed in the center of a vast, soft, yet icily indifferent bed.
Standing over her, Jacob was a figure of judgment. His gaze, a volatile cocktail of fury, suspicion, and an obsessive intensity she couldn't decipher, burned down at her.
With a deliberate, almost languid slowness that bespoke the calm before a tempest, he began to unfasten the top button of his shirt. His voice was a low, ragged rasp. "It seems I've been too indulgent with you."
"Allowed you to forget who your man is."
A single, dim wall sconce cast his shadow over her, a mountainous silhouette of impending possession.
He turned away, striding to the small bar tucked into a corner of the suite. He picked up an unopened bottle of liquor, popped the cork with a flick of his thumb, and, forgoing a glass, tilted his head back to take a long, brutal swallow.
The liquid slid down his taut jawline and into his slightly open collar. Then, clutching the bottle, he stalked back to the bed.
Elizabeth had shaken off the initial vertigo, propping herself up on her elbows. Her hair, a dark, disheveled curtain, fell over her shoulders as she watched him, her eyes cool, guarded, and shadowed with a fatigue he couldn't see. His mercurial temper tonight had worn her to the bone.
Jacob leaned over, propping one hand on the mattress beside her, while the other still held the wine bottle.
The potent fumes of alcohol, mingled with his own distinct, cold scent, enveloped her in a suffocating cloud. He stared into her eyes, his gaze so intense it felt like it was trying to pierce her very soul.
"Drink," he commanded, his voice hoarse as he pressed the lip of the bottle to her mouth. The gesture was absolute, an order wrapped in brute force.
Elizabeth turned her head away, her lips pressed into a thin, defiant line. She hated this—this forced submission, this feeling of being treated like a possession, a plaything.
She didn't know why. Clearly, she could face this matter calmly before, but now she increasingly didn't want to wrong herself.
Her refusal was the spark that consumed the last vestiges of his reason.
With a low curse, he yanked the bottle back, took another deep pull of the liquor, but didn't swallow.
In the next instant, he seized her chin, forcing her face back toward him. As her eyes widened in shock, his mouth crashed down on hers.
A torrent of liquid fire, searing with his body heat and the high proof of the alcohol, was forced past her lips, a brutal communion.
The sharp, stinging sensation flooded her mouth, burning a trail down her throat.
She tried to struggle, to push him away, but his other hand clamped around the back of her head, locking her in place.
This was no kiss; it was punishment, a raw act of possession and catharsis.
His tongue pried her teeth apart, invading and conquering every inch of her mouth, stealing her breath and forcing her to swallow the liquid that symbolized his rage and his claim over her.
The liquor, mingled with the taste of him, swirled between them, inducing waves of dizziness and heat.
His hands began to roam, his palm sliding from her nape down the delicate column of her neck, tracing the sensitive line of her spine. The calloused pads of his fingers kneaded insistently through the fabric of her dress, igniting a tremor wherever they touched.
Pinned beneath him, Elizabeth was drowning in his violent affection.
The alcohol's delayed kick began to surge through her veins, making her limbs feel heavy and her mind foggy. Yet, as her body softened, the flame of defiance in her heart burned hotter.
Why? Why was he so erratic, so volatile? One moment cold and suspicious, the next a domineering brute. What did he take her for? A vessel for his paranoid fantasies and carnal frustrations?
She began to struggle in earnest, her hands pushing futilely against the wall of his chest, her legs trying to twist and create a barrier between their tightly pressed bodies. A broken, protesting whimper escaped her throat.
Her resistance only seemed to fuel his fury.
He broke the kiss, his breathing harsh and ragged. His eyes, dark and bottomless, fixed on her flushed face and her lips, now swollen and glistening from the liquor.
"Resisting?" His voice was a terrifyingly quiet snarl, laced with thick sarcasm. "Elizabeth, have you forgotten your place? Forgotten who protects you? Who gives you the luxury of attracting men like Sawyer? Of setting foot in those filthy places?"
Before the words had fully settled, he lunged again, his mouth claiming hers with even greater ferocity, as if he intended to consume her whole. His hands tightened, a crushing pressure that felt like it meant to meld her into his very being.
She was adrift in his storm, the heat in her body warring with the ice in her soul.
The alcohol blurred her senses but magnified her emotions. She couldn't bear his baseless anger, this torment.
During a brief lull, as he shifted to draw a ragged breath, she gathered her strength. She wrenched her head to the side, evading the renewed descent of his lips, her voice a trembling whisper sharpened by a clear, cold edge. "Jacob, what is it you want?!"
'What did he want?'
His movements froze. He remained poised above her, his heavy breaths the only sound in the room.
"Elizabeth," he ground out, "who do you think you're questioning?" He was Jacob. Her fiancé. The man who held her fate in his hands.
What right did she have to look at him with such defiance? What right did she have to question him at all?
A sudden, jarring clarity cut through the alcohol-induced haze in Elizabeth's mind. She had lost control.
To challenge him now, to provoke him in this state, was the most foolish, most dangerous thing she could do.
Her revenge, her intricate plans, everything she held dear—it could all be annihilated by this single moment of emotional indulgence. She could not let his inexplicable behavior derail her.
Almost instantly, she forced the panic down. She squeezed her eyes shut, took a deep, steadying breath, and when she opened them again, the sharp defiance was gone, replaced by a misty, manufactured vulnerability.
She tilted her chin up slightly, a deliberate, placating gesture, and leaned toward him, attempting to kiss his tightly clenched lips in an act of surrender.
This time, it was Jacob who turned away.
The movement was sharp, tinged with an irritation that seemed almostflustered.
He reached out, his touch rough as he brushed the damp, tangled strands of hair from her forehead.
His gaze roamed her face, scrutinizing every minute detail as if trying to peel back layers of artifice to find the truth beneath.
"Elizabeth," he said, his voice lowering to a quieter, yet more oppressive tone. "I'm giving you one chance."
His fingertips traced the feverish curve of her cheek, coming to rest at the edge of her trembling lips.
"Tell me the secrets you're hiding. About Hughes. About your real reason for getting close to me. About those phantoms lurking in your periphery," he stared into her eyes, missing nothing. "Tell me everything."