The Bid by Jax Page B

the right to keep her? How did one take possession of a woman who owned everything…including him? This was what he thought as he let his hand slide over her hip, stroking toward the soft swell of her backside.
    “Don’t forget—!” She gasped, cutting herself off and jerking slightly in the manacles. He watched her eyes widen, her lips parting in slight surprise. Jhon froze the instant he realized the mistake he had just made.
    “Oh, damn,” he swore softly, pulling his hand away to glare at the ring around his finger. He hadn’t meant to do it. He’d forgotten about the damn thing completely. Jerking it from his finger, he threw it across the room so it rang and skipped over distant stone. He reached to cup her face in between his hands, pulling her gaze up to his. “Hanna, I didn’t mean to do that!”
    “It’s okay,” she said on a breathless exhale.
    “No. You don’t understand.” He drew back and slapped a furious hand against the wall near her head. “It’s enough that you offered this! Don’t you see? I can’t think of a way to exact revenge because the minute you did this I knew you never meant me any harm. How can I claim vengeance on someone who meant no harm?”
    “Harm was done,” she said softly, her chest rising and falling quickly as a soft lavender hue tinged her cheeks. “Intention doesn’t matter if you feel harm was done.” For the first time, she put her head back and closed her eyes, visibly trying to ride the upsurge the stimulant was pummeling her body with. “Jhon…”
    “How do I stop this, Hanna?”
    She shook her head silently.
    “Bullshit! You have an antidote. I don’t want this, Hanna!”
    When her eyes flew open, Jhon caught hold of his breath. Her pupils were so wide that there was barely a trace of blue to be found around the black voids. A low sound rumbled up out of her throat, a small cry or groan that sounded much like a purr.
    “Touch me.”
    He couldn’t react. For the first time in his life he couldn’t make himself take action. He just stared at her as he stood tensely before her, watching the flush of color rising along her skin, seeing the soft sheen of perspiration breaking all over her. She was lashed down tight, but her body managed to arch and squirm provocatively all the same. He knew that feeling, knew how hot her blood was at this very moment. Knew exactly where it was all rushing to.
    “Step away, then!” she cried out suddenly. “If this is the torture you choose, then step away and let me suffer it! I can’t bear the scent of you….” She groaned, knowing such a statement was playing right into his hands, if indeed he was doing this on purpose. How would he ever have known how easy it was for her to smell the tantalizing potion that was his pheromones? Testosterone and soap…and the scent that was his and only his. Together they all blended and teased her mercilessly. And that was before the stimulant. Would he ever realize what agony he was about to dish up to her?
    Hanna’s body locked up in a fit of need, the signals beneath her skin all screaming at her at once. It robbed her of sense and breath in a way she had never experienced before. Everything burned! Why? It shouldn’t be this way. This unbearable! Not with only one injection!
    She had made a critical misjudgment, she realized with dismay. In her haste to level the playing field between them, she had forgotten to take her biochemistry into account…not to mention the fact that the ring was meant to dose a male. A large male.
    “No, no…” she panted softly as her muscles seized, a hysterical panic lacing her voice as she laughed at how beautifully she had set herself up for him. Whether he wanted it or not, he was about to have all the vengeance he could possibly stomach.
    “Release the restraints!”
    Like a charm, the manacles retracted, and Hanna fell forward against him. She tried to draw back, crying out as his rough hands swept her too-sensitive skin and her