Jamie hauled her up onto her toes. “Answer me.” His fingers bit into her arm. She’d have bruises. He’d never left a mark on her before.
“H-he’s my boss. Jamie, let go. You’re scaring me.” She heard the fear in her voice, and he must have too because with a shove he flung her onto the couch.
“Your boss?” His eyes went back to her phone, and she watched him scroll through their messages. Meredith knew he was not going to like what he saw, so she got to her feet. Too late. “Sweetness? Your boss calls yousweetness?”
He flung her phone to the floor. In one movement she was on her back crushed into the couch with Jamie on top of her. He shoved a knee between her thighs and pinned her with his hips.
“Jamie!” She pressed against his shoulders and strained to move from under him.
“Does he know we have a kid?” He grabbed her wrists and hauled them over her head.
“Shit, Jamie, stop it!”
“Does he know we live together?”
She brought up her right knee to push him off, but he jerked his hips and forced himself between her thighs. And panic squeezed her lungs.
“Jamie, please—”
“Does he know you take my dick whenever I want?” He thrust his pelvis into her, and she felt his erection like a weapon. She looked into his eyes and saw rage and vengeance and — what scared her most — wounded pride.
“Get off me.” Her voice shook, but she didn’t take her eyes off his. “Don’t do this.”
His look became one of stone, and above her he clapped one hand over both her wrists. The other he brought to her left breast, pinching her nipple through the cotton of her tank top.
“Ow! Jamie, stop.” She tried to jerk her arms down to free her hands, but his grip only tightened. Bucking her hips, she worked to dig her heel into the couch to find purchase, but his weight was too great. He ground his pelvis into her again.
“Nah, I know if I just work you a little, you’ll give in like you always do.”
He yanked down the top of her tank, exposing her breast. Adrenaline spiked in her blood. And then his mouth, slick with saliva, closed over her.
She slammed her eyes shut and tried to crawl into her mind, away from the sensation.
He sucked at her nipple and pulled free of her flesh with a pop. “Yeah, you’re not too good for me.” He breathed against her face before his tongue slid out and swept her lips.
She clenched her teeth tight, but his hand soon found her jaw, and he squeezed until tears came to her eyes, and she opened. When his tongue stuffed inside her mouth, she felt a crushing sadness. Her last kiss had been Gray’s, and now that was tainted.
Jamie’s mouth left hers. “Yeah, bae. That’s it. Not too good to take everything I have to give you. My bed…”Kiss.“…my money…”Kiss.“…my dick…”Kiss.“Keep taking it all. Soon, you’ll take my name.”
Meredith opened her eyes. “No.”
She wanted nothing from him. Nothing but his absence.
Jamie frowned down at her, surprised at the word. “No?”
What the hell am I doing?
Her eyes scanned the room. She was on her back beneath a man who sickened her in a house she hated. Jamie was right. She kept taking what he gave her.
Why?
Was it because she thought she had no choice? Or was it because she thought it was what she deserved?
But she had a choice. She could go to Brooke’s. She could go to Gray’s. Hell, she could go to a shelter. For a little while, anyway, she could even swing a hotel.
You put yourself last,Gray had told her.
And she had. She’d never gone to her parents’ door and demanded that they do right by her and Oscar. She’d never walked away from Leona’s disdain, and she’d never, not once, told Jamie no. She put herself last, which left the door wide open for everyone else to do the same.