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The moment the words leave my lips, I flinch.

“You want me to return to the yacht, knowing some asshole is going to be hitting on you?”

“That asshole is one of the guests I’m charged with looking after. It’s my job to make sure he has a good time.”

“And your job description includes being okay with guests making passes at you?” His voice has grown lower, deeper. My eyes connect with his and the look he sends me tells me he’s deeply offended by my blasé attitude.

“I’m from Brooklyn, Mason. I’ve experienced worse.”

His brows clamp. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

I flounder, unmoored in a sea of what-the-fuck-ness. “I don’t know,” I finally respond. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to behave with you outside of the bedroom. I mean, what’s your role here? You’re not my boyfriend. You’re not even my lover.”

“What the fuck did you just say?”

His use of the swear word outside of the bedroom terrifies me even more than the rage clouding his face.

It takes a lot of effort to not cower. “Well, you’re not really, are you? You’re in charge of my orgasms, and that’s pretty much it. So what do you care who hits on me?”

Dark hazel eyes flare with disbelief. “Repeat that,” he challenges, his voice a living sword, poised above my head. “I want to hear those insane words fall from your lips again.”

I bring my mouth to his ear and place my hand on his chest. “You. Are. Not. My. Lover. We’re feral fuck parasites, taking what we need from each other for the next eight days. That’s it. I refuse to be intimidated into hanging a label on it that doesn’t exist.”

I pull back, and he stares at me like I’m a rabid animal. I’m ashamed, because every word that has fallen from my lips is a lie. Or at least not the reality I desire. I want him to be my lover. I still want to be a feral fuck parasite, but a nicer one. I don’t want our eight days to end. And most of all, I want a fat fuck of a label to hang on to, whatever dimension we’re existing in.

When the look gets too intense, I jump up and run to the door.

He lunges after me, but a couple entering the room stops his progress long enough to give me the head start I need to make a dash for the ladies’.

I slam the door behind me and dump my clutch on the vanity before my shaking takes care of it for me.

Shudders race through me as I stare at my ashen reflection in the mirror.What the fuck is wrong with me?

My brain is eating itself with questions and cravings too terrifying to contemplate. Frantic, I dig through my purse and grab my phone. Bethany is about to get an earful.

She answers, and I suck in a breath, just as the washroom door crashes open. The other female occupant in the room gasps in outrage. “¿Qué diablos es eso?”

“Salir. Ahora!” Mason snarls.

“Hello?”

Bethany’s voice flares from my phone, but I can’t lift my hand to answer. My stomach twists as Mason locks the washroom door and strides to where I’m frozen. He plucks the phone from my hand.

“Bethany, how are you?” he asks in a perfectly reasonable voice that isn’t in any way marred by the sadistic madness I see in his eyes.

I hear Bethany’s spluttered response, followed by a garbled question.

“No, Keely is going to be indisposed for a while. I can guarantee that she will be alive by the time I’m finished with her, but everything else is distinctly debatable.”

He hangs up, places my phone on the vanity next to my purse, then leans against the sink, arms crossed.

“Now, where were we, kitten?”

The latent danger in his voice shudders through me. “Nowhere. We were nowhere.”

He snaps his fingers as if I didn’t just speak. “That’s right. You were saying I have no right to question if someone hits on you.” His head tilts to the side. “Have I got that right?”

“Don’t blow it out of proportion.” I flap my hand in adon’t be ridiculousway, then screech when he lunges for me and slams me back against the wall.