We take the limo back to Jacob's place and make our way upstairs. Jacob's already there in the kitchen with a glass of scotch. I make my way over to the bench and he opens his knees for me to situate myself between. I pick up his glass and take a sip, "Oh yeah sure go right ahead." His tone doesn't suggest anything actually negative, indicating his comment was more so said for comedic purposes.

"Can I have something to eat please?"

"Babe, you know I like it when you don't ask and just make yourself at home."

I go over to his fridge and pull out a watermelon and a lime. He looks at me confused as I slice the fruit, making small holes in the centre of the watermelon for each slice. Becky pads over bear foot and squeals, "Watermelon and lime! We haven't done this since we were in grade school!"

"I know right!"

"Sugar?"

"Yeh. W or B?"

"W obvi."

"What is going on?" Spencer mutters. He and Felix have joined us in the kitchen and are sitting on the stool at the island, watching Becky and I like we are an alien species on Animal Planet. "The language of a woman. I will never get it."

Becky and I look at each other and giggle. I gasp and smile at her.

"Yes!" she replies, understanding what I wanted without even having to say it.

She grabs the white bread from the pantry and the sated batter and sprinkles. This was a food she showed me that she learnt when she went overseas to Australia. "Okay. You guys are officially telepathic." Felix comments.

After Becky and I concoct our food and bring it over to the couch, everyone takes a seat. Becky sits on the individual chair and I sit across her lap as we eat the food, while the guys stay on the lounge. Despite asking Jacob for vodka tonic he gave me a soda, while everyone else had beer. I ended up taking his scotch glass, smiling wickedly as I defied him. "Let's play spin the bottle: Truth or Pash version."

"I'm in!" I say jumping up at the idea, and clumsily making my way over to the glass table. Felix steadied me by the arm, and lowered me to the ground. His touch made the me nearly soberly aware of his presence. I end up sitting next to him, with Jacob on my other side, Spencer next to Jacob and Becky in between Felix and Spencer. "Who starts?"

"Your birthday. You have the first honour," Spencer quips.

Okey. I spin the bottle, and it lands on Spencer, "Truth or Pash?"

"Truth."

"Biggest sexual fetish?" I laugh.

"Orgy's."

"What!" Becky squeals, and I erupt in laughter.

"How come that doesn't actually surprise me though?" I shiver, suddenly realising my lack of clothing in accordance with the winter. "One sec," I mutter and run off to Jacob's room to retrieve an oversized black hoodie that says 'REY.CORP'. When I re-enter the room, Jacob doesn't even seem fazed, but I can't say the same for everyone else. "Okay, let's continue," I say meekly.

Spencer spins the bottle and it lands on Becky. "Payback bitch. Truth or Pash?" he chuckles.

"Truth. Great," she rolls her eyes, "Please remember my brothers here."

"Oh yeah. Of course-where's the weirdest place you've ever had sex?"

She glares at him and then laughs, "On a field trip during a baseball game. Quickie in the bathroom."

"Seriously Rebecca?" Jacob scolds, and I tilt his face to meet my lips, distracting him.

Becky spins it and it lands on me, "Truth or Pash?"

"Pash." I respond daringly, and reach across the table and peck her on the lips. We both roll onto our backs and laugh. I spin the bottle and it lands on Spencer again, "Truth or Pash?"

"Pash." He leans over laughing and does the same peck to Becky as I did.

"Well aren't I miss popular!" she exclaims.

Spencer spins it and it lands on Jacob, "Truth or Pash?"

"Pash," he says looking at me. Challenging me.

He leans in and closes the distance between us with his mouth. His velvet tongue strokes up and down mine and I lift a hand to his face. "Okay! Okay! Kiss, not get her pregnant," Becky groans.

Next Jacob spins the bottle, and it lands on Felix. "Truth or Pash?" he says with a harsh undertone.

Felix shrugs carelessly, "Truth I guess."

"Why can't you find somebody single to be into?"

"Excuse me?" Felix responded angrily.

"You heard me-"

"Jacob!" I warn.

"It's fine Emma. It's just a game. Right?" he looked at me spitefully. "You heard me. Why are you always all over Emma?"

"I'm not. I've never been nothing but a friend."

"But you'd like to be more right?" he said mock laughing.

"No. We're just friends."

"Sure you are."

"I think you've had enough to drink mate."

Jacob stands up in a powerful second, and does Felix, both omitting excessive levels of testosterone. "First of all, I'm not your mate. Second, I own your ass. One word and I'll get you taken off my account, hell I can even get you fired, blacklisted, or rejected from your dream school."

"I think this is my cue to leave," Felix says rolling his eyes.

"Why are you even here in the first place. Stay though, since you love trying to take whats mine-"

"Jacob!" I snap. "Stop it!"

"For someone who owns a multi-billion dollar company, you really are quite stupid. Your girl has the right to hang out with whoever she wants to, hell, she even has the right to fuck whoever she wants to-"

Jacob lunges at him, and I jump onto his back, pulling him away, "Jacob stop!" I look stupid clinging to him, and I wrap my legs around his torso. "Stop!" I yell again, and he gets me off of his back.

"I think it's time you take you're friends and leave," he says to Becky.

"Yeah, I think so too," she responds scolding him. Jacob storms off towards his room, and for the first time ever I'm the one chasing him.

"Jacob, what's the matter with you?"

"I just want to be left alone right now mi amour."

I jog to catch up to him, but he locks himself in the bathroom before I can catch up, "Baby, please let me in."

"Emma. Just give me a minute to think."

"Open the door right now or I'm leaving."

I hear footsteps come closer towards me, and the lock clicks. From there I rush into the bathroom, and cup his face to look at me. "Hey. Hey! Look at me! What was that all about back there?"

"If your just going to bombard me with questions then please just leave me alone." He starts pacing around the room.

"Typical! I tell you EVERYTHING about myself. But to me, your a closed book! You don't trust me! You never have... and frankly I don't think you ever will!"

"You know more about me than any other person!"

"Well it doesn't seem like that's enough anymore!"

"I love you, and respect you and need you, but you never seem to be as committed as I am!"

"Are you kidding!"

"I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I've made all my intentions VERY clear! But for some reason, your struggling with committing."

"No! Don't you dare try and spin this on me! I have NEVER given you a reason to doubt me. You however have given me plenty."

In one swift movement Jacob stroked his tongue along my bottom lip, then released me, "Fine then. Show me you care by coming with me on my business trip this weekend. I'd like to get off the ground by eight tomorrow night. Pack cool and light. Arizona's got dry heat."

"What?" I blinked at his retreating back as it disappeared back into the bedroom. "Arizona is where your business is?"

"Unfortunately."

Uh . . . whoa. "Well maybe going away will clear your head and put things in perspective.

Jacob strode towards me slowly. "You're coming with me, Emma."

Exhaling in a rush, I added half-and-half to my coffee. "To do what? Lie around naked, waiting for you to finish work and fuck me? Very equal rights of you Trump," I mutter. "No I have school, the internship and a job."

His gaze held mine sharply. "Are we going to argue again?"

"Are you going to be difficult? We talked about this. You know I can't just up-and-leave."

The overwhelming sensation of being drawn to him inexorably by the force of his will was a huge turn-on. It'd been that way from the beginning. When he chose to, Jacob could make me feel his demands. And it was very, very difficult to ignore the part of me that begged to give him whatever he wanted. "You're going to take care of business and clear your head and I'm going to take clear of Becky and her hangover and then everything else in my own life. Then we'll go back to taking care of each other when you get back."

"I won't be back until Wednesday night, Emma." Oh...I felt a sharp twinge in my belly at hearing we'd be apart that long. Most couples didn't spend every free moment together, but we weren't like most people. We both had hang-ups, insecurities, and an addiction to each other that required regular contact to keep us functioning properly. I hated being apart from him. And him, me. I rarely went more than a couple of hours without thinking of him. "You can't stand the thought, either," he said quietly, studying me in that way he had that saw everything. "By Sunday we'll both be worthless."

I was unsettled at the thought of going the entire four days without him. Worse, I hated the thought of him spending that amount of time away from me. He had a world of choices and possibilities out there, women who weren't so screwed up and difficult to be with. Still, I managed to say, "We both know that's not exactly healthy, Jacob."

"Says who? No one else knows what it's like to be us."

Okay, I'd give him that. "I need to stay here," I said, knowing this impasse was going to drive both of us crazy all night. We can't sort it out later, so now we are stuck with it.

Resting his knee against the bed, he crossed his ankles and stubbornly settled in. "What we need is for you to come with me."

"Jacob." My foot began to tap against the wooden floor tile. "I can't just give up my life for you. If I turn into arm candy, you'll get bored real quick. Hell, I'd get sick of myself. It shouldn't kill us to spend a couple days straightening out other parts of our lives, even if we hate doing it."

His gaze captured mine. "You're too much trouble to be arm candy."

"Takes a troublemaker to know one."

Jacob straightened, shrugging off his brooding sensuality and instantly capturing me with his severe intensity. So mercurial—like me. "You've gotten a lot of press lately, Emma. I-I didn't realise how bad it was until today, and I'm sorry. I should have done more to protect you when we first went public, and shielded you front hose comments-threats...It's no secret that you're in New York and that you're with me. I can't leave you here while I'm gone."

"I'm without you a lot of the time." The shield of anonymity that had served me well my entire life had been shattered by our highly public relationship.

"But I'm in New York then. A couple of minutes away."

I sigh, "What would make you feel better then?"

"I just need to know that you're safe."

"I will be, I promise. Plus, you have you're many camera's to stalk me on."

Jacob chuckled. "Time to get into bed, mi amour."

"I'm not tired." I responded stubbornly.

"I never said anything about sleep. And if I were you I wouldn't count on any tonight, we have to compensate for the days we're going to be appart."