The noise downstairs was so merry and bright she had to force herself to stay in her rooms. An hour later, the party was still going strong, and her heart hardened. She mattered to no one, and she needed to remember that.
When the door slammed against the wall, she’d been dozing. She sat up quickly, startled and disoriented. Kai, was her first thought, but it wasn’t Kai. It was one of Kai’s drunken soldiers, blundering about in the wrong part of the house. Or…had Kai sent him here, to her?
She jumped to the side of the bed, not bothering to grab a sheet to cover her nakedness. “What do you want here?”
“Eh? I can’t see anything. Turn on the fucking—Where’s the goddamn light switch?” He toddled into the room. The hall light illuminated him from behind, making him look like a giant, lurching shadow.
His searching hand hit the switch, and his gaze homed in on her. “Holy—Oh my, my, my. Lewis is a lucky bastard tonight. Oh yeah. Come here, baby. Damn! Look at your tits!”
She wasn’t about to let this man near her, whether Kai had sent him or not. She needed to stay in Kai’s good graces, but there were some things she refused to do. At least if she had a choice.
He grabbed handfuls of her naked breasts, squeezing and massaging them. “Baby, baby. Come give Lewis some lovin’, sweet thing.”
Ugh. She jerked away from him but he just followed her, his sour breath making her gag.
He thrust a hand between her thighs, lowering his head to pull a nipple into his wet mouth.
“You have to go,” she said. “I belong to Kai.”
“Sure you do, honey,” he mumbled from around her nipple. “You all do. Lucky fuck, Kai is.”
Shit. She brought a knee up, hard.
As soon as the pain registered, he loosened his hold and bent over, groaning. “What the hell? Bitch—”
She’d sent his nuts halfway through his belly, but he was Kai’s soldier. Those guys could take horrendous amounts of pain. With the added bonus of being drunk, it would take more than a knee to the balls to take this one out.
She vaulted onto the bed and, with a quick look over her shoulder, sprinted into the bathroom. Two more seconds and she would have had the door shut and locked, but he slammed into it. The door knocked her halfway across the room, and he came roaring in after her, drunk, infuriated, horny.
“Son of a bitch!” She scrambled back, the tiles uncomfortably cold and hard against her bare skin. “Get the fuck out of here, idiot!”
But he was not in the mood to listen or comply. He reached for the waistband of his pants. “I’m going to fuck you so hard, girlie girl.” His dazed eyes darted from her breasts to between her legs. He dropped his pants and wrapped his hand around a rather intimidating cock. “So hard.”
“What you’re going to do is get your ass kicked.” Carefully, she stood, dancing on the balls of her feet, waiting for him. “Come on, then, monkey. Let’s get this over with.”
He smiled, perhaps thinking she meant something entirely different. “I like to take my time, girlie girl. Pleasuring the woman means more than my own pleasure.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah. Right.”
“You sure do have some tits, lady.”
She sighed. He was a mean son of a bitch, but he was drunk and full of dinner. She should be able to get the drop on him, maybe bang his head against the tile wall.
But when she started toward him, she saw a shadow against the wall in her bedroom. She knew it was Kai as surely as she knew anything.
Startling the soldier so much he could do little but gape, she threw herself at him and began screaming as she beat and clawed at his chest. “Let go of me!”
Kai filled the doorway like an avenging angel, his face contorted into a raging mask. He plucked the soldier into the air and sent Sarah reeling. Weeping, she knelt against the far wall, her arms crossed over her breasts.
“Kai…wha—” the man said, his face paling.
“Did you touch her, you piece of shit?” He shook Lewis like so much fluff. “Did you fucking touch her?”
“I didn’t know she was off-limits, Kai. I swear it!” Scared sober, Lewis held his hands up, pleading. “I swear! I had too much to drink—”
Kai glanced at Sarah, the look on his face enough to make her stomach clench in fear. “Did you fucking tell him you belonged to me?”
She nodded, weak. “I did.”
His fury was a terrible thing to watch. He let go of Lewis, then hit him in the face, and Sarah flinched at the sound of bone crunching. Lewis’s body thumped to the floor, blood spraying from his nose. His pants were still around his ankles, his now soft dick delicate and small.
Kai followed him down and punched him again, looking up only once. “Get out of here.”
Sarah scrambled for the door and ran into the room that held her extra food and water, some of which she’d hidden away for her escape with Con. Surprised her hands were shaking, she decided to put on the kettle for a cup of tea. It would help calm her.
The sounds of flesh against flesh still came to her. Lewis’s pleas quickly faded. Silence reigned for a moment, then footsteps, heavy, slow. Kai would be carrying the unfortunate man from her rooms.
Then he would be back. She wrapped cold hands around the teacup.
She was ready for him.
Chapter Eight
She waited in bed, sheets pulled to her waist, hair covering her breasts. Impatience warred with the anxious knots in her stomach, and she had to race to the bathroom twice to urinate. Damn tea.
Dim sounds of the party still drifted up the stairs. If Kai’s men were anything like Sampson’s, they would carry on until dawn knocked them unconscious.
The door banged against the wall, and he stood illuminated in the doorway. She had no doubt it was him this time, not some wandering soldier.
He walked to her bedside and stared down at her, his eyes hot and intense enough to burn through the darkness. The only light streamed through the window. Kind, soft light stolen from a full yellow moon.
His hair was weighted with dampness, long and straight against his neck. That he’d taken time to shower pleased her.
“You’re a witch.” His voice was gentle, but his fists were clenched and his body nearly vibrated the bed with its energy.
She didn’t move. “Why do you say so?”
He shook his head, long, slow side-to-side movements, his gaze never leaving hers. “How else could you have enchanted…my men with only a glance?”
“Then you must be called witch as well. For you have enchanted me.” It was not a lie. Not a lie. She was doomed to betray a man she felt for. What a cruel joke.
The words seemed to soften him, as she had known they would. He sat on the bed, his weight causing her to shift slightly toward him. Outside, it began once more to rain, hiding the moon.
Her breath caught in her lungs as he reached toward her and scooped up a length of hair from her breast. He brushed her nipple with his fingers, and it stiffened immediately, reaching for him. Her skin goose-pimpled, and she nearly cried out as liquid heat gathered in a heavy pressure between her thighs.
“Do you believe everyone has a mate, meant only for the other?”
She expelled the air she’d been holding. “I…I don’t know.”
But he didn’t appear to expect an answer. In deep silence, he ran the ends of her hair through his fingers, his gaze tracing her face.
“A long, long time ago, I thought I’d found my mate. It proved untrue. As did she.” His lips quirked, but his eyes were serious. Sad.
How could anyone be untrue to him? Mentally, she snorted. You ask that, when you would murder him if need be?
“Perhaps she was…unexcited at the prospect of sharing you.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Sharing me?”
“You keep a lot of women.”
“I would have bedded only her.” He placed the strand of hair back where he’d found it, then smoothed it with a soft touch.
She nearly
came off the bed. “Oh…”
He smiled, pretending to think her exclamation was because of his words, not his touch. “Oh yes. I would never ask of my lady what she could not expect of me.”
Air hissed between her teeth at his continued stroking. He scraped his fingers over her nipple. She bit her lip, her back arching. God, what he did to her.
“You don’t believe me, Sarah?”
“I…”
“Yes?”
“Does it matter what I believe?”
He didn’t answer. He gathered her thick hair in one hand and pushed it from her breast, exposing the tortured flesh to his gaze.
Her breathing sounded like a bellows, adding to the thundering sound of her heartbeat.
Just as slowly, he pushed back the hair hiding her other breast, then grasped the top of the sheet at her waist. Carefully, he began to pull the sheet away.
She closed her eyes.
“Sarah.”
Her eyes popped open at his soft command, and she stared, panicked at her loss of control.
From the open window, fresh, damp night air caressed her legs as he took the sheet from her body. Every sound was magnified, every touch a screaming intensity of sensation.
The sheet billowed in midair as he tossed it, catching wind beneath it and falling in slow motion to the floor.
Her bare body quivered beneath his stare. His eyes were like a million tiny, hot fingers that stroked her wherever his gaze landed.
She closed her eyes.
His sigh was a whisper of disappointment, and the mattress shifted as he stood. “Do you hide from pleasure or from me? You are so afraid of losing control. Poor Sarah.”
She bit her lip as he ran the back of his hand over her cheek. “No.” But she wasn’t even sure what she meant.
“Have you ever lost control, Sarah? Part of you is always shut down. I can feel it. Have you ever let yourself get messy, dirty, free?” He withdrew his hand.
Her eyes flew open. He was leaving her, like this? Could he be so cruel?
But he leaned over and scooped her from the bed and walked toward the door.
She wound her arms around his neck, frowning in confusion. “What…?”
He didn’t look at her or speak as he strode down the stairs and through a darkened, silent house.
She buried her face against his chest, enjoying the feel of her naked body warmed by his clothed one.
Someone must have opened the doors for him; one minute they were inside the house and the next, cooling, wet night air caressed her overheated skin. She tightened her arms around his neck. He was going to make love to her outdoors? In the rain? The thought wasn’t unpleasant.
She turned her head to look. They weren’t at the front of the house, but behind it. The dim perimeter lights cut milky beams through the dark, and great trees guarded the backyard like a huge canopy in the sky, shielding them from much of the rain. Still, the ground was wet, and though some of it was covered with thick, short grass, she heard splashes as he stomped through puddles.
It was in one of these puddles that he placed her, and she came to life with a scream of rage and surprise. Sputtering and splashing, she lashed out at him, struggling to her knees.
His laughter joined her curses as the mud and water painted her body and rain fell upon her head. He’d walked them past the protective trees into an open, muddy patch of ground.
Tears gathered in her eyes as she slid through mud, humiliated that she’d softened toward such a monster.
He wound her hair around his thick wrist, halting her progress, and forced her to look into his eyes. “Sarah, Sarah,” he chided. “Don’t carry on so. I only want to teach you to let go. Eventually you will not hide from physical pleasure.”
“In the rain? In the mud? I am not an animal!”
“Of course you are, sweetheart. We both are.” He tightened his grip and pulled her to him, lowering his dripping face to hers. His kiss was violent, passionate, hard. Rain dripped from his face to hers, into her mouth, slipping in with his tongue.
He gripped her buttocks, sliding his fingers through mud on her slippery skin, clenching, squeezing. He lifted her and set her atop his muscular body as he lay back, using a rock for his pillow.
She squealed into his mouth as he slipped his wet finger into her ass, sliding another finger over her clit and into the opening below. His pelvis rocked against her, his enormous, hard cock still snug inside his clothing.
The rain hid them behind a private, wet curtain. In seconds, her entire body was drenched, her hair plastered against her skin in long, sodden ribbons.
It was so undignified. So…uncontrolled. He was right. She was an animal.
But suddenly she cared not at all.
Chapter Nine
He flipped her, and her back slapped into the mud like a walnut falling into thick cake batter. His hulking body protected her from the rain, which was quickly becoming a downpour. It danced merrily and noisily around as though in celebration of their union.
Holding himself off her, he stared down at her, lighting the night with the spark of passion in his eyes. He captured her lips once more, his kiss deep, demanding, and she parted her legs with almost unconscious need.
Sitting back on his knees, he pulled off his soaked shirt, then stood to quickly rid himself of boots and pants.
She watched the huge outline of his hardness spring into the night, a shadow she wanted more than she’d ever wanted anything. She’d practically programmed herself to want this man, but it was more than that.
“Do you believe everyone has a mate, meant only for the other?”
God, right now, she could believe.
What horrible, horrible irony.
She sat up and reached for his cock. Wrapping both her hands around it, she pulled him to her mouth. Never before in her life had she taken a man into her mouth because she felt the desire to do so.
Rising to her knees, she closed her eyes, but not to hide, only to keep the rain out and to concentrate on his warmth, his hardness, his taste. In a slow dance of sensuality, she moved her mouth over him, following with her hands, sliding over his wet silkiness, moaning her hunger. She held his firm balls, squeezing the large, soft weight.
He buried his hands in her hair, cupping her head. He groaned, his pleasure like music to her. “Fuck, Sarah…oh…fuck.”
The mud sucked at her knees, providing a messy cushion, the rain and air somehow inducing such freedom with their disparity that she did, at last, let go. She forgot her duty, forgot her…hate. She left her secret place and gave him all that she was, whether he knew it or not. She took all that he was, swallowed him with a gleeful hunger that went beyond mere logic. This, then, was because she wanted it and only because she wanted it. Wanted Kai.
Now if only she could keep him.
She pushed those thoughts away. This was not the time to think about the future, to try to figure out how she was going to escape the hellish trap she’d set for herself. How she was going to stay here, in Kai’s world, and be his woman.
Oh, how she wanted that.
She might have laughed at the futility of such a dream, but he dragged her off his sex and pushed her back to the ground.
“You drive me to the edge, woman.” She made a movement toward him, and he held her off with hard hands. “No. Do not touch me. I’m like a callow virgin boy with you…”
She lay in the mud with Kai staring down at her, and laughter bubbled from her, irrepressible, joyful. Like a child making angels in the snow, she moved her arms and legs, letting mud cover her body.
He laughed as well, his voice sounding amazed but knowing. Gathering handfuls of wet earth, he massaged it into her body. The mud washed away under the onslaught of rain nearly as soon as he put it on her.
She lay still, letting him do as he wished. Limbs loose, she watched him as he played with her body. The rain was softer now, its gentle wetness becoming a mist of moisture beading on her skin.
He ra
n his hands up her legs, his long fingers cutting warm trails through the mud. She shivered as he brushed her upper thighs, waiting, eager for his touch to rise higher to her throbbing sex. But he teased her, running his thumbs over those lips briefly before sliding his hands to her belly.
The rain stopped, and the moon shone brightly. He brought his gaze from her body to her eyes, and for a few heartbeats, time stilled. She was so caught by his stare that she jumped in shock when he touched her breasts, gently pinching her already stiff nipples.
He leaned down, his mouth inches from her own. She licked her lips as he blocked out the moon, coming closer, closer. The touch of his lips, soft as a sigh, crumbled what was left of any resistance she might have had. For now.
He skimmed his rough palm over a distended, too sensitive nipple, rubbing in slow circles.
“Kai,” she breathed against his lips.
He deepened his kiss, sliding his tongue into her open, welcoming mouth. Pushing one of his hands under her head to cup her skull, he moved his other hand from her breast to her belly.
She arched her back, moaning as he finally found the moistness of her pussy. She let her legs fall open, digging her fingers into the mud as he rubbed her clitoris with a wet finger.
He ripped his mouth from hers, then lowered his head to her breast, sucking a nipple into the warm cave of his mouth.
She arched her back and screamed, a hoarse, almost angry shout that sounded nothing like her. She was too controlled, too…cool to scream. But scream she did, a battle cry of lust and heat, of rage and resolution. She gave herself to him. Whatever came, whatever happened, she gave herself to him.
In the heat of the moment, all things were possible.
He rubbed harder, faster, and she thrust her pelvis in time with his fingers as she teetered on the edge of orgasm.
Leaving her breasts, he sat back on his heels between her open thighs, using both hands to stimulate her. He pinched her swollen clit between his finger and thumb, sending shocks of pleasure through her entire body. He slid fingers inside her, thrusting into her slippery passage, keeping his heated gaze upon her face.
Beyond the Shadows Page 4