Chosen: Part Two (Allure)

by Litton, Josie

  Screaming, she lashed out at me. “You bastard! My family practically threw me at you and you did this? Is this how you get your kicks? Terrorizing women? You sick, perverted--“

  “That’s enough!”

  I couldn’t blame her for anything she said but that didn’t make me willing to listen to it. Between the shock of her escape and the terror that she would die, I was closer to coming apart than I’d ever been in my life.

  I still couldn’t believe that I’d survived the rip current--again. Going into the water after her had plunged me back into the darkest moments of my life, worse even than when I learned of my parents’ deaths. Their murders had forced me to confront who I really was. A boy-turned-man-too-soon who never felt truly alive except when he killed. Or fucked. In between those brief moments of release, the world was flattened by the remorseless weight of duty.

  Now it was rising up, all of it--memory and pain, dread and rage--refusing to be denied any longer. The feel of her slender body struggling under me ignited dark passions that refused to be denied any longer.

  Twisting, I flipped her under me and brought my full weight down on her, pressing her into the sand. I’d thrown off my jacket and shoes before following her into the water. Now I could feel her pebbled nipples through my soaking wet shirt and the thin cotton top she wore. My erection was sudden and massive. I felt harder than I ever had in my life and already on the brink.

  “Stop moving,” I ordered.

  She didn’t hear me, either that or she was beyond obeying. Her hips thrust up in a futile effort to throw me off.

  The roar of blood in my ears intensified. From the first moment I’d seen her at the gala, I’d wanted her. She was everything I desired--lovely, gracious, intelligent, kind, brave, with an undercurrent of passion only waiting to be released--and more. Something I couldn’t name but craved with the intensity of a starving man.

  I had to remind myself again and again that she was a means to an end, nothing more. Once she had served her purpose, I would have no further use for her. And she, most certainly, would want nothing more to do with me.

  None of that had changed yet none of it mattered any more. The rip current had done more than almost kill us. It had torn away the fortress wall that contained my rawest emotions. In its place, the primal need to conquer and possess came surging up out of the darkest depths of my soul.

  Without thought, I drove my fingers through the wet silk strands of her hair. With her head clasped between my palms, I gave into the irresistible urge to taste her and touched my mouth to hers, running my tongue along the seam of her lips. Even then, I didn’t want to hurt her…at least not much. Far more, I wanted her as mindless with need as I was.

  “Open for me,” I murmured.

  When she failed--yet again--to obey, I smiled. If only she knew, her resistance merely heightened my arousal. Dragging my mouth from hers, I traced the tender line of her throat to the sensitive hollow at its base.

  The sudden bite of my teeth into the soft, smooth skin there followed quickly by the soothing stroke of my tongue wrung a shocked gasp from her. As her lips parted, I took her mouth, savoring the salt of the sea mingling with the sweetness of Grace herself.

  Her flavor flooded me, making my cock throb all the harder. The need to bury myself deep inside her warred with the equally powerful urge to spread her thighs and taste the very essence of her.

  She was still struggling, trying to push me off. But the instant our tongues touched, she stopped, shocked to stillness. At the awareness that I could affect her so powerfully, even to the extent of quelling her rebellious nature, raw satisfaction rippled through me.

  I went on tasting her with long, deep strokes of my tongue as I caught both her hands in one of mine and stretched her arms high over her head. Holding her in place, I eased her shirt up and cupped her breast. At the feel of her--full, soft, and ripe with the hard little nipple pressing into my palm--a shudder ran through me.

  Any instinct I still had to question what I was doing vanished. I wanted her to be as mindless as I was fast becoming, lost in desire so powerful and remorseless that it wiped out all reason.

  Raising my head, I gazed into Grace’s eyes, wide and luminous under the moon.

  “I’ve wanted to make you come since the first moment I saw you.” My voice was little more than a guttural rasp but still I went on, driven by the overwhelming need to break down every barrier between us. “I want to strip you bare, hear your cries, and feel you come apart in my hands.”

  Before she could say or do anything that might deter me--assuming that was even possible--I slid a hand under her panties and parted her folds.

  At once, my breath caught. However much she might hate this, hate me, she was hot and slickly wet, aroused despite herself. I felt a spurt of sympathy; her body and mind were as much at war as my own. But that had no effect on my resolve.

  Nothing mattered except the overwhelming need to claim her.

  Settling my palm against her clit, I pressed down just enough to tease her and thrust a finger into her sheath, only to pause. She was so tight. When had she last had sex? At the thought of her being with another man, every muscle in my body clenched.

  Her eyes squeezed shut, her head turning away to one side.

  “Look at me,” I ordered sharply. “I want you to see who’s doing this to you.”

  When she still resisted, I rotated my finger slowly against her inner walls, seeking and quickly finding the spot where she was exquisitely sensitive. Fuck but she was responsive! I felt the flood of her juices as a helpless moan broke from her and her back arched. But she still kept her eyes closed, shutting me out.

  “Disobey,” I warned, “and I’ll just keep you right on the edge, desperate to come.”

  I was rarely so ungenerous with a woman but Grace brought out a level of savagery in me that I wasn’t entirely sure I could contain. If I hadn’t been so close to the brink myself, I would have enjoyed extending her torment. Another time.

  Slowly, I withdrew my finger and flicked the tip over her engorged clit just enough to heighten her arousal further. Her cheeks flushed, her breathing becoming erratic. She hovered, trapped between pain and the ecstasy that I was determined to give her.

  Triumph swept over me when she relented and opened her eyes, meeting my gaze. Still, her refusal to speak or acknowledge what was happening in any way other than with her body stoked the dangerous combination of rage and passion building in me.

  I was angrier than I had been since the searing days of childhood’s end. Angry at death, memory, duty, the list was endless. Not at her--she was innocent--but that made no difference.

  I lowered my head, took her nipple between my teeth and bit lightly at the same time that I pinched her clit hard. She cried out, the sound rippling in the night air, merging with the pounding surf coming ever close as the tide rose.

  Her slender thighs trembled, her cunt pearling with her arousal. I wanted to give her everything--protection, comfort, luxury, even--heaven help me--myself. At the same time, I was ravenous to take everything she had.

  Gripping her wrists so hard that I knew I had to be leaving bruises, I moved down her body until her hands rested, helpless, just above the apex of her thighs. In the silvered light, her sex glistened. I smelled the essence of her--salt, musk, and something intrinsically her own.

  She was a drug in my blood, blocking out every rational thought. Yielding to greater temptation that any I had ever known, I flicked my tongue over her swollen clit…once, twice, again. She cried out hoarsely, her back bowing.

  “No, don’t! I don’t want--”

  Whatever else she would have said vanished in a scream as I thrust my tongue into her, spearing her again and again. Her juices bathed me. I savored them through long exquisite moments until finally I raised my head and gazed down at her.

  She was pale in the moonlight, her eyes wide, the pupils dilated. Her entire body shook with need.

  The predator in me was
pleased, but not yet satisfied.

  “Beg me,” I said.

  When she resisted, I lowered my head again, sucking her clit just hard enough to add to her torment.

  “Noooo!”

  I soothed her with the stroke of my tongue only to break off again as she trembled on the brink. “You can come, baby. Harder than you ever imagined was possible. All you have to do is ask.”

  “Hate you!”

  “That’s fine, baby. Hate all you want, I deserve it. But I’m still going to own you--every cry, every scream, every orgasm.”

  “Stop! Oh, God, stop!”

  Tears pooled in the corners of her eyes and trickled down her cheeks.

  “If I do, I’ll jerk off right now, on you, while you watch. Then we’ll go back to the house and I’ll lock you into a chastity belt.”

  Her eyes widened. I couldn’t suppress a grin that I knew must look wicked. “Don’t think I have one? Trust me, my family never gets rid of anything and we’ve indulged a few, shall we say, unusual tastes over the years.”

  Deliberately, I teased her clit again, savoring how swollen and hot she was. “ I’ll leave you like this for days--on the edge, desperate. You think what you went through in the cell was bad? You have no idea what I’m capable of.”

  “Why are you doing this? What have I done--?”

  I wasn’t about to tell her the truth--for both our sakes. But I owed her something, however unpalatable it would be for her.

  “Nothing, baby. You’re collateral damage. If you have any sense, you’ll make the best of it.”

  The idea that she was of no personal significance didn’t shock her as much as I expected. Once again, the mystery of this woman and how she had come to be who she was struck me.

  Before I could ponder it, she asked, “By letting you do whatever you want to me?”

  I hesitated. On some level, that was true. The thought of having her at my mercy made me painfully hard. But I wanted much more--her willingness, her trust. Even her happiness.

  Rather than admit to any of that, I bent my head again.

  “Come for me, baby. That’s what I want.”

  Holding her under me, her legs spread wide, I drove her relentlessly until at last she shuddered, her entire body wracked by spasms, her back arching and a cry breaking from her, rising to heaven and beyond.

  Coming, she was exquisite, easily the most beautiful sight I had ever seen. Her surrender, so reluctantly given, soothed the beast in me. But only temporarily.

  Chapter Ten

  This couldn’t be happening!

  In the aftershocks of an orgasm vastly more intense than any I had ever given myself, I lay panting, so dazed in mind and body that I could scarcely lift my head. I felt shattered and worse, the pieces of myself refusing to be drawn back together. At least not the way they had been. A new pattern was forming, one I could barely guess at and instinctively resisted.

  In the vastness of my confusion, a single point of clarity stood out: I hated Adam Falzon. Hated everything he had done to me. Up to and including the orgasm he had just forced on me.

  It was an innate physical response of my body, nothing more. I had no control over it, however much I wished that I did. I could not more hold it back than I could the need to breathe.

  The moment I thought of breathing, I was plunged back into the enveloping water, sucked down, drowning. My hands curled, grasping. Before I realized it, I was clinging to him once again.

  I hated myself for that, more even than him. He made me acutely aware that I was a woman and as such, achingly vulnerable. But I couldn’t give into that. I had to be strong. Against him, against my family, against whatever the world and fate chose to throw at me.

  “Damn you!”

  Was that my voice, so faint and thready? I sucked in air, fighting for the strength and courage that I so desperately needed. Only to be surprised by the question that spilled from my lips.

  “Why didn’t you let me go?”

  Was that truly what I wanted to know? As opposed to why he had kidnapped me, left me naked in that horrible cell, called me collateral damage--whatever that meant, and forced a sex act on me?

  A cloud drifted across the moon. In the shadows, Adam’s face above me was harshly beautiful. An evil beauty, I told myself. But the words rang hollow in my mind.

  “Let you go where? In the water?” He frowned as though the answer was self-evident. “You would have drowned.”

  “Better if I had!” It was a lie and I almost choked on it but some part of me wanted it to be true. The alternative--that I was glad to be alive, on this beach, with him was too much to deal with.

  A ragged sob broke from me. “Better that than to have to endure you.”

  The look that flitted across his face surprised me. I saw anger intense enough to make me tremble but also…hurt? That had to be wrong but the impression lingered.

  A mask dropped between us. Behind it, he smiled coldly. “Too bad, baby,” he said. “I’m not close to being done with you.”

  His tone was harsh but his touch was unexpectedly tender as he brushed my hair back from my face. When I tried to pull away, he cupped the back of my head, holding me still. At the brush of his lips against mine, I stiffened. He tasted salty, musky… With a start, I realized that I was tasting myself. A flare of heat moved through me. Embarrassment? Arousal?

  “Don’t---”

  His mouth hardened. Against mine, he groaned, “Believe me, if I could stop, I would.”

  At the confession so unexpectedly wrung from him, I froze. What did it mean when a man like Adam lost control? I could barely begin to imagine but at the same time I knew that I was about to find out.

  Instinctively, I tried to push him away. My hands, flattening against his broad chest, encountered his wet shirt warmed by the scorching heat of his skin and the rock-hard strength of his muscles.

  A deep, long tremor ran through me. Too vividly, I remembered the power of his arms closing around me, drawing me into the air, into life.

  But it was his fault that I had gone into the water in the first place. He had ripped me from the illusion of safety, forced me to confront my most terrifying memories, left me naked and alone in the dark. I couldn’t forget that. I wouldn’t.

  In the instant I promised myself that, his mouth settled over mine so gently as to steal my breath. The slide of his tongue over mine was soothing…for a moment. Too quickly, heat flared in me again.

  I fought it with what little strength I still had. But my emotions were a twisted knot of contradictions and confusion that expanded with every beat of my heart. I hated him. I wanted him. He terrified and enraged me. He shattered all the barriers I had built around myself.

  With him, I burned and in that burning all the fear and dread I had felt the past few months turned to ash. Like the sun, Adam eclipsed all else.

  “Grace,” he murmured, the sound a strange mixture of reverence and surprise, as though he, too, didn’t understand what was happening between us.

  The cracks already opened in me widened yet further, swelling swiftly into a chasm. I stood on both sides of an abyss, staring across at the dueling versions of myself. I knew what I should feel--hatred, rage, determination to get away, back to my life and to all I had to deal with there. But just as starkly, I couldn’t hide from the truth.

  Desire for him and all he was--illicit, wrong, forbidden--ran like quicksilver through my veins, igniting me.

  He bent his dark head, the wet silk of his hair spilling over my breasts, and kissed a line of fire between them, down my belly and further.

  Sweet, molten languor stole over me. I stared wide-eyed at the moon, trying to fathom what I was becoming. I had never been submissive. Growing up Delaney, I couldn’t afford to be. Quiet, yes, perhaps even a little shy although I had long since learned to hide that.

  If there had been times when I fantasized about a man who would take control, quell all my doubts, and destroy the caution and reserve that felt like a shro
ud imprisoning me, so what? That really was just a fantasy with no relationship to any real man I would actually want to be with.

  A man like Will, attractive, intelligent, likeable. Just without the connection to my family. Someone to stay up late with on Christmas Eve putting toys together, go to soccer games with, share the safe kind of passion that fit into a normal life rather than ripping it apart.

  Tears formed in the corners of my eyes and flowed down my face into the sand. More joined them even as I cried out, driven higher and higher by my tormentor’s sinfully skilled mouth and hands. Once again I fought, desperate to resist what he was making me feel.

  He smiled against my sex and thrust a finger deep inside me. “Come for me again, beautiful girl.”

  To my horror, the pressure building in me abruptly surged in response to his command. I climaxed, shattering under him, crying out in helpless ecstasy.

  In the aftermath, I couldn’t move, could barely think, could only stare as he moved a little off me, just enough to unbutton the top of his pants and slide the zipper down.

  I couldn’t help it; I stared at him.

  I’d peeked at…not porn exactly, more like erotica. They exaggerated everything, right? I mean normal men weren’t--

  But Adam Falzon wasn’t normal, not remotely, so why should I expect him to be in that regard? But he was strangely, enticingly beautiful. His penis was long, thick, the crest darker than the shaft that was ribbed by bulging veins. The way he held himself in his large, powerful hand was at once purposeful and indulgent. He moved and the heavy sack of his testicles swayed with him. I felt the tip of my tongue touch my lips and snatched it back, but not before he noticed.

  “What a puzzle you are. Your eyes so wide and dark with fear, but your mouth…” His gaze fastened on my lips. “That beguiling mouth…”

  A sudden image flashed through my mind. Myself, on my knees, stroking him with my tongue, drawing him into my mouth…sucking…