by Becca Dale
“What?” He knew good and well what had her riled, but he wanted to hear her say it.
“Stop with the sexual comments and—and the man stuff.”
He chuckled. “Man stuff?”
She stomped her foot. “You know what I mean. Damn it, we’re friends.”
He ran a finger along her jaw and cupped her face in his palm, refusing to let her look away. “Why is that? What makes me less than all the other guys in your life?”
With a shocked expression, she pressed her hand over his heart. “I wouldn’t say that. Not ever.”
Sliding his arm around her waist, he tugged her closer. “Then what am I?”
“I already told you.” Her breath whispered across his cheek as she struggled halfheartedly in his embrace. “We’re friends. I don’t want to lose you, so can we please go back to acting civilized?”
“I don’t think so.” He backed her up, dancing her across the dock until her hip bumped against the rail once more. “I want you, Kate. Your tempting smart-mouth attitude.” He fought down a groan and traced her right cheek with his thumb. “This gorgeous dip that makes me wonder where else you have dimples, like maybe at the base of your spine or beneath your beautiful ass.”
Her cheek pressed to his palm a fleeting moment before she stood straight. Spirit sparked in her eyes. “Enough! I mean it. Knock it off or I’m leaving.”
Disgusted with himself for wanting the impossible, he dropped his hands. “No one’s stopping you.”
For a split second, she hesitated, hurt evident on her face, then she thrust his jacket at him and turned away in a huff. “Fine. I’m going home, and you can shove your weird attitude up your butt. Come see me when you’re back to normal.”
Impatient, he grabbed her arm. If he let her leave, he might never break through her defenses. “What are you so fucking afraid of, Katelyn?”
She jerked away with a childish stomp, ruined by the height of her heels, which threatened to toss her on her ass. “I am not scared of anything. Certainly not you, Connor Wallace.”
“Really? Not anything?” When she shook her head, he pointed toward the party. “Then why run away? Why only give yourself to safe, malleable losers too weak to take charge in your bed? Pansies who won’t mess with your perfect little fantasy?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Liar.” He stepped closer, gripping her arms so she could not run. Her chest rose and fell hard beneath the faint light of the moon. “You want me, Kate. I can see it in your eyes and taste it in your kiss. Hell, even your tits are begging me to pay attention to them. Stop being a chicken shit and admit it.”
“You’re wrong.” She jerked back. Trembling hands rubbed off his touch. “I don’t understand why you’re acting this way.”
“I’m done waiting around for you to grow up. By the time this night’s over, you can either accept you belong with me or you won’t see me again. I won’t put up with this leash you have me on anymore.”
“Connor?”
With a firm hand on her shoulder, he turned her toward the path even though sending her away nearly killed him. “I mean it. Go pout if you must, but think about what I said while you’re at it.”
“That’s not—”
“I’m not playing anymore.” He smacked her sharply on the rounded globe of her ass, and his muscles clenched when she gasped. “Go on.”
Kate jumped, startled by the stinging spank. The swat smarted but not as much as his harsh command. The urge to beg for his forgiveness almost brought her to her knees, but she would not humiliate herself in front of him. Instead, she hurried over the narrow pathway, refusing to look back.
I’ll deal with him tomorrow, after he’s had a chance to cool off. He’ll…we’ll be back to normal. I won’t ruin us for sex. Too many people had disappeared from her life—her father, stepfathers, uncles, boyfriends—too many claimed to love her when they didn’t. She refused to allow Connor to join the list. He loved her, as a friend. As long as she didn’t expect more, he wouldn’t leave, would he?
“Hey, Kate?”
Had he come to his senses so fast? She stopped but didn’t turn. “What?”
“Be careful on the way through the trees. There might be bears about.”
She snorted. “Yeah, right. I’m not stupid.” Hoping he had made a joke, no matter how weak, to get her to wait for him, she turned back. “If you think I need your big strong arms to protect me, you can forget—”
The dock was empty.
Where had he gone? Damn man. After three years, he had broken all the rules of friendship in a single night. Rules were the only things keeping her from the same lonely fate her mother and aunts suffered. Kate had grown up too smart to ever risk friendship for nookie. Especially with a man who could so easily destroy her thin, protective walls. Bros before hos guys would say, but in this case her bro could so easily make her a ho and leave her broken and alone when he cast her aside.
The trees rustled to her left. “Con?”
No one answered. Even the bugs and birds refused to break the silence. She looked over her shoulder. The lights of the party glinted dimly, much farther off than she expected. Something rustled through the bushes to her left. She jumped, spinning to search the shadowed grove.
“Don’t be stupid, Kate. No one’s out there.” Her own voice shattered the darkness, spooking her even more.
Be careful. There might be bears about.
“He was messing with you.” Still, she hurried toward the safety of the crowd. Her tight skirt disallowed running. If someone actually attacked, she’d be helpless to escape. Blood pounded in her head. Her heart thundered. A twig snapped behind her, and she screamed, trying desperately to hike up her skirt so she could stretch her stride in the tight gown. Her foot caught on a shallow root and sent her crashing to her knees.
As she struggled to find her feet, a gloved hand closed over her mouth; a broad chest settled against her back, pressing her to the ground. “Don’t move.”
For a second, she thought it was Connor, but the voice lacked his smooth sexiness. It held an accent she couldn’t pin down, Australian or Eastern European perhaps? She twisted, but he held her effectively in place. Desperate, she tried to see his face. A black ski masked covered his features, the darkness hiding the color of his eyes, and panic flashed through her. She lunged upward to smash her skull into his nose.
A cool laugh mocked her efforts. Strong fingers sank into her up-do, tugging her head back. “Nice try, little cat.” He didn’t actually speak. He breathed the warped endearment, his words hot against her cheek. “Now, be a good girl and you won’t get hurt…much.”
God, please, let Connor come back. Let him find me.
Her captor released her hair and mouth, but a ball of fabric replaced his hand, forcing her lips open to press on her tongue, gagging her. He wrenched her to her feet and thrust her chest against a nearby tree. The man did nothing to hurt her, but his grip proved unbreakable. Using his body weight, he held her in place as he jerked a stocking cap backward over her face so she had no holes to see or breathe through. Claustrophobia threatened to smother her while he dragged her, stumbling, down the pebbled slope. Gavin and Savannah had already left. She’d driven her only other friend off in a snit. No one will miss me! No one will help.
Once her feet touched the smooth asphalt parking lot, Kate fought her captor wildly, jerking and twisting. Her purse was in her car, her cell and key fob tucked for safekeeping in the pocket of Connor’s tuxedo jacket, which she had given back to him. Even if she could break the kidnapper’s steely grip, she couldn’t escape to her car. Her only hope was to draw the attention of someone from the party. The gag and mask muffled her screams, and she could not discern anything beyond vague shapes. When she connected with the kidnapper’s knee, he wrapped his arms around her waist and squeezed until she struggled to inhale.
“Kick me again and regret it.” He shifted her to one arm the second before she heard the
click of a car door. He shoved her onto a bench seat. “Put your hands in your lap. Now!”
When she didn’t move fast enough, he caught her wrists and tied them together, then belted her in place, leaving her completely helpless.
Terror unlike any she had ever known swept through her, her greatest nightmare come to reality. She choked on a sob, and tears soaked the wool covering her face. She swallowed around the gag in her mouth. “Peez! Don do dis!”
He assailant went still for a moment. Gentle fingers touched the moist fabric over her cheekbone. “Shh, Goldilocks, don’t cry. Papa won’t hurt you.”
The rear door beside her slammed, and a cool breeze slipped over her bare shoulders when the driver’s door opened and shut. The kidnapper started the car and drove from the smooth parking lot onto the crunch of the gravel. She tried to track the turns, but the winding country roads leading to the barn made it difficult to discern actual turns versus nothing more than a sharp curve. Deprived of her ability to see, too many sensations pressed in—the itch of the damp wool, the whoosh of blood through her veins accompanied by the thump of her heart, vulnerability, the dizzying rock of the car, and the faint scent of masculine cologne that smelled like Connor’s and made her want to cry for having shoved him away.
Would he blame himself for her rape or…death? He had warned her, had told her the trees held dangers. A bubble of hysteria rose in her throat. There might be bears—
Suddenly, she collapsed against the seat. Fear lifted. He wouldn’t have. But she knew he had. Papa Bear wouldn’t hurt Goldilocks.
I’m going to fucking kill him.
Chapter Four
Connor watched her in the rearview mirror. At first, she sat hunched in on herself, scared, perhaps, but knowing her, trying to track the way to the kidnapper’s lair. He chuckled at the thought of his little Katelyn taking down an assailant and then calling the police while the poor guy searched for his balls.
Trying to watch the road while keeping an eye on his prisoner, he almost missed the shift in her posture, but he couldn’t have missed her angry huff. She figured it out faster than he’d expected, but he was glad she had. She wouldn’t relax and enjoy her fantasy if the fear stayed. Anger he could diffuse, but making Kate genuinely afraid would have destroyed him and ended the game before it began.
“Why so quiet? Contemplating my death?” He deliberately pitched his voice deeper than his natural range, adding a weak attempt at a Russian accent.
“Eat ‘it n die.”
“‘Eat shit and die?’ Now, now, is that any way to talk to a man who holds your life in his hands?”
“Ahh…Conno…et me o!” She stomped her feet in frustration, fighting against her restraints.
He didn’t respond to her plea for freedom. Silence would work her up more than anything else. By the time he parked his car in the garage, she had grown quiet as well. Shoulders stiff. Even her desperate struggles had ceased.
He’d used his tie to hold her hands, his silk handkerchief to gag her. Despite the ski mask hiding her face and pretty blonde hair, she looked helpless, fragile, and feminine. He almost caved and released her…almost.
Base urges too long repressed wouldn’t let him walk away until he made her scream in ecstasy. She came alive, twisting and fighting like a wildcat once he removed the seatbelt, but she was no match for years of weight training. Carrying her crushed to his chest, he strode through the kitchen and great room to his bedroom and dropped her on the mattress. He straddled her bucking hips and shoved her arms above her head to knot the tails of his tie to the top rail of the headboard. Once she was secure, he dragged his box of toys from beneath the bed. Many of them he’d bought in response to hints about her secret desires—desires whispered to him over one too many shots.
She jerked at her wrists, screaming through the mask and kicking at his head. Connor stood and threw the spreader bar on the mattress then pinned her legs beneath his hands. “Hold still and cooperate unless you want to be tied face down so I can warm your sweet ass whenever you get out of control.” Bending over her, he pressed his lips near her ear. “Perhaps that’s what you’re hoping for. Do you long to feel the sting of my hand on your beautiful bottom or maybe the snap of a flogger?”
“‘O! ‘et me o!”
“Not until your wildest fantasies come to life.”
She thrashed and bucked beneath him, but when he continued to hold her down, she slowly calmed. He caught the edges of her skirt where it slit up her thigh and ripped the seam open. Once her legs were free, he wrapped one padded leather cuff of the spreader just above her right knee. She went insane, twisting and flailing, until he caught her other leg and buckled the smooth metal bar in place, effectively opening her to his gaze. She could still struggle with her whole lower body, but she would be running nowhere even if her hands came loose.
A damp spot darkened her white lace panties, and he could not resist running a finger up her thigh and over her trembling core. “This is what you want, isn’t it? To be helpless to the demands of a stranger? Unable to allow your strict rules to keep you from experiencing his power?”
Katelyn shook her head in denial, but he didn’t believe her. She told him about her wants whenever she downed too much alcohol for her petite form. Self-denial probably ensured she didn’t remember revealing her secrets.
Still, he wanted to hear her voice so he could listen for the truth. Helping her realize a sexual hunger was one thing. Forcing her into something she didn’t want in reality, entirely another. He dug a mask with an elastic strap from the box and maneuvered it over her head. With a few careful tugs, the ski hat slid away and the blue satin covered her eyes.
She spit out the handkerchief. “Connor—”
He pressed his hand to her mouth. “No one here by that name.” She went still beneath him, and he could feel the edge of fear return. “So who is Connor? A knight in shining armor, perhaps? Someone to rescue you from your make-believe world?”
Her forehead wrinkled above the mask. “Mmm mm mmm!”
His hand muffled her more fully than the handkerchief had. “I’d like to let you go, but I can’t if you’re going to scream and rant.” He nuzzled against the pulse on her throat, nipping the tender flesh there. “You may call me Papa or Papa Bear. Understand?”
“Mmm mmm!”
“You really must stop screaming. The sooner you relax, the sooner I’ll make you purr, little cat.”
Kate shivered. She’d been confident Con was her assailant, but now she wasn’t certain. A false accent failed to hide his golden voice, but he would never speak to her so…not rough…nor harsh…sexually insistent, maybe? More than a handful of men at the wedding, including Connor’s arrogant big brother, had the same rich tone of voice. A giddy wave swept over her, part fear, part forbidden temptation.
Warm lips tickled her ear. “Are you ready to fly?”
Was she? Oh God, she wanted to. How had he known the dark dreams that so often woke her in the night, the fear and dread coupled with a need to be treasured no matter how much pain it caused? A sick feeling swelled, but she pushed it away when he slid his free hand down her side to edge beneath the torn fabric of her gown. Long fingers traced her naked flesh from the elastic on her thong to the wide band he’d clamped around her knee. A shiver lifted goose bumps to pebble her skin.
Warm breath brushed her cheek. “If you scream when I take my hand away, I will gag you. Are we clear?”
At her nod, his hand left her mouth. He grabbed her ruined dress and ripped the seam from her hip to her armpit where it caught and held a moment before yielding to his strength. He tossed it aside, leaving her exposed save for her strapless white lace bra and matching underwear—too little covering to hide behind, and she thanked God for the blindfold. What if he didn’t like what he saw?
“Beautiful.” He trailed the back of his knuckles over her skin, tracing the valley between her breasts, downward to explore the dip of her belly button and the finely woven barrier o
f her thong. Each caress sent tremors chasing quivers until her skin prickled.
She tried to lift toward his touch, but the bindings prevented more than slight or awkward movement. The sensation of helplessness warred with desire. She longed for the strength of a man, but the thought of being unable to stop him should she want to nearly choked her. “Papa Bear, please.”
His hands stilled instantly. Had he heard the fright in her voice? He cleared his throat, then continued his play, exploring the sensitive skin on the inside of her thighs, easing toward her wet core. “Did you need something?”
“I’m scared.” She had not intended to give him such revealing information, but the confession slipped out.
“I thought you wanted this, a chance to explore your boundaries. No vanilla sex for Goldilocks.”
“Maybe. I don’t know. How do you know what I want?”
His knuckles nudged the lace covering her slit; the dampness there screamed her insane desire. “Your body tells me.” A single finger slipped beneath her thong to part her wet folds, and her hips lifted of their own accord. “I’m in control. No need to fight me because you won’t win. No need to fear me either. If it gets to be too much, more than your greatest fantasy, more than you desire, we’ll move on to something else. All you have to do is ask. I will take silence as consent unless I hear a true protest.”
“And if I want you to stop all together?”
“Ahh, now what fun is that? Some things are too hot, some too cold, others are just right. How will you know if you don’t try?” Strong fingers slipped beneath the sides of her underwear and tugged them down to her widespread knees. Her pussy clenched as he trailed his fingertips upward to circle the evidence of desire.
“Give me an out. Please, Papa Bear.”
Warm lips grazed her forehead and his hands stilled. “All right. If things become too much, just say red light, and I’ll bundle you up and take you home where you’ll be safe and warm and…bored shitless.”