Predator

by Vonna Harper

  “Let me go!”

  “I can’t.”

  Lying under him like some trapped wild animal was unacceptable, so she twisted and squirmed. Panic clawed, and sweat coated her skin. So heavy, so damn solid! It would take little for him to crush the life out of her. She was still struggling, albeit with lessened strength, when he stopped pressing on her back. She managed to turn her head a little more, then wished she hadn’t, because he was removing his own backpack and reaching into it.

  “This is insane. I’ll charge you with—you know I will.”

  When he held up a length of rope, she screamed. And screamed again, her voice spiraling into the trees.

  No! Not rope being tied around her free wrist! But although she fought the restraint with everything in her, he easily tied it in place. Then, using the loose end to hold her arm up behind her, he pulled her trapped arm out from under her. She fought the inevitable, fought and swore and screamed again, but he easily lashed her wrists together.

  Not content with rendering her arms useless, he slid off her and grabbed the ankle next to him. Despite her resistance, he bent her knee up so her heel rested on her buttocks and hog-tied her ankle to her wrists. It mattered little that he’d left enough slack that she wasn’t in danger of losing circulation. What could she do with only one free leg?

  Still on his knees, he scooted away. Rolling onto her side as best she could, she locked her gaze on him. Much as she needed to scream, she feared that would enrage him. He stared back at her, his expression unreadable. Her heart beat like thunder, and yet an emotion she refused to acknowledge calmed and quieted what could have become panic. Every inch of her was alert and alive and focused on her beautiful captor.

  “What do you want?” she asked when his silence became more than she could stand. “Damn it, what is this about?”

  “It’s about following our destiny.” He swiped his hand across his eyes, then shook his head as if trying to wake up.

  “There’s no destiny involved. Nothing except you doing something…” She’d nearly said “something stupid”, but that might set him off. Being tied like this did strange things to her. It wasn’t all that uncomfortable, although her arms and leg would eventually start to ache. Still, having the use of one leg was…not comforting, exactly, but as if she’d been left with a small yet useless piece of freedom.

  Helplessness meant she could no longer function on her own. She’d been stripped of self-determination and direction. Instead of making all her own decisions, a stranger had taken over that role and responsibility. In many ways, her body now belonged to him.

  The thought rooted deep inside, but instead of panicking, she turned reality around and around in her mind. Of course she didn’t trust him, couldn’t imagine ever trusting a stranger who’d do something like this to her, but he’d narrowed her world down until nothing except her physical body mattered.

  And that body was displayed for him.

  He stood with a gracefulness that should have unnerved her. Instead, her awe of him grew. And when he retrieved her backpack and started going through it, she accepted what all the arguments in the world wouldn’t change.

  He could do whatever he wanted to her.

  To have that kind of power over a human life, to know that other human would die if he abandoned—

  No, he wouldn’t leave her like this. If she knew nothing else, she had no doubt of that.

  What have you done to me? Why this acceptance? If you’ve placed a spell over me, hypnotized me…

  Movement, maybe, on the hill behind him distracted her. From her position on the ground, she didn’t have a decent view of what had snagged her attention. All she knew was that whatever she’d spotted hadn’t been there earlier. If he had an accomplice—no, she had the feeling this man operated alone.

  Then what?

  Indicating her bedroll, he grunted approvingly, causing her to dismiss whatever was up there. His reaction to her spartan cooking equipment and prepackaged meals was the same, and when he pulled out her lightweight, all-weather jacket, he nodded. His continued silence was no longer getting on her nerves as much as it made her wonder what he was thinking. It went without saying that he was concentrating on her, maybe making his plans, maybe asking himself how things had gotten to this point.

  This point being she was lying on the ground and feeling supremely alive, waiting. You’re messing with my mind somehow; that has to be it.

  What do you want of me? she ached to demand, but he’d already taught her a lesson—patience. He’d speak when he was ready, and nothing she said or begged would change that. Besides, she was far from a position of power.

  Bottom line, she was trapped on her side, her free leg under her, spine arched so her breasts were on display, her crotch easy for him to reach. He could rip off her shirt, unfasten her sports bra, manhandle her breasts, grab—

  No, damn it! She wasn’t getting wet. She wasn’t! Only an idiot would react to being captured by becoming turned on. Those crazy, adolescent fantasies about being spirited away by pirates or Tarzan types had been nothing more than the result of her newborn sexuality.

  Mind control. Trapping my thoughts as thoroughly as he trapped my body.

  When he dropped to his knees beside her again, she expected him to start pawing her. When he only stared, she remained tense, waiting, wanting and anticipating something she couldn’t name.

  “It doesn’t have to be like this,” she told him. “You’re a handsome, healthy young man. Women—women have to be falling over themselves wanting attention from you.”

  From his lack of expression, she wondered if he’d understood her words. There was something about him—a loneliness, a distancing, almost as if he’d lost touch with himself. “Do you want to talk? Maybe if I understood, I could help.”

  “It’s too late.”

  Fresh movement on the hill distracted her from his somber tone. It was as if—impossible, of course, but it was as if whoever or whatever was up there was judging him.

  “No, it isn’t,” she insisted. She didn’t dare concentrate on anything except her captor. “Let me go, and we can both forget what took place. I don’t hold grudges. I’ll chalk it up to one of life’s unexpected adventures, this crazy thing that… I won’t go to the police if you release me now.”

  “You’ll leave. I need you here.”

  She could lie and say whatever he wanted to hear, but surely he’d see through words meant to gain her freedom and nothing else. Besides, for some strange reason, she wanted to be honest with him. “I came here to explore the mountain, gave myself four days to do so. Then I have to get back to work.”

  “That’s what I thought when I arrived,” he muttered and again shook his head. “But then the mountain reached me.”

  The mountain? “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I know. It’s my job to teach you.”

  “Teach me what? Never mind. I’m not—” Her words trailed off. If she’d angered him—

  “You’re beautiful. Healthy.”

  Her throat seized, making it nearly impossible to swallow. Tears stung her eyes. When he reached for her, she briefly believed he felt sorry for her. But then his fingers trailed over her neck.

  This wasn’t the first time he’d touched her, but earlier, he’d manhandled her. This was something entirely different. Lowering her head to the ground, she tried to focus on him, but all she could see were his knees. He continued running his fingers along her veins. She felt smaller than she had a few moments before, softer, more womanly. A spell? Was it that simple?

  “Wh-who are you?” she stuttered. “Please, at least tell me that.”

  “Stark.”

  Stark. Strong. Masterful. She hoped he’d ask her name and with the sharing they’d become more than strangers, but he didn’t seem to care. Maybe nothing mattered to him except that she was female to his male.

  The pressure against her neck increased. “I can feel your pulse,” he told her. “
Your heart’s racing.”

  “Of course it is. You can’t possibly expect me to—”

  “I fought at first,” he interrupted, his forefinger now running behind her ear. “When Cougar Spirit came to me, I denied his wisdom, but in the end, I embraced what he wanted of me. Now, it’s your turn.”

  “Cougar Spirit?”

  “He taught me how and why to listen. It’s my turn to do the same to you.”

  Madman, he was a madman! But was he? She pondered this as his fingers slipped into her hair, and he lightly massaged her temple. At first, she remained tense, but bit by bit, her muscles relaxed. Her eyes didn’t want to remain open. The strain in her arms seemed to decrease, and why would she want to straighten her imprisoned leg when lying here, breathing in the forest’s scents while her captor taught her to accept his touch, was so incredibly hypnotic.

  More than hypnotic. She was becoming even more aroused.

  “Your skin’s so soft,” he muttered. “And under that, you’re strong. Cougar Spirit approves.”

  “Cougar Spirit? Approves? What—”

  “No more. Your time for questions will come, but first you need to turn yourself over to me. For that to happen, you must go deep inside yourself and listen to your own silence.”

  He had to know he wasn’t making sense, didn’t he? Opening her eyes, she lifted her head. With his hand still in her hair, he reached for her backpack and withdrew the sleeveless T-shirt she slept in. Even before he started twisting it, she understood what he had in mind, so when he rolled her onto her back and pressed it against her lips, she clenched her teeth, fighting in the only way she could.

  “There,” he said when the makeshift gag filled her mouth. Lifting her head even higher, he tied off the shirt in back. “Now you’ll listen to your body.”

  Then he knelt beside her again with his hands resting on his potent thighs and his gaze working slowly over her helpless body. Something hot and heavy licked from between her breasts to her crotch. When the heat settled in her pussy, for the first time in her life, she saw herself as nothing except a sexual entity. This isn’t happening, she tried to tell herself. But it was.

  “I’ve been waiting for this.” His fingers clenched, making her wonder if he was forcing himself not to touch her. “Ever since I accepted my destiny.”

  What destiny, she tried to ask with her eyes. But even if he replied, would it make any sense?

  Revealing no emotion, he leaned over until his face was so close to hers that he began to blur. “You’re destined to be my mate, my partner, my equal in the battle that’s been thrust on us, but first I must claim you.”

  Even as he spoke, Stark struggled to accept that he was actually saying the words he’d waited so long to speak. All those lonely days and nights and he’d finally found her, captured her.

  She was afraid, of course, but he read more than that single emotion in her. Hopefully, the time would come when he could explain why and show her how to put her conflict behind her. But just as his new reality had slowly revealed itself, she had to go through the same process. Otherwise, the change wouldn’t be complete. Otherwise she’d continue to fight instead of accept.

  Accept. Embrace. That’s what the rest of today and however long it took was about, wasn’t it? Because if he failed to bring her into his world, he’d continue to live in it alone. The aching solitude—

  No! He wouldn’t go there!

  Instead, he’d touch and teach until she turned her back on everything she’d been and believed in before coming to Cougar Mountain.

  Unless he failed.

  A low growl rolled out of him. He had to succeed, he had to!

  Fighting the animal in him, he again dug into her backpack looking for signs of the life he’d taken her from. Pulling out her cell phone, he flipped it open. Mia’s messages, the opening screen read. So, her name was Mia.

  Chapter Three

  “Your body is ripe,” he said. “I look forward to turning it into what I need.”

  Desperate to discover what he meant by need, she tried to speak, but even though the gag muffled her efforts, he pressed his fingers over her mouth. “Don’t,” he warned. “Certain things simply must be. That’s what we both need to comprehend. We are part of something larger than us. Something powerful and good.”

  Good? She knew her eyes were widening and her muscles had tensed, but he ignored those things. After several seconds, he took his hand off the gag and rolled her onto her stomach. Being unable to see him brought her dangerously close to panic, but before the battle could consume her, he untied her leg and stretched it out beside the free one. That done, he turned her onto her back again. Not having her leg trapped under her felt wonderful! Next to that, her weight resting on her hands was nothing. Thank goodness for loose soil and layers of decayed pine needles.

  “I’ve been alone a long time,” he told her in a tone that mirrored the wind. “The days and nights have bled together, until I can’t remember how many there have been.”

  His expression became vulnerable, making her think of a lost child. Whatever had taken hold of him was overwhelming him, not that she could or should want to do anything about it. But it was just the two of them in the middle of nowhere, and he’d become her world. Against all reason, she found herself fighting tears.

  “Don’t,” he said and swiped at a tear. “You’re fulfilling your destiny.”

  If he said that one more time, she’d scream—at least she would if she was capable of screaming. Blinking back her tears, she concentrated on preparing herself for his every touch and movement, his every mood. Something was changing about his expression, a look in his eyes she’d never seen on a human being. He continued to study her with an awful intensity, and yet it was more than that. Animal-like? Was that what she was seeing, a sloughing off of human qualities while primal instinct came to the surface?

  Knowing the change went deeper than his expression, she tried to sink into the ground. At the same time, the primitive promise emanating from him intrigued her. How many times while hiking had she imagined walking into the wilderness and never turning around? Leaving civilization in all its complexity behind. Had she been taken to that point of no return?

  His eyes now bright with an inner light, he ran a finger across her forehead and over her jawbone. She shuddered, then relaxed. Again and again, he traced the contours of her face until she half believed it now belonged to him. Her body hummed and waited, both living in the moment and eager for the touch to become more intimate, more of an invasion.

  She’d worn a front-button flannel shirt so she could roll up the sleeves and undo the top buttons as the day grew warmer. She’d already exposed her elbows and freed two buttons and had been debating letting more air reach her chest when she’d met him. Now she didn’t know whether to be glad or disappointed that she was modestly dressed—not that she had any control over whatever he decided to do.

  At the moment, he was staring at the nearby hill, making her wonder if he’d seen whatever it was she thought she had. But after briefly studying whatever had caught his attention, he nodded and turned back to her. Once again, she was struck by the totality of his interest in her; it was as if nothing else existed.

  Reaching out, he took hold of her shirt, freeing one, two and finally all the buttons. Releasing the bottom ones meant he’d had to pull her shirttail out of her jeans. Instead of exposing her bra, though, he shifted position slightly and lightly rested his hands on her shoulders. The heels of his hands pressed against her collarbone.

  Say something. Tell me what you’re thinking. Anything!

  Instead of responding to her silent plea, he leaned over, his mouth closing in on her neck. Pulse quickening, she lifted her head in a futile attempt to stop him—maybe. He waited her out until she could no longer hold her head up and then ran his lips over the side of her neck.

  Alarmed, she struggled to slide out from under him, but he had no trouble holding her in place. “Don’t fight!”


  “Hmm. Hmm!” she muffled behind her gag.

  “This isn’t about pain. And it isn’t about rape.”

  No rape? You promise?

  The second time he touched her it was with his teeth, a light raking over her flesh that had her whimpering. And when he nibbled and licked, her whimper became a primitive cry. Something knotted in her belly to distract her from the sensual touch. She wasn’t terrified of him. She should be, but she wasn’t. He’d taken both of them far from convention and everything she’d taken for granted all her life, and she couldn’t do anything about it—except experience.

  Closing his hand around her jaw, he turned her head one direction and then the other, making her wonder what he was looking for and what he was thinking. She could kick, or at least try to kick him, but not only wasn’t she sure her boots would incapacitate him, she didn’t want to fight.

  She needed to experience.

  “You smell of the forest,” he said with his face inches from hers. “That’s how I know you’re the one I’ve been waiting and looking for, because our scents are the same.”

  He was right! Even with everything she had to deal with, she plainly caught the aroma of warm pine needles and rich earth clinging to him.

  “I want you.” His gaze darkened. “You deserve to know how much I do, but I’m not going to take you against your will.”

  What do you call what you’ve already done?

  “That’s not how it needs to be between us. We must mate as equals.”

  Not be forced or have sex, or make love, or even fuck, but mate? She had no doubt that his word choice had been deliberate. Desperate for further clarification, she stared unblinking at him, but if he read the silent plea for an explanation, he gave no indication. Releasing her jaw, he ran his fingers down her throat and from there to her collarbone. Next, he slid his hand under her shirt and began exploring what he couldn’t see.

  Her breath kept catching, and she had to remind herself that this was truly happening and not part of some erotic dream. If she was in control of things, she’d program her fantasy man to treat her body like something rare and precious, something to be cherished and explored—mostly explored.