The Hunted

by Jaid Black

  One eye stared back at him. “You have the check?” He nodded and passed it through to her. The door closed. He waited. Nothing happened. He knocked again.

  The door opened again. It was still chained. “Amy? Umm, can we talk?”

  She eyed him for a long minute. Then the door closed and Jake heard the rattling of the chain. She opened it and let him in. Her face was set in a mask, her eyes blank.

  Jake was taken aback. Stupidly, he had expected her to throw herself into his arms. They were finally together, able to pick up where they left off, but Amy hadn’t forgiven him.

  But then, why should she?

  “What’s wrong?” he murmured. He took a deep breath, knowing what a stupid question that was.

  She exploded. “What’s wrong? You can ask what’s wrong after the way I was kidnapped, chased like a dog through the woods, exposed to a bunch of leering men—you included—and you have to ask what’s wrong?”

  Jake stepped back, the blood draining from his face. Deep down, he supposed he should not have been surprised. What happened out there between them was a product of the hunt. Now that she’s back home, the horror of the event, and her embarrassment over her liaison with him had turned to anger.

  “You waltz in here, thinking maybe you can fuck me again? Is that it? Or maybe you’ve come to claim your ‘prize,’ huh?” She pulled her dress off over her head, then unhooked her bra and peeled down her panties. “Okay, Mr. Hunter, here’s your prey. Come and claim me!”

  Jake let his eyes fall to the ground. He could hear her harsh breathing. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I can’t undo what’s been done. We were stupid and cruel.”

  “You bet your ass you were! I’d like to lock up that arrogant Mr. White or whatever his name is! He’s out there now, planning another hunt! And you! You rich guys think you can do anything you want!”

  “But-But what about us? Didn’t we experience something strange and wonderful?”

  Amy made a dismissive sound. “That was—that was—I don’t know what that was.” She turned away, suddenly embarrassed at being nude. She reached down and snatched up her dress and held it against her. “I’m not sure how I feel about it. I just know that the whole thing was so wrong on so many levels that I can’t believe I’m even talking to you.”

  Jake nodded. “I know. The fantasy seemed exciting, erotic, even. What sounded like some harmless fun for some rich men has ended up hurting someone I’ve come to really care about.”

  Amy looked up at him, tears in her eyes. She couldn’t speak.

  He moved to the door. “I know every time you see my face, it will remind you of your ordeal. I won’t bother you again.”

  Without another word, Jake walked away, closing the door softly behind him.

  He left Amy standing there, confused, her anger dissipating like San Francisco fog on a hot day.

  Jake morosely trudged down the stairs to his car. His mind reeled with conflicting emotions. If he hadn’t pushed for the hunt or if their prey had been another woman, he never would have met Amy. Now that he’d met her, it was all ruined because he’d been an arrogant rich man who thought he deserved whatever money could buy.

  He reached the lobby and paused to take a breath before leaving forever.

  “Hey!”

  He turned, his heart racing. Amy was standing on the landing, her dress loosely tossed over her athletic body.

  “I hope you don’t think I’m going to let you get out of keeping your end of the deal!”

  “Wha? What do you mean?”

  “You owe me a dinner out. And I’m choosing the most expensive restaurant in San Francisco!”

  Jake’s jaw dropped open. Then he smiled.

  Chapter 24

  “This doesn’t mean I’m ready to forgive you,” Amy said as she ate her lobster at Fleur de Lys, a very expensive French restaurant she had long coveted, but never could afford before.

  “Of course not,” Jake said. “You were treated shabbily and no doubt you’re feeling abused by the experience. I suggest you demand some serious pampering to make up for it.”

  She let a smile tug at the corners of her mouth. “Yeah, maybe a bottle of champagne…”

  “…a day at a spa…”

  “…French perfume…”

  “…a pony ride…”

  She looked up. “ ‘A pony ride?’ ”

  They both erupted into laughter.

  “Well, I was pretty mad, I admit,” she said. “I think I was mad at myself for agreeing to the second hunt. Up until then, I had you guys locked up for the rest of your lives—I mean, if the cops could’ve tracked you down. But when I signed that contract and agreed to take the money for the next hunt, I became a whore and I didn’t like it.”

  “Please don’t say that. To me, you will never be anything less than what you are: An accomplished, professional, beautiful woman who made the best of a bad situation—a situation that I helped cause.”

  She took another sip of wine. “To tell you the truth, there was another reason I stayed—a reason I don’t think I was consciously aware of. Out there, suddenly all of society’s rules were turned upside down. I could be ravished—unless I got away. That made the whole experience somehow primal. I think that’s the reason I reacted the way I did with you.”

  Jake raised his glass. “Well, you can take your primal emotions out on me anytime.”

  Amy gave him a small smile over the rim of her glass.

  After dinner, which Amy could tell was very expensive, Jake gently touched her shoulder as they left the restaurant and waited for the valet to bring around his black BMW. She could feel the heat of his palm.

  She reached up and put her hand over his. “Thanks,” she said in a throaty voice.

  “You’re welcome. I enjoyed it.”

  The valet roared up in the shiny car. Jake tipped him, then held the door for her. When he came around and settled into his seat, she spoke up.

  “Tell me the truth about something, okay?”

  “Sure, anything.” He pulled away from the curb.

  “I know you said you had an image of how the hunt would be, and the reality was a lot harder to take. But,” she paused, as if trying to find the right words. Did it turn you on, chasing me down like that?”

  “Oh, yes, I have to admit, it did. You were right—there was something primal about it.”

  “Running around naked might’ve added to that feeling,” she laughed.

  Jake slowed the car.

  “What? What is it?”

  “I was heading to your apartment, to take you home. But I was thinking…”

  “Yeah?”

  “I have a big ol’ place in Marin County. The maid has the day off, so I’m there all alone…”

  Amy cocked her head and watched Jake’s face in profile. “And?” She wasn’t going to make it easy for him.

  “Umm. I was wondering if you’d like to play, uh, hide and seek with me?”

  Her cheeks dimpled. “ ‘Hide and seek?’ ”

  “It’s a tamer version of the hunt, you see.”

  “I see. I suppose you’d want to do this naked?”

  “Only if you’re brave enough, of course.”

  She smiled that sexy, dimpled smile again and Jake turned the car toward his home. Little was said—both their minds were elsewhere.

  Amy was impressed with the house and grounds as he rolled through the electronic fence onto his five-acre estate. He parked out front and escorted Amy inside. They stood, awkwardly for a moment, unsure how to proceed.

  “Maybe you could give me a quick tour, so I know where all the good hiding places are.”

  “Sure,” he said. He took her through the house, standing close to her as he showed her various rooms. The smell of her hair, her perfume, intoxicated him. She seemed particularly interested in the master bedroom, upstairs.

  “Wow, look at the size of that bed!”

  “California King. I like a lot of space.”

 
“You could lose someone in there.”

  Jake felt if they didn’t leave, they might never. “Come on, let’s go back downstairs and get started.” He walked out awkwardly, his erection pressing against his trousers.

  “What are the stakes?” Amy asked when they reached the ground floor again.

  “Stakes? Umm. I don’t know.” He blushed a bit. “I mean, you know what I want if I find you,” she murmured.

  Amy glanced at his tented pants and remembered their intense fuck during the hunt. Fuck was the right word for it. “Making love” was far too tame a word for what they did. She felt the heat in her loins return. “So—what? If I win, we still fuck?”

  Her bold statement only made Jake harder. “Well, if that’s what you want as well, it doesn’t seem to matter who wins, does it?”

  “No, it doesn’t.” She began unzipping her dress. Jake quickly followed suit, shrugging off his sport coat and unbuttoning his shirt. “How much of a lead are you going to give me?”

  “How much time do you need?”

  Amy looked over the house, mentally counting the rooms. “Oh, I think thirty seconds ought to be plenty.”

  Jake grinned. In seconds, they were both naked. Amy gazed at his erection unabashedly. “I guess that wasn’t a banana in your pocket, huh?”

  He drank in her lithe naked form: the soft curve of her hips, the pert breasts, the blond hair framing her pretty face. With effort, he turned his back. “I’m counting to thirty now.” He couldn’t wait another minute to have her. “One, two, three…”

  He heard her bare feet padding away down the hall.

  When he reached thirty, he turned. Instinctively, he knew where she was hiding. He jogged up the stairs directly to the master bedroom. There, he spotted a small lump under the covers. He jumped on her. “Gotcha!”

  She giggled.

  Jake slipped in next to her. “This has got to be the worst hiding place ever.” Her skin was hot. His hands slipped over her breasts to her stomach. He imagined he could feel her blood rushing through her body, her desire for him finally acceptable. He kissed her hard, pressing his erection against her thigh.

  She enveloped him, spreading her legs. “Maybe I’ll do better next time.”

  He cupped his hand over her breast, flicking the rock-hard nipple gently. The tip of his cock touched her wet cunt. “We’ll have to raise the stakes,” he breathed, kissing her again.

  “Shut up and fuck me,” she responded and Jake obliged, thrusting his cock deep into her. She gasped and clung tightly to him, shaking with emotion.

  They moved together as one. Amy’s cunt was hot and wet—it sucked at him. Jake had never felt such heat, such passion from a woman before. There’s something to be said about the hunt, he thought, if it results in sex like this.

  His strokes drove Amy mad. She heard noises and realized it was her own voice, making inarticulate sounds in her throat. She could see herself outside her body, looking down on Jake’s strong back as he thrust harder and harder into her, his buttocks clenching and contracting. Her legs encircled his back. Her mouth was open, eyes staring.

  “Oh, god, oh, god, oh, god…” Her orgasm built to a crescendo. Just as she shuddered with an orgasm hitting 8.0 on the Richter scale, Jake came hard within her. She could feel his sperm flooding her womb. Her head exploded—or so it felt. For a moment, she wasn’t totally conscious. The room swirled around her.

  God, sex with this man was good!

  After a few moments, Jake slumped to the side, spent. “If we keep this up,” she gasped, “I’m going to get pregnant for sure.”

  “Yes, you’re right.” He rolled to the side and leaned on one elbow. “There’s just something about fucking you that makes contraceptives inconsequential.”

  “Something primal, no doubt.”

  “Yes. But I wouldn’t worry about it too much.”

  She sat up. “What do you mean? We should be worried!”

  “Nah,” he said dismissively. “I figure we’re going to want to have three kids anyway…”

  She stared at him. “Th-three kids? You and me? Together? We-we don’t even really know each other. It’s all just sex so far.”

  “No it’s not. And I think you know it. I want you, Amy. I want to share my life with you. Will you marry me?”

  “Wow,” she breathed out. “You really know how to raise the stakes.”

  “Well?”

  She thought for a moment, then gave him a sly smile. “Let’s decide this on the battlefield. One more hunt, a real one—tomorrow. If you win, I’ll marry you…”

  “And if you win?” he murmured.

  She grinned. “We just fuck until I get pregnant and then you have to marry me.”

  Jake laughed and took her into his arms.

  Besieged

  Jaid Black

  © Besieged, Jaid Black, 2002.

  Editor’s note: Besieged is the prequel to Jaid Black’s Death Row serial.

  Warm Regards,

  Sheri Ross Carucci

  To Arne Hansen:

  for your Norwegian translations

  for proving that men like erotic romance too…

  this one’s for you ;-)

  Chapter 1

  Nearest Village: Barrow, Alaska

  335 miles north of the Arctic Circle near the Chukchi Seacoast

  December 1, present day

  Her teeth chattering, Peggy Brannigan huddled beneath the warmth of the polar bear skin furs she’d been provided with by her Inupiat Eskimo guide, Benjamin. Wearing a thick woolen coat, three pairs of thermal underwear, two hats, two sets of gloves, and bundled under four polar bear furs, she was still chilled to the bone as the dogsled made its way across the harsh tundra landscape.

  “Faster!” Ben instructed the dogs in his native tongue. “Move!”

  Peggy’s forehead wrinkled as she regarded him. She’d been living and working in Barrow for a little over six weeks now in order to study the ways of the indigenous Eskimos for her anthropological dissertation paper on Inupiaq culture at San Francisco State University. For the majority of the time she’d been in the arctic northern region of Alaska, Peggy’s host had been Benjamin’s family. She’d gotten to know the teenager pretty well in that time and had found him to be a calm, stoic gentleman not given to outward displays of emotion. That he seemed almost panicked for the dogs to move the sled faster was a trifle alarming to her.

  “What’s wrong, B-Ben?” she asked, her teeth chattering away from the bitter wind hitting her directly in the face. She kept her tone neutral so as not to appear alarmed. “Have you spotted some wolves on the hunt or something?”

  Shit! she thought as she bit down roughly onto her bottom lip. It would be ironic indeed if their dogs were picked off by hungry wolves a stone’s throw from the village. Unfortunately, the only way in and out of Barrow was by the occasional chartered airplane or by dogsled, which had given them no choice when seeing to their task but to brave the harsh elements. And the hungry predators.

  Making matters that much worse was the fact that it was briskly snowing on the tundra, which caused visibility to be poor. And since the sun doesn’t rise near Barrow from November to January, the fact that it was two o’clock in the afternoon did them no good at all. It might as well have been midnight for all of the aid daylight hours gave them at this time of the year.

  Peggy took a thorough look around the snowy landscape, trying to ascertain if there were any signs of pack-hunting activity. Her eyes narrowed in question when she failed to spot even a single wolf. The tundra looked so quiet just now that she didn’t see any wildlife at all, not even pregnant polar bears nestling into the hibernation dens that the expectant females carved out of snow banks to rest in. She wrapped the furs tightly around her before putting her question to the teenager again. “What is it, Ben? What’s going on?”

  Ben’s almond brown eyes were narrowed into slits, his expression grim. Peggy winced when she saw the riding crop he was wielding lash down onto th
e buttocks of the lead dog guiding the sled. The dog let out a pained yelp. “We have to get out of here, Peggy,” he said as calmly as he could in English, though she could hear the fright in his voice. “You’re being hunted,” he said a bit shakily.

  Peggy’s eyes rounded. She swallowed nervously as she again glanced around the snowy tundra.

  Ben hadn’t said they were being hunted, she thought anxiously. He had said she was being hunted. There was a big semantic difference between the two and one she wasn’t certain what to make of. “What are you saying, Ben?” she muttered, her heartbeat accelerating. The serious teenager never said anything he didn’t mean. This was getting weird. And frightening.

  “Igliqtuq!” Ben gritted out, the riding crop coming down on the second lead dog. “Move!”

  Peggy’s heart began thumping wildly in her chest. Her hands knotted into nervous fists from under the polar bear furs. She’d never seen Ben behave this way before. Never. “Ben, please,” she said quietly, an acute sense of panic beginning to settle in. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  The rigid lines of his profile said he wasn’t inclined to answer her. Not out of meanness or disrespect—not Ben. It was something more, she realized. Perhaps the teenager was trying to protect her from this unknown enemy in whatever way he felt he could. Knowing Ben he probably regretted the fact that he’d alarmed her to whatever presence was near to their position and wished he’d kept his fear to himself so as not to worry her.

  It was too late for that. She had gone beyond worry and was nearing the point of panic.

  “Please,” she breathed out, her aqua gaze wide. “Please talk to me, Ben.”

  The teenager took a deep breath as he kept at the dogs, enforcing his instruction to move faster with the occasional harsh flick of the riding crop. She didn’t think he was going to speak to her, regardless of her pleas, so she was almost surprised when he did.