"So you said—just a bit too loudly." Roarke began to circle around her, keeping his weapon aimed between her breasts. "Oh, you're a good actress; you sounded damn convincing talking about the way they'd screwed you. And that's what made me wonder, because no real rebel would tell a stranger that much." He smiled mockingly. "I don't know if you've heard, but Tyus is crawling with spies."
She tried out an apologetic smile. "I suppose I should be more discreet, but is that really a reason to kill me?"
He snorted. "Give it up, Morrell. I got an anonymous tip half an hour ago telling me exactly who you are. I checked it out with Starforce, and they confirm." The black eyes chilled. "But even so, I don't intend to kill you unless you give me no choice. Lie down on the ground. Kick the knife away first."
Elise shrugged and started to obey, but just at that moment, a gust of wind grabbed at her robe, dragging it open to reveal her stringsuit clad body and its nearly naked curves. Roarke's eyes widened.
She knew an opening when she saw one.
Pivoting her body into a hard, tight kick, she struck his wrist so - bard his beamer spun out of his hand. Elise reversed direction, meaning to plow her foot into his jaw on the return stroke, but Roarke wasn't caught napping twice. He grabbed her ankle and jerked, dumping her on her backside in the sand. Even as he pounced on her, she was launching another attack, punching her palm upward in a strike calculated to drive the bones of his nose into his brain. He jerked his head aside, turning what would have been a lethal blow
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into one that did nothing more than bloody his mouth. She pulled back for another shot, but he grabbed her hands in both fists and pinned them to the ground. "Surrender, Captain," he grunted. "You don't want to go one-on-one with me."
"I could say the same to you," Elise growled, fighting to brace a foot against his body and kick him away. As she surged against him, she breathed in his scent; a faint tang of male sweat, a hint of something woodsy that must have been his soap, the trace of Scotch on his breath. She ignored it and tried even harder for the throw, but Roarke applied a counter pressure and kept her down, mashing her breasts into the hard wall of his chest, his powerful thighs imprisoning hers between them.
God, he was strong. Even worse, he had the combat skills to match. There was a host of techniques she knew to flip him clear or strike sensitive nerve groups; punches that could have incapacitated him, kicks that could cripple, but he countered every move she made. With a growl of rage, Elise realized that infuriating male body would prevail; she was just wasting strength she might be able to use to escape later. She had no choice but to submit and watch for her chance. Sooner or later his guard would drop.
Feeling her go limp, Roarke nodded in satisfaction. "That's better." He pulled back slightly. "You..." His eyes widened.
Following the path of his gaze, Elise gasped.
Her stringsuit had slipped aside in the struggle, revealing the thrust of one nipple. Something about the way the cords pressed against the hard little nub made her breast look more erotically naked than it would have if she'd been nude.
Instinctively, Elise looked up at her captor, who stared back at her with a sort of disgruntled arousal. He liked what he saw, she realized, but he didn't like liking what he saw.
"At least let me belt my robe closed," she snapped.
To her surprise, Roarke released her hands and sat back on his heels, still straddling her. Which was when she realized that he had
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a massive erection.
Without thinking twice, Elise plowed a punch right at that very prominent target.
With a roar of raw fury, Roarke caught her fist just before it struck. He fell on her like the wrath of God, crushing her into the sand, pinning her arms and legs in a wide spread eagle under his powerful body.
Looking up into the rage in his black eyes, Elise felt her mouth go dry. She forced herself to shrug. "I couldn't help myself."
A slow, very nasty grin spread across his mouth. "Neither can I."
Roarke's head dipped. She knew at once what he was going to do, but there was absolutely no way she could stop him. His biceps working against the side of her head as he controlled her struggles, he parted his lips and took her bare nipple into his mouth. Instantly the pink bud hardened. Pleasure zinged through her.
Looking up to gauge her reaction, Roarke smiled around the sensitive flesh. His tongue pressed it against his teeth, then began to swirl a hot, wet dance around it.
"You've made your point." Elise fought to ignore the tingling rush of delight roaring through her nerve endings. "Now get off me!"
"When you leave your toys out," he rumbled, "you shouldn't be surprised if somebody wants to play with them." He went back to teasing the captive nipple.
He had a very wicked tongue. She drew in a hard breath. "Arrest me if you're going to. Hell, kill me if you're going to. But stop that!"
"Not on your life."
"I could have you jailed for assault!"
"Oh, I know. I just don't care." Roarke drew the nipple deeply into his mouth as, with a single rough pull, he jerked that side of the string suit all the way off her right breast. She cursed him, then broke off when she realized her voice sounded like a croon.
Injecting some steel in her tone, she growled, "Let me go, Roarke. Now."
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He looked up at her. Her nipple felt suddenly cold without his hot mouth around it. "I've wanted to get you in this position all evening, Captain. I'm not stopping until I'm finished." Still watching her, Roarke nipped the pouting pink tip. She strangled a moan. He whispered, "And that won't be for hours yet." Grabbing the other side of the stringsuit, he freed her left breast with a hard jerk.
Then, like the wolf he resembled, Roarke began a leisurely feast, biting, sucking, licking at her erect nipples, sending a barrage of delight roaring along her nerves that ripped every thought of protest out of her head. His free hand worked whichever breast his mouth did not, squeezing and stroking, knowing just the touch, just the rhythm, to waken her hunger and twist it tight.
Dimly she realized he'd transferred both her hands to one of his. She knew she should try to pull free, but she didn't even have the strength to try. It was as though he were suckling away her will to resist with each tug of that wicked mouth. Until nothing else mattered, not rank, not enmity, not fear. Nothing but her need to feel him touching her.
Elise threw back her head at the storm of sensation, pressing her face against the hard bulge of his biceps. Barely aware of what she did, she opened her mouth and bit into the firm muscle. He tasted of desire and male sweat. Roarke growled, squeezing her breast between his long fingers before releasing it to continue his seductive explorations.
His hips rocked against hers. He was massively hard in a long thick ridge that pressed against her belly, scalding her with the need to feel him naked and strong in the cradle of her body.
She had to stop this, Elise told herself, but the thought was vague, powerless against the desire Roarke was building so skillfully.
He shifted over her, and his clever fingers moved down the V of bare skin revealed by her stringsuit, then wormed their way under the tightly woven cords that concealed her sex.
"Roarke," she moaned.
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"Shhh," he whispered. "Let me touch you. Let me make you burn." His fingers found her, stirred the fine down at the juncture of her sex. "So soft," he crooned.
He discovered her clit, brushed it with a feather touch. She caught her breath as rapture seared her.
Elise was still reeling when he slid a big finger deep inside her. "Wet and hot and tight," Roarke murmured, "You want me as much as I want you. And God, how I want you."
He plunged two stiffened fingers into her. She cried out.
"It's good, isn't it? And it's going to get even better." Slowly, seductively, he pumped, until she could almost feel them locked together, his body bucking against hers,
plunging so very, very deep.
Abruptly Roarke pulled away, his expression nakedly feral. "We can't finish this here, it's not secure. I'm taking you back to my ship." As if unable to resist, he ground his hardness into the notch . of her thighs. His eyes closing, he murmured, "Then, in a day or so, when we're finally done, you're going to tell me where you left tile Star Raker"
Elise blinked, feeling stunned and stupid, still in the grip of his spell. But even dazed as she was, she knew there was danger here. Danger to her ship.
Grabbing both her wrists, Roarke hauled her up off the sand as he bent at the waist. She realized he was about to throw her over his shoulder.
He was going to make her tell him where the Raker was. And against that dreadnought of his, her people wouldn't have a prayer in hell.
A wave of adrenaline drowned the erotic fire he'd so carefully built, leaving Elise cold and aware. "No," she whispered. "No, goddamn you, you're not getting my ship!"
With every ounce of her strength, Elise smashed a knee into his groin. Caught off-guard, Roarke roared in pain and dropped her. She rolled across the sand, sprang to her feet, and ran like hell. The sea breeze felt cold on her naked breasts, still wet from
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Roarke's sensual feast.
"Dammit, come back here!" He lunged, grabbing for her. Half-crippled as he was, he missed.
Elise scrambled down the beach kicking up sprays of sand. She couldn't afford to let him put his hands on her again. She rounded a dune...
And ran right into Henry Voronnin on the other side.
"Captain!" Henry said, startled. His eyes fell on her naked chest. 'Captain!"
"Elise!"
Roarke, bulling his way around the dune after her, spotted Henry and drew back a fist. Before he could strike, Henry plowed a foot into the side of his knee. It buckled under him with an audible snap. He hit the sand swearing.
A snarl on his face, Voronnin reached for him.
"Come on, Henry!" Elise yelled.
"We can take him hostage!"
"The Rebellion gives their people radio implants! We'd never get off the planet with him. Besides, his knee is broken," she told him, taking in Roarke's bloodless face with practiced eyes. "He's not going anywhere but to a medic. Let's get out of here before somebody comes!"
Grumbling, Henry turned and followed as Elise broke into a run.
Behind her, she could hear Roarke's deep-throated bellow of fury, "We're not finished, Elise!"
******************
They'd run like hell back to the hopper. Roarke hadn't stayed down long; they'd barely taken off when they picked up the Liberator's sensor signature roaring in pursuit. It had taken them another three days of hiding and evasive maneuvers to make it back to the Raker, with Roarke hunting them the whole time.
But even as they made good their escape, Elise had known he was right: he wasn't through with her.
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A year later, Roarke chased her down, defeated her in battle, and forced her to surrender to his overwhelming strength of arms.
Now he was on his way to take her hostage.
The exterior airlock opened, revealing ranks of mammoth armored shapes, beamer rifles held at ready: the boarding party. Watching them advance, Elise swallowed, wondering which jointed gray suit held her enemy.
And whether he intended to take up where he'd left off.
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When Roarke and his boarding party marched onto the frigate's cargo deck, he found Elise standing at parade rest, proud in her black dress uniform with its silver piping, tall dress boots emphasizing the delicious length of her legs. She wore her blonde hair arranged in a businesslike bun that would have looked ridiculously prim on any other woman, yet the regal tilt of her chin turned it into a crown. Still, queenly as she was, he was surprised by how small she looked. Almost defenseless.
Then again, he was used to seeing her on his bridge vid screen, larger than life, playing out one of her elaborate combat strategies. But not this time. This time he had her. At last.
Roarke stopped a pace away from her, flanked by his fifty armored troopers. Keying his suit face plate open, he said, "It's a genuine pleasure, Captain Morrell." He could feel his lips curving into a grin he knew revealed too much.
Elise looked at him with those slanting go-to-hell green eyes. "I'm afraid I can't say the same, Captain Roarke."
"I know." He paused to drag the grin into a more professional expression. "Have you prepared any interesting surprises for us, Captain?"
She lifted a brow. "Why don't you see for yourself?"
"I do believe I will." With a nod and a gesture, Roarke sent his troopers fanning out, their beamer rifles held at the ready, to search the area for snipers. Snipers who would be damn sorry to be found, considering that the armor made each trooper not only virtually invulnerable, but ten times stronger than anything human.
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Roarke unslung his own rifle, pointed it at her, and said mildly, "I certainly hope they don't find anyone."
Elise gave the weapon a contemptuous glance, then ignored it.
God, she was something. Even watching her over a rifle sight, he felt the effect of her body on his—the long, sleek legs and narrow waist, the curve of her hips, breasts swelling and lush even in a uniform designed to minimize them. His mouth went dry as he remembered what those gorgeous breasts looked like bare, the nipples stiff and wet from his mouth. God, he loved her breasts.
Roarke gritted his teeth and banished that treacherous memory. She had a way of sending his professionalism right out the airlock— and he could swear she did it deliberately. Elise Morrell was a deadly little mantrap baited with lush tits and long legs. And he, God help him, tumbled right in every time.
Her face made the whole deception work. Knowing what an indomitable warrior she was, Roarke would have expected sharp, classic features, beautiful but cold. Instead there was an elfin delicacy about her. Her cheekbones and chin were softly rounded, her nose pert, her eyes wide and leaf-green. And her mouth—God, her mouth. With those wid1e, seductive pink lips that threatened and taunted and curled into dangerous grins. He had a recurring fantasy of sliding his aching hard-on into that mouth.
It irritated him.
Here they were, aboard an enemy vessel crawling with cornered Coalition forces, and he was focusing on Elise Morrell and his own lust. He was a captain of a ship at war, dammit. He couldn't afford this kind of distraction. He knew the price of failure too well.
Besides, she was a Coalition officer, for God's sake. She should disgust him.
He desperately wished she disgusted him.
Through the radio implant behind his left ear, he heard the boarding party begin to call in. "Clear, captain." -^LQQks_good here."
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"Doesn't seem to be anybody around."
Roarke waited for the last of them to confirm it, but even when confirmation came, he didn't relax. Staging an ambush in the cargo bay was the obvious thing to do. Elise never did the obvious. The ambush would come from the direction he least expected.
"All right," he said at last, "Assume your assigned positions and stay alert."
Slinging the rifle back across his shoulder, Roarke rfemoved his helmet, pulled off his bulky gauntlets and handed them to the yeoman who stood a discreet distance away. Finally he tiarned to Elise. "Lace your fingers on top of your head and spread your feet apart."
She looked up at him, green eyes narrow and hardJust when he was wondering if he had to force her, she lifted her hands and obeyed. He stepped closer, acutely aware of how small she seemed against his armored body. The perception sent another unprofessional surge of lust through him.
Careful not to linger, Roarke searched her for weapons, skimming his hands along the fine muscles of her arms, the narrow waist, the sweet rounded curve of her rump. And down those long, long legs that seemed to make up most of her
body.
Which was when he realized he should have ordered someone else to conduct the search. Yolanda Boniface, for one, wouldn't have gotten a hard-on.
Erection or no, it took him just less than sixty seconds to find the knife tucked in her dress boot. Raising a brow, Roarke stared up at her as he drew the six-inch stiletto from its sheath. Elise shrugged. "Just checking to see if you're awake."
"I'm awake," he said drily. Handing the knife to the yeoman, he reached into one of the belt pouches on his armor and drew out a pair of neurocuffs. Though they looked like thin silver bangles, each generated a neural field that locked the prisoner's muscles, immobillizing his arms in place. Because the captive's own strength held him, the delicate shackles were impossible to break.
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Roarke should know. He'd once tried desperately to break a set just like them.
Elise paled, then hid her fear and curled her lip. "What's the matter, Captain? Afraid you can't handle me even with boarding armor and a hundred-pound advantage?"
"No, I'm making damn sure your crew grasps your situation," he snapped. "I didn't tell you to take your hands down, Captain. Lace them on top of your head."
Moving stiffly, Elise obeyed as he stepped behind her. Catching one slender wrist, he pulled it around to the small of her back and locked it in a neurocuff, then captured the other wrist and manacled it to the first. Instantly, her arms went rigid as the field kicked in, paralyzing them. Grimacing in distaste — he knew too well how it felt when the 'cuffs locked down —Roarke moved in front of her.
And was suddenly, intensely aware of the way her captive wrists arched her spine, trusting her breasts outward. An image popped into his mind: Elise, lying naked on his bed, her arms 'cuffed under her, her stiff pink nipples pointed at the ceiling. Inviting his hands, his mouth, the lust that had been scalding him for months.
Secrets Vol 2 Page 17