Neil (The Uncompromising Series Book 2)

by Sybil Bartel

  “No,” Viking boomed. “Living room, now.”

  André picked up the bag he’d dumped right before hugging me and held it out. “Sorry they’re not your own clothes but your place is too hot right now to go there.”

  “Thanks.” Holding my towel in place with one hand, I took the bag with the other.

  Viking’s thumb stroked the side of my neck and he lowered his voice as he took the tension in the room to a whole new level. “Wait for me in my bedroom, end of the hall on the right.”

  My pussy throbbed, anger flared and I pushed past them both but not before I saw the judgment on André’s face. I stormed into Viking’s bedroom, slammed the door and threw the bag on his perfectly made bed. His scent hit me full force but it wasn’t the scent of him from the warehouse. Nothing about the spicy musk was laced with blood or sweat. His bedroom was all man and in that moment, it was more intoxicating than the thought of getting my memory back.

  Cursing at myself, I rooted through the clothes and dug out a pair of leggings and a tank top that was about two sizes too small in the chest. I pulled the pants on and was stretching the tank over my tits when I heard the front door close then the bedroom door opened.

  Still pissed about his little stunt in the bathroom, I didn’t give him the satisfaction of turning to look at him. “Got rid of your friend already? You didn’t give me enough time to riffle through your drawers.” I yanked the top down but it did nothing for support. “I didn’t even count the number of condoms in your dresser yet.”

  He strode to the opposite side of the bed and wrenched the nightstand drawer open. “None.” He glared at me as if daring me to challenge him.

  Challenge accepted. My hands went to my hips. “If you’re celibate, I’m the fucking tooth fairy.”

  His nostrils flared and for a single second, I was thankful for the king-sized bed between us—until he took three strides and stopped directly in front of me. His voice went low and threatening. “Not celibate.”

  I didn’t move an inch. I stood my ground. “Good for you. Screw a bunch of women without protection, that’s awesome.”

  “Watch your mouth.”

  Thick sexual tension seeped in anger and fear clawed its way out of me. “Fuck you.”

  He moved so quick, I never saw it coming. His hand was on my throat, my shoulders hit the wall, and he was in my face. “You want to be fucked?”

  My wound smarted and desire shot through my veins. Pounding and incessant, it landed right between my legs and I licked my lips. “Only if you can deliver.” I taunted the hell out of him.

  “Keep testing me,” he warned.

  “And what? You’ll kiss me?”

  He leaned closer. “You want to be kissed, take your pants off.”

  “So it’s like that, huh?”

  “Yes.”

  “Funny, I didn’t peg you for a virgin-whore complex. But, hey?” I shrugged. “To each his own.”

  His entire demeanor changed without him moving a muscle. The tension of his anger bled into an awareness so thick, I could feel it coat my skin and crawl up my spine. His thumb glanced across my jaw with calculated precision and chill bumps raced across my skin. “Do you think I am not aware of what you are doing?”

  Oh, he knew. “You know exactly what I’m doing but you still won’t kiss me. Or fuck me.”

  His free hand executed a precise shot and cupped me. “You do not want me to kiss you.” One finger stroked my entire length.

  Wetness surged and I fought a moan. He was so wrong. “You have no idea what I want.” I wanted to escape. A minute, an hour, a lifetime—shit—a single breath that wasn’t laced with fear and memory loss.

  “You want a release.” His palm ground on my clit.

  I didn’t know if it was a question or a statement and I didn’t care because he was right. A moan escaped my lips.

  His breath landed on my cheek. “Kan du lide dette?” He increased the pressure between my legs and let go of my neck to shove my shirt up.

  Cold air hit my nipples. His hand ground a slow circle on my clit as he roughly grabbed my breast. I had no idea what he’d said and I didn’t care. Desperate to get rid of the shit going on in my head, I reached for him and my hands landed on the hardest biceps I’d ever felt. “I don’t wanna talk. I just wanna fuck.” Screw my promise to myself. “One time.” It wouldn’t kill me.

  His hands dropped, heat left my body and he abruptly stepped back.

  I sucked in a surprised breath.

  Unforgiving and relentless, he glared at me. “No.” Then he walked out.

  Stunned, I stood there a moment. Then the humiliation sank in and I yanked my shirt back in place. Scurrying down the hall, I didn’t breathe until I was in the guest room with the door locked. I leaned on the frame and sucked in breath after breath, willing myself not to cry. But his rejection tipped me over the edge and I lost the battle. Tears dripped down my face and I sank to the floor. I pressed my hands to my mouth but the sob escaped. Then another.

  The door handle rattled then a fist pounded on the solid wood. “Open!” Viking demanded.

  I cried harder.

  “Ariella.”

  I wanted my son. God, I wanted my son.

  The door burst open and giant arms slipped under me before I could scramble away. Viking brought me to his chest and we were moving.

  “I hate you,” I cried.

  “You are angry.” He sat down on the couch in the living room but he didn’t release me.

  “Let me go.” I struggled but his arms tightened.

  “I should not have touched you.”

  I wanted to hit him. “You humiliated me.”

  “That was not my intent.”

  Big ugly tears dripped down my face and I choked back a sob.

  “Shh, you are safe.”

  I didn’t want him to comfort me. Everything about this felt wrong. He wasn’t a soother. I didn’t want his pity. And I wasn’t safe. Not with him, not at my place, probably not anywhere. The thought made me cry harder but I desperately didn’t want to cry in front of this man. Unable to stop the floodgates, I squeezed my eyes shut.

  Giant hands grasped my face. “Look at me.”

  “No,” I sobbed. “Let me g—”

  His lips landed on mine.

  Soft, firm, mint, man—I gasped.

  He brushed a single chaste kiss then spoke against my mouth. “Breathe.”

  A shocked, hitched breath fought to get into my lungs.

  “Again,” he quietly commanded.

  I took another breath and tried to pull everything back in.

  His fingers tangled into my hair like he wanted to hold me but he pulled back and his impenetrable mask slipped into place. “You are tired and you are reacting to the trauma.”

  His words said one thing but his hold on me said another and I was too upside down to think about it. I let the tears fall and then I did something I never do. I laid out my vulnerabilities. “Let me go or hold me. One or the other. You need to pick because I can’t.” I wasn’t strong enough. Not right now.

  He didn’t move.

  Like an animal drawn to the darkness for safety, it was instinctual. I curled into a ball and hid my face against his chest.

  Muscular arms wrapped around me.

  HIS HEART BEAT IN MY ear. A clock ticked somewhere in the distance. Viking sat perfectly still and I calmed down enough to talk.

  “I want to see my son.” I needed to see him.

  “You will.” His deep voice quietly rumbled from his chest and surrounded me with an intimacy I had to remind myself wasn’t real.

  “When?”

  His chest steadily rose and fell but he didn’t loosen his hold on me. “Soon.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Daytona Beach.”

  “With Talon?” The name sounded familiar on my tongue.

  “Yes.”

  I inhaled. “I want to go there.” Our body heat mingled and the scent of his spicy musk intensi
fied. It scared me how much he smelled like safety.

  “We will.”

  I fought the urge to put my hand on his chest. “Are you just appeasing me?”

  “No.”

  I breathed out. “Then what’s going to happen next?”

  He lifted me off his lap and set me on the couch. “I will find Candle and resolve this. Then you will go on with your life.”

  What did resolve mean? “It’s that simple?” I rubbed my arms at the sudden loss of his body heat.

  “Yes.” He stood. “Wait.” He walked into the kitchen and I unfolded myself from the couch and went to the windows.

  I stared at the skyline and the ocean beyond. Moonlight dancing on the soft waves, the night sky vast and reassuring, I should’ve been glad that he’d walked away from me but I’d never been more anxious. I was hit with a rush of spicy musk and his hand appeared in front of me with a crystal tumbler. “Drink.”

  As soon as my fingers curled around the glass, he quickly withdrew. I sniffed the amber liquid. Scotch. “Thanks.” I forced a sip, hoping it would calm the shit flip-flopping around in my stomach, but it only burned like hell.

  He stepped beside me and studied the view without a word.

  I craned my neck to look up at him, wondering if I would ever remember who he was. Perfectly square jaw, straight nose, high cheekbones, even his profile was intimidating. “Where do you really live?”

  He took a sip of his drink. “Ocala.”

  That was hours from Miami Beach. “Then why are you here?”

  “Why do you think?”

  I made a pathetic attempt at humor. “You’re trying to get into my pants?”

  His sideways glance was unreadable. “Trying? No.”

  I wasn’t going to touch that. “So you just show off your real estate to random women who get kidnapped?” I was so damn uncomfortable in this designer showcase waste of money, I wanted to accuse him of being pretentious but he wasn’t. He was a Viking-sized beast of man who made no apologies.

  “I show nothing off.” He tossed his drink back in one gulp. “You are not random and I do not bring women here.” The muscles in his forearm rippled as he set his glass on the coffee table.

  I didn’t know if I believed him about the women but then it occurred to me why it might be true. “Do you have a girlfriend?”

  He didn’t hesitate. “No attachments.”

  At first I thought he meant he wasn’t attached to anyone right now but then something in his tone made me question him. “No attachments like you’re not seeing anyone right now or no attachments like you don’t do relationships.”

  “Both.”

  I digested the information but instead of it putting me at ease, I was getting more uncomfortable by the second. My adrenaline was two fucked-up situations past spent and suddenly I wanted out of here. “I want to leave.”

  Reaching in his pocket, he came away with keys. With one quick, swift motion, he tossed them at me and I caught them midair.

  He lowered himself to the couch and spread his massive arms along the back. His biceps strained the fabric of his shirt. “Truck’s parked in the garage.”

  “You’re going to let me walk out of here.” It wasn’t a question because I knew he was full of shit. He wouldn’t even let André talk to me alone but he was going to let me drive off in his truck? He’d said I wouldn’t be safe alone and he was right.

  He studied my face. “You are nervous.” He said it like it was an answer, not a statement.

  “I think you want me nervous.” I didn’t know what he wanted or why he’d given me the keys. He was aloof as hell and he looked like he got off on making women sweat.

  His gaze dragged the length of me, slow and deliberate. “I want a lot of things but that is not one of them.”

  The sting of his earlier rejection made my face flush and anger surged. “Screw you.” In a spectacular display of my temper, stupid enough to think I was going to simply walk out, I made it all the way to the door.

  His giant hand wrapped around my nape.

  He may as well have pulled a trigger. My back went straight and panic stole my voice.

  He increased the pressure of his hold on me. “You are afraid. Why?” His thick, deep voice ran down my neck and soaked into my bones.

  PTSD, shock, delayed reaction, I didn’t know what the hell was happening, but all of a sudden I was reliving the moment he’d snapped that man’s neck in the warehouse. I knew why he’d done it. I knew it was us or them. I knew they would’ve killed us without blinking but right this second, the fear-induced adrenaline pumping through my veins didn’t give two fucks about being rational. “You…” I grasped for the right words. “What you’re capable of.”

  His thumb stroked a slow path behind my ear. “You are safe.”

  My posture threatened to break. “Not around you, I’m not.”

  “Turn.”

  The single word wasn’t stern or forceful or even threatening but it was the most commanding thing I’d ever heard spoken to me. As if I didn’t have a will of my own, my body turned to face him.

  Two fingers grasped my chin and tilted my face up. “You think you are unsafe with me?”

  His eyes weren’t blue or gray, they were a storm and I was caught in it without shelter. “Yes,” I whispered.

  Nothing in his impenetrable expression changed. “Do you want to leave?”

  “Yes.”

  His eyes held mine as he tilted his head. “You are lying.”

  I tried to step back but his giant hand settled on my hip and a shot of awareness went straight between my legs. “No, I’m not.” I jerked my chin away and pulled my bottom lip into my mouth.

  His fingers dug into my hip. “You licked your lips, your thighs pressed together, your pulse sped up and you blinked. You are lying.” His voice deepened. “If you want to leave, I will let you. Luna will take you somewhere safe. But do not lie to me. I do not tolerate dishonesty.”

  I grasped at the flaw in his thinking. “Tolerate? Like the world is yours to command? Like you can make anyone tell you the truth?” Truth was relative. Always. I’d learned that the second I’d gotten pregnant at nineteen and Jason left me for the first time.

  “You are not anyone.”

  I lost it. “Then who the hell am I to you?”

  Viking kissed me.

  Except it wasn’t a kiss.

  Soul crushing, bone melting, bring me to my knees, he didn’t kiss me, he possessed me. His tongue didn’t slide into my mouth. His lips didn’t crash over mine. He didn’t cup my face and show me he wanted me. No. This Viking warrior who’d been chained up and strangled gripped two handfuls of my hair and anchored himself to me.

  Scotch and male dominance invaded my mouth and sucked all the air from my lungs. He thrust himself into my body with complete deliverance and gave me something I was sure he’d never given to another woman. Because this wasn’t a kiss. This was a Viking claiming freedom after an imprisonment.

  He didn’t feast on me or moan into my mouth. He growled as he stole my breath and worked his tongue around mine in a way no man ever had. He released one hand from my hair only to take my nipple and pinch hard enough to make me cry out. Swallowing my pain with a devastating swirl of his tongue against mine, his rough palm dragged over his sting and wetness surged between my legs.

  I wanted to crawl up his body like an animal. I wanted to ask him when he’d last kissed a woman. His sheer skill at commanding my body had jealousy burning so deep I couldn’t breathe, but the unrestrained fury he was unleashing on me had me too strung out to hold on to the thought.

  His fingers repeated their torment on my other nipple, then his hand dragged down my stomach and his hot, calloused flesh slipped inside my pants. No hesitation, he stroked through the length of my pussy. He didn’t ask. He didn’t wait for permission. He didn’t even take. The hard, deliberate act of movement wasn’t even a caress—it was ownership.

  And no ownership was complete without
possession. His huge finger sank inside me and his rough thumb pressed hard against my clit as his forceful tongue took my mouth. He controlled. He dominated. He delivered.

  My spine lost its rigidity and my legs gave up the fight. I was suspended by a Viking. Floating. Sensation. All sensation. My pussy quivering with his forceful thrusts, each stroke ending with a curl of his finger deep inside me that sent a shockwave of pleasure-pain my brain couldn’t comprehend. He fucked my mouth. He fucked my pussy. And he fucked my mind.

  I came so hard it hurt.

  Wailing out my release, I couldn’t even form words. My body jerked but he didn’t even pause. His relentless assault continued as I lost all motor skills. Boneless, weightless, panting, I didn’t have a chance to catch my breath. A second orgasm built on the trails of the first and a keening repetitive call burst from my lungs and matched every plunge of his invasion. “Ah, ah, ah, ah.”

  A second finger sank inside me and his heavy thrusting stopped. Two rough pads of flesh made a rhythmic circular stroke deep inside me. The pressure on the spot I’d only ever heard about before his fingers entered me built and built until a furious heat, licked with sweet pain, made me want to scream out for his dick to take over. But his tongue thrust down my throat and silenced me.

  His teeth dragged across my lips and sank into the bottom flesh like he was leaving a mark of his possession.

  “Come again,” he demanded, increasing the speed and pressure of his fingers. “Now.”

  The shake started in my hips and radiated out to my limbs. My mind shut down and my body took over. The orgasm burst from every nerve like a thousand points of revelation dying to shine through. Tears slid down my face as my own desire dripped down my leg.

  Still shaking from my release, he spun me in his arms. Yanking my pants over my ass, he stripped them off my useless legs. The rip of a zipper echoed and giant hands gripped my wrists and threw my palms against the wall.

  “Brace,” he barked.

  Mustering every ounce of strength I had left, I locked my elbows and my knees.

  His hands landed on my ass and spread my cheeks so hard and fast, I gasped at the ghost sensation of being ripped apart.