“You are making something out of nothing!” Rama snapped irritably. “Three days are nothing when he has not been with a woman in a year. He was with that whore a full day and he did not even find her to his taste.”
Audric came to his feet. “Take care, Rama!” he growled threateningly. “If you want to keep your teeth you will not discuss whores and Raina in the same breath!”
Rama stared at him blankly for a moment and then glared at him. “I did not mean that! Gods! You are as bad Simon! I am only saying … Gods! I do not know what I meant to say now!”
“You were telling us that we are being concerned over nothing, that Simon will only take a while longer to work her out of his system,” Elden said helpfully, “which is exactly what I said. It has got nothing to do with how long it has been since he was with a woman, or even that woman. She is handy and he is a man and can have her when he pleases, and he was obviously very pleased with her or he would not have been three days fucking.” He thought that over. “I have not been with any woman that I would be willing to be cooped up with for that length of time. I expect he knew that he was not done. He only came up for a bit of air.”
“For myself, I am sick of hearing how many days he was with her,” Audric snarled. “Can we not agree that it was impressive and leave it at that?”
Elden frowned. “I will certainly agree that it was impressive, though Simon has always had far more stamina than any man I know …or know of.”
“All of that is completely beside the point!” Jorell snapped. “He has not said a word about going home and that is the point! Because he is not going to think of going home as long as he is following that woman about!”
“That woman is named Raina,” Audric said tightly.
“That woman …. Gods be damned! He is coming this way with her! And she is ….” He stopped abruptly and whirled to look at Audric.
“She is …?” Audric demanded with a low, menacing growl.
Jorell’s gaze snapped to Elden. “Grab him!”
Elden gaped at him blankly. “What?”
“By the gods! Grab him!”
They all heard the front door slam open at that moment. Raina’s voice carried up the stairs. “YOU ASSHOLE! Put me down! Put me down right now!”
Audric charged the door before any of the others could get out of their seats. Jorell leapt the chair blocking his path and reached the door at almost the same moment as Elden and Rama. Briefly, they formed a bottle neck but managed to break free in a moment and race after Audric, catching up to him just as he met Simon on the stairs.
“Put her down,” Audric said tightly.
“Get out of my way, Audric,” Simon growled.
“Don’t you dare hit him!” Raina snarled.
Audric looked at her sharply as she reared up from Simon’s shoulder, twisting around to look at him. The distraction cost him. Simon slammed his fist into his jaw, rocking him back on his heels. Jorell and Elden, who were directly behind Audric by that time, each caught one of his arms as he rocked back and began to haul him back up the stairs.
“Audric!” Raina exclaimed in dismay. “Why did you hit him?”
“Because I did not like the look on his face,” Simon growled, stalking up the stairs with her and into his apartment.
“You … you … bully! He wasn’t even looking when you hit him.”
“He deserved it,” Simon said grimly.
“He didn’t do anything!”
“You do not challenge a man over his woman and then allow yourself to be distracted. Next time, he will know better.”
“That’s barbar….” Raina broke off, sucking in a sharp gasp as Simon bent over and dropped her on the bed. She flung out her arms instinctively as she fell. Simon sprawled on top of her, grasping her wrists before she could recover enough to try to escape. She stared up at him. “I am not your woman! You kicked me out!”
Simon stared at her a long moment. “I did not.”
Confusion filled her eyes. Simon took full advantage of it, covering her mouth with his and kissing her with a savagery that took her breath and sent shockwaves of heat all the way to her core.
Raina struggled to gather her wits when he broke the kiss and wove a meandering path across her face to her ear. “You didn’t?” she managed, shivering as he sucked gently at her ear and then traced the swirls with his tongue. His heated breath fanned her ear as he did so, making the muscles low in her belly clench and sending a rippling cascade of goose bumps from her neck downward.
Had she completely misunderstood what had happened, she wondered dizzily?
He moved down her neck after a moment, lifted his head briefly to shove her blouse and her sports bra up and leaned down to suckle one engorged nipple just about the time it clicked her mind that Higgenbottom wouldn’t have taken it upon herself to order her out of Simon’s room.
Not that she had … exactly.
Fire blossomed inside of her as Simon caught her nipple in his mouth and sucked at it, though, and for several moments she completely lost her train of thought. Her breath hitched in her throat. She groaned.
“Simon! We need to talk,” she said, breathless, warmed by his touch, but determined.
“After,” he said firmly, silencing her with his mouth again as he reached down to tug at her jeans. He slipped his hand inside the opening as soon as he’d unfastened them and pushed the zipper to the bottom, threading his fingers through the thatch of hair on her mound and then finding her clit with the tip of one finger. Another wave of pleasurable heat washed through her as he teased her.
He slid his hand lower after a moment, tracing her cleft and finding the moisture that told him no matter how much she struggled she wanted him, too. Breaking the kiss, he grabbed her jeans and hauled them down her legs to her ankles. Pushing her thighs apart, he covered her again, reaching between them to unfasten his own pants and pull his cock free. The moment he did, he guided it downward along her cleft, found her opening, and pushed inside.
“You don’t want me,” Raina said shakily, “not really.”
“Does this feel like I do not want you?” he ground out hoarsely as he clutched her tightly to him and cupped his hips to thrust more deeply.
The fight went out of Raina as she looked up at him. She hadn’t wanted to fight him at all, had wanted to go to him. If he hadn’t made her so angry ….
The need in his voice, the tumult in his eyes--of desire and anger … and hurt and confusion--completely disarmed her. She swallowed with an effort, clutching him and lifting her hips to meet his thrusts. He needed her, she realized. He just didn’t want to.
She lifted her lips to his chest, nuzzling her face against him as he thrust into her with an edge of desperation, feeling a thrill go through her as he stiffened, groaned low in his throat and came, spilling his seed inside of her.
He leaned heavily against her when he’d ceased to shudder and quake with release, gasping for breath. Finally, he withdrew from her and rolled onto the bed beside her dropping a forearm across his eyes.
Raina lay as he’d left her, listening to her heart thunder in her ears. She hadn’t come, but she’d felt something far better--and scarier.
She shouldn’t have just caved in to his demands, she realized. She’d had every right to be mad when he’d stormed into her room and called her faithless--a faithless wench, to be precise. She’d been absolutely stunned, both by his wild arrival and the accusation.
She hadn’t done anything wrong, hadn’t done anything, period, and it had outraged her for him to accuse her.
She should’ve just told him nothing had happened between her and Audric.
Now, he was not only not going to believe it, he was angry with Audric.
She rolled onto her side after a few moments, wondering what was going through his mind, wondering if he was still angry.
“That was unforgivably stupid,” he muttered.
“Which part?” Raina asked hesitantly.
“Every gods be
damned bit of it! I think I am going insane.”
Raina touched his chest tentatively. “Nothing happened between me and Audric.”
He said nothing for several moments. “Why did you not come for me then?”
The question caught her by surprise, partly because she wouldn’t have thought he would’ve noticed, especially all things considered, partly because she had a hard time following the logic of it, but mostly because he sounded like a sullen little boy. It amused her.
She looked down at herself and straightened her bra and shirt. She didn’t think he could see her face, but there was no point in riling him up again by letting him see she thought it was funny. “That’s because I was thoroughly pissed off with you and couldn’t catch up,” she murmured finally--which was true--but then he’d been so--fevered--had come so quickly, she wasn’t certain she could’ve anyway.
She knew better than to tell him that. That would wound his ego. “I enjoyed it anyway.”
His lips flattened. “You are so gracious,” he responded tartly.
It took more of an effort to keep from smiling that time. “You’re welcome,” she said when she thought she could command her voice.
“You will not believe me, I suppose, if I say that I have never done anything like that before?” he asked tentatively.
“Which part?”
He was silent for several moments. “Any of it.” He hesitated. “I do not know why I said those things … did what I did. In battle it would be understandable, but I do not recall that I was ever so completely out of control.”
Battle? Raina’s heart thumped uncomfortably in her chest. It dawned on her after a moment that Simon had no idea that he’d said anything that might seem ‘off’ to her. She pushed it aside for later, though. She was going to have to give that a lot of thought.
“You’re too stressed out,” she said finally--which she thought was completely understandable. In the first place, he clearly wasn’t the sort to ‘release’ things that were bothering him. If he had been, he wouldn’t be having so much trouble dealing with the emotional turmoil he was going through now. In the second, she would’ve been a blubbering moron if she’d spent the past five years expecting somebody to jump out and shoot her in the head like he obviously had. That by itself, in her opinion, was enough to drive anybody over the edge, but he was carrying a lot of guilt about his wife’s death, still mourned her, mourned his daughter, and there was no telling what else he was carrying, but she knew that wasn’t all of it.
She’d hoped the sex would help him. It was certainly no cure all, but that was the way men usually found release from tension. She had a bad feeling it had probably added as much as it had helped, though, because she thought he was feeling guilty about his wife.
He was probably feeling guilty about living and enjoying anything about life. Having someone die that you loved had a way of doing that to you.
She shifted to look at him. “I know you don’t want to tell me what’s bothering you, and that’s ok. I’m not going to bug you to tell me. I don’t like to think I’m adding to your problems, though. How about if I make you a promise?”
He dropped his arm and looked at her, a frown between his eyes and wariness in them. “What sort of promise?” he asked uneasily.
Amusement and irritation flickered through Raina. Commitment phobia, she diagnosed. “No strings, no obligations, no commitment between us--except for sex. I’ll just be your fuck buddy--I take care of your needs. You take care of mine--and otherwise we just go about our lives and do as we please--that way, no stress. And I’ll promise not to fuck anybody but you as long we’re fuck buddies.” She lifted one hand and laid the other over her heart. “I, Raina Marie Willows, do solemnly swear that I will not, under any circumstances, consider fucking anybody but you, Simon Draken, as long as we have this pact between us, so help me god. And if I lie, I hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.”
He pushed himself up on one elbow, regarding her with a mixture of amusement and doubt. “This is a strange oath of fealty,” he murmured.
Raina chuckled. “I guess so. It’s the one me and my brother and sister used to make to each other when we’d promise not to let Granny know what we’d been up to.”
He took her hand in the palm of his, rubbing his thumb along the back of her hand. “What do I promise you?”
“The same thing,” she said promptly and then hesitated. “But I don’t want you to get mad at Audric any time he talks to me. He’s my friend and I don’t have many--in fact none but him.”
Anger flickered to life in his eyes again. “Audric wants to fuck you.”
She sighed. “Maybe, but I just swore to you I wouldn’t. If you don’t trust me at all this isn’t going to work.”
“It is Audric I do not trust.”
“No, it isn’t. It’s me.”
He frowned. “It is Audric with you I do not trust.”
She fought a round with her temper and finally quelled it. “I’m sure this will come as a complete shock to you, but I’m a sexual camel. I can get along a very long time without any sex at all. I think I can contain myself enough with you fucking my brains out every night to resist temptation.”
He tugged on her arm, pulling her down to rest on his chest and staring up at her. A half smile played around his mouth. “You are a strange spe ….” He broke off and hesitated fractionally. “This is a strange but very interesting custom.”
Raina ignored the slip. She chuckled. “There’s nothing strange about it. Haven’t you watched the discovery channel? Lots of animals have sex just for fun--and trade sex for favors--in this case, you scratch my itch, I scratch yours.”
His smile widened. “What if I do not want to ‘scratch your itch’ every night?”
She shrugged, pretending to think it over. “Once a month?”
He gave her a look. “I was thinking more along the lines of three times a day.”
She chuckled. “I’ll be bow legged.”
He frowned faintly as he thought that over and then laughed. Rolling over, he switched places with her so that she was on the bottom looking up at him. “I think I will take you up on this promise.”
She smiled up at him. “I had a feeling you might.”
“Did you?”
“Mmm. I feel it on my thigh right now.”
He reached down and grasped his hard cock in his hand, thumping her on the leg with it. “This feeling?”
She gurgled with laughter. “That feeling,” she confirmed.
He dipped his head to nibble at her throat.
“No more of that ‘I am lord and master of all I survey’, shit, ok?”
He tensed, jerking his head up to stare at her for a long moment, his gaze shuttered. “But I am lord and master of all I survey,” he said finally, almost apologetically.
She shook her head at him, but smiled. “Except not this ‘wench’. The pact makes us equal partners.”
“Does it?”
“It does.”
He shrugged. “I believe I can live with that … for now. When I have dazzled you with my prowess as a lover, you will change your tune,” he said arrogantly.
“You think so?” she said, chuckling.
“I am convinced of it,” he said teasingly.
“Mmm. So when are you going to start convincing me?”
“Is that a challenge?”
“You bet your ass, Mister! Bring it on! I have this itch ….”
“Where?” he asked with interest, his eyes gleaming.
She took his hand and guided it over her belly and between her thighs. “Right around …there.”
He settled beside her, propping his chin in one hand. “There?”
“Mmmhmm. That’s the spot alright.”
Chapter Thirteen
Jorell sent Audric a questioning glance as Simon stopped on the promontory and stared out to sea. Audric frowned and shook his head slightly. It had been weeks since Simon had taken up the vigil that had been a constant
in his life before Riana, and he wasn’t certain what to make of it himself.
Simon had seemed more relaxed, more like his old self every day, and he’d begun to believe, for the first time in years, that there really was a chance that Simon would recover from the crippling blow he’d been dealt. He was never going to be the same as before, Audric knew, but close would have satisfied him, vengeful would have been satisfactory--anything was better than the broken shell he’d been.
He didn’t know what had happened between Simon and Raina that night. He’d been sure Simon had finally completely lost his mind, but something certainly had and not the something he’d feared.
He hadn’t thought so at the time. Mostly he’d just been relieved that Raina had emerged from the ordeal apparently unscathed, but, unlike the first time, they hadn’t holed up in Simon’s room for days on end, with Tedra bringing trays of food up to them at every meal. They’d left Simon’s apartment the next morning, both of them seeming completely satisfied, and gone their separate ways.
He hadn’t known what to make of that either, especially when Simon had dragged her into his room the very next evening.
He didn’t seem to be as obsessive as he had been at first, which had been a great relief, but he’d discovered that was only a surface façade. The obsessive possessiveness was still there. He was just hiding it--from Raina. He obviously didn’t give a damn whether they knew about it or not. In fact, he made damn sure Audric knew it. He hadn’t threatened to pound him into the dirt for even looking at Raina, hadn’t told him to stay away from her, but one of the others always shadowed them when they were together. Raina seemed to be oblivious, but then she wasn’t used to looking over her shoulder.
It made him uneasy that Simon had enough of his wits about him to use cunning to guard his possession. That required premeditation. The other had just been gut reaction, unnerving, but not unexpected.
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