Wicked Charming Cruel

by Emmy Chandler

  “Put me down!” She kicked, and her bare heels thudded into his shins as he carried her into the second-floor foyer and set her ring on an end table.

  Jude set her on her feet, and she spun on him, eyes blazing. She grunted as she struck out, shoving him in the chest with both hands. “Stay away from me!” she shouted as he stumbled backward.

  “You know that isn’t going to happen.” He reached for her, and she slapped his hand away. “Why do you do this?” he demanded, pleased when his impenetrable yet hard-fought-for calm seemed to further set her on edge.

  “Because I hate you!”

  “I don’t think that’s true. I think you want to hate me. I think this would be easier for you if you could hate me.”

  She retreated slowly, her hands held out as if to ward him off. “You lie to me.”

  “I never—”

  “You threaten to annihilate my entire homeland,” she spat, her eyes flashing with anger.

  He waved off that accusation. “Their fate is in your hands—”

  “You hold me prisoner, and you spy on me, and you tear my clothes, and you lock the fucking wine fridge!”

  Jude crooked one brow at her, amused that she considered that last offense to be of the same importance as her other complaints. “Come here. Don’t make this worse by trying to run again.”

  “Make what worse?” Her stance stiffened. “What are you going to do?”

  “You need to understand that you belong to me. To me. Having your brother here does not change that. You are mine.”

  “I fucking understand that,” she spat. “It’s the only thing you ever say to me. It’s the only thing I’ve had to think about for more than three months now, and—”

  “Show me that you understand,” he demanded, riding out a fierce need to possess her, in every sense of the word.

  “What?” Her gaze narrowed on him.

  “Show me that you fucking understand who you belong to.” She should be on her knees right now, reaching for his belt. With her mouth open, her beautiful golden-brown eyes staring up at him while she silently begged his forgiveness. While she earned it…

  Jude’s father—may he rest in peace—had been right. Concubines cannot be expected to know their place unless they are trained. Jude had been remiss, in his desperation to get Maari pregnant. He’d assumed, despite Orlann’s objections, that her discipline could wait until they had what they needed from her. Until they’d been assured that she would remain with them.

  He’d made a mistake, and it would have to be corrected.

  “I’m not going to—” Maari frowned at him. “I don’t even know what that means. I—”

  Jude reached around her and slapped her left ass cheek, and Maari sucked in a sharp breath, going suddenly completely still as the light blow echoed through her. Her apparent submission to the strike hardened Jude’s cock almost painfully, until—

  “Ow, fuck! Don’t!” Maari snapped at him, trying to pull free from his grip.

  His temper flared as his gaze narrowed at her. “I hardly even tapped you, but I will do much more than that, if you—”

  “Don’t touch me!” She jerked free, backing away from him again, one arm held out in front of her, the opposite hand clutching at her ass, as if he’d actually hurt her. “Just stay away from me.”

  “What the hell is wrong with you today?” Jude demanded, stalking toward her. “You don’t fucking give me orders. You don’t run away from me. And you do not say no to me!” He lunged forward and grabbed the arm she held out, and Maari grunted as he pulled her close, holding her flush against him. Pinning her arm at her back. Letting his scent wash over her, until the tension in her stance began to change. Until she seemed to be fighting to hold something back—arousal, clearly—rather than simply to get away.

  “You fucking belong to me, and I’ll do whatever it takes to get that through to you,” he growled, sliding one hand between her thighs, over her skirt. “Even if that means inviting your brother in to watch me fuck you, so there can be no misunderstanding where your loyalty lies, when you’re coming all over my cock while he watches—”

  Rage sparked in her eyes and her free hand flew. Her palm connected with his face, and the slap echoed like bolt of thunder in the quiet room. Fire exploded in Jude’s left cheek.

  A snarl rumbled up from his throat and he found his little concubine staring at him in utter terror, evidently shocked by her own impulse. “I’m sorry! I just— I mean, you can’t—”

  “I can do whatever the hell I want with you!” Jude’s brows gathered low over narrowed eyes while he ignored the warmth still gathering in his cheek. Refusing her the satisfaction of rubbing the sting. “I was perfectly willing to do this the easy way,” he growled as he hauled her toward the bedroom. “This was your choice.”

  “No!” she shouted, racing to keep up with him. To keep from being dragged across the carpet into her bedroom.

  Jude threw her onto the bed on her back, and she gasped, then started to roll onto her side. “Don’t…move!” he ordered as he pushed his pants down and stepped out of them. He ripped his shirt open and threw it on the floor, then he was on her, shoving her dress up.

  “Please,” she begged as he pulled her arms over her head and pinned them there with one hand, suspending his weight over her with the other. And for a moment, he only stared down into her eyes, listening as her breath hitched. Waiting while his scent overwhelmed her.

  Maari groaned as he used one knee to pry her legs open. As he settled between them, the hot, hard length of him throbbing against her bare sex. Sliding back and forth in the moisture her body made for him. “I hate you,” she whispered again, and this time he accepted her declaration with a resignation that seemed to bruise him deep inside. But it didn’t dull the possessive spark in his eye. It didn’t soften his rock-hard desire for her.

  “Hate me all you want, but you are mine.” He pressed the whispered words against her neck, just beneath her ear, as he nudged her thighs wider with his knee. “And I will have you.” Then Jude claimed her mouth with a feverish passion that left her gasping. Despite her obvious rage, her body began to respond to him, an advantage he’d grown to depend upon, during this fragile beginning of their relationship. When he hadn’t yet secured her permanent status as his concubine.

  Later—once the threat of her removal had passed—he would have time to seduce her properly. Slowly. To train her. To show her that every pleasure life had to offer would come to her through him.

  Or through his brothers, with Jude’s approval.

  But for now…

  Maari arched into his touch, glaring up at him in equal parts anger and need as he slid his cock through her dripping folds. Teasing her clit over and over with his engorged head. “You are mine,” he growled as he released her hands. “I will do whatever I have to do in order to keep you.” He hooked one hand beneath her knee, and Maari groaned when he pulled it up and to the side, opening her as wide as she could go. Pressing her knee to the mattress. “Mine,” Jude growled again. Then he closed his teeth over her throat, drawing a frightened yip from her as he finally slid inside her.

  He didn’t break the skin. He didn’t even use much pressure, but the knowledge that he could—that the slightest movement from him could tear into one of the most vulnerable places on her body—made her pulse race so hard and fast he could actually feel it through their connection. Because of his bite. His teeth at her throat made her heart pound and her breath come in short, careful little pants.

  It made her really wet.

  Jude fucked her in utter silence, as she trembled beneath him, her hands clutching the bedclothes at her sides as she visibly struggled to understand what was happening. He slid in and out of her in long, slow, achingly patient strokes that kept her cunt weeping for him, but entirely avoided her greedy little clit, despite the need he could feel building inside her.

  Because of that.

  Her cunt clutched at him, her passage swollen and
soaking wet, a testament to her mounting desire and frustration, but he withheld all sounds of his own pleasure, to deny her the satisfaction of hearing what her body did to him. Her hands released the comforter, and he could feel them flutter helplessly at her sides, timidly brushing his ribs, then his hips, while she tried to decide what to do. How to react to his terrifying grip on her throat and his utter refusal to stimulate her clit as his hormones kept an elusive promise swirling in her veins.

  She was clearly too afraid to risk speaking, to beg for what she wanted. For what he was artfully withholding, even as he plunged into her over and over. So she could only whine softly, begging him for release with the most pathetic, inarticulate, helpless of sounds.

  Her frustration—her raw need—pushed Jude closer and closer to the edge, and he growled in response, his teeth still clamped tight over her throat. But he refused to alter his pace. To let his pelvis grind against her clit. To touch her breasts or even grab her hips. He gave her nothing but the sadistically seductive massage of his cock against that sensitive spot inside her.

  And finally, she seemed to understand that this was all she was going to get. He had her pinned. Unable to even ask for what she wanted. And he would let her come. But he would not help.

  With a sigh, she slowly tried to slide one hand between their bodies. But then Jude snarled viciously, his teeth tightening around her throat, until her fingers receded. Until she fully understood her punishment.

  Maari’s whine deepened into a soft, desperate groan, and she began to carefully arch her hips up to meet him, fighting past the fear he could taste in her sweat. The fear that any motion from her would push his teeth through her skin.

  He wouldn’t let that happen—not by accident, anyway. If Jude broke her skin, it would be because he fucking wanted to.

  Carefully, she rose to meet each of his agonizingly slow thrusts, angling her hips to try and brush his pelvis. To force contact with her engorged and neglected clit. Every small success drew a soft little grunt from her, and soon she began to sweat from her endeavor. From the exhausting effort of chasing her own release largely without his help.

  Surely she’d had no idea what a generous gift pleasure really was. How liberally it had been granted to her, by all three of the Camden princes. She wasn’t allowed to pleasure herself alone, and she’d come to them a virgin, so Jude was fairly certain that she’d had little experience with the unaided effort before.

  Finally, she moaned softly, and he felt her muscles begin to tense around him. Tightening brutally. Blissfully. She groaned, and Jude plunged deeper, harder, obliging her with just a little more contact. And at last, Maari fell over the edge.

  Her hips twitched, her muscles spasming around his cock as she rode out every last second out of her hard-fought-for orgasm.

  Jude released her throat. “Good girl,” he whispered, and she sighed in relief. “That’s my good girl. Maybe you’ll be a little more appreciative of what we have to offer you, now?”

  She moaned and grabbed his hips, pulling him deeper as her final spasms played out around his cock.

  “That was beautiful,” he praised her, his anger softening as his cock grew brutally hard. “But I’m just getting started. So I’m going to need you to do that again.”

  Maari groaned. “I can’t. I’m tired, and you’re an asshole.”

  He laughed, and she moaned as his cock jerked with the motion. “I’ll help you this time. If you apologize for slapping me.”

  “I’m sorry.” She said it without hesitation. “I mean you are an asshole, and you had that coming, but…”

  “But you need what I have to offer.”

  She nodded, almost shyly. “But that’s your fault. I can’t— I ache.” She tried to slide her hand between their bodies again, and Jude captured her wrist, then pinned it to the mattress. “I hate you, but I also—” Her mouth snapped shut.

  “You also need me.” He pumped into her again, then withdrew most of the way. “You need this.”

  “Yes, please,” she moaned. Jude changed his angle, and his pelvis ground against her clit as he slid deep inside her. “Oh, gods,” she groaned, locking her ankles at his lower back.

  He pounded into her then, racing toward his own release with a desperation that belied the patience he’d flaunted for the past half-hour. Over and over, he slammed into her, gripping her hip with one hand to hold her in position. Hammering her clit with everything he’d denied her before, as his orgasm roared toward its peak. In seconds, she was panting again. Arching up at him, her legs still locked around his hips.

  Maari cried out his name when she came again, her body spasming around him, and Jude buried his nose in her hair, as desperate to have her inside him—even just her scent—as he was to be inside her. He plunged frantically into her, spreading her wide with a grip on her thigh, groaning as he shot his release deep.

  Afterward, he kissed and nibbled his way down her body, leaving light marks in her skin, fascinated by his own work. By her body as a canvas. “Have you learned your lesson?" He bit the point of her left hip in punctuation, and his cock jerked as she squirmed beneath him. “Or do I need to turn you over my knee?"

  “No!” Maari struggled for real, and the change in her voice sent alarm through him. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Don’t lie to me.” Jude stood and pulled her up with him, heedless of her protest, and bent her over the edge of the bed, planting a hand on her back to hold her in place.

  “Jude! I’m fine!”

  He ignored her as he flipped her skirt up to expose her bare backside. “Gods below," he breathed, staring in both admiration and horror at the artful display of swollen, red and blue marks stretching across both beautiful, round globes of her ass. “I assume this was Orlann? How are you even sitting today?”

  “Carefully. Not that it's any of your business.” She reached back to flip her skirt down, and he brushed her hand away.

  “Of course it's my business. You've earned a swat or two from me, but I hate to pile onto this until you've healed." Jude ran one hand gently over her left ass cheek, and his cock jerked again when she flinched. Still, as beautiful as the sight was, it seemed a bit excessive, unless she had done something to earn it. “I will have words with Orlann.”

  “Don’t,” she said. “He and I have come to an understanding.”

  “Yet he and I have not,” Jude growled.

  “This isn’t about you.” Maari pushed against the mattress, and he let her up.

  “This is my kingdom. My palace. You are mine,” he snapped, as she tugged her skirt into place.

  “I’m his too. Evidently. And this is my bedroom. You don’t sleep here, so you don’t get to tell me what to do when you’re not here, and—”

  “You want me to sleep here?” Jude blinked, startled by the thought. Or maybe by the fact that he was—perhaps—considering it. If he were here with her more often, his scent working its way into her even in her slumber, would she subconsciously become more accepting of the idea of conceiving his children?

  Would she reach for him in her sleep, moaning with need kept alive by his very proximity?

  “No, I— That’s not what I meant,” Maari insisted. “I’m just saying, this is my space. If, like you insist, I’m a member of this household, rather than a prisoner, then this is my room. My apartment. And I should have some liberty here.”

  “You do have—”

  “I want notice of your visits, in advance.”

  “No.” Jude’s gaze narrowed. “Your entire purpose here is to be ready to receive me—and my brothers—whenever we want you. And, of course, to bear and raise our children.”

  “Fine, then. I want a full wardrobe. Including underwear—”

  “No. No underwear. We can revisit the issue if your menses recommences, because that would mean that you are ovulating, and you might find me in a much more generous frame of mind on several issues, once that’s the case.” In truth, there was very
little he wouldn’t offer her, if she would release the stranglehold on her ovaries, despite his insistence that he would not bargain with his concubine…

  “Dresses, then? Nightgowns? I only have a handful of things, and—”

  “I will have a shopping account and an allowance set up for you.” That couldn’t truly be considered a capitulation; his father’s concubine had her own money virtually from day one. “Buy whatever clothing you want—but no underwear—and I will see that it is delivered straight to your suite.” Jude bent to retrieve his pants, then he stepped into them one leg at a time. “But if we have any further conflicts over clothing, any refusal to disrobe, I will have your entire wardrobe donated to charity, and you will go naked for a full year.” He seized her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. To acknowledge the warning he was about to issue. “To include your visits to the palace garden and any dinners I require you to attend. Do you understand?”

  “Perfectly.” Though she visibly cringed at the thought. “I would also like the wine fridge unlocked.”

  “No.” He let her go and buttoned his pants, then he retrieved his torn shirt from the floor. “Not until you start demonstrating a little restraint.”

  “Says the man who constantly smells like whiskey.”

  “I know my limits. And I don’t owe you an explanation for my decisions.” He pulled the shirt on and left it hanging open, because most of the buttons now lay on her bedroom rug. “No wine unsupervised. Now, do I need to add to what Orlann’s already done to your backside, or are you going to promise there will be no more conspiring with your brother, or—”

  “There was no conspiring.”

  “—the two of you openly discussed a strategy to—”

  “To what? Keep me from getting pregnant? That’s been my goal all along. All Jaarod did was tell me about the deadline, which you should've done.”

  Jude’s gaze narrowed on her as he sank onto the edge of the bed and pulled his shoes on. “Openly subverting our efforts to get you pregnant would be defaulting on your obligation. That has not changed.”