by Linda Barlow
"A few, yes. Until we find buyers. The world is full of wealthy private collectors who are prepared to pay lavishly for genuine antiquities. Nigel takes care of that end of things."
"And you do the actual stealing. What did Sir Avery give you the book for—robbing your first tomb?"
He looked blank.
"'Good show! Love, Granddad,'" I quoted.
He looked over at the bookshelves, and then smiled grimly. "You've been busy, I see."
"I invaded your privacy, yes." I was angry. For some reason I'd been cherishing the faint hope that despite everything that had happened between us, Nicholas Gabriel wouldn't turn out to be greedy, immoral and rotten. It was an affront to nature that his beautiful body was so corrupt. "I poked through everything—books, drawers, the lot. Before you locked them all."
He rolled his eyes, unimpressed with my initiative.
"Why aren't you angry? I would be if someone searched my room."
He shrugged. "If I were you, I'd have done the same."
I turned away, hating him as much for his patience and his tolerance as for his ability to scare me. Nothing about him fit. He was a devil with the face of an angel. He was a pirate with a classical education. It made no sense.
It struck me that for once we had actually had a normal conversation. He had answered my questions and spoken directly, maybe even honestly, about what was going on. He hadn't snapped at me or ordered me to call him Master even once.
"Why don't you just let me go?"
"You know too much."
"You didn't have to tell me about your grandfather's criminal excavations."
"You knew too much as soon as you saw me collecting that statue." He touched my hair, running a long strand through his fingers. His face was set, his eyes weary. "You could try trusting me."
"Why the hell would I trust you, after everything you've done to me?"
For an instant, I thought he was going to give me a reason, then something altered in the green depths of his eyes and the chance was lost. "We haven't even done the hard part yet," he said.
There was something about the way he said it that warned me. Uh oh. Now what?
"I know this sucks for you, but we need to have sex."
My stomach sank. "Wow. That's the most romantic proposition I've ever gotten. Can I have my cell phone back so I can text about it to my friends?"
"I'm glad I haven't shattered your sense of humor." He looked me over—me in my naked glory—more appraisingly than usual. "If we had met in normal circumstances, this might have been different. You're a bit young for me, but you're smart and you're gutsy."
"I thought you hated gutsy. Obedient and passive seems to be your thing."
He rolled his eyes.
"I'm not having sex with you. Not willingly. If you starve me, strangle me, whip me or tie me to the bed, it'll be rape, which you said you wouldn't do. I draw the line at fucking a psycho kidnapping dickwad who makes me strip, kneel, crawl and call him Master."
I seriously expected retribution for that crack. Instead, he leaned forward until his mouth was poised just over mine. I could feel his warm breath dampening my lips. Heating them. "Liar."
"I'm not lying."
"Yes, Ellie. I think you are." He slipped his fingers into the hair at my nape and held my head still. His eyes gazed into mine, then closed, those thick golden lashes a pale contrast to his suntanned skin. He tilted my head back so my mouth came against his. And then he kissed me.
Chapter 10
ELLIE
I struggled. I pushed at his shoulders; I tried to hold him off. He persisted. He held me, let his strength sink into me. Then he deepened the kiss, and I got the feeling I was doomed. His lips crushed mine. For some absurd reason, I yielded. He wasn't really forcing me, but I stopped fighting him.
I know. There's no excuse for me. I'm pathetic.
Our mouths melded. They seemed to fit together perfectly. Warm, fragrant, sweet. No, not warm—hot.
I was shivering, but not with fear, when he raised his head and whispered, "You have the sexiest mouth." He ran his tongue over the moist surface of my lips. The muscles in the pit of my belly convulsed. "This time open it for me." Holding my head still with both hands in my hair, he took me like the pirate he was, with confidence, authority and passion.
I parted my lips as his sinuous tongue invaded and explored. I met it with mine, shifting as the tips of our tongues touched and rubbed gently against each other. Desire exploded in me, making my nipples swell and my pussy slicken. Fuck! I'd felt an attraction from the moment I had first seen this golden god on the deck of his sailboat. All I could think of now was how much I wanted to tear off his clothes and offer myself to him.
He hadn't been touching any other part of my body, but now he slid his arms around my waist and pulled me astride him, trapping my hands against his chest while his mouth nuzzled my ear. I was no longer protesting. Not one peep. My body was pressed to his from shoulder to thigh. He rubbed himself to my belly, hard as steel, and proving that there was nothing cold-blooded about this, after all.
I hadn't been able to tell before if he was aroused by all the kinky shit, but there was absolutely no doubt about it now. His cock felt huge. Magnificent. Tempting. But, dammit, was this the way it was going to happen? Was I going to cave in for a criminal? I hadn't even put up much of a fight.
"Wait. I really don't think—"
He stroked his hands down along my sides, then up, pausing with his splayed thumbs just under my breasts. He didn't touch them, not quite. But his restraint increased my need. Between my legs, I was sopping wet for him.
"Ssh," he said. "Don't think."
Unlike some, this was an easy command to obey. In his arms, feeling his blood beating steadily beneath his supple skin, the last thing I wanted to do was think. He kissed me again, demanding and hot, his tongue plunging deep. I responded. While our mouths eagerly assaulted each other, I dipped my fingers into the tangle of gold at his nape; it felt both soft and rough against my fingertips. I pressed rhythmically, like a cat, until he made a low sound of pleasure.
There was something between us. Something relentless, something powerful. Something I'd fantasized about and yearned for, but never actually experienced. Something a little bit cruel.
His fingers closed over my breasts. He rolled one of my nipples between his thumb and his forefinger. He tugged on it. He squeezed. He was being rough now, but I didn't mind. His face was flushed, his skin damp. I could feel the wild thunder of his heartbeat as my fingers caressed his throat. No cold Greek god now, Nick Gabriel was warm flesh, hot blood. I wanted him.
He pushed me off his lap and laid me down across the bed. Then he knelt over me, straddling my body. The sight of him looming over me excited me so much I had to close my eyes. He touched my breasts again. Gently now. Carefully. With skill. Strong, callused fingers whispering over my soft, sensitive flesh, giving too little, making me arch and seek and strain for more. I flexed my knees, unconsciously parting my legs. Blindly I reached for his shoulders, trying to pull him down atop me.
"Just a second," he said. "I'll undress."
His statement was really a question, I knew. The subtle question sophisticated men ask sophisticated women, expecting to be answered with an eager nod.
But I wasn't that girl. I wasn't subtle or sophisticated, and he was my captor. Passion or no passion, he wanted this because it was convenient for him to be fucking his slave. No doubt it would make him look manly in front of his criminal friends.
Why should I subject myself to that? He didn't know me or care about me. He wouldn't be tender or kind. He was a smuggler!
"No," I said, letting my hands fall away from his body. "I can't."
He slid down a little and lowered his mouth to my breast. He tongued my nipple. He sucked and nipped the tender flesh there until I writhed and cried out.
He raised his head. "Let me, Ellie." His voice was low and lazy. "No acting necessary—it's better this way."
"No." I twisted vainly, trying to escape him. "This is all wrong. You're my captor, my enemy. I shouldn't be feeling this for you."
"Ellie—"
"I mean it. This can't be real. It's Stockholm syndrome."
"I don't give a fuck how you define it." His voice was rougher now. He slipped one hand between my legs. "You're wet for me. That's all the reality I need."
"Please don't. I'm saying no."
His eyes turned very green, and for a moment I thought he was going to insist. I tensed, waiting for him to cross the fragile line between civility and savagery, seduction and rape. It happened all the time, I knew. On lonely roads, in dark hallways, on soft couches after a pleasant first date. It could be a man you knew well and trusted. How much more likely was it to be a pirate who had taken you prisoner at gunpoint.
Nick shifted, pushing up on his strong arms and gazing down at me. He seemed to be trying to figure me out. Then his expression altered, becoming the same cold one with which I was so familiar. There was a cruel twist to his lips. "I promised no rape. But I haven't forgotten the "psycho kidnapping dickwad' crack. That was disrespectful and deserves punishment."
Maybe because I was already aroused and trying so hard to resist my own impulses, the idea of punishment didn't sound as awful as it had earlier in the day. I flashed back to the way it had felt when he had whipped me with his leather belt. Once I had grown accustomed to it, the sting had died down and a kind of sexy warmth had remained.
"Fine. Go ahead. I'm going to keep telling you what I really think of you even if I get whipped for it. Master."
"Kneel here, with your chest on the bed."
I did it. I knelt on the floor with my belly and chest pressed down on the berth that I considered his bed, since he had slept there last night while I had lain on the floor, naked and clutching my blanket.
I closed my eyes when I heard him step behind me, waiting for him to strike me with the belt. But that wasn't what happened. Instead I felt his hand on my ass, caressing me gently. I was about to object that I wasn't doing any more damn sexual stuff with him when he lifted his hand and then brought it down on my butt with a loud crack.
"Ow!"
"Don't make a sound," he warned in that harsh drill sergeant voice. Then he spanked me again. And again. And again.
I had never been spanked as a child. As an adult, I'd fantasized about it during vanilla sex with a couple of boyfriends. But I'd never fantasized that it would hurt so much. He hadn't really hurt me with the belt. It had seemed scary because it was, like, a freaking belt. I guess he hadn't swung it hard.
This was different. Now he was hurting me. He kept changing the spot where he struck me, adding new areas of pain to the mix. I'd never realized there were so many different spots available for punishment on my buttocks, but he kept finding new ones. Weren't people supposed to have a safeword for stuff like this? I guess there were no safewords when you got yourself kidnapped.
Each blow left a stinging sensation on the skin and, deeper down, a sort of ache. He had told me not to cry out, and I tried not to. Less because of the order than out of pride. Wasn't he getting tired? When was it going to end?
In my effort not to scream or whimper or cry, I responded to each slap by arching away from his hand, a movement that drove the inside of my thighs against the frame of the bunk. When he found a spot down on the underside of my bottom, near the place where it met the tops of my thighs, his spanks drove me up in such a way that my pussy, which seemed unaccountably damp, and my clit were being pressed into the mattress and my own movements added to the pressure there. My ass felt warm and warmer still, and my clit began throbbing with the need for more pressure, more stimulation.
As my arousal intensified, the pain from the spanking faded. I wasn't even sure if he was still hurting me, or if his hands were caressing me instead. My heart was rocketing in my chest and my breathing had turned quick and light. Images of him fucking me—maybe even in the ass, where I was still a virgin—filled my consciousness. I wanted his cock in my pussy, soothing the fire he'd started. In my ass, hurting me. In my mouth, driving into me while I knelt naked before him and endured whatever punishment he felt like dealing out. I didn't even mind the rope collar around my neck, which wasn't tight enough to restrict my breathing. It marked me as his. I was his slave and he my master, and, in my spiraling excitement, that was okay with me.
The hand that was spanking me slipped between my legs and found my wetness. Yes, yes, I thought, touch me. Release me, free me, make me come.
"No," I moaned, as his thumb flicked the engorged bud that was my clit. At the same moment, one of his fingers was slipping into me, sliding in easily because of the slickness there. "I don't want...please, no, please stop."
"I don't believe you," he said. His voice had lost its usual cool inflection. I realized he was kneeling on the floor behind me. He was still dressed, but I could feel his erect cock pressing against my ass, just as I had imagined it.
"I. Don't. Want. This." Each word was a monumental effort to force out. Because I did want it. Oh so very much.
He stopped. His hand disappeared from between my legs, and the other hand, the one that had been spanking me, ceased that activity, too.
Oh god, oh god. I groaned in frustration. My hands were clutching the sheets on the bed, all but tearing them off the mattress. I had been so close to coming that stopping made my sex ache and vibrate with tension, practically screaming with a voice of its own, "why, why, why?"
My captor pushed away from me and stood up. A moment later, I heard him leave the cabin and lock the door behind him.
I dragged myself up on the bed and lay there, legs pressed together and twisting in frustration and misery.
I was weak. But I'd said no in the end, hadn't I? Was I weak or was I strong?
I didn't know.
He had stopped. Was that cruel or kind?
I didn't know that either.
I didn't know anything anymore.
Chapter 11
NICK
Fuck.
Up on deck, I stared at the gray sea and tried to regulate my head, which was churning with violent and erotic thoughts. I'd already given up attempting to master my cock. I considered diving into the sea for a swim, but the water wouldn't be cold enough to dampen my fires.
Ellie Heath. If there was a highway to hell, I was cruising down the fast lane. Maybe Nigel was right about me, after all.
I hadn't thought myself capable of doing some of the things I'd done to her. Worse, I'd been reveling in it. The more I handled and dominated her, the more I wanted to master her, break her, hurt her. Make her my slave in truth.
The dark energy just kept rising from somewhere deep inside me. It fizzed through my brain like champagne. It made me feel absurdly powerful to see her crawling at my feet. Naked. It made my dick painfully hard and left me amazed at my restraint. Why I hadn't fucked her yet was a mystery to my horny body. My mind knew why—I'd been stupid enough to make that promise.
Not until you beg, captive mine. Which you will very soon do.
But my mind was slowly losing this battle. And that scared the shit out of me because it almost never happened. Mind over body—that had always defined me. I'm good at controlling myself. Locking down any stray antisocial feelings. Being the good boy my fucking bastard cousin Nigel so blatantly was not.
Ever since finding Ellie Heath, of the glorious red-gold hair and the purple hyacinth eyes, I'd been aflame. I didn't have a clue why this should be so. Nothing about it made sense.
Meet sexual sadist Nick Gabriel. Was there a monster in every man?
I'd always had extreme fantasies. I'd played around with kink with many of my former lovers, but that had been consensual. Ordering someone to bare her ass so I could spank it would be done with a safeword in place. It would be followed by mutual orgasms and laughter.
This was different. This was something I'd never intended. Ellie's sudden appearance was wrecking al
l the plans I'd worked so long to achieve. She was a wild card thrown by the laughing gods in the final stages of the game. You think you've got everything figured out? Deal with this, sucker.
So I'd had to improvise. And, fuck, before I could even think it through, it had roared out of control. I was supposed to be calm, cold, and in tactical mode. Instead, I was finding perverted pleasure in humiliating some innocent bystander who'd had the bad luck to stumble into my melodrama with my fucked up family.
And everything I'd done—the rope around her neck, the beatings, the commands I'd insisted she obey, the sexual groping—had sent sick waves of exaltation through me. Maybe I'd never known how it felt to have all boundaries lifted. No pesky social restraints. Total freedom. Man. Woman. See. Want. Take.
The thing was, I liked Ellie. She wasn't my usual type, but she was brave. Intelligent. Hilarious, at times. Some other woman might have cracked by now, but she'd kept it together. I admired her for that. It didn't prevent me from wanting to break her down, but I had to give her credit—she wasn't making it easy.
In normal circumstances, I might even have hung out with her. Tried for a hook up, maybe more. If things had been different, I don't think she'd have refused. There was chemistry. Hell, she was close to being willing, even now. I could have taken her a few minutes ago. The lips of her sex had been puffy and wet. She'd forced out that "no" from sheer gritty determination. And it had just about killed me to stop.
Today had been rough on her. But I'd gotten her close to where I needed her to be. Which was good, because we were running out of time.
I had to cool down. Thinking about dominating and fucking Ellie was not what I needed to be doing right now. If I got careless and screwed up, people would die.
I needed to focus on Nigel.
If I had to use Ellie to bring him down, then use her I would.
Metin came somewhat hesitantly to my side. "How's it going?"
