Dark Desires (Dark Romance Boxed Set)

by Cerys du Lys

  “Why? Just because I’m her daughter? My mother and I don’t see eye to eye on a lot of things. Haven’t you ever heard about children who rebel against everything their parents represent? Folks, like, maybe you?” I paused, and then added viciously, “Weren’t your own parents good, decent, respectable archaeologists before they died in that tragic plane crash over the Amazon River?”

  He didn’t like this. Not one bit. This time he jerked my head back, ripping out god only knew how much hair by the roots. “I’ll ask you one more time? What are you and your boyfriend planning? Why are you here?” He grabbed me by the front of my shirt and slid his foul fingers beneath the rope collar on my neck. He twisted, wrenching it tight, cutting off my air. Then he whirled me around, and flung me against a small building—I think it was a tool shed—at the rear of the compound. The hand at my throat moved down to my breasts. At least I could breathe again. But he squeezed my breast as if he were juicing fruit. I gasped in agony, and he churned his hips against me, clearly aroused by my pain.

  He’d struck me. He’d interrogated me.

  Rape was next on the agenda, it seemed.

  Followed, most likely, by murder.

  “Nothing to say?” One of his fingers ran around my mouth, roughly exploring both my lips, and then forcing my mouth open. “If you won’t talk, let’s see if we can find another use for this mouth. Remember that blowjob I asked for?” He stuck two fingers in my mouth, making me gag. “I’ll take it now. And then I’ll fuck you.” I felt him fumbling with his belt. “When I’m done with you, I’ll turn you over to my men and make you blow them and fuck them too, until you’re sticky and covered with cum.”

  I did the only thing I could to resist this guy, who was bigger and taller than Nick and much more brutal. I spit in his face. If anyone was going to be covered with body fluids, it would be him, not me.

  Of course he hit me again, but I figured I’d rather be knocked unconscious than have to give the creep head.

  “What the fuck,” yelled a harsh male voice from somewhere nearby. Nick was coming at a run from the other side of the compound. His voice turned harsher still as he shouted, “Down, slave.”

  My response to his command was instant. I went limp, sinking away from Nigel until I hit the ground. Above my aching head I heard a strange sound, less a sound than a parting of the air where just a moment before my body had been. There was a thunk, and the shed wall seemed to shudder. Nigel bellowed and staggered backwards, away from me. He started screaming curses while I huddled, trembling in the dirt. I lifted my head only the tiniest amount. Nick was poised there, looking hard and tough in his too-tight jeans, his hair shining. His rough, unshaven face was cold, impassive. He might be totally uninvolved with me, for all the animation he displayed.

  His knife, which I recognized, was sticking in the wall of the shed, gleaming darkly as the moon popped out from behind a cloud. Nigel staggered beside me, one hand clutching his bleeding shoulder. “If you were aiming for my heart, you fucking missed,” he roared.

  “I told you to stay away from her,” Nick said in a deadly tone. “It’s a good thing your dick is still in your pants, or my aim would have been six inches lower, and your fucking heart would be silent.”

  Chapter 33

  Nick

  Standing there confronting the monstrous sight of Ellie in Nigel’s power, all my bitterness and resentment came surging up out of the dark place where I’d tried so hard to keep it hidden. I saw my handsome, hated cousin seducing Elizabeth, the woman I’d loved in college. I had never found out exactly what he had done to her that had destroyed her bright mind, but I knew it was foul. No one had been able to save her after Nigel got through with her. Not even Hepburn, who had also loved her.

  Now Nigel was hurting another woman I cared about. Somehow he had gotten her alone. It couldn’t have been for long, but from the dazed look on her face, it had been long enough.

  Still, she’d obeyed me instantly when I’d given the order. He hadn’t broken her.

  “Nick, thank god,” she said, sounding shaky.

  “Are you all right?”

  “He hit me. I think I’m spitting out teeth.”

  I felt my control start to go. Nigel was holding his shoulder, but there wasn’t much gushing blood. Not enough to suit me. Too bad. I should have aimed lower.

  I wanted to deal with Nigel and get Ellie the fuck away from here. “I warned you what would happen, asshole,” I snarled at my cousin.

  Nigel recovered, shook himself off, and came at me, arrogant, despite with the knife wound. “You should have stayed on your boat. But since you haven’t—” He feinted with his right fist, then released the first real blow, an impressive left hook. I saw it, ducked, twisted, and laughed softly as Nigel’s punch missed me altogether. I waited until the bastard realized the full magnitude of his error.

  What a conceited idiot. Just because he’d beaten me to a pulp a few times when we were kids, he thought it would still be that easy? Fuck him. I exploded, attacking with feet and elbows, fists and knees. He went down. I fell on him. A black haze came over me. I wasn’t even sure what I was doing. My limbs were flying. I was going to kill the fucker. He had poisoned the lives of the people I loved for too many years.

  I felt his body recoil as I struck him. I felt muscles give and bones shudder. In a couple minutes I’d feel blood seeping until my fists were thick with it. You know what? That was fucking okay with me.

  “Nick!” Ellie screamed. “Stop it. He’s had enough.”

  Fuck that. I wanted to kill my blackhearted cousin. The rage was so strong in me that I couldn’t think. I pounded him some more, and then caught one of Ellie’s wrists. I wrenched her closer, dragged her to the ground, and pressed her down on her back. Next thing I knew I was straddling her body like a conqueror. Kill the man or fuck the woman? Tough choice. I guess this was what bloodlust felt like.

  Nigel lay doubled up beside us, groaning.

  “Nick. Please. Stop.”

  I fought for control. Her calm voice helped. She didn’t sound afraid. I clung to the sound of her voice.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “You can stop now.”

  Aggression still coiled in me, rolling around like a living thing, but I was beginning to be able to think. To reason. Was this what happened when you tried too hard to control all the details of your life, to figure out the angles, to analyze the possibilities, to intellectualize your feelings, to rise above the monster that dwelt deep within?

  The monster lay in waiting for a moment like this. A chance to erupt and wreak havoc. To beat, to rape, to kill.

  But Ellie’s eyes were searching mine, and her clear gaze centered me. We stared at each other, taut with tension, neither of us certain what the next moment would bring.

  “Nick?” she repeated, her voice no more than a whisper. Her face was red, I saw, even though the light back here was dim. Her hair was askew, and around her left eye, swelling was starting.

  Shuddering, I lifted my hands away from her. I ran shaking fingers through my sweaty hair. “Ellie.” He had hurt her. I’d almost hurt her, too. “I’m not myself. I could have hurt you.”

  “You could have killed Nigel. He’s your cousin. Your flesh and blood.”

  “He’ll live.” I managed to vault to my feet. “Let’s go. I’m taking you back to the boat.”

  “Yes, please,” she said. Was that more of her damn sarcasm? No, of course not. She wanted to get away from here. She needed ice for that eye, that jaw. She needed caring, not violence. “Ellie?”

  She came closer and touched me, nothing more than a light finger brushing against the side of my cheek. Reflexively I grabbed her hand and held it to my lips. “You warned me that around you things are not always what they seem.”

  She knew something. Okay. No time to discuss it now. A clatter in the hallway suggested that the men were coming out to investigate the racket. “We’ll go to Voyager. Where the fuck is Metin?”

  “They dru
gged him. They tried to drug me, too, but I didn’t drink much.”

  I swore. Nigel had been one step ahead of me. That was always a danger when your adversary was not only black-hearted but also smart.

  Chapter 34

  Ellie

  We hardly spoke at all on the way to the yacht. Nick was clearly trying to come down after an explosion of bloodlust, and I was starting to notice the pain of being struck several times in the face by Nigel. I could feel my eyes and cheeks swelling. The left side was worse than the right. By the time we rowed out to Voyager, I could hardly see through my bleary, stinging eyes. Nick had to carry me up the steps and sling me over the side. I lay on the deck where he had put me, curling up against the pain and humiliation of what Nigel had done to me. Tried to do to me. That must be what it felt like to be a trafficked woman—helpless, aching, and miserable, with no possible hope of rescue.

  Fifteen minutes later, I layin bed in the master cabin on the Voyager, waiting for Nick to join me. He was in the head. He had washed my face and applied ice. He’d been gentle. He’d taken care of me. He’d come for me, at last.

  And he wasn’t a thief at all. That thought had kept making me smile as he’d rowed us out to Voyager. It had been a magical smile, apparently, because when he’d seen it, Nick’s rage and aggression had melted like a snowball in the sun.

  I couldn’t deny that on some primitive level, the attack on his cousin had roused something similar in me. I understood how someone could attack a cruel, vicious man. Particularly if he was hurting someone who couldn’t fight back. Did it mean Nick cared about me? Or was it just a stronger form of aggression than most females have inside us? Could I hurt—or even kill—in defense of someone I loved? I don’t think I’d ever contemplated that before.

  I yawned and looked at the clock beside the bed. Midnight. Was it last night that we’d lain together here, laughing, sighing, and giving each other pleasure? My heavy eyelids closed as I re-experienced those delicious moments. I was almost asleep, when the head door opened and my fierce lover burst back into the room.

  I eyed him over the hem of the sheet, which I had pulled up to my chin. He was tall and strong, and his gilt hair was slightly darkened from the sweat of his exertion with Nigel. His finely molded cheekbones seemed more prominent than usual. His eyes blazed emerald bright.

  He was dangerous, primitive. He’d beaten up a man on my account. Those hands could crush me if he chose. But in the impassioned moment when he might have done so, he hadn’t hurt me. I sent him another beaming smile.

  “Here we are in your cabin again,” I said cheerfully. “Me, your captive, awaiting my master’s pleasure. What are you going to do to me this time?”

  He stared at me for a second or two, then jerked his shirt over his head, and dropped his hands to the snap of his jeans. A bolt of heat pierced my vitals, then radiated throughout my body. “Not a whole lot. I mean, I’d like to tie you down and fuck you in every hole, just to prove you’re mine, but you’re hurt.”

  “You can do that,” I whispered, amazed at the way his word enflamed me. The ache in my face and jaw seemed to fade. “My libido still feels healthy.”

  He shook his head, grinning. He kicked off his shoes and stripped himself of his jeans. I squirmed at the sight of his thrusting cock. “Yours looks okay, too,” I added.

  He got into bed and reached for me under the sheet. I was naked. He caressed me gently.

  “Even so,” he said. “Gotta try to be gentle.” He pulled the sheet down, I felt his gaze burning into my breasts. My nipples responded by buttoning into hard little nubs. He murmured his approval. He ran his fingers through my hair. Static electricity caused it to cling to his palm. He caressed my shoulder, rubbing the skin over my collarbone with his thumb. Then he trailed the tips of his fingers along my arm until he captured one of my wrists. I could feel my pulse beating intemperately. I reveled in his vitality, his strength.

  “Ellie. You had a rough time tonight. I’m so sorry it took me so long to get to you. I knew he’d try something, but I never thought he’d have the chance to take it so far.”

  “Make me forget.”

  “Are you sure? Your face must be sore. You’ll have a black eye tomorrow. Maybe two.”

  “He touched me. I need to replace that memory. I need to blot it out.” I wasn’t sure if I could explain it. As he drew me closer, my breasts pressed into his naked chest, and the tension in my nipples seemed unbearable. I needed him to take me, hard and fast.

  Before I could say anything more, he jammed his mouth to my throat, below the point where I was hurting. Despite his intentions of gentleness, he was a little rough; I could feel the possessiveness that was still riding him. I needed to delete the fact that Nigel had touched me, and so, it seemed, did he.

  But after a few seconds, his lips gentled, and his hands and body began to court me.

  “I need you, Ellie.” His voice was thick. “I want to kiss you, touch you, be inside you.” His hands punctuated his words as they slipped over my buttocks and lifted me atop him, tight against his loins. I felt his flesh leap as he writhed beneath me. “It totally messes with my mind to think of another man’s hands on you. Damn, Ellie. You’re mine.”

  His low, breathless words made me burn, as did his lean, magnetic body. I melted into him. My belly ached and my muscles convulsed as I absorbed the feel of him against me.

  “You want me, don’t you?” He pressed down with his palms and rotated my pelvis against his.

  “Me, want a bad-tempered, violent thief like you?” I pushed up and let my long waves of hair fall into his face. “A man who orders me about, locks me up and threatens to rape me?”

  He caught the playful note in my voice. “I thought I promised not to rape you?”

  I lowered my head and nipped his throat. “I never made any such promise regarding you.”

  He laughed a little, and then returned my gentle nip. His strong white teeth against my flesh felt like heaven to me. He drew back, eyes hard with satisfaction. “I was afraid Nigel might, though.”

  “Well, thank you for coming in time to prevent that. It wasn’t all bad. I learned some interesting things from him.”

  “What things?”

  I wriggled my hips, making him groan. “Must we discuss it now?”

  “No. I wanted to kill him, though. Seeing you there, like that, with him.... I never should have asked you to take such a risk.”

  “Show me how you’re going to make it up to me.”

  His hands ghosted over my flesh, touching me with every degree of pressure from insubstantial fingers on my breasts to a sharp slap on my buttocks. I responded in like manner, blowing on his nipples and moving sensuously against his hips. When we could wait no longer, he pulled on a condom, and then gave me one of those delicious orders of his: “Sit up and straddle me.”

  I obeyed. I felt his hands at my waist, rearranging me so my thighs were on either side of his hips and our groins were pressing together. Breathing heavily, he guided me down.

  I felt him penetrate me, filling me deeply. He was hot and liquid and fierce; it was like being taken by the sun.

  “Nick,” I whispered gazing down in wonder on his strong body lying supine beneath me. His supple muscles were arched against me; his golden hair crinkled softly against my bare flesh. Together we were beautiful. With my artist’s eyes I took in the sight of our two bodies so perfectly mated. I’d like to photograph us, I thought, and giggled even as I felt tears of joy come into my eyes.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Fuck me hayatim.”

  While I established the rhythm, he caressed me, sweeping his hands from my breasts to my belly and my striving thighs.

  “So nice. I can see you, all of you. All slick and slender above me, sexy as Helen of Troy.”

  He brushed his fingers over the dark curls where our bodies were joined, then found my clit. He continued to rub me there while thrusting deep inside me. I crie
d out and arched my back as a wave of ecstasy built and built. It crested violently and then built again as he pulled my head and shoulders down so he could kiss me while ferociously seeking his own release. His hands moved to my waist and he rotated my convulsing body above him as he soared, whispering my name as our spirits met and danced. “Seni seviyorum,” he breathed, Turkish for “I love you.”

  “Ben de seni seviyorum.” I love you, too.

  Chapter 35

  Ellie

  Long minutes later, I said, “Don’t go to sleep yet.” I curled against Nick’s warm chest, nuzzling the smooth skin at the base of his throat. “Can I ask you something? You weren’t angry with me, were you? When you found me with Nigel?”

  “With you? No. I was angry with him. And with myself, for putting you in that kind of danger.”

  I wasn’t sure I believed him. There had been a moment when I hadn’t been sure which of us he was going to attack next—Nigel or me.

  He must have sensed my skepticism, because he added. “As I’ve told you, I’m not myself around you. Anger, passion, emotions flying all over the place. That’s not the way I usually behave.”

  “I think I prefer your wild emotions to your cold, shut-down pose.”

  “Women have cheated on me—it enrages me. It’s guaranteed to send me over the edge.”

  “But you knew I didn’t want to be anywhere near Nigel.”

  “As so often around you, it’s not my brain, but my dick that’s in control.”

  I lifted my head to meet his eyes. “I know about Elizabeth and Nigel. Did you love her?”

  He hesitated. Was he finally going to talk to me... share something of his past? He had just told me he loved me. Did it count if it was muttered at orgasm?

  “I thought so at the time. We were young. When I caught her betraying me, it blew my mind. And with him, of all people.” He shook his head as if the memories were a heavy burden. “She begged me to give her another chance. But I couldn’t take her back, not after that. I never thought she’d stay with Nigel, but they ended up having one of those toxic relationships for a while. I found out later that he was abusing her. Bastard. He’s charming and handsome—bright on the surface but rotten at the core.”