by Shirl Anders
“If you wish to return to Alexei or to the Arab’s immediate attentions, spitfire . . .” Wyndham bowed arrogantly as he shrugged out of his shirt. “Be my guest.”
“You–you wouldn’t!” she stuttered helplessly as the apricot glow of her beautiful complexion paled. Christ, she was voluptuous in her femininity. The silk she wore did nothing to hide her splendid curves, her womanly delicate bone structure, all of which was an exquisite backdrop to her glorious head of waist-length chocolate colored black hair.
“Become my whore or theirs,” he stated grimly. “It is the only choice you have, spitfire. The only one you have had ever since you became Alexei’s possession.”
“Oh! I never would have believed this of you-u...Oh-Oh! What are you doing, Wyndha-!”
Orelan squealed, but the bed quilts from where he had unceremoniously flipped her onto her stomach moments ago muffled the sound. “I take that as a yes,” he responded tightly as he planted his good knee into the small of Orelan’s slender spine, while his fingers promptly worked to undo the hooks down the back of her gown. He quickly assessed that cooperation on Orelan’s part appeared to be out of the question. He would have to improvise. Alexei was not taking his woman. His? Damn.
“Oh, you-you beast!” Orelan shrieked, as she tried to buck her backside upward and kick her calves at the same time. Only succeeding in helping him to remove her gown and camisole, down over said . . . oh hell . . . luscious ass!
“I never should have stolen those dispatches for you, Inglès! Oh!”
Wyndham felt the sweep of rage and terror combined, leaving him senseless for a terrible moment as his broad hand grasped the graceful column of Orelan’s tender throat, from where he’d twisted her harshly onto her back. Not quite realizing his own strength, he leaned his chest forward over her plump bare breasts, until his face was inches from where he held her. She clutched the column of his wrist as his fingers flexed over her throat, barely allowing her to breathe. “Never!” he hissed viciously. “Say that in Valcourt again!”
“But-but,” she panted, while her gold eyes glazed with emotion.
Damnation, she was going to fight him. Wyndham’s hand tightened more around Orelan’s throat, making her whimper, probably leaving bruises. Why did she have to be so damn passionate? So passionate that her emotion overlooked the dangers completely and became tied in justice and reason.
He had her naked. Except for her stockings, garters, and green velvet slippers. Completely stripped bare, down to the black-mahogany curls adorning the mysteries and the fertile pull of her sex. His nostrils flared with the knowledge. His muscles tensed, like a male scenting its mate. He could have wished... He dropped his head believing that he could have wished to court this woman in another time and place, a woman exactly like this, in some fanciful notion that never existed for him, but instead he...
“Damn,” he cursed roughly as his fingers collared Orelan’s throat and he did what was necessary to save them. Especially her. “You will obey me, spitfire!” he finished with a lethal hiss.
Chapter Three
Orelan understood that she had never experienced such an expanse of raw emotion before! Would Wyndham kill her? Would he rape her? Would he save her? She wanted to cry out in anguish, and as was always her means, she wanted to spit out words and bravado in defiance at Wyndham, to hide her complete terror.
Not of Wyndham though, she suddenly realized. Strangely, never fear of him, even though he held her as though he would strangle her in any moment of his choosing. But she was not afraid of him . . . of Alexei, of being captured at Valcourt, yes. But not of Wyndham, even though she understood what he meant to do to her. How he meant to take her. However, it was better to happen with her golden puma, Wyndham. He was a fierce predatory mountain lion. Golden and sleek with steely pronounced muscle, yet most important, he had caring for her. He would take her and he would mate her, but once he possessed her and even before, he would rage his power and strength against any odds to protect her from the darkly evil Alexei.
Yes, deep inside she knew all of these things. But still, the lighter tracings of her personality, the ones closer to the surface and more engaged in the moment, these fought with her fear and did not allow her claiming to be easy or complete. It was the foolish woman inside of her. It was the one that desired Wyndham so strongly. The one that had claimed Wyndham at first sight so many years before.
“You, barbaro Ingels, you will never have me!” she cried, twisting beneath Wyndham, fighting his dominance, engaging his mastery with all her feminine power.
He rumbled once, deep inside his chest. It was a growling answer to her challenge as his purply blue eyes arced sapphire fire, and his face planed along rugged masculine bone.
“You will beg to please me, spitfire,” he hissed sharply. “Beg me!”
Orelan fought Wyndham frantically as he pulled her upright. She tried to bite and scratch him as he easily . . . too easily shifted their positions and propelled her belly and hips face down over his sinewy thighs. Then, he caught her wrists together behind her back. She screeched and tried to buck off his thighs as he lifted one iron-muscled leg and caught the back of her struggling knees, holding her in place with her bottom bared and helpless to his view.
“What are you doing?” she cried in frustration and anxious confusion. She did not understand this . . . what he might do and she was completely unprepared for...
Slap! Slap! Slap!
Wyndham was spanking her! Orelan choked on her cry, and on the burn of humiliation that caught in her throat as Wyndham’s abusing hand came down across her naked bottom harder than before. Smack! Smack! Smack! Smack!
“Dios!” she yelped, and she squirmed uselessly as tears burned her eyes and Wyndham slapped her struggling buttocks again. This was a spanking! But it was also a thrashing. It hurt so badly!
Wack! Wack!
“No-no!” she gasped with a careening sound. Oh dios, her bottom stung! If Wyndham continued to spank her much more... “Oh! Oh!”
Slap! Slap! Slap!
“N-ple-ease!” she sobbed.
Smack! Smack!
“S-stop! Stop-p!” she cried in garbled sobs, tensing for the next slap of fire across her burning buttocks!
“Oh, this is superb, Khrisinan,” Alexei’s voice sneered. “Simply superb.”
Wyndham tensed, cursing under his breath. He’d known that he had little time, however he’d thought that he could gain Orelan’s compliance before Alexei showed up. This was not good. However, he thought perhaps if he acted quickly, he could keep Alexei from bringing out a whip or some other equally deviant punishing instrument, now that the seed had been planted in Alexei’s lewd and fertile mind.
Wyndham let loose of Orelan’s wrists and grasped her upper arms, turning her and roughly pulling her upright, to face him. “Beg me for leniency. Grovel!” he hissed through his teeth so that only Orelan would hear, before he loudly snapped, “Wench! You will obey me!”
“Yes-yes!” Orelan cried, raising her arms across her naked breasts and pressing her lower body into his side, to shield her nakedness. “Anything, Wyndham. P-Please, do not punish me anymore!”
Wyndham drew his arm around the supple indentation of Orelan’s back, holding her trembling nakedness to him as tightly as he dared, while he turned his face to Alexei adopting a masculine sneer of triumph. “Satisfied?”
“Oh, my handsome-handsome Khrisinan,” Alexei purred, while Wyndham watched Alexei’s heated ice-blue colored eyes devouring the lines of his bared chest. It left him with a sick crawling feeling running up his spine, as Alexei gazed at him. “You think to save your woman from me, but will you be able to save yourself?” Alexei finished in a husky murmur.
Wyndham wanted to kill Alexei more savagely in that moment than any of the countless times he had wished the same thing before. Its presence strained his brawn to tautness as a fierce tremor curled inside him. His control was snapping as his mind relentlessly taunted him. How easy it would be.
How easy. So easily, he could snap Alexei’s neck, by the mere surprise of an attempt, an attempt that Alexei would not be expecting. But it was that certainty, of how Alexei simply stood in front of him, unconcerned with his own safety, because Alexei knew he held the upper hand.
Wyndham knew if he were to kill Alexei at this moment, during any moment inside Valcourt, that neither he nor Orelan would make it out of the palace alive. He knew that Alexei had assassins hidden, and because of their history together, Alexei likely had two for this suite alone. Trained killers watching every move he was making behind hidden panels in the room. Guarding Alexei. Heightening Alexei’s sport, they were voyeur guards to whatever sadistic pleasure Alexei could come up with. It would be that way throughout Valcourt. It had been that way in San Lupe. He often wondered who might have watched him in Spain, because he also knew that Alexei had become rich by charging money to nobles to watch. He knew this because Alexei had told him, he told him on the night Alexei had . . .
“Wyndham?” Orelan whispered with fear edging her voice. The anguished sound snapped him from being a killer to survivor, in an instant. He stroked Orelan’s bare waist reassuringly, in a place that Alexei could not see as she clung to his side with her face turned into his cheek.
“I will be here for exactly one week, Alexei, and that is all the time you will have to try and exact your price!” he challenged angrily.
“Ah, Khrisinan, if only you would become willing. Our destiny together would be inspired. You yielded once . . .”
“Enough!” Wyndham snapped, furious, while his hold on Orelan became harsh with tension. Then, his cheeks flushed hotly, before he could contain it, in a visual display of his ragged emotions. “One week, Alexei!” he finished through his clenched teeth.
“Ah,” Alexei sighed dramatically, while his thin fingers stroked the top of the chair he stood beside, in a momentarily effeminate gesture. “If you insist, my oh-so big and virile Puskinta. Nonetheless, you understand my house rules. They cannot change. Everything has its price and if you please me . . .” Alexei shrugged his rangy shoulders, once more adopting his elegant military officer’s poise.
“How much?” Wyndham hissed.
“Mm, you know, Khrisinan . . .” Alexei hedged, coming partially around the chair to sit with his booted heels crossed negligently. “If you were to continue to punish, our lovely puta here, I am quite certain that my mood would improve. So much so, that our negotiations would assuredly turn more favorable.”
Wyndham barely held himself from leaping up and laying his bare hands to Alexei’s throat. Nonetheless, he was distracted from his fury at that exact moment by Orelan’s sudden struggles as she tried to get away from him. “Do you want to get us both killed instantly?” he hissed beneath his breath, as he tossed Orelan onto her back, onto the bed beside him.
“Make this a good showing!” Orelan hissed under her breath, right before she slapped his cheek, hard!
“Bravo, puta,” Alexei drawled behind them.
Orelan could not believe how quick and powerful her golden puma was with his purply sapphire eyes snapping retribution and other mysterious and heightened emotions. He had her captured to his will in moments! Thank dios, Wyndham managed to wrap most of her body in the bed linen, so only her naked bottom was exposed, as he forced her belly down over his thighs, while he sat bare-chested on the edge of the bed. Her head dangled and her long black hair pooled on the carpet below as she grasped Wyndham’s strong calf for precarious support, while she bucked her hips, trying to wrestle off his lap.
Alexei wanted a good show and she was going to give it to him, she thought frantically, because she knew it was going to hurt, and the embarrassment was already overwhelming. She cringed at the thought about what view Alexei must have of her. There were parts of her body so helplessly exposed in the position she was bent into. He could see her sex, from behind. Oh, dios. The embarrassment was a living breathing creature inside her, it was so acute. Then, as she struggled over the powerful muscles of Wyndham’s thighs, she became aware of another rigid muscle. Her Wyndham was engorged! He was enjoying what he was doing.
“Oh, you beast!” she squealed as she struggled with heightened anger, just before Wyndham’s first biting slap stung her defenseless bare bottom.
Whack!
Orelan sucked in a hot breath, choking on her squeal of pain. Wyndham’s hand was so broad across her tender buttocks. Wack! Wack! Wack!
“Ow! Dios!”
“Use my belt, Khrisinan,” Alexei purred.
“No-no!” she cried. “Please, Wyndham, no!” she begged, even as she felt him lean forward to obviously grasped Alexei’s belt. She tried to use one hand to cover the vulnerability of her bare buttocks. “No, please!” she pleaded.
“Damnation,” Wyndham cursed under his breath as he grasped both of Orelan’s wrists in one hand, pulling them easily to the side as he slapped the doubled over leather belt in his hand across her already rosette ass cheeks. Thwack!
“Ow!” Orelan screeched.
Wyndham watched Orelan’s plush butt redden with a welt. Damnation, he was furious!
“More,” Alexei demanded, with excitement coloring his voice.
Wyndham’s fingers tightened around the ends of the belt as Orelan begged him helplessly not to whip her again. Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
“Ow! Ow! Dios!” she squealed with choking sobs as her rounded buttocks jerked spasmodically, and three more welts lined the lustful crease of her stunning ass.
“Enough!” he snarled as he threw the belt at Alexei, before he tossed a sobbing Orelan off his thighs onto the bed. “The price?” he demanded with a heaving chest as he stood, facing Alexei.
Alexei’s face was tinted with lust as he stood also, flexing the belt between his thin hands. “I begin to believe that you do intend for this faithless puta to pay, Khrisinan.” Alexei paused, and then he began to replace his belt slowly around his slender waist. “So for you, I will exact nothing that you would not already be willing to give me. But for her release, I demand six actions of my own choosing. Then we shall see.”
Wyndham felt his gaze simmering as he stepped forward, dangerously tense. “Six and you will be paid!” he snapped. “And no other men or women, but me,” he finished angrily.
“You drive the most difficult bargains, Khrisinan,” Alexei murmured, sauntering closer. Too close. “But-,” Alexei continued, raising one hand, while asserting a challenge through his light blue eyes, which were icy with arousal. “I shall accept,” Alexei finished, placing his palm, which trembled, onto Wyndham’s bare left biceps.
Wyndham furiously jerked away from the touch, and then he strode to the bed. “Leave then, I wish to fuck my woman!”
Alexei’s laughter was offensive. “I am sure our little puta will enjoy that.” Then, Alexei strode to the door, opening it. “Just be sure that she does not enjoy it too much, Khrisinan.”
Wyndham stood by the bed watching the door close, and he was certain he heard Alexei say, “I will be watching.” Or was it only his imagination?
Chapter Four
Orelan felt the mattress moving precariously beneath her with Wyndham’s weight as he got onto the bed. In which position he came, she did not know as she scrambled upward to escape, only to find her shoulders caught by his large insistent hands. This left them kneeling, with heaving chests, facing each other as she tried to get away, but he held her powerless. The bed linen, which was wrapped crazily over her breasts, began to slip toward her waist. She attempted to grab it.
“Leave it,” Wyndham growled, shaking her, until the bed linen fell to her knees. “What are you going to do to keep me from whipping you again?” he asked harshly.
Instinctively, Orelan snatched her hands over her sore buttocks with a protective gesture, which arched her bare breasts impudently forward toward Wyndham. She watched his smoldering black-sapphire eyes lower to gaze at her naked breasts, brazenly thrust outward, seemingly as an offering to him. Yet, she would not remo
ve her hands from her trembling bottom, she thought raggedly, with tears stinging her eyes.
“What?” he demanded again harshly.
She whimpered a small sound as he shook her and she admitted some defeat, which made her shiver, while several hot tears scorched her cheeks. “Anything,” she hissed scornfully.
“Then, you will go into my clothing closet now and bend over, face down, across my boot stool, and wait for me,” he commanded in a rough tenor voice.
Orelan gasped, not quite understanding his intentions, but realizing the sickness of its sound. What did he intend to do to her? Would he whip her again? All her thoughts scattered as he shook her again, and he exclaimed roughly. “I will take you on your knees!”
What did he mean? Orelan hesitated, afraid and anxious. Wyndham reached for his belt, pulling it loose from his pants. “No!” she squealed, and then she scrambled off the bed to rush quickly into the large clothing closet as Wyndham had demanded.
The door slammed behind her and she thought about trying to block the door closed somehow. Only she understood that however long it took, eventually, she would have to come out once again and face Wyndham. She eyed the circular knee-high boot stool with its red velvet cushion on top. Perhaps, she ought to find a weapon? Something to hit Wyndham with when he came through the door.
Wyndham limped heavily to the bathing chamber, his jaw drawing tight at the constant toothache feeling in his knee. He’d already overwhelmed his leg’s endurance and he really needed his cane, but he ignored the need. He would pay with terrible cramps that night.
