CHAPTER FOUR
ALEXI LET LOOSE WITH A SCREAM OF FURY. With all the strength she had, she yanked against her bonds. The leather straps bit into her wrists and ankles and her muscles ached with the effort of her struggles.
The straps didn’t budge. Not that she’d thought they would.
Shit shit shit. Calm down. This isn’t going to get you out of here, Alexi O’Brien.
Forcing herself to relax her muscles, she slowly turned her head from one side to the other, and tried to tilt her head to look behind her as best she could. No sign of the bastard. Just trees, grass, mountains, flowers, yadda yadda yadda.
Alexi’s breathing and her heart rate were surprisingly even and calm considering her circumstances.
She was incredibly turned on, and that pissed her off and excited her all at once. How could being abducted by a gorgeous Conan the Barbarian, and staked out like an offering to the gods, make her so hot?
With her legs spread wide, she was more than wet, her folds swollen, and her clit throbbing. Her breasts jutted up, her nipples hard as gemstones, her arms stretched way overhead, and her hands still gripped the gold stake. She wished she could ride the smooth, round end of the stake right now to get some relief. Damn, but she needed to climax.
More than likely this was due to her year of celibacy. Annie was right—she shouldn’t have so completely neglected herself. Then she wouldn’t be so desperate to be fucked by her captor.
Even if he made her body vibrate with just one look.
He’s a rapist, damn it. But her mind pushed back against the thought. She sensed plenty of aggression and power in tiger-man, but no malice. No intent to take her against her will, beyond what he had already done.
It’ll be a battle of wills. So be it.
Alexi sighed and stared up at the strange blue-green clouds above her in the darkening sky. The clouds moved as though a gentle wind pushed them, but she couldn’t feel a breeze or hear the waterfall. She felt surprisingly warm and comfortable, as though she was within a room, rather than outside in the middle of nowhere. Even the pebbles that had been poking into her back no longer bothered her, and it was like she was lying on a soft bed of velvet instead of grass. Weird.
Time to take stock and formulate a plan.
She was staked out and naked (thigh-highs and stilettos did not count as clothing), and entirely vulnerable to man or beast, or men who were both. She was in the middle of a meadow filled with trees, flowers, and bushes that didn’t look like anything she’d ever seen before. Not that she’d ever been into nature—she was a city girl and a lawyer for crissake. What did she know about rural anything?
Good thing she’d peed before she left the restaurant. But what would she do if he wouldn’t let her up later?
Her knuckles still throbbed from slamming her fist into the bastard’s eye—Darronn, who’d called himself the King of Spades. Laughter nearly spilled from her lips. He’d even insisted she call him Master. Asshole. She’d show him who was Master.
Obedience, my ass.
Even though she didn’t give a damn what he’d said, his words echoed through her mind. “You have come to a world you do not understand, my firecat, and you have met a man you cannot command.”
A world she didn’t understand. He’d gotten that part right. She didn’t understand how any of this could be real, or even how she knew it was. Was this a world full of men who tied up women who refused to call them Master? Great.
The part about not being able to command him, well, she could certainly see that. No man she’d ever known was like him, and damn him, he turned her on more than she wanted to admit.
What he was going to find out, though, was that he’d just met a woman whom he couldn’t command. Yeah, they’d kill each other in no time.
She couldn’t help but picture the sincerity in his eyes when he’d said, “For your own good, you must learn the desires and fears of your heart…”
As if there was anything that he could teach her. She always knew what she wanted, and when she found it, she went for it. She didn’t need some tattooed, gorgeous Neanderthal to teach her anything.
As for fear, she feared nothing when it came to her heart. Long ago she’d learned her lesson, and she didn’t let any man come close enough to hurt her. So what was there to fear?
“…and you must learn to trust and respect the one person with the skill and power to make you whole. Me.”
Oh, yeah, sure. As if she’d trust and respect a brute who’d yanked her through a mirror, turned into a tiger and tackled her, then left her staked out, alone, in the middle of nowhere. Hot and horny at that.
Bastard.
It pissed her off to want him so badly when she should hate him. What was it about him? Something told her there was more to him than just an arrogant prick who liked to order women around. Despite his domineering manner, he’d seemed somehow sincere and caring.
Alexi rolled her eyes and sighed. Well, that made lots of sense. She was staked and bound and at her captor’s complete mercy, and she thought he’d seemed caring. Once she got back to San Francisco, she’d have to visit a shrink for sure. Maybe Alice’s disappearance had affected her more than she’d realized. She would just close her eyes, go to sleep, and hopefully wake up in her own bed.
~~*~~
Darronn shifted into a tiger and paced the edge of the Tarok Forest, his gaze focused on the maid staked out in the meadow. He would never leave Alexi, or any of his subjects, alone and vulnerable. He would stay with her as long as it took for her to learn what was necessary to heal her heart and soul.
He had no doubt that when she gave in to his wish, at first it would be merely as a way to be free of her bonds. But it would be a start, and she would soon learn to bow to all his demands.
Wind ruffled his fur as he quietly continued his pacing. She would be comfortable on the grass for the night as he had used his magic to place a black velvet cushion at her back. Air remained still within the protective bubble he had put around his future mate, and the temperature would remain constant and comfortable, so long as it surrounded her. Nights in the Kingdom of Spades were still cold through most of spring, but the dome would protect her, just as his fur protected him. She would not be able to smell, hear, or feel the world around her, beyond the barrier, but she would be safe.
The sun had reached the horizon, casting golden light over his mountain, and caressing the meadow with its last rays. Darronn’s ears twitched, his sensitive hearing attuned to squirrels and calin scampering along the boughs of the ch’tok and sini trees.
In the distance a mountain wolf howled, one of Lord Kir’s pack, and Darronn heard the sounds of many paws, hooves, and tiny feet of forest creatures scrambling for safety from the predator. The cave-dwelling wolves of Emerald City reigned over the lands on the other side of the mountain and beneath it, although they often traveled the Yellow Road between their realm and Tarok.
As he continued to pace, Darronn sensed the range of emotions sifting through Alexi—from anger to lust to frustration to calm consideration. It was clear she was a woman who felt deeply and greatly.
Unlike Mikaela, who had learned how to hide her true emotions—a rare skill that she had perfected. What would I give to erase the damage done by my parents’ choice?
Or could Jarronn be right, that the blackness had already existed within Mikaela? Jarronn believed that the former High King and Queen had recognized this evil and made the choice they felt was best for all of Tarok. Darronn wasn’t so sure.
But then I was a fool, blindly trusting Mikaela until her betrayal.
Not only could she mask her true feelings, Mikaela had also been born with the gift of being able to read a person’s thoughts if they were projected loudly enough. When they were young, in their twenties or so, the four brothers had all eventually learned to shield their minds from their sister. Until they had mastered the ability to block her, Mikaela had enjoyed mentally spying on the brothers and teasing them with whatev
er she had learned. Whether it was mischief they had been into, or an early sexual escapade, she found out all she could about them. It had taken much schooling from the sorceress Leeani for the young men to master hiding their thoughts, and that had been well over two hundred years ago.
At the memory of the sorceress, a chuckling purr rose up within Darronn. How he and his brothers had lusted for their former teacher. The charms dangling from Leeani’s dark nipples and her sensuous voice had been distracting to the young men. Surely it took them far longer to learn the lesson than they would have if their teacher had been one of the elder, decrepit sorcerers.
Darronn shook his massive head and raised his muzzle into the wind. Alexi’s perfume of starflower and midnight still hung on the breeze. He scented an anlia buck nearby, too, and hunger burned in his belly for fresh meat. But he would not leave his woman for a moment, not even to assuage his hunger or his thirst. If need be he could magically summon Kalina to watch her, but he chose to remain with his future queen.
He had sensed that Alexi felt no hunger, and had caught the scent of wine and good food on her warm breath. Fire burned in his loins, and the desire for his mate was near to overwhelming. Such a challenge she would be to tame…a challenge he would most certainly relish.
~~*~~
A warm mouth brushed over Alexi’s, and she parted her lips and gave a soft moan. Firm lips pressed tight to hers, and stubble scraped her skin as a tongue darted inside. With a soft moan of surrender she invited the man’s tongue deeper, invited him to fill her mouth in the same way she wanted his cock to fill her. His tongue was different…rough, like a cat’s.
She could hear a waterfall pounding in the distance, birds chirping, and the sound of wind through trees. Smells were keen, too. Grass and a wildflower perfume, and the drugging smell of a man.
His weight pressed against her, leather shirt and pants tight to her naked flesh. She ground her mound against his raging erection, needing this so badly, wanting it with everything she had.
Slowly Alexi’s eyes opened and she saw Darronn above her with a smile so carnal that thrills ran straight from her nipples to that place between her thighs. His hips pressed tight to hers and his hands were braced to either side of her breasts. Surrounding his dark features, his hair hung down long enough to tease her breasts.
She’d always thought a man with long hair was sexy, and damned if he wasn’t that and more. His gold earring glinted in the morning sunlight, stubble roughened his jaw, and the bruise purpling the skin below his eye made him look even more rugged and dangerous than he had before.
This was real. He was real.
At that moment Alexi didn’t know whether to rage at him for kidnapping her and tying her up, or to beg him to take her.
Always-in-control, decisive, man-eating Alexi O’Brien was at a loss for words for the first time in her adult life.
She was a sexual harassment lawyer, for crissake, and she went after those assholes with a vengeance. She always knew what to say, she always won her cases, and she didn’t put up with shit from anyone. After what she’d gone through in law school, Alexi had done everything she could as a lawyer to prosecute every son of a bitch who thought he could get away with using his strength and position to intimidate her clients.
And her clients weren’t always women. Several were men who either had a domineering woman trying to force them into bed by threatening their jobs, or a man who wanted to screw them in the ass. She had nothing against any kind of sex, as long as it was consensual. But if it wasn’t, watch out, because Alexi would nail the rapist’s sorry carcass to the floor.
She’d gone after all of them with everything she had, and had never lost a case. As if that would make up for the harassment she had experienced at the hands of her law school instructors.
But as she stared up at Darronn, it was as if all of her anger and her wounds had been stripped away, like her clothing, leaving only a woman. And this woman wanted this man more than anything. Right here. Right now.
It didn’t make sense at all. None of it.
“My firecat wakes.” Darronn lowered his head and brushed his lips over hers again. He smelled of forest breezes and a primal male musk that seeped into her blood like alcohol, intoxicating her just as much. “Do you desire me as badly as I desire you?”
“No.” Alexi forced out the lie as she shifted against her bonds and tried not to moan from his sensual touches and words. She had to get her head back together. “And I’m not your anything.”
A purr rumbled up from his chest, reminding Alexi that this man could turn into a real tiger. “You want me thrusting into your core,” he said softly as his mouth moved to her ear. “I will fill you like no other man could. Or ever will again.”
“You’re deranged.” Her words sounded faint, her body on fire for him. Even as she spoke, she arched up, pressing her breasts and mound tighter to his leather-clad muscles.
“Deranged.” His stubble scraped her jaw as he moved his mouth back to hers. “Am I, wench?” He nipped at her lower lip, causing her to gasp from the pain and the thrill of it. “I think not.”
Alexi wanted him so badly right now she didn’t care how he took her, just so long as he thrust his cock inside her, so hard and so fast that she could feel it all the way to her throat.
But first she needed to pee really, really bad.
“Untie me,” she said with as much force as she could, although her demand sounded as empty as the feeling behind it. “I have to relieve myself.”
For a moment he studied her then nodded. With a wave of his spade-tattooed wrist, her bonds were freed.
Alexi gave him a wary look as he helped her to her feet then gripped her upper arms for a moment. Her muscles ached from being bound for so long, and if he hadn’t been holding her she probably would have fallen. She glanced down and saw that she had been lying on velvet. Somehow he’d managed to place a black velvet cushion beneath her.
“Listen, I’ve got to go really bad.” Her gaze darted to the nearby trees and back to Darronn. “Just give me a moment alone, all right?”
He nodded and she headed toward the bush, her stilettos wobbling as she walked over the uneven ground through an odd blue-green morning mist. Her head ached from not having her morning coffee and her knuckles throbbed from punching the big horny gorilla last night.
Once she positioned herself behind the bush, she thought she’d pee forever, but it gave her time to think. It occurred to her that she could sneak away and hide out in the forest before he had a chance to catch her.
Alexi finished her business, stood, and started to move into the forest, her stilettos wobbling as she walked over the rough ground. She’d have to take the damn things off, she thought as she rounded a tree—
And smacked right into Darronn.
“The meadow is in the other direction,” he said as he caught her upper arms. “Did you forget so easily?” Before she could answer, he grabbed her around the waist and flung her over his shoulder.
Alexi screamed and pounded her fists on his rock-hard ass. “Let me go!”
But the man was amazingly fast. Next thing she knew she was lying on the black velvet cushion, strapped down and spread-eagled, with Mr. Dark and Dangerous Dick Head between her thighs again.
“Where did we leave off?” Darronn pressed his erection even tighter against her as he raised his head and studied her with his fiery eyes. “Did you consider my words? Will you obey me without question?”
“I’m not someone you can order around.” Alexi met his gaze straight on as her anger returned like flames devouring dry grass. Her voice rose as she hit her stride. “Do you get off on tying up someone smaller and weaker than you, and bullying them into submission?”
His expression shifted from sensual to hard in an instant. “It is clear you require more time to consider your lesson.”
Alexi’s stubbornness and pride kept her from shouting, No! Don’t leave me here!
Instead she glared at him
. “Go to hell.”
Darronn smoothed his hands over her stocking-clad thighs as he eased back onto his haunches. He studied her, his muscles flexing and his jaw tightening. His deep voice was tightly controlled as he spoke. “When you can admit what you most desire and fear, when you show that you both trust and respect me, you will be free in mind, body, and spirit.”
He backed away and stood, then waved his hand and the red shimmer filled the air again then vanished. Forest sounds and smells disappeared. Once again he’d encased her in some kind of protective bubble.
Darronn began to shift into a tiger and Alexi couldn’t help but admire the amazing sight. It somehow made her feel small and insignificant, yet proud and powerful. When he was again a white tiger with black stripes, he studied her for a moment, and then she heard his voice in her head. I am the only man who can make you whole. I am your Master.
With beautiful, fluid movements, he loped out of her line of sight and into the strange blue-green mist.
Emotions raged through Alexi, as they had since the moment she walked into her town house and knew something had changed. She wasn’t going to beat this man at his own game while strapped down and flat on her back. It was obvious he was just as stubborn as she was, and she’d have to change her game plan.
The beginnings of an idea glinted in the back of Alexi’s mind. Darronn had said he wouldn’t release her until she called him Master. All right, she’d do it, but once she was free, once she found the right opportunity, she’d get her revenge on him and escape.
No one screwed with Alexi O’Brien.
CHAPTER FIVE
WHEN DARRONN APPROACHED HIS MATE, IT was late in the afternoon. The protective shield he had placed around her had ensured the sun would not damage her perfect pale skin, and the wind would not chill her naked flesh.
The agony she had caused in his bollocks had long since eased. Shifting into a tiger helped heal the shifter, but not entirely. His eye, for instance, was still black and purple from the wench’s punch.
He dismissed the shield and stepped between her thighs and looked down at her.
Claimed by Pleasure: King of Spades (Wonderland Book 2) Page 4
