by Rebecca York
She wanted to caress him there, craved the intimate touch, but she was going to push him to the limit. And push herself, it seemed.
The crotch of her panties was sopping wet. Probably he could smell her arousal, but she kept her face impassive as she reached into the folds of the blouse on the ground and picked up the small whip.
His eyes went wide as he saw it.
She brought the leather cords down on his shoulder in a swift, calculated blow, not hard enough to break his skin, but hard enough to get his attention, judging the effect on him.
“You deceived me,” she said in a low voice. “You should be punished for that.”
She used the whip on his shoulders, his chest, his thighs, knowing the blows must sting. And as she did, she finally reached out to circle his cock with her fist, squeezing him, drawing a moan from his lips. She closed her eyes, enjoying the sensual contact, then lightening her touch, moving her hand up and down, hearing him gasp as she teased him.
She had planned to keep up the whipping as she caressed him, making him submit to her, even as she stoked his arousal. But something happened that she hadn’t expected.
The intimate touch brought a blast of energy to her mind, a blast that opened his thoughts to her. And at the same time, opening her thoughts to him as well.
In this place of power where she had come to test his truthfulness and his resolve, she was suddenly testing herself as well. She felt his need, his desperation, his willingness to do anything she asked if she would only give him a chance to strengthen the bond between them. And she knew he could read her own thoughts—–her hurt, her uncertainty, her fear.
She hated him seeing that. And he would know that, too.
She had ordered him not to speak, but words were no longer necessary between them. More than that, words would only skim the surface of this mind-to-mind communication.
When he made a strangled sound deep in his chest, she felt his arousal and his need for her to the depths of her soul. And more. So much more.
The choice was hers. She could flee from him now, or dare what few Ionian women had dared over the centuries.
This was the real test. Not just of him but of herself as well.
His gaze met hers, and she knew that they were both poised on a knife blade of emotions, of possibilities, and of disaster as well.
Did she dare give them what they both wanted? Or was she a coward? And was the coward’s way the right choice after all?
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
WHEN RAFE REACHED the front door of his house, he pulled out his phone again.
This time, when he pressed the message button, he was able to get a connection.
There was one message. A man speaking low and fast. “I don’t have much time, but I’ve got some information you want. Two things have happened.”
As Rafe listened to the first part, then the second, a buzz of excitement went through him. Just to make sure he’d heard the message correctly, he played it again.
“I want the payment you promised delivered to my bank account.”
“When I get around to it,” Rafe muttered as he hurried into the house. He had the information he needed. Now he had to figure out how to act on it.
FROM one moment to the next Sophia made the decision. Swiftly she reached to unhook her bra and pull off her sopping panties.
Jason didn’t speak, but her name rang in his thoughts, in gladness and in gratitude as she straddled him, gasping as she brought him inside her.
“Jason.”
She went very still. Unable to move. Unable to do more than stare down at him in wonder.
In this time and place, they were one being, their souls joined in a union that should have been impossible for either one of them. He was a man. A Minot. She was an Ionian. Sworn enemies, yet the two of them were no longer on opposite sides of any divide.
It was as though they belonged together, had always belonged together. And she knew in that moment of joining that he had been telling her the truth about himself.
Your mother and father.
I wasn’t lying to you, I would never lie to you. Well, except to get near to you, he added ruefully.
Jason Tyron’s not your real name.
Jason is. I changed my last name.
He opened himself to her, giving her more.
His father was a Minot named Paul Castle. His mother was Julia, an Ionian who had run away from the order because she felt stifled by life at the spa. Against all odds, she had found a Minot who was different from the rest, who wanted only what the two of them could build together.
But she had craved more. She had wanted her sisters as well, and that had been denied her by the high priestess, who was unable to accept the marriage of an Ionian. Especially an Ionian and a Minot.
For years she had been happy with her husband and her son, but in secret, she had longed for her sisters, and finally the separation had broken her.
As Sophia took in all this, she knew she was opening herself to him just as fully. He knew about the ceremony where the high priestess had deflowered her. He sensed her doubts about herself and about her sister Tessa.
He made a rough sound. The order confines you. You’ve lost your way.
She longed to deny it, but it was impossible to hide herself from him. Not now. Not in this place, with her body joined to his and her mind as open as it had ever been to any human being.
She had been still above him, but all at once she heard a clattering noise as the stakes that had confined his wrists slammed out of the ground. He pulled his hands from the restraints and brought them to her hips, urging her upward and then down again as he moved her above him, matching her rhythm.
She knew that he could have pulled his wrists free at any time. But he had chosen to remain in her power because that was the only way he could win her trust.
Then his hands moved upward, cradling her breasts, skimming his thumbs across the tightened crests. When she cried out in pleasure, he slid his hand around her back, stroking her spine, then pulling her upper body down to his chest as their movements became more frantic.
The intensity swept over them, driving them toward a climax that took them away from reality. At that moment she sensed something more. Something about him that he might not know himself. She couldn’t quite grasp it either, and before she could focus on that, her gathering climax made it difficult to think of anything besides the here and now.
Clinging to him, she was helpless to keep from being swept into a world of pure sensation.
This was what she had always longed for yet never knew existed.
The firestorm swept over them, leaving them both limp and breathless.
When Jason wrapped his arms around her and rolled to his side, she realized he’d also freed his ankles.
Still overwhelmed, she clung to him. “Was that real—what happened to us?”
“Yes. It’s what I wanted to show you we could have together—if we dared.”
“You mean if I dared. You knew where we were going. All along. Your parents had that?”
“Yes.”
“How? He didn’t have Ionian blood, did he?”
“I don’t know. It’s possible. I know they spent a long time striving to enter each other’s minds, and finally they did it. I’d see the joy in their eyes.”
He moved his face against her cheek, and she closed her eyes, cuddling against him, enjoying intimacy she had never expected to feel.
“You didn’t kiss me,” he whispered, bringing his lips to hers for a long, ardent kiss.
She opened for him, reveling in this new sweetness. Between kisses, they spoke.
“The wards didn’t keep me out of the compound because of my Ionian genes.”
She was still having trouble imagining an Ionian and a Minot together. “Your parents loved each other,” she whispered against his lips because she knew it was true.
“Yes. And my mother raised me with her values of love and honor. I grew up feeling
blessed and wanting the same thing. Yet I knew how difficult it would be.”
Sophia nodded, remembering all the lessons she had absorbed from childhood.
He gestured in frustration. “I saw what my parents had with each other. I also saw what it cost my mother.”
“Cynthia, our high priestess, has a . . . boyfriend. He means more to her than other men have. Maybe that’s shifted her point of view. Or maybe it makes her more adamant.” She pushed herself up, looking down at him. “How do you know so much about us? We keep so much hidden. Even your mother must have been cautious.”
“She was. I told you, she taught me her values, although she didn’t give away any important secrets. My parents made it clear I could do anything I wanted with my life. My father left me plenty of money, so that was never an issue. I picked a profession that gave me a chance to get close to you. I moved to Sedona. I found out as much as I could about the order.”
“And you wanted one of us. Not necessarily me.”
“I knew as soon as we met on the road that it was you.”
She had felt it, too, although she hadn’t dared explore her feelings for him. Not really. But he had understood his goal.
“I studied you, too,” she murmured. “What you’d put in your résumé. Then I looked you up. I couldn’t get enough.”
He grinned. “Good.” Reaching for one of the cuffs that had circled his wrist, he held it up. “Where did you get all this stuff?”
“We have it at the spa. Sometimes we enjoy playing bondage games.”
“You’ve done that?”
She kept her gaze steady. “Yes. Your mother must have told you we’re taught to dominate men.”
He laughed. “There’s only so much a guy can discuss with his mother.”
She flushed. “I guess that’s right. There was never any barrier with my sisters. We talked about . . . everything. Our heritage. Our sexuality.”
“The dangerous Minot,” he put in.
She gave him a stern look. “They are dangerous. Most of them are like that guy who attacked me on the road.”
“You can’t be sure of that. What if it’s all indoctrination?”
She shook her head. “You won’t convince me of that. You have a background no one else has. But we’re getting off the subject. We were talking about sexual information.”
“Uh-huh.”
“When we were younger, the older sisters taught sex education classes. When we got older and started experimenting, we discussed the men we’d had and what we did with them. Lysandra told me I would enjoy making a man my slave for a night.” She raised one shoulder. “Maybe she thought I’d be too timid to try it.”
“But you had to prove you could do it?”
“It’s no big deal.”
“But you thought it was a way to test me.”
“I thought no Minot would agree. Or if he did—he was different from the others.”
“I am. But now I hope we don’t need anything artificial in our lovemaking. Unless we both agree on the game.”
He was carefully not giving her an order. He was saying what he’d like.
She smiled at him. “That’s fair, but maybe we should test the theory.”
She wasn’t sure of the future, but she was sure she trusted him now. And she knew what they had together was different from what she had ever experienced. She’d always enjoyed sex, but she’d never thought of it as sharing anything profound. She’d learned today that she’d been missing a lot.
Raising her mouth to his again, she nibbled at his lips as her hands roamed over his back and shoulders, feeling her arousal begin to build again.
“You’ve been missing a lot,” he whispered, and she knew he’d picked that up from her mind. “And I have, too.”
When she felt his erection against her thigh, she moved seductively against him.
Last time had been a frantic joining. This time she wanted a slow buildup, and he seemed to know exactly what she craved.
Once again, the intimacy was opening her to his thoughts, and she welcomed that, too.
His hand moved lazily over her, touching and caressing, and when he rolled her to her back and sucked one of her nipples into his mouth, she arched into the caress.
He used his teeth on her, then his tongue, his thumb and finger mirroring the caress on the other breast.
Up until now, everything she had felt and sensed was confined to the cave, and she wanted to keep it that way. Just the two of them, before they had to go back to the real world and figure out what they were going to do.
But she became aware of something beyond the little refuge they had made for themselves.
And she knew from his sudden tension—and the jolt from his mind—that he felt it, too.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“ YOU SENSE DANGER ?” Sophia whispered.
“Yes. Someone sneaking up on us?” he asked.
“To me, it feels more like something’s happened down at the spa. We need to go back.”
“I know.”
“The high priestess could have found out I’m missing. She could wonder if I’m with you. She could have sent my sisters out looking for us.”
“You think she’ll try to separate us?”
She didn’t answer, but a zing of uneasiness traveled over her skin as she realized how little she’d thought this through.
“Maybe I should go down there alone, and you go back home.”
“Not a chance,” he answered. “I’m staying with you.”
“You’re trying to provoke a confrontation?”
“I’m not going to let you face her by yourself.”
“You must.”
He looked thunderstruck. “We forged a bond.”
“But no one at the spa will believe it.”
“We’ll make them believe.”
Was that possible? She’d been so sure the two of them belonged together. Now she was suddenly afraid.
They both stood and found their clothing. As they’d driven here, she’d thought about staking him down and cutting off his shirt and jeans. Now she was glad she hadn’t destroyed his clothing. Or had she known deep down that they were going back to the spa together?
She gathered everything that she’d brought and stuffed it into the knapsack. When she started to hoist it over her shoulder, he stopped her.
“Wait. I want to check that nobody’s outside.”
She hadn’t even considered that, but she stayed in the cave while he went out and inspected the area, walking a little way down the path and coming back.
For the first time, she knew what it was like for a man to protect his mate. A very unique experience for an Ionian.
“I think we’re alone,” he said as he reached for the knapsack.
“I can carry it,” she protested.
“I know. But I think we’ll get there faster if I’m the one with the pack.”
He was right. She handed it over, and they left the cave, making their way as fast as they could down the steep trail that they had climbed earlier. Then she’d been worried about what would happen between the two of them. Now she had bigger worries, and she couldn’t even say what they were.
It was late in the afternoon, and the shadows were longer. She realized that she hadn’t worked out what she’d planned to do after she tested Jason. Would she have spent the night up here with him, or tried to come back in the dark when it was more dangerous?
And how would she have explained that?
By the time they reached the truck, the sun was a huge red ball in the west, and the sky was shot through with beautiful streaks of pink and purple. It was a glorious desert sunset, but neither of them had the leisure to enjoy it.
Sophia handed Jason the keys.
He climbed behind the wheel, then waited while she slid into the passenger seat. “You realize I’d like to just keep driving—somewhere else,” he said as he started the engine.
“But you won’t.”
They headed cross
-country toward the access road and joined it where they’d turned off.
Sophia watched the spa come into view.
“Stop here,” she said when they were still out of sight of the gate.
He did as she asked, pulling off the road before turning to her. “Let me come with you.”
“I’m sorry. I have to go back there alone now.”
“I can’t let you do that.” He reached for her hand and held on tightly. “We should be able to rely on each other now. Don’t you want that?”
“Of course I do. But I can’t . . .”
“Can’t what?”
“Just rearrange my thinking—and my life—so quickly. You’ve been planning this for a long time. I’m just adjusting to it.”
“That’s what it is? An adjustment?” he asked in a gritty voice.
“Don’t.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t push you. This won’t work unless it’s something you really want.”
“I do!” she said, still not sure it was completely true. She didn’t know what she wanted. Or maybe she was afraid to reach for something that had always been forbidden. “But I know there’s a crisis at the spa. I have to join my sisters. I owe them that, don’t you think?”
The way she asked the question must have convinced him, because he sat gripping the steering wheel as she climbed out.
But when she walked around to the back of the truck, she found him standing beside her.
He pulled her into his embrace, holding her close, his hands moving up and down her back, tangling in her hair. When he tipped her face up, she met his lips in a fierce kiss that brought her back to the intimacy of the cave.
Yet this was different. Was it good-bye?
She couldn’t answer that question. She could only kiss him with a desperation that gathered in every cell of her body. Until she forced herself to ease away.
“I’ll call you when I can,” she said, knowing it wasn’t what he wanted to hear, but it was the only thing she could say.
“Leave the knapsack,” he said. “If someone looks inside, they’ll wonder what you were doing with that stuff.”
