Beyond the Shadows (9 page)

It was difficult to go against him, especially since being in his arms was right where she wanted, so badly, to be. But if she gave in now, nothing would change. If she had any hope of working her way back into his life, his heart, she couldn’t just roll over and spread her legs whenever he demanded it.

“You’re not sending me back to the prison, are you?”

“No,” he said, carelessly. “I’ll find a place for you in the house, assign a guard, and visit you when I feel the need.”

No. No, his love couldn’t have turned so cold; it couldn’t have. But her anger was fast wearing off in the face of such cold, blunt cruelty. Pain took its place and dug sharp claws into her heart. “And my brother?”

“He’s going to die. Then you’ll not find your loyalty so torn.”

“I thought you were one of the good guys.” Her throat was so thick with tears that her voice hurt going past it.

He shrugged and tossed her to the bed. “Guess you were wrong. Get undressed.”

She stared up at him, silently cursing herself for the welling tears she couldn’t seem to stop. “I wasn’t wrong. I just don’t know how to make it right.”

“I told you crying wouldn’t move me.” His gaze was softer, despite his words. Still, he grasped her ankle and jerked off one boot, then the other. “I want you. I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anyone. And I curse myself for it.”

“Just because I—”

“Because I was a fool,” he snarled. “And I’m done talking. If you open your mouth once more to do anything other than moan or suck my dick, I will gag you.”

She drew her knees to her chest and kicked him in the stomach, as hard as she could. It was like kicking a brick wall, and she cringed at the shocking impact. He stood there, huge, muscled, and naked, yawning at something that would have sent a lesser man into the wall.

His eyes were no longer amused, though. “Next time you try to hurt me, Sarah, it’d better be foreplay.”

But she couldn’t go gently to the man who would end her brother’s life. The man whose respect she wanted to win, the man she loved.

And she really, really didn’t want to hurt him. Not just because she was afraid of retaliation, but because she cared.

She raised her chin. “I’m not a spineless person, Kai. I’ll not take orders like the rest of your women.”

“You have so far.”

With one fluid movement, she was on her knees before him. “That wasn’t me.” She doubled her fist and punched him right in the nose. “
This
is me.”

He stumbled backward, surprise in his eyes. She followed him, white noise in her head, prepared to do what she needed to do. She aimed the heel of her hand at his nose, a powerful blow that would crumple the delicate cartilage and, when chased with an immediate fist to the chin, knock him out. She hoped.

But this time, he was ready for her. Catching her hand, he squeezed, a bone-crunching hold that had her gasping in pain.

“Damn you, Sarah,” he said, his voice raspy. “Damn you.”

He pushed her around, holding her wrists behind her with one big, unforgiving hand. Forcing her toward the bed, he merely bent over and picked her up when she sank to the floor.

He wrapped his arms around her body, trapping her arms. “Don’t make me hurt you.”

She laughed, a loud, joyless sound. “Too late.” She bowed her head, lost for a moment in the land of self-pity.

Other than a grunt, he was silent as he dumped her unceremoniously onto his bed. He was on her before she could scramble up.

He flipped her to her back and straddled her, jerking her wrists above her head. His eyes were cold but controlled. His nose looked a little swollen where she’d struck him.

Her breathing sounded like a violent storm in her ears. “I hate you. I hate you so much.”

“And you think I care?” But he’d hesitated for a fraction of a second, a spark of pain glittering in his eyes before he shuttered them.

“Yes,” she answered, hoping her voice sounded as mocking as she’d meant it to.

“I told you not to try to hurt me again, didn’t I?”

“And I told you I’m not one of your biddable women.” And to prove it, she turned her head to the warm underside of his forearm and sank her teeth into his flesh.

He jerked, tearing her loose before she drew blood. “Fuck, woman!”

Furious, he jumped from the bed, then buried his fist in her hair. He dragged her from the bed, drawing a shriek from her when her ass hit the floor.

Throwing open his door, he bellowed, “Teddy! In here, now.” Still holding Sarah’s hair with one hand, he pulled with enough force to bring her to her feet, hard fingers ripping fabric as he tore the clothes from her body.

She grasped his arms, touching the bumpy outline of her teeth marks. “Kai!”

He was a maddened bull, unstoppable, unreachable.

Teddy stood in the doorway, eyes large, trembling hands held to her chest. “You…you called me?”

“Restraints from the black room.”

Sarah felt her heart sink to her toes, and real fear arose like wisps of thick fog. “Kai?” She’d pushed him too far.

Teddy didn’t hesitate. With a darting glance at Sarah, she ran. Her footsteps echoed long after she’d gone. Lingered for what seemed like hours as Kai ripped the last bit of clothing from Sarah’s body, bruised tender flesh with impatient fingers and threw her on the bed.

And this time, she knew she wasn’t getting back up. Not for a long time.

Teddy crept back into the room, eyes round, mouth agape. “H-here’s your, uh, restraints…”

“Teddy…” Sarah pleaded.

“
Get out
!” Kai’s voice left no room for argument, and Teddy wouldn’t go against him. With an apologetic look at Sarah, she backed out of the room and closed the door behind her.

Kai’s dark, straight eyebrows framed eyes full of raging storms, and he gave her the full brunt of those unfamiliar depths for a brief moment before he climbed on her. He held her captive between massive thighs as he jerked her arms above her head and secured first one, then the other to the bedpost. Her ankles received the same treatment.

“You know what you’re doing,” she spat. “Perhaps you’ve had lots of practice chaining women to your bed.” She hoped he couldn’t hear the quaking in her voice. Yeah, she was scared.
Terrified
. For in his eyes, all traces of the Kai she knew seemed to have disappeared. Still, she could fake it with the best of them.

He ignored her.

“Perhaps you
have
to chain women to your bed,” she continued, eliciting only a contemptuous, icy look.

Kai, where are you
? “You will not rape me.” But he would not have to. She knew her body.

He tightened the straps across her ankles, hands jerky with anger.

“You’re a terrible man. You’re not the man I thought you were. Go ahead, then. Rape me. But you won’t touch my heart.”

Only the stiffening of his back made her think he might actually be listening. He ran his hand up the inside of her leg, and she closed her eyes, swallowing hard.

Oh God.

Slowly, he slid a finger inside her, exploring, probing, rubbing.

Grinding her teeth to keep eager moans from escaping, she tried, and failed, to keep her body from responding. Moisture gathered on his fingertips, and as he spread that moisture over her already throbbing clit, she was lost. It didn’t help that she loved him. She loved him so, so much.

He moved, facing her once again, but she kept her eyes firmly shut.

She couldn’t even trade her body for Constantine’s safety. Kai merely took what he wanted.

Desperate, she bargained. “If you spare my brother his life, I’ll do whatever you want me to do. Be whatever you want me to be. Please, Kai. I can’t live with the guilt!”

He lowered his battered face, slowly, so slowly. His lips touched hers, a light sliding of flesh on tender flesh. “Shut up, Sarah.”

Helpless beneath him, with his huge, naked body pushing hers into the mattress, she shut up.

His chest, broad and warm, rubbed against her distended nipples as he kissed her, stealing her breath, weakening her muscles. He slid his lips across her skin as if he had all the time in the world, as if each touch, each moment wasn’t heavy with an underlying urgency.

It was torture.

Tied as she was, she couldn’t even touch him. Her fingers itched with the desire to feel his skin beneath the delicate pads.

He drew her hair to the side and brushed his lips against the side of her neck. Drawing her earlobe into his mouth, he gently caressed it with his tongue, and she sighed, sighed and gave herself to him, mind, body, soul. Again.

Nothing had ever felt more right than lying beneath this big man, his lips on her, his weight a solid, warm protection against everything that had ever hurt her. And for this moment, she could forget everything else. There was only him. Only Kai.

She didn’t have to fight, honestly had an excuse not to. His restraints saw to that. She had given the good fight. Now she wanted to be loved by her man. This was the man fate had chosen for her, whether she, or he, liked it or not. She would think about afterward, when afterward arrived.

Turning her face toward him, she sought his lips with hers. He gave her his kiss, deepening it, lifting his hand to hold her face as he took control. Holding her still, he slid his tongue into her mouth, tangling with hers in a dance of tenderness, of passion.

He left her lips and slipped down her body, his skin so hot against hers she was sure the touch would ignite sparks, would light the drapes on fire with the power of their passionate heat.

“Kai!” Oh God, he was killing her. He put his lips to her nipple and sucked the hard point into the moist, warm cave of his mouth, playing over it with his tongue.

Her other nipple grew rigid with desire, pouty from neglect. At last he circled the nipple with a long finger, teasingly, while his mouth continued to move on the other. Each suck made the heaviness between her legs grow, made her ache with impatience.

“I want you inside me.” She cared not at all that her voice came out hoarse with need. “Now, Kai!”

With one last lick, he pulled his mouth from her breast. “Not until you’re screaming beneath me, your desire so strong you think you might die from it. Because that’s the way you make me feel every time I’m near you.” He didn’t sound as if that fact made him happy.

“I don’t want to wait any longer.” She tugged at the restraints.
I’d like to break these and attack you. Slide down your enormous cock until it—

“Enormous cock,” he murmured.

Damn. Had she said that out loud?

“Are you wet for me?” His voice, thick with sex and heat, caressed her body. He slid off her in one fluid motion and crouched beside her stretched-out body like a demigod over a sacrifice.

“Since the day I met you.”

Watching her, he skimmed over her belly with a light hand. Her stomach tightened, cramping from the shock of his feathery touch.

“I should check,” he said.

“Oh…”

Resting his palm on the mound between her thighs, he rubbed his fingers back and forth over her smooth skin. Tormenting her with every move, he moved his hand ever closer to her center.

“Kai…”

“Yes?” Quietly, so quietly, he waited.

“Touch me?”

He slipped his fingers over her clit, into her moistness with one smooth move. She arched her back, fingers clawing the air. “
God
!”

“So good,” he whispered.

He pulled his fingers out to rub them over her clit, gathering the small, swollen bit of flesh, pinching and massaging, before slipping them back inside her.

“Oh
God
!”

“No, sexy baby…” His crooning voice soothed her even as his fingers hurtled her toward paradise. “Not yet.”

The mattress bounced as he moved to kneel between her open thighs, his heated gaze upon her pussy. “So ripe and juicy,” he said, “like a mouthwatering red fruit.”

If he would just put his mouth on her.
Please, please…

Spread-eagled and tied to the bed, she could do little but take everything he wanted to give her. And he wanted to give her so much. Almost
too
much.

He slid a finger over her exposed clit, exploring between her legs, his gaze as intent as if he’d never seen pussy before.

She bit her lip as the pressure built, the sensations overpowering. He pushed long, firm fingers inside her, probing, filling her up with ecstasy.

She couldn’t take any more…

But then she discovered she could.

He slipped his hands under her hips. Cupping her ass, he lifted her slightly, parting his lips as he leaned forward. He ate her like she really was an overripe fruit, messy, fast, hard. He couldn’t get enough, and it showed.

For endless moments, she writhed, screaming beneath his masterful tongue. Crying out as he brought her kicking and screaming to the gaping chasm of orgasm, then refused to allow her the release she craved so badly.

Her entire body was a screaming nerve ending. A fire of desire crept over her skin, her insides pulsing in time with his tongue, with his teeth, his lips. The throbbing of her clit was a slow, hard beat, and she screamed herself hoarse waiting for him to send her over the edge, to turn that slow throb into a million splintering, pounding vibrations.

And yet he continued to tease, to take her to the edge and draw back just before she could reach that so-desired climax. He closed his lips over her swollen clit as he sucked and pulled on the oversensitive button, his tongue darting inside her until she staggered half-alive to that first orgasm, and it wouldn’t have mattered had he pulled back then; she shattered, screaming and clawing, bucking against the restraints, needing something so badly, needing
him
so badly.

The orgasm went on forever. Her clit vibrated; her body shook with the force of it. “Kai! Please!” She
had
to have him.

He shoved himself inside her then, the heat and size of his cock plunging her immediately into another orgasm. This one, though, this one, with him on top of her, his body heavy on hers, his ass pumping as he thrust; violent thrusts that touched something so deep and dark inside her she’d never even known it existed until him…

It was perfection.