DeliveredIntoHisHands (10 page)

He dragged her wrists together, clamped
them firmly in one calloused hand then snagged his free hand in her bodice.
Carefully extracting his tongue from her mouth, he slammed his lips to the
hollow at the base of her throat and ripped her gown open. It tore with ease to
bare her heaving breasts.

“You’re going to buy me a new gown,” she
grumbled.

“I’ll buy you a fucking closetful,” he said
as he shoved his hand down her bra cup to free her breast. Without missing a
beat, he had his mouth latched upon it, swirling his tongue over the
nipple—licking and lapping, flicking and probing.

“Unholy bully,” she accused.

“Horny bully,” he said. As he suckled her,
he reached down to rip her panties away and drew back. He looked up at her,
stare narrowing. “Wench, where the fuck is your underwear?”

Antonia saw accusation in the hard glint of
his blue eyes. Streaks of red were zigzagging through the irises.

“I forgot to put any on,” she said. The way
he was glaring at her sent shivers down her spine.

“Where were you?” he questioned. “When I
couldn’t find you, where were you?”

“Hiding,” she said. “In the hidden
passageway. You know full well where I was if not how to get to me.”

Suspicion entered his voice. “Who was with
you?”

“I went into the passageway alone,” she
replied.

Garrick started to slip into her mind to
find the truth of the matter then stopped himself. He was not going to begin
his marriage second-guessing his woman. Accusing her. Being suspicious and
distrustful. That had ruined his father’s marriage to Queen Maeve and he had no
desire to carry on the legacy of such a soul-crippling endeavor. If he could
not trust her, he had no business being married to her.

But he could not still his tongue and it
spoke before he could stop it.

“And you met no one in the passageway while
you were there?” he asked, hating himself for asking.

“I did not,” she said, holding his gaze.
“Did you think I met someone in there and then dropped my panties for a quick
rut because I was bored?”

“Mayhap because you were angry with me?” he
countered.

“Nay, Garrick. I met no one in the
passageways nor did I rut with anyone while tramping through them. The only man
I have lain with is crushing me beneath him at this very moment.”

Probing her face for a lie, he did not find
one. He relaxed as much as his jealousy would allow.

“I love you, wench,” he said. “I beg you do
not play me false.”

It was the first time he had admitted any
deep feeling for her and Antonia felt her heart thud heavily in her chest.

“I would never betray you, Garrick,” she
said. “I would never deceive you.”

Though, she thought, she would keep things
from him for his—and Alyx’s—own good.

“Do not ever lie to me,” he said. “I will
know if you do.”

She had no doubt that he would. “I won’t. I
swear it.”

He lowered his cheek to the center of her chest,
his hand between her legs. Almost absently he was rubbing her—having no idea
what he was doing to her libido.

“I missed you,” he said. “Don’t do that
again.”

“Then don’t treat me like your property,”
she said.

“You are my property,” he said softly. “As
I am yours.”

That took some of the sting out of his
words, she thought. She wasn’t sure she liked his savage possessiveness but it
was a heady feeling to know he wanted her that strongly.

“I don’t like fighting with you,” he
admitted.

“Then don’t,” she said.

“Wench, you need to bend just a little,” he
said. “Meet me halfway here.”

“Promise me you won’t yell at me again,”
she said.

He laughed and seemed to become aware of
where his hand was for he slipped a finger inside her.

“Is this going to be your answer for every
argument?” she asked, trying not to squirm under his treatment.

“I intend that we never go to bed angry,”
he said.

Antonia sighed. He was doing things to her
and he knew it. It seemed distracting her with sex when she was irritated at
him was going to be his modus operandi. Two could play that game.

“Teach me how to suck your cock,” she said.

He went as still—and as hard—as a three-ton
boulder. His head came up and his mouth opened, his lips moved but nothing came
out. For the first time since she’d spoken to him that first night in the
garden, words failed him.

“Will you do it?” she questioned. “Cherise
says men like that and—”

“I don’t give a rat’s ass what she says!”
he interrupted. “The only man you’ll have your lips attached to is me so it
fucking well doesn’t matter what other men like!”

“Then teach me,” she said, undulating her
hips against his finger that was deep inside her cunt but as still as he was.
“Show me how to give you the kind of pleasure you gave me last eve.”

He swallowed hard. Licked his lips. His
chest began to rise and fall as though he was priming himself to run.

She hoped not, worrying that she had been
too brazen, too tartish—as her mother would say—and too blundering with her
request. He was staring at her as though she’d grown a second head and she
could see a vein pounding fiercely in his neck. She nibbled on her bottom lip,
his eyes lowered to it, and then he shuddered.

“If you don’t like that sort of thing—”

“Oh goddess, wench, you have no idea,” he
moaned. Almost absently, he removed his finger from her and as though he didn’t
realize what he was doing stuck it in his mouth, removing the slickness she
could see.

For some reason that one act sent wave
after wave after wave of forceful pleasure flooding through her nether regions.
She wanted to toss him to his back, straddle him and bury his cock so deep
inside her he’d never be able to pull out.

“What the hell kind of thought just went
through your mind?” he asked, eyes widening.

She told him and that was his undoing. He
was up and out of the bed—not removing but ripping off his shirt, tearing it in
half. Hiding a laugh behind her hand as he hopped beside the bed trying to tug
off his boots, she heard him growl fiercely. Finally he sat down heavily on the
edge of the mattress and jerked them off.

“Fucking tight boots!” he mumbled as he
literally threw them across the room.

Standing, he stripped out of his pants. His
cock sprang free and jutted out like a battering ram. She gasped as he flung
himself on the bed, rolled to his back and spread his legs.

“By the goddess, wench, climb on board!” he
said, reaching up to grab the headboard—that was minus one spindle. He curled
his fingers around two of the remaining ones until his knuckles were white.
“Come on, wench!”

“All righty then,” she said. “But I need to
remove what’s left of my gown.”

“Be quick about it,” he warned. “I’m about
to come as it is!”

“We can’t have that, now, can we?” she
asked.

She shrugged out of the gown he had ripped,
reached behind her to unhook her bra then let it fall slowly, seductively down
her arms.

“Wench, you are—”

“Shush, knave,” she said, tossing the bra
aside. She straddled his hips then positioned herself above his stiff cock. It
rose along the crack of her ass and she rubbed her cleft against it.

“Antonia,” he said in a thick voice. “Don’t
play with me.”

“Are you going to yell at me again?” she
asked.

He narrowed his eyes. “Are you bartering
with me, woman?” he asked in a husky voice.

She rubbed him again then slid her hands up
his chest until she could close her fingers around his nipples.

“Are you going to yell at me again?” she
repeated.

“I—” He stopped for she was lightly
pinching his nipples.

She arched a brow.

He swallowed. “No,” he replied.

“No what, knave?” she prompted.

“No, wench, I will not yell at you again.
Now—”

“Will you try bullying me again?” She
twisted his nipples.

“No,” he said, shaking his head vehemently.
“I’ll never try bullying you again.”

“And will you…?”

“Wench,” he said, slamming his hands down
to her hips. “I’m going to say this only once. If you don’t heed my words, I’m
going to toss your ass on the bed and ram my cock so far up your cunt you’ll
taste the cum in your mouth. Get. Your. Cunt. On. Me. Now!”

She smiled. “Testy, testy, testy,” she
said. She straightened up, flung her braid over her shoulder then reached for
his cock. Closing her fingers around it, she put the tip to her slick entrance.
“You’re such a brute.”

“I am—”

He got no further for she impaled her tight
pussy on him and slid all the way to the root. His eyes widened as she began to
rock, twist, lever herself up and down.

“Who the fucking hell taught you how to…?”

She leaned down to put her hand over his
mouth. “One more word out of you,” she said. “One more suspicious look that
suggests to me you think someone other than you has been inside me and I will
get out of this bed and leave you like this. Now put your hands back on those
spindles and let me do my job.”

Antonia saw humor lightened the dark blue
that had been glaring at her a moment before me.

“Are we clear, knave?”

Her hand was still across his mouth so he
simply nodded then flicked his tongue across her palm to seal the deal.

“You’re sure?” she prodded. “You’re going
to behave?”

He nodded again and this time his eyes were
dancing with mirth.

She removed her hand. “No talking.”

He nodded yet again.

“Now close your eyes.”

His eyebrows shot up.

“Close your eyes, knave,” she ordered.

His lips twitched, the laugh lines beside his
eyes deepened, but he obeyed with an uncharacteristic giggle that was so boyish
it made her grin. When she started moving on him again, he caught his tongue
between his teeth, arched his head back and giggled once more.

“You’re liking this far too much,” she
said. She put her hands on his chest to brace herself then raised and lowered
her hips—sliding down his thick cock like a warm, wet silk glove.

“Umm.” She heard him agree and watched his
fingers flex around the spindles.

Slowly at first she gyrated over him,
swiveling her hips, pressing down lightly. He was so hard inside her, so long,
it bordered on discomfort but she was beginning to feel the heat building in
her lower body. The itch was there and she increased the speed of her plummets
and rises in order to scratch it. Beneath her, Garrick’s hips were lifting up
from the bed with each downward press of her body.

Swirling her hips upon him, she let her
head fall back. The tip of her long braid flicked across his thighs as she
moved. As it did, she could feel the muscle in his thigh jump.

He grunted and his stomach muscles
tightened. She could tell he was striving not to come before her. Sweat was
beginning to bead on his forehead beneath the sweep of his dark hair. He was
pulling on the spindles as hard as she had.

“Come for me,” she said and his eyes flew
open. He shook his head, his tongue still clamped between his teeth. She half expected
him to speak but he didn’t. His breathing was shallow, rapid and once more his
belly quivered.

She ground upon him and he groaned, his
eyelids fluttering, but he kept watching her as though to look away would mean
he’d lost control of his body.

She increased the speed, the rhythm and his
lips parted, releasing his tongue. He began to pant.

“Come for me,” she whispered.

“Unh unh,” he grunted. His chest was
heaving now and his thighs trembling.

Her own release was seconds away. Hot,
hard, slick. His cock was bumping against her womb and the slight discomfort
was a spurring her to press down harder, to actually feel a bit of pain as the
quivers started.

“Garrick!” she shouted.

His hands came down to pin her hips.
Arching his hips from the bed, he lifted her then slammed her down hard upon
his crotch as the climax shattered around her. The sensation was so intense, so
powerful, and so pleasurable she wanted to scream as the ripples continued.
With the first jerk of his cock, the first spurt shot from him, that was what
she did—unable to keep the sound from erupting. He thrust up one final time
then became immobile so she could feel each subsequent spasm that filled her
with his seed. Her hips unable to move, she had no choice but to kneel there
with him deep inside her—filling her, stretching her, seeding her—until the
last drop of him was spent.

“Sweet Mother,” he said as she dropped down
to cover him with her body. He wrapped his arms snuggly around her, their
bodies slick with sweat, their hearts racing.

They lay like that for a few moments until
she realized he was still erect within her. She knew what that meant and knew when
he pulled out, another powerful surge of pleasure would rake her.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Aye,” she agreed.

This time he put his hands to the back of
her head, lifted it then fastened his mouth to hers to capture the scream he
knew would come. When it did, he swallowed it, taking it into his own body as
his woman shuddered violently from the forceful release. He could feel his own
cum and her honeyed cream dripping down his thigh as his cock slipped from her.
The soft barb at the end of his shaft had once again given his lady the immense
satisfaction it had been designed to provide.

Cradling her in his arms, he held her to
him with her head nestled in the crook of his shoulder.

As punishments went, hers had pleasured
them both. She rather liked his rod of discipline.

The war had been going on for nine weeks
and the Modarthan forces were being stymied at every turn. Though their troops
were more experienced, better trained and supplied, the rebels seemed to either
know or anticipate their every move. They were losing Modarthan men—good, loyal
men—and the casualties on both sides were rising. Supply trains were being
ambushed left and right.

“We’ve a spy here,” Marc said.

“We’ve most likely several spies here,”
Garrick said. “What I want to know is how he learns our plans so quickly.”

“Could be a she,” Marc told him.

Garrick was pacing in front of the window
of the study he had commandeered for his office. Outside the night sky was
being stitched by violent lightning. The flare as each bolt formed gave his
face a bluish cast.

“There are guards outside this room,” the
Crimson Lord stated. “Men I trust with my life. How the hell could the rebels
have found out about the raid on Paxtin Province when only you and I knew of
it? When we discussed it only within these four walls?”

Marc looked about the room. It was swept
twice a day for listening devices and a scrambler was used to disrupt any that
were hidden so well they had not been detected.

“I don’t understand it, either,” he told
Garrick. “Neither of us are discussing the plans with anyone outside the
office.” He gave his friend a hard look. “Are we?”

“You know fucking well I’m not telling my
woman anything!” Garrick snapped.

“Then how are the rebels staying one step
ahead of us?”

“How the fuck do I know?” Garrick asked. He
wrenched a hand through his hair, his frustration giving him the beginnings of
a migraine.

“Okay, let’s step back and look at this
logically,” Marc suggested. He perched on the corner of Garrick’s desk. “We are
reasonably sure there are no bugs in the office. The scrambler is in place. I
seriously doubt the Volakisians have the capability of possessing any devices
that could override the scrambler even if they managed to place some newfangled
listening device in here that we can’t discover.”

“And there are no invisible men lurking
about,” Garrick said. “Even if a Scaan were to have allied himself with the
rebels, either you or I or Oran would be able to detect his presence.”

“True,” Marc agreed. “There are no phantoms
at Castle Blackthorn.”

Garrick turned with his back to the
windows. He stared across the room, deep in thought. It took him a moment to
realize he was staring at the butt-ugly portrait of one of the baron’s
ancestors hanging over the desk. He hated the portrait of the pompous bastard
with his thick, drooping jowls, beady eyes that…

“Blinked,” Garrick said.

“What?” Marc asked.

Realizing there was someone standing behind
the portrait, behind the wall, watching their every move, hearing everything
they said, Garrick looked away. It wouldn’t do to let the spy know he’d been
discovered.

“I said plinked,” Garrick replied. “We’re
plinked.”

Marcus was giving him a look that asked
what the hell plinked meant. There was only one way to alert his friend to the
situation and that was on the psychic plane they shared.

Sit very still, do not turn around, look
only at me and do not react to my words,
he sent to
Marc.
Converse only as I do.

All right,
Marc agreed.

There is a painting of that wretched
former baron hanging over my desk. I just saw the eyes of the portrait blink.

Someone is behind the portrait,
Marc said.

And listening to every word we say.

So that’s how they’re doing it!

He has a good view of the desk and if
there are plans spread out there, he can see them.

“Maybe we should just call it a night,”
Marc said. “I’m fairly plinked myself.”

“Aye,” Garrick said. “But I could do with
some fresh air.”

“Sounds like a good idea to me,” Marc
granted.

They left his office, speaking of
inconsequential things. Taking the stone stairs to the battlements they waited
until they were in the cold, sharp wind blasting over them, a light drizzle
pebbling their faces as the storm advanced toward them. Moving to a section of
the battlements where there were no guards, Garrick leaned his forearms on the
crenulated wall and stared out across the damp landscape.

“That’s how they’re learning about our
plans,” he said.

“We need to get inside those passageways,”
Marc stated. “Pisses me off that we hadn’t thought of it before now.”

“I should have insisted Tonia show me how
to get inside there when she disappeared on me that day,” Garrick replied
through clenched teeth. “If I hadn’t been thinking with the wrong head, I would
have!”

“You think she knows the rebels are lurking
around in there?”

“I hope to the goddess not but the odds are
she does,” Garrick replied.

“Then you should go to her and have her
take us into them tonight,” Marc said. “We’ll take a contingent of guards with
us. We’ll rout those bastards and hang them from the barbican.”

* * * * *

Reading in a chair beside the window,
Antonia looked up as the door to their bedchamber opened. The happy smile of
greeting slipped from her face when she saw Garrick and Marc standing in the
hall—a bevy of armed men behind them.

She slowly got to her feet, the book in one
hand. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

Garrick advanced into the room. “I need you
to tell me how to gain access to the passageway behind the walls.”

He watched her face turn pale. “Why?” she
asked, her eyes darting nervously from him to Marcus and back again.

“I think you know why,” he answered.

Lips parting, she dropped the book to the
floor. “Has something happened?” she questioned.

He went to her, took her by the arm. His
grip was strong, tight, and she flinched. “Show me,” he ordered.

“Garrick—”

“Show me!” he shouted.

“There isn’t an entry point in this room,”
she said, wincing from the constriction of his fingers.

“Show me.” This time the words were soft
though forceful, spoken from a tightly clenched jaw.

Phosphor lights beaming in the darkness,
Marc led the way down the passageway with Garrick and his wife following.
Behind them were five guards—each armed with laser pistols.

“How far are we from my office?” Garrick
asked in a low voice. He didn’t want to warn the spy they were coming.

“Another twenty feet or so,” Antonia
replied. He still had a firm grip on her arm. He hadn’t released her when she
led him to one of the passageway access panels a few doors down from his
bedroom. Not even when she reached out to push the panel that would activate
the opening.

“Smell that?” Marc asked, sniffing the air.

“Aye,” Garrick answered. He’d caught the
scent of male perspiration before his friend had.

“Gone now,” Marc said. “Must have heard us
coming.”

“There,” Antonia said. “Pull aside the
canvas. The spyholes are behind it.”

Marc stopped, turned his beam on the wall.
A two-foot-square black canvas was positioned at eye level. When he pushed it
to one side, the cutouts that would line up with the eyes of the portrait shown
from the light inside the office.

Having sent Oran to his office, Garrick
nudged Marc aside and placed his eyes to the spyholes. Oran was sitting in the
chair facing Garrick’s desk, looking bored. The young man hadn’t been told why
he’d been sent to the office, only that he was to lock himself in and not allow
anyone inside.

“Oran, can you hear me?” Garrick asked.

Oran jumped as though someone had goosed
him. He leapt to his feet, his head snapping side to side. “General?” he
squeaked.

Garrick smiled then stepped back. He thrust
two fingers through the cutouts. “Look at the painting,” he said, wiggling his
fingers. “Tell me what you see.”

“Gawr,” Oran said. “Will you look at that?”
He walked around the desk. “I see your fingers, General.”

“Well, that answers whether or not a spy could
hear anyone talking in there,” Marc said. He was three feet away and had
clearly heard Oran’s words.

“You can leave now, Oran. Lock the door
behind you,” Garrick ordered.

“Aye, Sir!” Oran acknowledged.

Turning from the spyhole, Garrick leveled
his stony stare on his wife. “How many such viewpoints are there within the
castle?”

“I don’t know exactly how many,” she said
in a listless voice.

“Barrison,” Garrick said to one of the
armed men. “Take my lady-wife back to our quarters and make sure she stays there.”

“Garrick…” Antonia began but he let go of
her arm, pushed her toward Barrison then turned his back on her.

“I’ll deal with you later,” he said
stonily. “Marc, let’s see where this passageway ends.”

He’d already learned from his wife that the
passageways were like arteries through the keep. They bisected one another with
ramps instead of stairways leading from one floor to the next.

“It never occurred to me you were being
spied on. I know that sounds like a lie but I swear to you, it isn’t,” she said
and he heard the truth of her words but chose to ignore it.

“Let’s go, milady,” Barrison said.

“Please be careful!” she called out.

“She knows they are in here,” Marc
commented.

“Of course she does,” Garrick snapped. “Why
the fuck we didn’t think of it pisses me off.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“I know what I’d like to do about it but I
vowed not to lay a hand to her in anger,” Garrick said. “But if ever a woman
deserved to have her ass lit up, it’s mine!”

“Spare the palm and spoil the bride,” Marc
said with a chuckle. He swung his light from side to side. “Intersecting
passage ahead.”

* * * * *

Antonia waited a good five minutes after
Barrison closed the bedchamber door before she rushed to the hidden panel that
would give her entrance to the passageway behind their bedchamber wall. She had
hated to lie to Garrick but common sense warned that he didn’t need to know
there was a way into the passageways from his own room. She pushed against the
panel and it sprang open on well-oiled hinges, so silently she knew the guard
could not have heard. Slipping into the opening, she quietly pulled it shut
behind her then fumbled on the wall to find the phosphor light so she wouldn’t
blunder in the darkness. Although Garrick and his men were on the other side of
the keep she knew it wouldn’t be long before they started traversing the
interconnecting passageways. She had a narrow window of time to get down to the
lowest level. There was no way her husband could find the entry point to the
shelter where she knew Alyx and his men were safe from discovery. She had to
get down there, warn them then get back to her room before Garrick discovered
she was gone. She prayed none of the rebels were lurking about in the
passageways. There was no doubt in her mind if Garrick caught them, they would
hang.

“I can’t let you hurt my people,” she
whispered. “No matter how much I love you.”

She stopped dead in her tracks.

“I love you,” she repeated and realized it
was true. She had never spoken those words to him though he had said them to
her many times.

Thinking about the times when he had told
her he loved her, the regret in his eyes when she did not reciprocate, she
wondered if he thought she had no feelings for him.

And now he suspected she had betrayed him
if not in action then in keeping secrets from him. There had been a moment
before he’d turned away from her when she’d seen his disappointment, the
disenchantment, and growing hurt.

“I haven’t betrayed you,” she said. “I
haven’t.”

But she doubted he saw it as anything but
betrayal.

Feeling like the worst kind of traitor, she
continued on her way.

* * * * *

“By the goddess there must be ten miles or
more of tunnels through this goddess-be-damned keep,” Marc complained. “The
rebels could be anywhere.”

“Aye, and we’ll ferret them out,” Garrick
told him. He armed away sweat from his brow for it was hotter than hell where
they stood. The rest of the passageways had been cold but they were close to
the castle’s solar generators that fed the lighting system.

“Where to now?” Marc inquired.

Garrick surveyed the six passageways that
led away from the area where they stood. “I don’t have a fucking clue,” he
replied. To say he was discouraged would to put it mildly. Already they’d been
down in the musty tunnels for well over two hours.

They’d found evidence that spies had
trekked repeatedly from Garrick’s office to one of the main passageways. The
evidence of their passing was the pathways clear of cobwebs and the numerous
footprints through the dust. There was also the stench of unwashed bodies and
the sour smell of piss.

“Well, it can’t be either of those
passageways,” Marc said, turning his light on the two he indicated. “The dust
is an inch thick on both of those.” He switched to the next two. “Same there.”

That left the two openings closest to them
and each one had signs of being tramped.

“We could split up,” Garrick suggested.
“I’ll take Foster and Heath. You take Newbert and Somes.”

“Seems as good a way to cover them as not,
but what if my passageway splits off like this one did?”

Garrick shrugged. “Chances are it will. If
there are too many of them, let me know.” He gave Marc a long stare. “Quietly.”

Marc nodded. The four men with them were
Modarthan but none of them had psychic ability.

Setting off down the passageway directly in
front of him, Garrick’s mind was a seething nest of angry vipers. Each viper
had a name and it hissed at him with every step he took.