Overlord: The Fringe, Book 2 (21 page)

“Why don’t you run away from me?” She curled to his side. “Everyone else wants to abandon me within five minutes, but not you.” She sniffed. “Nash, Duster, your doctor—I chased them off. Are you some kind of abuse junkie?”

“No. I just understand why you’re acting the way you are.”

“Yeah-huh?” She sounded dubious.

“Indeed. Three years ago I broke my leg.” He smiled down at her. “If you think you’re snarly, you should have seen me.”

“You couldn’t get out of bed?” She wriggled restlessly against him, and he helped her get more comfortable by propping the pillows behind her back and under her leg, then he snuggled beside her.

“Not for a long time.” He kissed the top of her head, marveling at the feel of her silky hair against his lips. “You and I have a lot more in common than you think. I didn’t like sitting still any more than you do, and I hated having to rely on other people.”

“I’ve never been sick a day in my life.”

“I can believe it.” He stroked her hair. “What germ would want to hang out with you all day?” She laughed, and he cupped her head. “You have the softest hair. It’s like—”

“A baby’s butt.”

He tilted her face up. “What?”

“That’s what my adopted mother Joan used to say, that I had hair as soft as a baby’s butt. She didn’t mean it mean,” Mary hastened to reassure him.

“I’m sure she didn’t. However, I was thinking more of Dardinian silk.” He trailed his fingers through her hair, brushing chestnut strands away from her face.

Mary blushed but didn’t look away. She found accepting compliments difficult because she questioned the sincerity behind them. Given her history, he couldn’t blame her.

He gazed down into her face for a long time. Mary, Mary, quite contrary. That swirling of floral citrus overwhelmed him until he couldn’t stand the torment anymore. He lowered his head and kissed her. A soft pressure at first, nibbling and slow, she tasted like a rare, rich blood orange. All sweet juice and tender flesh.

She wrapped her arms around him, pulling him tight, deepening the contact by opening her mouth and body to him. She growled as she pulled him close. Like in the dojo, the kiss went wild, fierce. His heart pounded as she kissed him with aggressive passion. He tried to be gentle in light of her broken foot, but she made urgent, hungry sounds into his mouth as she pulled his body atop hers by maneuvering his weight with the silk bedcover. Her insistent strength amazed him.

Michael helped her angle his body atop hers, ever careful of her cast-bound leg. She plunged her tongue into his mouth as her hips rose up in a swift thrust, pressing his erection tightly between them. He almost came in his pants.

“Slow down.” He lifted himself on his elbows, trying to think, to reason. A faint voice in the back of his head reminded him that he’d sworn to Duster he wouldn’t hurt her. Almost in the same breath came the realization that Duster wasn’t here.

“I don’t want it slow.” She slid her hand down his silk-covered chest to his leather-clad erection. Palming him, she lifted her hand to his button fly, grasped it and pulled. The first two rivet-buttons popped apart, but the rest held fast. Hissing a low, guttural stream of sexy profanity, she yanked at his fly with growing frustration.

Groaning, inflamed, he pushed the thin cotton of her shirt up to stroke her small, perfect breasts. Dark coffee-colored nipples tightened below the soft twisting of his fingers. The taste of her hardened him further and his now full erection made opening his fly impossible. He captured her hands and pulled them away.

She writhed, moving against him, her breath hot and fast against his neck. He slid his hand beneath her skirt and up her thighs. He wanted to tug away her panties—she didn’t have any on, and he knew why. If she couldn’t fit pants over her cast, how could she fit panties? Shocked by his discovery, he nonetheless made the most of the opportunity.

He slid his fingers against her. Entranced by the rise and fall of her hips, the luscious scent of pleasure and need emanating from her, he teased and tormented until she uttered wild animal grunts of frustration.

Her hand fumbled at his fly again, but he moved away. “No.”

“Huh?” She opened her eyes, seemed to suddenly realize what was happening, and tried to push his hands away as she lowered her skirt. “Stop. I can’t—”

“It won’t go any further than this. Let me please you. I swear, only this.” He leaned down to nuzzle her lips, distracting her while he explored the soft heat between her thighs. “Open to me.”

She sighed as she allowed him better access, her protest forgotten as desire took over. He knew she had not climaxed since she’d been in his home, as he could smell her need for release. He traced his finger up to her clit with a light stroke.

“Don’t tease me.”

Her aggressive insistence excited him. Concentrating on a quick, hard, rhythmic stroke with his thumb, he covered her mouth with his own.

Moving with his hand, she whimpered hungrily against his mouth. Her scent conveyed her longing for penetration. As his thumb grew more insistent, his fingers slid into the splendor of her lust-spread legs but made no effort to fill the passage between.

“Please, please,” she moaned.

Pulling back, he whispered, “Look at me. I want to watch your beautiful face.” He readied his fingers to thrust her to climax with the beat of his thumb, but she shook her head and placed her hands over her head in surrender.

Her eyes shut tight and her entire body trembled. When she cried out, he slanted his mouth over hers and drowned out part of her moan as he danced his strong hand between her legs. He palmed her and rocked her, kissing her as he reveled in the scent of her orgasm. Honey-slick spice.

Her hips bucked, her body begging for penetration that he held back with a teasing seduction. She climaxed again and again against his palm. Never in all his experiences had he known a reaction so primal.

The scent of her orgasm, floral citrus, verdant earth, smoky and sharp—the most intoxicating perfume he’d ever known—made his mouth water. He slid down her body, hungry for a taste of her tender flesh.

Her hot, slick thighs parted for him, and he pushed the cotton skirt farther up her belly, enjoying the tickle of her pubic hair against his chin as he moved closer to the feast he anticipated.

Her hands, clenched tightly against his head, stopped him short of his goal. He looked up into her wide, frightened eyes as the scent of her pleasure changed to fear.

“I’ll tell you, okay?”

He frowned up at her.

“I’ll tell you why, and then you let me go, okay?” Curling her legs together, pushing down her skirt, she blurted, “Weapons.” She pulled farther away from him, trembling. “There. I liberated your goods to buy weapons. You have to let me go now, since that was the deal.”

His head spun. She’d just yanked him on another screeching turn. Fear, base and dark as turned earth, pushed aside that compelling aroma of edible pleasure.

“Weapons?” He’d expected anything but that.

“Yeah-huh. Satisfied?” She looked away, red suffusing her face. “You have to let me go, since I told you the reason.”

She tried to wriggle out of bed, but he pulled her back.

Weapons would have been his last guess, and weapons on that scale? Who was she planning to…oh, no. “Killing everyone isn’t going to solve your problem.” He had to talk her out of seeking revenge on the people who’d abused her.

“I don’t want to kill everyone, just those f’idiots who—”

“I can’t let you do that.”

“What do you mean you can’t let me?” She glared up at him. “It’s none of your damned business, you arrogant bastard. Get off me!”

Despite the cast, and her still smarting hands, she struggled with him. She didn’t strike out directly, as she still feared the inert Baka bracelet, but she attempted to twist her way out of his grasp.

He pinned her wrists to the bed and used his body to hold her. “There is no way I’m going to let you arm yourself to go home and kill the folks who tormented you.”

“What are you talking about?” After a long moment, understanding rushed into her face, and her eyes widened. “You think I want to kill everyone in Pine Glenn?”

When she burst out laughing, he let go of her and sat up.

“You think killing those people who, yes, sorely deserve some kind of punishment for tormenting you is funny?”

“No, you’re funny. What kind of total freak do you think I am?” Mary snickered as she sat up. “Kill everyone. You got it bassakwards, Co-man-dur. I don’t want to kill them. Yeah, some of them richly deserve it, but no, I don’t want to kill them.”

“Then what do you need weapons for?”

“To
save
them.” She said it as if it were obvious to even the thickest dunderhead.

Perplexed, he sat even farther back. “Save them from what?”

She scowled at the far wall and crossed her arms over her chest. He despised that look of determined defiance on her face. Why did she have to make
everything
a battle royal? He calmly repeated his question. “Save them from what?”

She flashed him a quick glance and looked back at the wall. “You said if I told you why I liberated your goods, you’d let me go. I told you why: weapons. Now, you let me go.”

When she tried to slip off the bed, he pinned her down again. “Answer my question.”

She squirmed below him. Much smaller than he, she still had a compact, surprising strength. Only her cast-bound foot, injured hands and the false threat of Baka held her in check, but that didn’t hamper her much.

“I answered you. Now get off me, you big—”

“You call me one more vile name, and I promise, I’ll wash your mouth out with soap.” He wasn’t sure what frustrated him more, his thwarted sexual needs or her ever-defiant attitude.

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Try me.”

She barely hesitated. “You f’idiot.”

He leapt off her and strode to the bathroom. When he came out with one of the decorative, rose-shaped soaps in his hand, she had made her way across the bed and tried to get the crutches under her arms. He rounded the bed, took them away and pushed her back onto the mattress.

“You bastard!” She crawled away, but he pinned her and sat across her hips. “You put that soap anywhere near my mouth, and I’ll bite your damn hand off!”

“Really?” He leaned close. “What if I do this?” He kissed her. At first, she refused to kiss him back. Below his lips, all he felt was her scowl. But then, with a groan of surrender, she opened her mouth to him, and he tossed the soap aside. After a thorough kissing, he leaned back. “Now, answer my question.”

“I did.”

“You haven’t answered the entirety of why.” He kept his voice low. “Why do you want to save the very people who have tormented you your whole life?” Even with a million years, he’d never understand this compelling, infuriating woman.

“Because I have a hero complex. I think I’m Robin Hood and Overlord all rolled up into one. Chalk it up to delusions of grandeur.” She began to struggle in earnest, shoving at his shoulders. “Get off me.”

He pressed her to the bed with the full strength of his body as he pinned her hands beside her head. Silk offered her little traction but caused a lot of friction between his body and hers. Distracting as hell. If she didn’t stop, he would have to take another cold shower in the locker-room.

“What do you need to save them from?” Sexual frustration, combined with blatant curiosity, made his voice desperate, almost strident.

“If I tell you, will you help me?” Her velvet-brown eyes looked up at him with guarded hope.

Mercifully, she stopped wriggling, allowing him to regain some of his equanimity. “I might.”

She scowled and considered, debating the options in her own mind for a very long time. She finally met his gaze. “An IWOG invasion.”

His jaw dropped. Then, despite his best efforts, despite knowing it would hurt her feelings, he climbed off her and did the one thing he might never be able to come back from.

He laughed at Mary.

Chapter Twenty

Mary settled into her peach silk bed. What had she expected? Of course he laughed. Who wouldn’t? Remarkably Average Mary tries to save her world from an IWOG civilization attempt. Ludicrous. Even more so when she had a broken foot to contend with. Who was she kidding? Even with both feet, the deadliest weapons strapped to her body and a huge army behind her, just the idea would send people into gales of hysterics.

Commander stifled himself. “Oh, Mary, I’m sorry.”

He reached for her, but she moved away. “Don’t stop on my account. Have yourself a good, jolly laugh while you can, because some day, they’ll come for your world too.” She tried to slip off the bed.

“Where do you think you’re going?” He gripped her upper arm, making it damn clear he could keep her here if he wanted.

“Anywhere you’re not. Let me go.” She tried to wrench her arm out of his grasp but couldn’t free herself.

“I wasn’t laughing at you.” He sounded sincere, but his mirth still hurt. Every time she came close to trusting him, he did something to drive her away.

“Well, you certainly weren’t laughing
with
me, because I wasn’t laughing.” She tried to pry his fingers off her arm, but her injured hands hampered her efforts, and she winced back.

He must have noticed, because he let go. “I wasn’t laughing at you, but at the idea of the IWOG invading Taiga.” Rolling away from her, he sat up, cross-legged, on her bed.

“Why is that funny?”

“Because Taiga is worthless.”

Hurt, then angry, she wanted to slap him. “Not to me.”

“I mean money-wise.”

His absolute conviction shocked her silent.

“Mary, look, Taiga is a lumber planet. No heavy metals. No other valuable resources. Civilizing the planet would cost more than they could ever extract from it. Nothing moves those bastards more than the bottom line, and Taiga simply isn’t worth the effort.”

What he said made sense but conflicted with everything she’d believed in for the last five years. “Then why are they always sniffing around? If you’re so all-fire-smart, explain that.”

His expression grew grim and his dark brows drew down into a hard V. “Define sniffing around.”