Born

14

Gentle fingers stroked across his cheek and a low, husky voice called out softly, “Cormack, can you hear me?”

He didn’t want to wake up, to leave this dream world where her touch held concern instead of greed, tenderness in place of selfishness. Then he remembered the Cyborgs. Forcing his eyelids open he took in Allora, clad only in her shift, red gold hair spilling free down her back. The soft look on her face combined with her calming caress made him ache deep inside, her beauty unfathomable. The feel of her skin maddened him. He needed her to back off at the same time he craved more, her whole body pressed against him. Throat dry he rasped, “Don’t touch me.”

Her hand jerked back as though he’d burned her.

Expression shifting from concerned to remorseful in an instant. “I’m sorry, does it hurt?”

Yes, but not in the way you think. “I can stomach no more of your teasing, witch.”

“What are you talking about?”

Someone had covered him with a thermal blanket and bound his hands above his head. From the rawness on his throat, he knew which someone to blame. “Where are they?”

She blinked, as if his question surprised her. “Are you talking about the Cyborgs that brought us here?

They have been gone for hours, left us right in the vehicle. I already tried to start it but it’s coded to their thumbprints. We’ve been secured for the night.”

“So I am chained for your pleasure then, Task Mistress?”

Her eyes narrowed. “You are chained because you attacked your rescuers and cursed at me when you left me no choice but to stop you. I wanted to make sure you had come to your senses before I let you up.”

In a hard tone he gritted out, “Forgive me, for I was Bred to kill Cyborgs and don’t know how to react when the woman I am bound to protect runs off with them!”

Slinging a leg over his torso, she straddled him, bent low over his face. “I must have damaged your brain when I cut off your air. I did not run off with them.”

The feel of her soft, smooth skin against his sides, her hair spilling around his face, brought forth his baser urges. She invaded every sense, her essence being absorbed through his pores, setting his libido on fire. Struggling against his desire, the need binding him in even thicker chains, but he was determined not to go under again. “What did you intend, Task Mistress? Was I to be your personal whipping boy, the creature you tormented when you couldn’t fight back?

Or perhaps a love slave, hidden away and only allowed out of shackles to pleasure you when you grew wet and needy between your shapely thighs. I know which fate I would prefer.”

The air escaped her lungs as though he’d socked her in the abdomen. “Is that what you think? That I would use you to fill my needs then toss you aside like so much trash?”

Cormack didn’t reply.

“For your information, I had to negotiate to get them to rescue you.” She bent to the side, her hot core sliding across his stomach as she fumbled with her discarded armor. Her fingers groped with a loose thermal plate that did not nest against the others as it should. Wiggling it free, she let it clatter to the floor, and then withdrew a flat object. “They sought this.”

The journal, just as he had believed. “Then why do they not have it now?”

Her lips twitched, as though a smile lurked just beneath the surface. “Because I didn’t tell them where it was yet.”

The craftiness on her face stirred his desire, whipping it up to a fever pitch. He was a sick bastard for delighting in her darkness, for wanting her even though he knew she would hurt him time and again without fail. Allora had proven she was only out for herself, would manipulate whichever man offered her the biggest prize. He stared at her mouth, yearning for another taste. “Let me up.”

Her amethyst eyes glinted again with a secret fire.

“I’m not sure that I want to.”

His cock went from acutely aware of her, to throbbing painfully, begging for her attention. The blanket tented around him, the warm fabric creating a maddening friction on his sensitive shaft. “What do you want?”

Even white teeth sank into her fleshy lower lip as she traced her palms lightly over his shoulders. “To assure myself that you are alive, to touch you.”

“Do it then,” Bucking wildly beneath her, all the pain and humiliation burned to ash in the fire of his lust. She owed him this, damn it, for betraying him twice in one day.

The look in her eyes caressed him, as she studied every feature. “I thought you were going to die, that we both would.” Her thumbs flicked over his nipples and he hissed out a breath.

Do not fall under her spell again! “We still might, Allora. Do you know why they want you?” Stay focused!

Nodding her head, she skimmed her palms back up over his pectorals, just as when she’d bathed him.

“They said my father wants to see me.” Her head lowered and he gasped as the wet heat of her mouth closed over his nipple. Heels digging into the cold metal floor, his hips jerked up and the blanket slid over his throbbing shaft.

Don’t surrender to her. The fog of need clouded his mind, making reasoning nigh impossible. The scent of her arousal filled the small space, slipping through the cracks in his resolve, widening them so his foundation started to crumble as she licked her way up his neck.

“And what of your betrothed? How many times do you suppose he will forgive your indiscretions?”

She pulled back, and he bit back a groan, seeing her nipples puckered against the thin fabric. “Are you talking about Gaul? I was going for his sword.”

“Yes, but now his sword isn’t here so you’ll have to make due with mine. If I hadn’t felt the evidence of your virginity myself, I’d never believe it, for you seem to find a man wherever you go.”

Her lips parted in shock, and she said nothing, just stared down at him for a full minute. Grinding his molars together he refused to lessen the silence.

Hurting her was the only option left to him—he needed her to stop before she claimed his heart with her lies.

“I can’t figure you out, Cormack. You say you don’t want to die, then go quietly to the draining chamber, begging me to go on without you. Now you’re vile to me because you mistakenly believe I was prepared to do exactly that. Even though I was ready to die with you, that I traded the most valuable object I have ever possessed to rescue you!”

How I want to believe. Cormack felt a tearing, as though his heart burst from his chest to go to her.

Panicking, he said the first thing that came to mind.

“So are you going to fuck me or not?"

He’d hope his crassness would shock her, but his task mistress was not so easily cowed. “Is that what you want, for me to fuck you?” Reaching around behind her back she made contact with his blanket covered cock, gripping him so hard he shouted out loud.

Her eyes glowed, studying his face for his reaction as her fingers slowly stroked over the length of him.

“Do you know what I think? I think you like to push me, provoke me until I’m rough with you. Is that what you want, to be gentle with me while I dominate you?”

At her words, his balls drew up tight and he fought his release even as the seed climbed his shaft.

The vivid memory of a whip across his back, helped cool his ardor to manageable levels and he gasped.

“No pain.”

“No pain,” she confirmed. Throwing off the blanket she looked over her shoulder at his throbbing erection. Gripping him directly, skin to skin she ordered, “You will not come until I tell you to come.”

His entire body shook with the need for release but he gave a jerky nod. “Yes.”

Thumbing the slit on the head of his cock she asked “Yes, who?”

“Yes, Task Mistress.”

She nodded crisply and let him go. Fisting the fabric of her shift, she hauled it up over her head and tossed it on the floor. Seeing her astride him naked and totally in control, he let his heart go.

Truthfully, he’d never had a choice in the matter.