FIERCED 2: A stepbrother Romance (4 page)

The drumming rises in intensity, getting louder and faster, encouraging the dancers into more vigorous movements and drowning out the roar of the engines from the distance. The raiders are on us and swarming through the crowd before we know what's hit us.

Chapter FOUR

It feels as though a grenade has exploded in the middle of the fire pit. People erupt and throw themselves in every direction as the bikes crash through the middle of the crowd that had been dancing joyously only moments before. A mass confusion of terrified hurtling bodies, dashing away, anywhere out of the eye of the storm.

The men on bikes wear dark green camouflage uniforms and wield huge sticks. Then I realize that the sticks are actually machine guns and they're using the barrels as swatters, to bash people out of their path.

What are they doing? What do they want other than to bash innocent people about the head?

I have no answers but automatically my hand reaches beside me to where my camera sits and I surreptitiously remove the lens cap. Sitting as quiet and unobtrusive as possible while the torment rages all around me, I snap the unreasonable cruelties inflicted by the raiders in close up.

There's no money for them here. There's no opposing military force. Just a group of people tossed out of their homeland and forced to exist as best they can. What purpose is this brutality serving?

No one notices me as I fill my camera's card with hundreds of shots. This time I'm glad for my invisibility. Then I stand and carefully back away, never moving the camera from my eye. So I don’t see the biker turn an arc and skid into a stop beside me.

The enraged face shouts abuse into mine, screaming the same thing over and over which I don't understand. Then he pulls me half onto the seat, between his legs, half strapped under his arm like a baby and he kicks the throttle to rev across the sand. This time I'm terrified at the forced abduction.

My heart tries to rip a hole through my chest and suddenly there's no air left in the desert. Hauling in a mouthful of the cold night, it gets stuck halfway down my throat like a chick bone. Despite the fear shivering across my skin, I manage to grip tight to my camera and continue firing the shutter at the scene of near carnage behind us.

A woman bravely steps in front of the bike, trying to stop him from escaping with me. When the gang member whacks her forehead with his gun barrel, I see it's my new friend.

“Nassima,” I cry. Blood trickles down her cheek but her face displays greater concern for me. I snap five quick shots of her receding dismay.

And now that's my biggest concern. Greater than the likelihood that I'm going to be killed or abused even worse than I was by the brute on the boat, I'm really upset that my photos will be lost. No one will ever see the truth of what's happening to these displaced peoples. My father will never understand that I can do this. I really can. I'm not the dumb young woman kept safe at home, going to the arts academy until some nice young diplomat on the rise takes me on. I've got shit to say. And I really want to say it.

I crane my neck around to see where we're headed. At the top of a dune, an open truck waits, the back jammed full of more militia holding guns. Their faces covered by red kerchiefs tied around their mouths so only the sinister black almond eyes show.

As we approach, the truck starts to move and the other riders on bikes start to pull up alongside, leaving the compound. They got what they came for. A foreigner to ransom. For real this time. Me. And it won't end well because I know my father will absolutely not deal with a terrorist group. To do so would encourage a slew of other foreigner kidnappings.

I make the instant decision to drop my camera. It's agony but I let it fall from my hands as close to the ground as possible. My eyes peel to check whether any of the rebel bikers notice it land but they keep on riding in our wake. It's safe, buried under a layer of sand topsoil until someone uncovers it. Which is unlikely but if someone ever discovers it at least my disappearance won't have been for nothing. Maybe my legacy will serve some purpose. The most important thing is to get my work seen and this horror exposed.

Darkness falls fast in the desert, like someone pulled the drapes over the sky. Now that I have nothing to cling to and protect, my body rips into what I know is complete ice cold fear. I'm shaking and pounding and my mind is blank. All I can do is cling to some metallic mechanical part of the bike for any sort of hold and pray to anyone and everything that they don't hurt me.

In my mindless terror state, I can't sense a thing. The sound of the engine is a dull roar, growing louder and louder until we skid in a swerve to one side and my captor flies from the bike. The old machine collapses to the ground on its side, thankfully I'm on top rather than underneath and gas is leaking from the engine. I try to extricate myself but something is caught behind me, a strap or something is hitched and I can't find it to free myself. Oh fuck, am I going to go up in a fireball explosion alone in the desert?

I hear the rage of engine turn and come towards me instead of receding. The gang have noticed our wipe out and are coming back for me. It's not arrogant to say I'm too valuable a prize to give up. I pull and tug hysterically at whatever is caught behind my back and suddenly I pop free. Two burly hands, out of view at my back, grasp for me but the rage explodes inside my chest and I break free.

I stride across the sand, bending to pick up the gun as I go. In the same move, I lift it high and bring it down on the guy's head. He's already barely conscious and bleeding from Rocco's beating but I'm not finished with him. Nassima's stricken face fills my mind and I smash the barrel into his shoulder over and over, pummeling down to bone until thick arms scoop me up beneath my breasts and pull me away.

“Enough. You're gonna kill him. We need to get out of here now.”

I clamber on the back of the bike and we take off across the sand, hightailing it away from the truck racing toward us. I rest my cheek against Rocco's solid sweat-soaked back and hug tight around his steel abdomen.

“You came for me,” I whisper into his salt smoke aroma. As we fly off the dunes away from the militant gang.

The blackest night I've ever seen wraps around us like claws but we keep going. Rocco is enraged at the attack, I feel it though every sinew in his rigid torso and I wish I could stroke it away. I'd even be willing to see that smug arrogant grin if he'd only calm down and stop urging the bike's engine like he's whipping a horse on through the night.

“Thank you,” I say softly into the blade of shoulder abrading my soft cheek as I inhale his masculine scent. In that moment he pulls the bike up short, partly with the heel of his boot.

“We're gonna have to stop until dawn,” he throws back over his shoulder. “It's dark enough that we might just be going round in circles.”

“Okay.” I nod vigorously even though he can't see me. If he told me to bury myself to the neck in the sand I'd do it, I'm so grateful. At the same time I'm beyond nervous. Those crazed men are out there in the darkness, hunting us.

I watch Rocco rig some kind of shelter out of laying the bike on its side covered by a thin tarp he tugs out of the pannier. He hands me a fleece blanket which I'm even more thankful for and we climb side by side under the half covering. 

“Did they hurt you Lisa?” he says to the night sky.

“No.” I thought he was asleep he was so quiet up until then. The sand beneath me shifts without me moving and I freak. As usual the least likely thing has me agitated bit I really hate the creeping crawlers. “What kind of poisonous bugs are there out here?”

I had to ask.

“Scorpions, rattlesnakes. Sand fleas. Those aren't deadly though, they just itch like a bitch.”

“Okay stop. I don't want to know after all.”

“The way you kicked ass on the militia guy, any bugs will be hightailing it in the opposite direction right now. You were fearsome.”

“I was?”

“Fuck yeah.  I was scared you were gonna come for me next. Feisty doesn't even cover it, you rocked it.”

“Oh.” Is he complimenting me or telling me I'm a hard bitch? I can't tell if he likes that I got feisty or he thinks I'm a freak. “He hurt Nassima. I wasn't going to let that go.”

“And I won't let it go when anyone hurts
you
,” he says.

I scoot a little closer to Rocco stretched on his back and he puts an arm around me. I lift my head so he can wrap around my body then edge closer to rest my head against his chest. His heart is the strongest thud imaginable. The man has life blazing through him without fail. I feel my own do a flutter dance under my breasts which are tingling from being pressed against the solid casing of muscle covering his ribs. I have to swallow hard because otherwise I feel like I'm going to cry. It's ridiculous. After everything I've been through in the last twenty-four hours and not shed a single tear, it's weird to be welling up now.

Suddenly streams, rivers, of water are pouring from my eyes and I can't disguise the sob that racks my body. Then another gulping blub erupts from me against Rocco's chest.

“It's okay,” he says, pulling me closer into him so I'm crushed in his iron coil of arm muscle. “You're safe. I will never let anyone hurt you.”

“What happened back at the camp?” I blubber. Suddenly the thought of those happy people hurting is unbearable.

“They came for a payday like always. A scout must have seen us cross the desert and they came looking to hijack our supplies. They found a better investment in you though.”

“So no one was too badly injured?”

“They left the camp right after grabbing you. You were the big bounty.”

I want to ask him why he hadn't stayed to protect his girlfriend but something stopped me. He reaches up with his other hand to lift my chin between his finger and thumb.

“I promise no one is ever going to harm you Lisa,” he says. “Not one fucking hair on your head. Not while I'm around. I committed to that the first moment I set eyes on you.”

The first moment? Didn't he hate my guts that moment? His other arms circles me and crushes my chest into his. My breasts pulse with the connection of our heartbeats and he tips his head down until his lips make contact with my hairline. I immediately feel energy surge back through me from his closeness. His mouth remains buried half in my hair, part searing my skin, filling me with his power. He strokes across until he meets skin and presses firmly into my forehead with more caring than I could imagine.

My heartbeat surges and before I know what I'm doing, my hand has spiraled up around Rocco's solid neck. At the same time I turn my head up toward his face, I feel the muscles of his neck under my fingers reach forward, bending further down to claim my mouth with his. For an instant that could be a lifetime my body goes blank with the impossible pleasure flooding through it, eradicating every vestige of fear and sorrow. His tongue entwines with mine, probing and pulling until I'm delirious with need.

I probably shouldn't even recount what happens next but it's too amazing to remain a secret.

We're like the starving, tearing into each other. His hands grip each side of my head to hold me still while he kisses deep into my mouth. Then he tears the loose tank off my shoulders and trails his gorgeous lips along the width of my collarbone, pulling the strap further down with each brush of his lips until my breast falls free and he tugs the peak into his hot mouth. He laves his tongue across the nipple as he flips my other breast free, the strap that had held me trapped to the bike had been torn loose.

Cupping the sides of both mounds he sucks one then the other until the nipples are engorged with lust and pushing for more. My eyes flick open from the shock of the desire coursing through me and I notice the million starpoints above us pricking through the blackest night.

Rocco's on top of me and I feel the massive iron rod in his pants pressing into my thigh. He rolls back into the sand, taking me with him as tough I'm weightless (which right at this moment I am). For the briefest instant I'm embarrassed at sitting astride him, feeling his cock throbbing against my open pussy while he admires my naked full breasts.

Then I remember my new-found inner goddess and wantonly, I tweak my own nipples and his grin lights up the dark. He pulls me down to him hungrily and fills his mouth with both breasts at once, shoving them into tight cleavage so he can pull more of my tender sparkling flesh into his ravenous cavern.

I'm kneeled up over him and I grind my spread vulva into his packed bulge making us draw a gasp at the same time.

“Please,” I whimper, pulling him closer.

Rocco fires with hunger for possession and rolls us once more, onto my back in the sand. He rips my pants open and tears them down my legs, along with the PJ shorts I'm still wearing in place of underwear. Then he pushes my thighs open and covers my glistening spread with his searing wide mouth. I shudder as a thousand shooting stars fire through my core into my vision and grasp the back of his head before I lose my mind.

His tongue licks the length of my aroused clit and more twangs blast me apart so I have to pull his head harder into me to keep from losing the last vestige of control. It's too much. Explosive. Agonizing and delicious. I abandon myself completely to the fiery sensations he's pulling out of me. They rocket through my core like a lab experiment gone wrong. Except this is so right. It's gorgeous and it's going to blow me into smithereens. I'm panting breathlessly, my heart and lungs struggling to keep up. A high moan escapes my mouth and I slam my hands on Rocco's shoulders for support.