Wyndham tore his lips from Orèlan, and rasped
defiantly, “I
will
. . . you know I will.” He held Orèlan
securely with one arm about her waist as she crumpled to his chest,
where he could feel her heartbeat fluttering against his.
“Da, I have enough on you to make certain of
it, I am sure,” Alexei answered with an aristocratic sneer thinning
his lupine mouth and shading his crystal blue eyes. “Enough to own
you,
Khrisinan,
” he finished, preening his thin blond
mustache with one tapered finger.
“Nevertheless, Alexei,” Wyndham replied
evenly, contrary to the heat of his blood. “You
owe
me
first.”
“That I do,” Alexei agreed, crossing one leg
casually over the other. He wore a Russian Premier’s dark green
uniform with a dozen medals on the right shoulder. His sandy head
turned sharply toward the Arab stumbling upright. “Now what am I to
do with him?”
Wyndham knew that he'd won the first battle
in what would be an all out nasty war as he tightened his arm
around Orèlan and began to move. “That, my esteemed friend, is your
problem. I am taking my woman to my suite.”
He and Orèlan had barely made it through the
entryway when Alexei called out. “Why, Khrisinan? Why this
particular woman?”
Wyndham turned slowly, looking back at Alexei
as Orèlan clutched his jacket lapels. He did not look down at her
small head beneath his chin, but he could feel her trembling. “She
spurned
me once,” he hissed roughly.
Orèlan gasped at his words and Alexei
laughed, a slashing evil sound. Wyndham ignored Orèlan’s expression
as he pulled her from the room and up the marbled staircase to the
floor that held the bedroom suites. Once in the hallway though,
leading to his suite, his leg gave out under the determination he'd
been holding it to, trying to make it appear normal. He had known
any sign of hidden weakness during the first round with Alexei
would have been fatal. There was time enough for Alexei to discover
the injury. He limped suddenly and heavily, grumbling beneath his
breath he expelled, “This will not be easy.”
“You hate me!” Orèlan gasped, breathless at
being forced to keep up with him until now.
Wyndham ignored the question completely and
the newest brace of fears showing in Orèlan’s incredible
golden-amber eyes as he stopped before a footman stationed in the
hallway. Still holding firmly onto Orèlan’s slender arm, he
addressed the footman. “See that Mademoiselle Becou’s entire
belongings are brought to my suite as soon as possible.”
“No!” Orèlan exclaimed, trying to pull her
arm free from his relentless grasp. “I will not be made
your-your-.”
“Whore,” Wyndham supplied gratingly, as he
pulled Orèlan away from the footman, while she sputtered wordless
sounds in her apparent indignation. Which ultimately suited him
completely, because he needed her distraction to get her into his
room and into his bed as quickly as possible. The next round was
certain to begin shortly. In this, he would never give Orèlan
leeway. Never, until they were well away from Valcourt . . . and
then-.
“I will not do this! You-you,
barbaro!
” Orèlan cried, as he literally twirled her into his
suite, slamming the door shut behind them. His hands became filled
with plum-colored silk and supple woman as he lifted Orèlan easily
into his arms and limped to the bed, while she pounded his
shoulders ineffectually. “Wyndham, after all I do for you! How! How
could you do this to me?” she cried.
She was spirited and feisty, true to her half
Latin, half French heritage. However, he continued to ignore her
outrage as he dumped her onto the bed in a pool of purple silk and
heaving creamy-white bosoms. He was extremely perturbed, because
he'd just realized in the gambit that he played, that he was going
to need Orèlan’s partial cooperation.
Christ
, it was
emasculating when a man could no longer dominate on top of a good
screwing, because his knee would no longer hold him up.
“If you wish to return to Alexei or to the
Arab’s immediate attentions, Spitfire . . .” Wyndham bowed
arrogantly as he shrugged out of his shirt. “Be my guest.”
“You–
you
wouldn’t!” she stuttered
helplessly as the apricot glow of her beautiful complexion paled.
Christ,
she was voluptuous in her femininity. The silk she
wore did nothing to hide her splendid curves, her womanly delicate
bone structure, all of which was an exquisite backdrop to her
glorious head of waist-length chocolate colored black hair.
“Become my whore or theirs,” he stated
grimly. “It is the
only
choice you have, Spitfire . . . the
only one you have had ever since you became Alexei’s
possession.”
“Oh! I never would have believed this of
you-u . . .
Oh
-Oh! What are you doing, Wyndha-!”
Orèlan squealed, but the bed quilts from
where he had unceremoniously flipped her onto her stomach moments
ago muffled the sound. “I take that as a yes,” he responded tightly
as he planted his good knee into the small of Orèlan’s slender
spine, while his fingers promptly worked to undo the hooks down the
back of her gown. He quickly assessed that cooperation on Orèlan’s
part appeared to be out of the question. He would have to
improvise. Alexei was
not
taking his woman. His? Damn.
“Oh, you-you beast!” Orèlan shrieked, as she
tried to buck her backside upward and kick her calves at the same
time. Only succeeding in helping him to remove her gown and
camisole, down over said . . . oh hell . . . luscious ass!
“I never should have stolen those dispatches
for you,
Inglès!
Oh!”
Wyndham felt the sweep of rage and terror
combined, leaving him senseless for a terrible moment as his broad
hand grasped the graceful column of Orèlan’s tender throat, from
where he'd twisted her harshly onto her back. Not quite realizing
his own strength, he leaned his chest forward over her plump bare
breasts, until his face was inches from where he held her. She
clutched the column of his wrist as he fingers flexed over her
throat, barely allowing her to breathe. “Never!” he hissed
viciously.
“Say
that in Valcourt again!”
“But-but,” she panted, while her gold eyes
glazed with emotion.
Damnation, she was going to fight him.
Wyndham’s hand tightened more around Orèlan’s throat, making her
whimper, probably leaving bruises. Why did she have to be so damn
passionate? So passionate that her emotion overlooked the dangers
completely and became tied in justice and reason.
He had her naked. Except for her stockings,
garters, and green velvet slippers. Completely stripped bare, down
to the black-mahogany curls adorning the mysteries and the fertile
pull of her sex. His nostrils flared with the knowledge. His
muscles tensed, like a male scenting its mate. He could have wished
. . . He dropped his head believing that he could have wished to
court this woman in another time and place, a woman exactly like
this, in some fanciful notion that never existed for him, but
instead he . . .
“Damn,” he cursed roughly as his fingers
collared Orèlan’s throat and he did what was necessary to save
them. Especially her. “You
will
obey me, Spitfire!” he
finished with a lethal hiss.
Chapter Three
Orèlan understood that she had never
experienced such an expanse of raw emotion before! Would Wyndham
kill her? . . . would he rape her? . . . would he save her? She
wanted to cry out in anguish, and as was always her means, she
wanted to spit out words and bravado in defiance at Wyndham, to
hide her complete terror.
Not of Wyndham though, she suddenly realized.
Strangely, never fear of him, even though he held her as though he
would strangle her in any moment of his choosing. But she was not
afraid of him . . . of Alexei, of being captured at Valcourt,
yes
. But not of Wyndham, even though she understood what he
meant to do to her. How he meant to take her. However, it was
better to happen with her golden puma, Wyndham. He was a fierce
predatory mountain lion. Golden and sleek with steely pronounced
muscle, yet most important, he had caring for her. He would take
her . . . he would mate her, but once he possessed her and even
before, he would rage his power and strength against any odds to
protect her from the darkly evil Alexei.
Yes, deep inside she knew all of these
things. But still, the lighter tracings of her personality, the
ones closer to the surface and more engaged in the moment, these
fought with her fear and did not allow her claiming to be easy or
complete. It was the foolish woman inside of her. It was the one
that desired Wyndham so strongly. The one that had claimed Wyndham
at first sight so many years before.
“You,
barbaro Ingels
, you will never
have me!” she cried, twisting beneath Wyndham, fighting his
dominance, engaging his mastery with all her feminine power.
He rumbled once, deep inside his chest. It
was a growling answer to her challenge as his purply blue eyes
arced sapphire fire, and his face planed along rugged masculine
bone.
“You will
beg
to please me, Spitfire,”
he hissed sharply. “Beg me!”
Orèlan fought Wyndham frantically as he
pulled her upright. She tried to bite and scratch him as he easily
. . . too easily shifted their positions and propelled her belly
and hips face down over his sinewy thighs. Then, he caught her
wrists together behind her back. She screeched and tried to buck
off his thighs as he lifted one iron-muscled leg and caught the
back of her struggling knees, holding her in place with her bottom
bared and helpless to his view.
“
What
are you doing?” she cried in
frustration and anxious confusion. She did not understand this . .
. what he might do and she was completely unprepared for . . .
Slap! Slap! Slap!
Wyndham was spanking her! Orèlan choked on
her cry, and on the burn of humiliation that caught in her throat
as Wyndham’s abusing hand came down across her naked bottom harder
than before.
Smack! Smack! Smack! Smack!
“Dios!” she yelped, and she squirmed
uselessly as tears burned her eyes and Wyndham slapped her
struggling buttocks again.
This was a spanking!
But it was
also a thrashing. It hurt so badly!
Wack! Wack!
“No-nooo!” she gasped with a careening sound.
Oh dios
,
her bottom stung!
If Wyndham continued to
spank her much more . . . “Oh!
Ohhh!”
Slap! Slap! Slap!
“N-ple-ease!” she sobbed.
Smack! Smack!
“S-stop! Stop-p!” she cried in garbled sobs,
tensing for the next slap of fire across her burning buttocks!
“Oh, this is superb, Khrisinan,” Alexei’s
voice sneered. “Simply superb.”
Wyndham tensed, cursing under his breath.
He'd known that he had little time, however he'd thought that he
could gain Orèlan’s compliance before Alexei showed up.
This was
not good.
However, he thought perhaps if he acted quickly, he
could keep Alexei from bringing out a whip or some other equally
deviant punishing instrument, now that the seed had been planted in
Alexei’s lewd and fertile mind.
Wyndham let loose of Orèlan’s wrists and
grasped her upper arms, turning her and roughly pulling her
upright, to face him. “Beg me for leniency. Grovel!” he hissed
through his teeth so that only Orèlan would hear, before he loudly
snapped, “Wench! You will obey me!”
“Yes-
yes!
” Orèlan cried, raising her
arms across her naked breasts and pressing her lower body into his
side, to shield her nakedness. “
Anything,
Wyndham. P-Please,
do not punish me anymore!”
Wyndham drew his arm around the supple
indentation of Orèlan’s back, holding her trembling nakedness to
him as tightly as he dared, while he turned his face to Alexei
adopting a masculine sneer of triumphant. “Satisfied?”
“Oh, my handsome-handsome Khrisinan,” Alexei
purred, while Wyndham watched Alexei’s heated ice-blue colored eyes
devouring the lines of his bared chest. It left him with a sick
crawling feeling running up his spine, as Alexei gazed at him. “You
think to save your woman from me, but will you be able to save
yourself?” Alexei finished in a husky murmur.
Wyndham wanted to kill Alexei more savagely
in that moment than any of the countless times he had wished the
same thing before. Its presence strained his brawn to tautness as a
fierce tremor curled inside him. His control was snapping as his
mind relentlessly taunted him.
How easy it would be.
How
easy. So easily, he could snap Alexei’s neck, by the mere surprise
of an attempt, an attempt that Alexei would not be expecting. But
it was that certainty, of how Alexei simply stood in front of him,
unconcerned with his own safety, because Alexei knew he held the
upper hand.
Wyndham knew if he were to kill Alexei at
this moment . . . during any moment inside Valcourt, that neither
he nor Orèlan would make it out of the palace alive. He knew that
Alexei had assassins hidden, and because of their history together,
Alexei likely had two for this suite alone. Trained killers
watching every move he was making behind hidden panels in the room.
Guarding Alexei. Heightening Alexei’s sport, they were voyeur
guards to whatever sadistic pleasure Alexei could come up with. It
would be that way throughout Valcourt. It had been that way in San
Lupe. He often wondered who might have watched him in Spain,
because he also knew that Alexei had become rich by charging money
to nobles to watch. He knew this because Alexei had told him, he
told him on the night Alexei had . . .
“Wyndham?” Orèlan whispered with fear edging
her voice. The anguished sound snapped him from being a killer to
survivor, in an instant. He stroked Orèlan’s bare waist
reassuringly, in a place that Alexei could not see as she clung to
his side with her face turned into his cheek.