Overlord: The Fringe, Book 2 (13 page)

She felt again how he slid himself against her with rough insistence, and her fingers involuntarily slid downward.

Casting her gaze around with guilty eyes, she yanked her hand out of her pants and clutched her hands into fists, trying once again to find the cameras in her bathroom.

Sexual frustration combined with terror for her precarious position compelled her to burst into tears. She ordered House to turn the lights off so she could cry in the dark.

Thinking the cameras might have infrared made her cover her face with her hands and lift her knees. She trembled as she tried to stop crying, or at least cry such that he couldn’t see.

Unable to summon the defiance to release her body sexually, she found release with tears. She didn’t know how long she sat crying with her back to the bathroom door.

A tentative knock catapulted her to a fighting stance.

It was only Clara with breakfast.

“I’m not hungry.”

After a beat, Clara trundled her cart away.

Mary undressed, then showered, trying to wash away the evidence of her physical need. When she emerged, she wrapped herself in one of the huge white towels.

House turned the lights on.

“I’ll order lights if I want them.”

House turned the lights off.

Washing out her gi pants, Mary thought back to when he’d pressed himself between her legs, and she’d damned those pesky layers of cotton, but she swore she could hear Kraft’s name on his lips as he breathed in tight gasps to her breasts.

Afraid of being a stand-in, or worse, becoming the flavor of the month, she asked him to stop. He didn’t hear her as he pinned her to the padded wall, but he heard her say
please
.

When he pulled away, looking down into her face, she became even more confused. Fury turned his face red and his breath bellowed like fire. When he swore, and set her down, she realized her perception was dead-on. Commander was livid. No doubt, his legion of sophisticated lovers had given right in, tossing up their pretty dresses to line his vast closets. He must think her a naïve girl, and she hated to admit the truth, but that’s exactly what she was.

They’d been sparring and suddenly they’d been all over each other. She couldn’t remember exactly how or why that happened. He didn’t make her because she wanted to, but then she was frightened and confused. Was this seduction for seduction’s sake? Had he made her body Kraft’s in his mind? In addition, there was that information he wanted to seduce out of her.

How could she trust anything Commander said or did? She’d be an idiot to fall into his trap. He wanted her surrender just so he could hold her foolishness over her head.

She clutched the edge of the sink and hissed every swear word in every language she knew when she realized everything that had happened was her own fault for giving in to the temptation to kiss him. For a first kiss, it had been a doozy. He had tasted so good, she literally lost her mind and forgot all about her goal. More than just dangerous, Commander could spell doom not only to her, but to the millions of innocent people she fought to save.

“I’ve got to get out of here!”

After his brief and bitter shower, Michael dressed in his customary black Byzantine leather and red Dardinian silk. Usually, he liked the way the fabrics looked on him and the way they stroked against his body. Today, the luxurious textures only reminded him of how unsatisfied he felt. No amount of showering would abate his rampaging lust for Mary.

Barefoot, he strode to the solarium.

His pants crimped his erection when he sat at the decadent table. He adjusted himself, then picked at his breakfast, trying to understand the morning reports.

He gave up after five minutes.

“House, tell me where Mary is.”

“Mary is in the bathroom off the salmon-colored bedroom, Commander,” House responded, ever precise and obedient.

“Is the door locked?”

“Yes, Commander.”

He grimaced. He wanted to talk to Mary. Apologize. Explain. But he feared if he got near enough to smell her, he would press her to the nearest wall and do his best to compel her to his bed. She evoked a passion in him he could barely control. He tried again to will his erection to subside, but it was like trying to read a book with his butt; wasn’t going to happen, not unless he could make hindsight literal and not figurative.

He ordered breakfast sent to her room.

She refused the offer through the locked bathroom door.

After changing back into a pair of gi pants, he spent four hours pummeling his dojo dummies, trying to burn off his desire. Breathless, on the floor, he ordered lunch sent to her room.

Mary refused to open the bathroom door. She told Clara to go away.

Michael spent another three hours beating the crap out of the dummies in his dojo. Sweaty, exhausted, he stumbled his way to the shower, only to find his fist still didn’t release the torment of his desire.

Craving a glass of whisky the size of a tartmelon, he exhausted himself in physical ways in the dojo, but couldn’t soothe his need for Mary, no matter how many times he took a shower. His unquenchable craving to taste her scent filled him with fear. What would happen to him if he could never fully know her? The torture would kill him.

Michael sent dinner to her room.

Mary screamed “Go away!” to Clara through the still closed and locked bathroom door.

Michael retreated to his office. He sat on his desk in the dark and looked at his array of sensors. At his command, a spotlight fixed on his favorite painting: Pyrrhic victory. Bold slashes of red, orange and black oil paint rendered success, defeat and revenge in the making.

Atop his desk, still semi-hard, assessing his empire, he thought only of Mary. He smelled her all around him. His body ached, and he wanted to put an end to this torture by forcing her to his bed. In the same breath, he wanted her to beg him to make love to her. He wanted to know her. Know her secrets and her reasons. Know her mind, body, and soul. What started as a game of seduction had morphed into a need so profound, the compulsion staggered him. A smart man would set her free. A dumb man would fall in love with her. A crazy man would try to possess the full of her.

“Call me crazy.” He cast his gaze over his shoulder to the hidden bar, longing for a drink to cushion the confusion in him. If he used alcohol to wipe away the stench of his past or the lingering essence of Mary, he couldn’t participate fully in his future or the joy of actually possessing Mary. He turned his back on the bar with a deep sigh.

Mary defied, baffled, compelled, and frustrated him. He’d met all kinds during his life, but never anyone like her. She was strong, yet weak in surprising and teasing ways, vulnerable ways. He could destroy her if he chose to do so and destroy himself in the process: a Pyrrhic victory.

“I could order you bound to my bed, and you’d enjoy my aggression as much as I would enjoy control.”

His gaze settled on the audvid that showed her still closed and locked bathroom door. He could kick that door down with one well-placed blast.

As much as the thought of possessing her thrilled him on a sexual level, control disturbed him on an emotional one. He could overwhelm her and force her to submit to him. Her beautiful eyes damn near begged him to overpower her. She wanted him to take control, and he knew it, but she couldn’t let herself give in. She feared her own passion, feared that she found his aggression arousing.

Captor and captive. Control and submission. As much as he wanted to possess her, she wanted the same damn thing, but he couldn’t. Once the desire between them erupted, then faded, she would have regrets and blame him. He couldn’t bear to see hatred in her eyes, or hear disdain flow from her vicious tongue.

He let his gaze drift to his painting again, but a flicker across the audvid drew his attention. Mary opened the bathroom door, darted across the floor, and threw herself into bed. One glance of her terrified eyes over the edge of the covers made him turn the audvid off.

He ordered all the office lights off. He sat on his desk in the dark. Repeatedly he felt an urge to stride into her bedroom. Repeatedly he fought the urge down. In the end, he left his office behind and went to the locker-room shower.

Chapter Twelve

Nose pressed to the glass wall of the solarium, Mary peered into the beautiful, lush green birdcage and sighed. She wished to taste the crystalline water, smell it mixed with the thick, emerald foliage, hear the brightly plumed birds squawk and flutter their wings. What would the air taste like in there? She imagined it would be rich and thick, wholly unlike the forest of Taiga. On the other side of this prison was a glass-encased tropical paradise, hot and moist.

She tugged her pants away from the V of her thighs.

Speaking of hot and moist.

When she awoke this morning, she discovered her homespun pants and shirt, along with her cotton underclothes, neatly folded, stitched and clean, waiting for her at the foot of her bed. A small victory, but she went through her morning ritual with nothing but Commander on her mind.

Trying to distract herself with thoughts of everything from quadratic equations to the particulars of Universal grammar, she couldn’t even summon the sour puss of Mrs. Roth to stop her one-track mind.

Commander. Hard. Pressed right up against where she was all hot and moist. Every swing of her legs rubbed the cotton of her panties against that heat.

She pulled her pants away, tried readjusting her panties, and then gave up when she only excited herself further. If she’d ignored the cameras in her room, she could have dealt with this problem last night, but she hadn’t dared. House confirmed a camera in her bedroom. If she would have slipped her hand below the covers to attend herself, he could have watched.

Somehow, the thought of Commander watching only excited her more, but in the end, she’d fallen asleep curled on her side. Deep in the night, vivid dreams of Overlord wearing Commander’s face as his wide body thrust into hers catapulted her to the edge of climax. Her trembling body woke her, and she peered around the room with guilty eyes as her hand nestled between her drenched and unfulfilled thighs. She would have killed for sixty seconds of privacy. Hell, three seconds would have been enough.

With sharp clarity, the mirror above her bed made perfect sense. It was so she could watch him. Watch every thrust of his hips as he rocked between her legs.

A cold shower didn’t help. She dressed and left her room. Given her druthers, she would have gone for a long, hard run on a rocky forest path until her body collapsed, exhausted. Then, she would have dragged herself over and jumped into Ice Lake. If that hadn’t quashed the erotic thoughts, she would have gladly drowned herself.

Nothing on her own planet had ever compelled her as Commander did. One kiss and she’d forgotten all her goals. Like a blithering idiot, she’d been subject to the whims of her body. Such a rush compelled her to twine her body to his and everything else became pointless, futile. All she wanted in that moment was more of him.

She closed her eyes. As surely as he owned the luxury around her, he owned her life and her body as well. Commander could shoot her, drug her, torture her, do whatever he pleased, but he hadn’t.

Well, there was that idea of torture.

At first, she’d imagined herself languishing in a cell, with red-hot pokers and such. She had no idea his version of torture would involve a dark submissive bent in her own nature.

Torture. Yeah-huh. A great big load of hard, hot male pressed against her welcoming body
was
torture. And he knew it. He
had
to know it. She’d been so wet she couldn’t believe her pants didn’t slide off her hips of their own accord.

If he’d demanded, right then and there, her reason for liberating his goods, or any other secret she possessed, she might have screamed it from the top of her lungs without a second thought in her charged-up brain. She might have confessed to every real or imagined darkness in her soul. Anything. Everything.

To make him stop or continue?

With a frown, she tugged at her creeping panties again.

Had she stayed in the dojo, he would have taken her, her consent or not. They both knew that her consent was a foregone conclusion. He had it, and he knew it, but he let her go. He stood hard and frustrated as he watched her run away, and she didn’t know why. How could she face him again?

“You want to go outside.”

She whirled around.

Commander stood on the threshold of the solarium. Red silk, black leather, big bare feet. Crisp and bold. He didn’t smile but appraised her with an auctioneer’s critical eye.

“Yeah-huh. I want to go outside.” Triumphant at wearing her own clothes, she plopped herself into a chair at the table, plucked up her napkin and dropped it to her lap. “Not like you’d let me.”

Play it cool, or at least vaguely pissed off.

“Indeed.” He poured his body into his chair like a slow drop of maple in winter.

Deceptively sexy.

She looked away so fast she managed to scoot her chair out from under her own fanny and thumped to the floor, right at his large bare feet. Mortified, she moaned a string of expletives as she leapt up and kicked her chair into the wall of glass.

Unbelievably, the glass didn’t shatter into a billion shards. Like a drum skin, the windows bounced her chair back at her, knocking her down. All the while, he got a ringside seat.

As she lay again on the floor at his feet for a second time, she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Flexiglass.

“Damn it to the vast reaches of hell!” She shoved her chair away and brushed herself off as she stood, blushing furiously.

Danger. Her eyes riveted to her wrist. Baka. Kicking her chair into the glass went beyond aggressive. Why hadn’t her locator, locker and luller injected her with Baka?

As if he read her thoughts, Commander calmly said, “I cancelled the order yesterday, remember?” He nodded to the chair at his left.

She went to his right, yanked the chair back, flipped it around, sat and looped her arms over the back. “That’s right. Lucky me. I’m still alive, when by all accounts I should be dead. Or rather, screaming insane in my own mind by Baka.”