Ritual Sins (21 page)

“I want this over with as quickly as possible,” she said grimly.

He wondered if she could feel his smile against her skin. “I’m a Southern boy at heart, sugar,” he murmured. “I take my time.”

Another shiver rippled her skin, and he recognized her fear. He kissed the hollow of her throat, tasting her pulse. “Don’t worry,” he said. “You’ll like it. Or is that what you’re afraid of?”

“I’m not afraid of you.”

“That’s a change. Five minutes ago you said you were.”

“Are you going to fuck me or argue with me?”

The word sat strangely on her tongue. He doubted she’d ever used it in its literal context before. But then, he doubted she’d fucked much before.

He leaned over her, his body hovering above hers. “Oh, I’m going to fuck you,” he said with a breath of laughter. “Slowly, deliciously, and most royally. Now why don’t you open your mouth to do something more than fight with me?”

She struggled for a moment when he kissed her, then stopped herself, sinking back on the rumpled bed, letting her mouth go slack. The virgin sacrifice again, he thought, sliding one hand beneath her short-cropped hair and tipping her face up to his.

He’d kissed her before, when she was drugged and semicomatose, and she’d been more responsive. Now she lay there beneath his kiss, determined to show him he couldn’t move her.

She didn’t realize she was sparring with the king of determination.

He caught her lower lip between his and bit, gently. He wondered briefly whether she was turned on by pain. He hoped not—he wasn’t in
the mood for that particular kink. If the only way he could get her turned on was to hurt her he might change his mind about the whole project.

“Don’t,” she said, her voice a quiet, desperate plea.

“Then kiss me back.”

She did. Or at least she tried. She met his mouth with inexpert force, banging against him, and she ground her teeth against her lips in a furious effort.

“Not that way,” he said. “This.” And he kissed her lightly, tantalizing, nibbling on her mouth until she began to mimic him, her lips reaching for his, clinging for a brief, tantalizing moment.

He could tell the instant that it changed. That the slow, insidious warmth began to sneak beneath her defenses. He doubted she recognized it, she was too busy concentrating on kissing him back to recognize the telltale shimmer that danced across her skin, the odd, hesitant catch in her breathing.

She was a fast learner. With him, at least. A sudden gust of wind hit the trailer, buffeting it, and she let out a frightened cry, her arms coming off the mattress, around his neck in unexpected panic. The feel of his hot, damp skin must have been just as terrifying, for no sooner did she touch him than her arms fell away, back on the mattress again, and she turned her head from his mouth.

He didn’t mind. He’d already coaxed the first response from her. He could wait for more.

“You know,” he murmured, letting his hand trace delicate, random patterns up her arm, “maybe I should just get you drunk. Then you’d forget that you hate sex.”

“It’s already been tried.” Her voice was flat and uncompromising in the darkness, and he might have thought he’d imagined that brief shimmer of response. Except he wasn’t a man to imagine such things.

“Really?” His hand trailed up to her shoulder, then down again, a slow, gentle caress.

“Believe it or not, there have been other times, other men, that I’ve actually wanted to sleep with.”

“Nice euphemism.”

“Fuck you.”

“That’s what I was talking about.” She was getting more and more pissed, but it was distracting her from her fear. When she was angry she forgot she was frigid.

“Does that mean that you want to sleep with me?” he added, moving his legs closer. He wished to hell he’d taken off his jeans, but he’d figured that would send her into hysterics.

“Not in this lifetime.”

“Don’t worry,” he said, moving his mouth next to her ear. “You’ll be too busy to sleep.”

She was wearing tiny gold studs. Expensive, he thought, biting lightly. She shifted uneasily, her hands flat on the mattress, clutching the rumpled sheet.

“Can’t you hurry this up?” she demanded in a strained voice.

“Why? You got a plane to catch or something?” She smelled good. More than good, she smelled delicious. Like soap and perfume and nervous womanhood. The scent of her mixed with the damp air, and he figured she was going to get her wish if he didn’t take a deep breath and slow down.

“As soon as I can get to Mobile.”

“Well, sugar,” he whispered against her throat, “we’re not going anywhere in this storm, so get used to it. Just lie back and think of England.”

She made an odd sound. In someone else he might have thought it was a laugh, but as far as he could tell Rachel Connery had absolutely no sense of humor.

He could always see well in the dark, and even in the shadowy depths of the van he could see her martyred face clearly. Pale skin, trembling mouth, eyes tightly shut against the horrors she was about to endure. He was half-tempted to shove it in and get it over with.

If he didn’t have an important agenda, that was
exactly what he’d do. But screwing Rachel Connery wasn’t enough. He needed to subjugate her body and soul, and that was going to take a little more effort.

He put his hands on her small breasts, covering them, and she jerked nervously, then settled back again, gritting her teeth. He was right, she was too thin. If she got a little meat on her bones her breasts would swell and plump up. He’d like to see her that way. Fat and sassy. It seemed a far cry from the skinny, angry woman lying in his bed, but he could still imagine it.

He leaned over and whispered in her ear. “Roll over on your stomach.”

He’d pushed her too far. She sat up quickly, shoving him away from her. “I’ve changed my mind,” she said. “I’m getting out of here.”

“You’re staying.” He pushed her back down on the bed, allowing himself the slight relief of a little enthusiastic force.

Anger was wiping out her fear. “If you don’t let me leave it will be rape.”

He slid his hands over her shoulders, pinning her to the mattress. “So sue me.”

Outside the thunder rattled the old camper. Inside she looked up at him, her defiance vanished. “Please don’t,” she whispered.

“Sorry,” he said, covering her body with his, holding her there. “It’s too late to turn back.”

* * *

She despised herself, almost as much as she despised him. She’d chickened out, she’d begged for mercy, and all he’d done was laugh at her. They said rape wasn’t about sex, it was about anger. This horrible time in the cramped back of Luke Bardell’s old camper wasn’t about sex either, it was about intimidation and subjugation.

She could turn off her mind. He was heavy on top of her, though not quite as heavy as she expected. If she thought about it she could probably feel his erection beneath the jeans he still wore, but she had no intention of thinking about it. She wouldn’t fight him anymore, since it did no good. She’d endure.

He was hot in the damp warmth of the camper, his body hard against hers. His chest pressed against her breasts, the hair against her skin, as his hands slid up her sides, slowly, tauntingly.

She shivered in the darkness, she wasn’t sure why. He didn’t kiss like anyone else. His kisses were damp, hot, strangely disturbing. They weren’t the wet, slobbering kisses she’d had to endure before.

He covered her breasts with his big, hard hands again, and she held herself very still. Another unnerving sensation, one she had to get used to. Her skin felt hot and prickly, the sensitive flesh burning to the touch. She wanted to run naked in
the rain, feel the cooling dampness soothe her. But she was lying pinned beneath a man who intended to have sex with her, and there was no escape.

She knew he would put his mouth on her breasts, and she told herself she was prepared for it. She wasn’t.

He flicked his tongue across her nipple, like the snake in the garden of Eden, and she could feel it harden in his mouth. She kept her hands still on the mattress, determined not to fight him, when all she wanted to do was punch him when he moved to her other breast, biting this time, lightly, just enough to make her arch her hips in angry retaliation.

He probably didn’t think it was anger. He moved down her torso, kissing her belly, cradling her hips with his hands, and she shut her eyes again. Enduring. Enduring.

He pulled her legs apart, and she let him, because she wanted him to get this over with, so that she could retreat safely back into her world. She waited for him to shuck off his pants, to push and probe and hurt her, and she braced herself, biting her lip in preparation for the assault.

He put his mouth on her. His mouth, and his tongue, and she screamed in rage, hitting at him. He ignored her, clamping her hips with his hands, holding her still as she struggled in fury.

She reached down and yanked at his long hair, but he paid no attention. “Stop it,” she screamed, panting in fury. “Don’t do that.” She tried to kick him, but he had her legs imprisoned with his body, and there was no way she could escape. She could only buck and thrash, trying to stop him, trying to hurt him, trying to blank everything out of her mind and ignore what he was doing to her.

It was all part of the subjugation process, she tried to tell herself. He had absolutely no reason to want to do this to her, it would give him no physical pleasure. It was part of his plan to destroy her, and she wouldn’t let him.

She couldn’t seem to catch her breath. Her skin was on fire, her heart was racing, and all she wanted to do was get away from him. She bucked her hips, but it made no difference. Instead she felt him touch her, slide his fingers deep inside her as he used his mouth, and she wanted to scream.

For a brief moment her body convulsed, but she fought it off in terror, backing away from it. He lifted his head to look at her, and in the darkness she could see the glitter in his dark eyes, the dampness on his mouth. He wiped it against his shoulder, staring at her. “You just keep fighting,” he murmured.

“I always will. Now get off me, or finish it,” she
said fiercely, the anger in her voice covering the tremor.

He unzipped his jeans and pushed them down. She made herself look at him, to solidify her disgust. Even in the dark she could tell that he was tremendously aroused, bigger than anything she’d ever had to put up with. It would hurt even more, she thought with perverse satisfaction. She would hate it. And she would endure.

She closed her eyes, clutching the sheet again, and waited. He pulled her legs around his body, levering forward so that she felt him against her, hot, hard, probing. She wanted to tighten against him, but her body was weary of fighting. He was braced over her, teasing her, and she wanted to scream at him, to tell him to hurry up.

“You hate this, don’t you?” he murmured, his fingers in her tangled hair.

“I hate this,” she said.

“Brace yourself, sugar. I’m not finished with you yet.” And he filled her with a deep, swift shove that slid in fully, damply.

She tried to catch her breath from the shock of his invasion. No pain. It wasn’t fair—there was no pain. Just a sense of stretching, fullness, of being taken over. She clutched the sheets so tightly her fingernails dug into her palms.

She took a brief, shaking gulp of air. “Finish it,” she said in a furious hiss.

He laughed, damn him. She could feel his amusement vibrate through his body and into hers. “Finish it?” he echoed. “I’ve only just begun.”

Endure
, she told herself as he pulled out of her, then slid back in, impossibly deeper. Her body was damp, lubricated, and she could only blame him. It wasn’t her fault, she didn’t want him, she was doing this because she had no choice.

Oddly enough, she felt it first in her chest. A tightness that spiraled out to her breasts, an ache that teased and tormented her. Her stomach felt strange, gnawing, and she knew it had nothing to do with food and everything to do with hunger. He was moving, pushing deep inside her, then sliding out again, in a slow, lazy rhythm, as if he might keep doing it all night long. She tried to open her eyes, to focus on him, to focus on how much she hated him, but she couldn’t. He kissed her eyelids, thrusting deep, and she made a despairing little sound in the back of her throat.

That strange, frightening ripple began to stir within her again, and she tried to stop it once more. But it was like the alien thing inside her, growing, taking over her body that she’d once thought she controlled perfectly.

He shoved his hands under her butt, pulling her up tighter against him, pushing in deeper still. “I can keep this up all night long,” he whispered dreamily. “If I come, I’ll just get hard again.
You make me want to fuck, Rachel. I’ve been hard since the first time I saw you, and it’s going to take some time to take care of the problem. You won’t get anywhere by fighting it.”

“I won’t stop fighting you.” She could barely recognize her voice.

“I’m not talking about me. Fight me all you want. It’s your own body you’re so busy battling. And you’re going to lose.”

“No.”

“Hold on, sugar. This ride is going to change your life.”

He pulled her legs around his waist, and she was shaking so hard she had no choice but to let go of the mattress beneath her, to put her arms around his sweat-sleek shoulders and hold on. It wasn’t cold, it was hot, steamy, churning, and she couldn’t stop trembling. She wanted to scream, or cry, she wanted to hurt him, and she did, digging her fingernails into his back, scratching him. She needed something with a desperation she couldn’t recognize, she needed to get away from him, she needed to hide …

“Don’t fight it, Rachel,” he whispered again, and put his long fingers between them, touching her. “Give it to me, Rachel. Stop fighting. Now.”

It hit her with the force of an explosion, and she screamed. He covered her mouth with his, drinking in her cries, but it wouldn’t stop, wave after
wave of something that caught her body and shattered it. She felt him come, deep inside her, and it set off another series of hot, fierce clenching, lashing her body, and all the fight had been whipped from her. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, and she collapsed against the mattress, her entire body on fire.