Wicked Surrender (8 page)

She flicked her tongue over the tip of him then started climbing up his body.
He watched her like
a hurt animal.
She had no idea what he was thinking, but she sensed he was on the edge. And she desperately wanted to push him over.

She leaned down over his flushed face and pressed a soft kiss to his hard mouth. When he didn’t kiss her
back,
she repeated the process again and again. Finally, on the third kiss, he snapped.

With a maddening shout, he grabbed her and flipped her over. It became a fight. She struggled against him, fighting him limb for limb as he turned her onto her stomach then spread her knees wide.

“No, dammit!”

“I’ve had enough of your games,” came his dark threat.

But she fought against the hands pushing her chest into the ground, her hips back and up. She would
not
be taken like a dog. She would not lose this fight. Snarling, she kicked her legs at him, but he tightened his grip and brought his hips flush to her ass.

She couldn’t catch her breath or think quickly enough as he grabbed her hands in one of his and held them to the ground in front of her. His other hand was pushing up her skirt to her waist. Cool air breezed over her ass and she growled, the sound filled with her beast. She tried to pull her hands away, he would
not
take her like this, but somehow he was stronger. Impossible!

“No!” But he ignored her shout and ripped her panties off.

“I warned you baby,” was all he said and then plunged his cock deep inside her. Vera yelled but this time for an entirely different reason.

Deep, blossoming pleasure engulfed her like a tidal wave. He stretched her muscles wide, filled her to the brink and then some. And he didn’t stay still but pounded into her with the fervor of a man gone too long without sex.

Her fingers curled into the dirt underneath his strong hand and the only sound she could form past her lips was
“ooooh!”

Her hips curled back against him, her back arched until her hard nipples brushed against the dirt below. His free hand grabbed her hair and pulled and she snapped her teeth at him in warning. But then he relaxed his grip and grabbed her shoulder, pushing her down into the dirt. It was the most dominant of positions and Vera shouldn’t want it--couldn’t want it--yet her body was building quickly to a release that surely the entire world would feel.

He rocked within her tight
channel that
gripped his cock like a vice and groaned. He couldn’t stop. If someone pointed a gun at his head, he still didn’t know if he’d be able to stop. She felt too good, was making delicious sexy sounds that made his balls throb. He knew he was being too rough, had never been so hard on a woman before, but for some reason he couldn’t stop himself anymore than he could stop breathing.
Somehow,
he sensed that this was necessary. That she needed this as much as he did.

“So beautiful,” he said between clenched teeth. His fingers curled into her shoulder, holding her in place as he pounded harder into her tight gripping pussy.

Her moan started low then grew higher and higher until finally she was shouting his name in one long, drawn-out song. Jacks felt her pussy quiver and tighten over his
cock
as she started coming. Jesus Christ, it was unlike anything he’d ever felt. It was like her pussy was trying to milk his
semen
from hi
m
.

And as she screamed her release and trembled hard with pleasure beneath him, Jacks tightened his grip and
bore
down on her, burying
his cock deep inside her. He exploded, his come filling her in long, hard spurts.

He was trembling like a fucking leaf. Carefully he pulled out of her and fell
next to her in the grass
. Regret had him burying his face in his hand. She was so small, filled with luscious curves meant for a man’s
gentle
touch,
not the brutal pounding he’d just given her.
D
amned he’d never taken a woman like that. Had never even wanted to. Yet he
hadn’t been able to
stop himself. Hadn’t wanted to stop. Shit, he’d royally screwed up this time. It was her fault; she was like a drug.

He heard a soft moan
, a ruffling of
movement, then
felt
the soft press of her body against his. Wearily he moved his hand
away from his face to see
her cuddling up against him. She
laid
her arm across his chest and rested her cheek against his side as her leg curled over his.
             

She closed her eyes with a small smile on her face and Jacks felt something hard tug in his chest.
Well at least she wasn’t mad.
He curled his arm around her and held her close as he stared up at the canopy of trees.

Something was happening to him. She felt...good
in his ar
m
s
. For the second time that day, Jacks did something he’d never done, and fell asleep with a woman in his arms.

Chapter Six

Ariss wore her golden blond hair free and flowing down her shoulders today. Though what she just said detracted Vera’s opinion of her
and her
beauty by a lot.

“What do you mean you own
a part of
Kategan land?”

Her smile was that of
a cat about to drink
a saucer
of cream
. “My master, Claude Phelans, recently found these documents
locked away in a safe at the manor
. Deeds, in fact,
that clearly shows
that one thousand, eighty four acres of your land is actually ours.”

Vera’s mouth refused to shut. “Impossible. That’s been Kategan land
—
our
land—
for over a hundred years now.”

“Well it seems that we know differently now.”

This couldn’t be
happening
. “No way. And your Master
Claude
just h
appened to find these deeds now?
What was he cleaning out the attic?
Never mind
, I want to see the deeds.”

Ariss smiled and shook her head
sympathetically
. “Here they are.”

Vera read over them with a sickening feeling filling her stomach.
The deed was much longer than it was wide.
It was
the color of
parchment and felt rough beneath her fingertips.

She
read
the yellow document twice trying to look for any flaw. It all looked legit
, but didn’t they have lawyers for this kind of thing?
She barely kept her hand from shaking as she passed the deed to Dmetri who read it with a scowl then passed it to
a big man sitting to the right of him.

His name was Brayden, and h
e was the lead judge in all matters,
and
the lead
counsel
to the Justicars;
his was say
was final
in all judicial matters whether vampire or lykaen. The future of the Kategan pack was no in his hands--literally.

“We’ll have to verify this, of course,” Brayden sai
d. He had t
he voice of a man who
was
used to leading
armies into battle. “Our Justicars will be able to trace the legitimacy of the document. Let’s not make any rulings on this yet,
not
until we have
sufficient
proof back.
F
rom the
re
we will
discuss how much land the Kategan’s have right to.”

Vera heard herself reply but numbness fogged over her mind and body. She watched everything happen around her as if from outside her own body. The
meeting
adjourned and Jacks slipped up beside her like some white knight and rescued her back to the bedroom where the fog finally drifted away and she returned to her body.

“She’s going to take our land.”

Jacks crossed his arms in a way that meant he was all business. His eyes grew so serious that lines bracketed his eyes and mouth. He ha
d to be only in his early thirties
yet he held such character in his hard face. What had put that there? War, the military, or something else?

“How many acres do you own?”

“One thousand two hundred acres.
If she steals our land will leave us with only one hundred and sixteen.
It’ll ruin us.”

She buried her face in her hands and fought the wave of hot tears that wanted to escape. A million thoughts whirled in her mind. How was she going to tell her family? How was the pack going to deal with this
?
It was impossible, there simply
wasn’t
enough space.

“Is her deed real?”
asked Jacks.

“I wouldn’t think so. I mean, the Kategan’s have been there since the 1800s. How can they just now come out and say this?”

Jacks contemplated that. “What happens if
the deed proves true and
you refuse to give up your land?”

“We go to war with the vampires.”

“Then you need to call Vane.”

She stood and started pacing. “No
t yet
. His mate is pregnant. They don’t need thi
s now. Besides, he’ll freak out
and with his
attitude,
he might just start the war. No, no. This situation needs to be finessed. God, why does this room have to be so
small?
”

She paced from one side to the other muttering curses under her breath. Burning liquid still hadn’t
dissipated
from her eyes and if she didn’t get out of here soon then she was going to explode. Why had she wanted to come here? She must be insane. Her ne
xt
home was definitely going to have the word asylum in it.

Frustration
driving her hard, she rounded on Jacks. “Okay, listen to me, human. I need to walk this off b
efore I take someone’s head off
and considering the
proximity
, it will probably be yours. No phone calls to the
Kategan’s
, no telling anyone about
this until I have a plan, okay?
If shit gets too dire then I’ll call, but until then
no.”

His hand reached out to cup her cheek in a touch so achingly
gentle;
she fumbled over her next words. Much softer she said, “I need to walk, okay. By myse
lf. Just give me thirty minutes
and I’ll be right back, but I really can’t be around you right now.” Her voice broke and one tear escaped, then another. She looked down at her feet as she wiped away the stupid
things. Could she b
e any
lamer
?

It was his stupid gentle to
uch. Why did he have to do that?
She heard movement, and then she was
wrapped in his arms. This was no
t the aggressive, hard touch she’d felt earlier in the woods, or the urgent hands she felt last night in bed. No, this time he simply held her. Even with her arms down at her sides in tight fists, it felt good. His warm chest heated her cold skin and in a spark of irony made her feel like things were going to be fine.

She pulled back and kept her face down, too afraid to his face. “I’ll be back soon,” she said and escaped from him.

She had no idea if he’d follow her or not, so she waited at the end of the hall for a minute. When he didn’t come, she sighed and kept going. She walked down the main staircase and headed to the library. It was always a place she’d
found
refuge in while she lived here. The halls of the mansion were as familiar to her as the
much less luxurious
ones in her own small house.

She sighed in relief to find the library empty. Not a bit had changed in it either. The lush red carpet flowed all the way to the wide wooden
staircase, which
spiraled once to the second floor balcony. The balcony was always her favorite, and she found herself moving towards it.
Books lined
the
walls of the balcony in massive mahogany bookcases and above them sat
tall
glass windows that displayed the thunderstorm brewing outside.

Lightning cracked and struck through the sky as Vera took her old seat at the one windowsill in the corner. It was the only space
without
a bookshelf and the window sat low enough for her to see out of it
. She used to pick up a book and come read here until Dmetri would come find her.