DarykRogue (5 page)

Rayder turned his back to her. “I should.”

Too many emotions warred for a place with Xandra, chief
among them fury and fear. Anger won this time. “I would expect no less from
you.”

He grunted, evidently not the least affronted. “Just as
well. Before the day is over, you’ll hate me more than you already do.”

Apprehension made her stomach sour. “Why?”

“The admiral has decreed that I shall marry you.”

No.
She couldn’t have heard him right. She laughed
feebly. “Your sense of humor is severely faulted.”

“Do you hear me laughing? He thinks we are mates, and on
this ship, there are rules. We do not keep a woman in our quarters without
being married to her. If she is just here temporarily to fuck us, we must fuck
her and then send her back to the slave quarters belowdecks.”

She threw him a contemptuous look. “That is disgusting.”

“It is how things are done here. You are lucky I haven’t
fucked you and sent you belowdecks.”

Resentment and pure disbelief hollowed her belly, which
already ached from hunger. She wanted to hit him with the nearest blunt object.
With his back to her, he was vulnerable. She could clonk him over the head with
a huge book sitting on the bedside table and try to escape. But that would be
silliness. She had nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide. No, she’d wait until they
reached Dragonia and find a way to escape.

He turned toward her, and his assessing gaze didn’t soften.
His hands went to his hips. “I realize this is a shock, but it has to be done.
We’ll marry on the ship and it can be forgotten later. I have no desire to be
saddled with a whiny wife.”

“No. I won’t do it,” she said softly.

Impatience slipped over his face. “Your husband is dead, so
you are free to marry again. You’ll marry me or you’ll be thrown overboard.
It’s the way this ship runs. The admiral’s wife will bring a dress, and a tub
is being brought so you can wash. I’ll have food sent in. You must be
famished.”

Famished or not, she wouldn’t let this situation grow. “I am
not chattel despite Magonian’s idea of marriage or Dragonian’s idea of
marriage. I won’t be married off again. I just ran from—”

“You will be married. Tomorrow morning. To me.” He turned on
her, his eyes darker than the storm threatening nearby. He stalked toward her
and only stopped when he came within a few inches of her. “You have no choices
here.”

Thought she wasn’t a short woman, he was easily over six
feet tall, and he intimidated her with ease. She hated that, but what could she
do? “You may force me to marry you, but I will not have intimate relations with
you.”

One corner of his mouth tilted in a sneer. “Intimate
relations? Is that what they call it in Magonia? We don’t have pretty names for
the basics, my beauty.”

“I would expect not.” She titled her nose upward and glared.
“My people are significantly more refined than yours from what I’ve been able
to tell.”

Burning indignation in his eyes didn’t alter one degree. “Is
that so? And how many Dragonians have you met?”

He had her there, but she’d be damned to Magon if he’d have
one up on her with this argument. “You and the other ruffians who attacked me
outside the cabin.”

As he took another step toward her, she stumbled back,
bumping into the wall behind her. His gaze held hers and wouldn’t let go.

“You count me as one of those scum?” Rayder’s voice held low
menace.

“Of course. I’m your prisoner, and you plan to marry me
against my will. I won’t do that again—” She cut herself off.

Curiosity remained in those dark-as-sin eyes. His nearness
already made her so nervous she could barely think straight. “I can see you didn’t
love him. Or even admire the man.”

Her stomach curled. “No.” Fresh agitation made her say with
great feeling, “In fact, I hated the ground he walked on.”

Rayder’s eyebrows slid upward. “Hate is a strong thing.”

“He deserved it.”

Tilting his head to the side, he spoke softly. “I understand
hate.”

Introspection filled his eyes, and curiosity almost made her
ask him to explain. However, when he turned his gaze toward hers, she lost
whatever she meant to say in the strength of his attention.

His chest brushed her breasts, and the pressure shocked her.
Her nipples tingled, and her lips parted in surprise. A man had never stood
this close to her before and had this effect—and she couldn’t count the hugs
from her brother as one sibling to another. Her father, well, her father had
never hugged her. No, this feeling came from an entirely different place,
boiling up hazardous sensations and feelings she didn’t dare examine closely.
His clean breath puffed over her face, his scent not dirty as she expected but
a heady mixture of man she also hadn’t encountered before this moment.
Something was different. Very different about the way he looked at her, as if
she’d challenged him one too many times and would now pay the ultimate price.
It wasn’t aggression she saw in his eyes so much as it was a desire to possess.
A desire to consume. Taste. The intensity was startling.

When he placed his right hand on the wall next to her head,
she flinched.

“We have a religious man. He’ll do the ceremony for us and
it will be legal even within Dragonia. As for sex, we’ll see about that,” he
said.

His gaze caressed her mouth and traveled downward. Like a
caress, his touch brought fire to her body, a need for something she’d never
understood before. Her breathing quickened as she absorbed his admiration. As
he brushed a soft touch over her cheek and tilted her chin upward, her lips
parted. He moved closer, almost touching her. His mouth brushed over her
forehead, her nose, and drifted over her cheek where he found her ear. He
twirled his tongue around the lobe.

“Oh.” She gasped and shivered, the sensation shocking and
thrilling.

Taris hadn’t tried to seduce her into sex their wedding
night. He’d tossed her on the bed, yanked her dress up and attempted sex.

Attempted.

Taris had never kissed her before they married. Even then,
his kisses and fumbling touches had revolted her. This…this was entirely
different.

As his hands tested her, trailing along her sides to tease
so near her breasts, she moaned softly. His breath was hot as he lingered along
her neck, his touches soft and so tender her entire thought process dissolved
under his attention.

Feathering his lips over her throat, he groaned low in his
throat. “You taste like sin, my beauty.”

By the god Magon. No man had ever said that to her. No man
had ever touched her this way or spoken so boldly and gently to her. Emotions
tumbled over themselves as she tried to right her world. Terrified she was
losing control, she considered shoving him away, calling him every kind of
blackguard imaginable.

Until he found her mouth. A warm, sweet kiss plied and
teased her senses. Surprised, she started to push him away. Hard, immovable
muscles defied her to budge him. An involuntary and instinctive desire demanded
she explore carved pectorals and male nipples. He stroked deep, his mouth
moving over hers in an intimate caress that startled her down to the roots.
Earlier his tongue had taken her mouth, and yet in the privacy of this room the
familiarity promised to seduce her senses into a reckless fashion. What threw
her the most was his tender consideration. From his earlier fierceness and
attitude, she’d expected a violent ravishing. Unguarded, she allowed him to
plunder and stroke until she joined him in the chase. Tentatively her tongue
moved, brushed his, tangled and stroked. Wild feelings coursed through her,
starting a fire low in her belly and an ache between her legs. She wanted
writhe and twist, to escape these treacherous sensations as much as she wanted
relief from them.

A low moan left his throat. A growl that expressed pure male
need and intention. He hauled her against him, one arm around her waist, the
other buried in her hair as his mouth twisted over hers to discover another
fit. This, this was the animal inside him and she expected it, but even then he
didn’t hurt her. He simply took and took and gave and gave. Heat spread over
her body as he kissed her, his touch tracing over her back and caressing in
slow sweeping movements over her hips. He gripped her butt cheeks and lifted
her until the thick evidence of his arousal pressed between her thighs. She
tore her mouth from his and gasped, startled and shocked.

Undeniable lust filled his eyes. His nostrils flared, his
lips parted. “You can stop pretending you don’t feel something. Your little
nipples are burning holes in me, my beauty. Your tongue mated with mine.”

His shocking words made her mouth fall open again. “You’re a
cad.”

He snorted softly. “I’m worse than that. Can’t you feel it?”

The hardness between his thighs stirred an answering response
low in her belly, ravaging her with hungry wanting that demanded she press
closer, to give in to whatever he asked. “I know that you aren’t a gentleman.
That you can’t restrain your animal urges. My mother warned me about men like
you. You’re just like my dead husband.”

Laughter shone through the heat in his eyes. “I doubt that.
But what did she tell you? That a sexually aroused man grows horns at night and
flies dragons? I know a slaver who tames dragons but even he doesn’t fly them.”
His fingers tangled in her hair, and he angled her head so she couldn’t avoid
looking him straight in the eye. “Or maybe she told you there are men who will
do and say anything to strip you of your clothes. To strip you of dignity and
integrity. Is that what she told you?”

Startled by the passion in his question, she stared at him a
long time before answering. “She said men were beasts. That they used fallen
women for their pleasures until they married. When they’re married, they are
bound by law to have…sex with their wife. That I wasn’t to have these relations
until I married. Then…when I found out what those relations were…” She curled
her lip in disgust.

“She didn’t tell you what those relations were, did she?”

Damn him for knowing. “No. But I’ve read things and imagine
they involve some of the things we’ve…just done. My husband wasn’t much for
kissing.”

“Don’t fool yourself.” His voice turned even deeper and
huskier. “What you experienced with your husband wasn’t sex. What you
experience with me…that will be sex.”

Rayder’s arrogance made her mouth drop open—she wanted to
say something cutting and equally snide. Instead, heat continued to pour into
her belly and between her legs as she imagined sex that wasn’t halfhearted.
That wasn’t demeaning and ugly.

“Your arrogance is astonishing,” was all she could come up
with.

“I don’t have to be arrogant, Xandra. What churns between us
is evidence enough for me. When we come together, when we fuck, the damn ocean
is going to boil.”

Huh. Little did this man know. She hadn’t experienced real
sex with her husband. At least not what she understood of sex. The Chronicles
of Magon were right. Sex was for procreation. Nothing to become enamored of at
any rate.

Her hands smoothed upward over his chest, tweaking his
nipples by accident. He drew in a quick breath. “Don’t do that, my beauty.
You’ll make me want you even more.”

Thunder rumbled outside, the ominous sound filling her with
dread. Right now she needed distraction from the storm gathering nearby. “Why
do you call me that? My beauty?”

His gaze traveled up and down, assessing without any
pretension at hiding that he liked what he saw. “No one’s told you how pretty
you are?”

“Never. I’m…not.”

He cupped her face. “What imbeciles the men must be on your
continent. Your hair is a wild mess of tangled red and gold. I think it matches
your temper.”

She bristled. “My hair is my hair, not my temper. Decorum,
common sense, intelligence and decency are not imbecilic.”

He grunted, his thumbs brushing her cheeks. “Decency, eh?
What is that exactly? Emotionless, loveless? A boring existence? I want none of
it.”

Her lips parted, ready with a retort. “Marriage and coupling
are for the making of children. For humanity to go on.”

He grunted. “I can agree with that.” His voice was husky,
thick with emotion. “You hate the man you married. This man Taris Elian? And
yet you didn’t have children?”

A burn, this one not pleasant, started in her stomach. She
didn’t want to think about children, about the horrible sacrifice she’d had to
make. “No. I wasn’t married long enough for that.”

Something new and dangerous flooded his eyes. “If he isn’t
dead and comes looking for you eventually, I shall have to kill him.”

Marriage. I can’t marry him. Or anyone else ever again.
Fear returned, lashing at her like a whip. “He drowned. He must have.”

He grunted. “Perhaps.”

Perhaps? There could be no perhaps. Fear rushed and throbbed
inside her. If Taris was still out there, her apprehension would continue, the
creeping, crawling feeling that meant she still needed to run. To hide.

With Rayder, her needs and feelings entwined with her
confusion about his intentions. She knew if she didn’t act now, he’d push this
forbidden liaison an inch further. Perhaps more. Thrills danced up and down her
body as she absorbed the sensation of his body against hers, every warm,
strong, incredible inch. She shouldn’t feel this way. She shouldn’t want more
of something that didn’t exist. Cravings assaulted Xandra and demanded she take
that step, to allow him access to taste and touch and do so much more.

She nudged his chest, pressing with her palms and forced
strength into her voice. “Let me go.”

A knock on the door startled her, and she pulled from his
arms. Without a word he crossed to the door. When he opened it, two men stood
there with a huge bathing tub and another with a tray laden with fruit, drink
and some sort of meat.