Phantom of the Wind (21 page)

“Who decorated your quarters?” Kendall asked suspiciously as she stood at the threshold and got her first look at her new husband’s living area.

“I did,” Quinn answered, and gave her a slight push but Kendall didn’t budge. “Really, I did.” His hand was at the small of her back and he nudged her once more, frowning when she didn’t move. “What’s wrong?”

Kendall looked up at him. “Have you no conception of tradition, Phantom?”

He thought about it for a moment then blushed. “Oh aye. Right.” He bent down and swept her into his arms to carry her over the threshold.

Kendall’s frown deepened as she took in Quinn’s quarters. She was not happy with what she was seeing and wriggled against him, wanting to be put down. When he lowered her to her feet, she turned on him. “Who decorated your quarters?” she asked again.

With a sigh, the Phantom ran a hand through his hair. “All right, I had a little help,” he confessed, “but I picked out the sofa.”

Looking away from her husband, Kendall surveyed the sleek room with distaste. Done entirely in leather and suede earth tones, she would have best described the living area as Seduction Central. It was all done in muted, soft tones of taupe, dark brown and burgundy with just a touch of pale gold for emphasis on the throw pillows on the large sofa. The end tables and coffee table were glass-topped and sitting on thick pedestals of burnished copper. An area rug in a bold, geometric pattern had a high pile and stretched out before a mock tortoiseshell-fronted fireplace. The paintings on the dark brown suede walls were of stylized nudes—brown ink on a taupe background, framed in copper. The oversized dark burgundy sofa was covered in leather and was flanked by two buttery brown occasional chairs. Everywhere there was bric-a-brac—statues of leopards, tigers, wolves, elephants. In one corner was a floor-to-ceiling carving of a giraffe.

“You don’t like it?” he asked as he removed his scytheblade and laid it aside.

Kendall didn’t answer. She swept her gaze over the galley with disdain then headed for his bedroom. What she found there made her clench her hands, her nails digging into her palms.

The bed was huge—as she knew it would be. It was covered in what she hoped was a fake fur spread. Everywhere she looked she found fur or leather or polished copper. The only thing she liked about the quarters was the copper.

“You don’t like it,” he said, his shoulders slumping.

“She helped you, didn’t she?” Kendall growled, turning around to face him. “The walking mop helped you, didn’t she?”

Quinn’s eyebrows drew together for a moment then he realized who she meant. He opened his mouth—not really knowing what he should say—then closed it. “Aye, she did.”

“And is that where she seduced you, Phantom?” she demanded, pointing a rigid finger at his bed.

He merely nodded, feeling like a little boy being chastised by his mother.

“You will
not
claim me as your bride on that bed,” she said, and plowed past him, bumping into his shoulder for emphasis. She went into the bathing suite and was standing there staring at his oversized shower. When he came in behind her, she didn’t even bother to look around, but asked him if the Amazeen had ever been in the stall.

“Aye,” he said, digging his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Just once though.”

“Uh-huh,” Kendall said. She turned around to glare at him. “And you thought you’d get away with me not caring about all this, huh?”

He studied her for a moment then reached for her hand. “I’ll have it all torn out and replaced to your satisfaction as soon as possible,” he said, tugging at her as he headed back through the sleeping room.

“Where are we going now?” she asked.

“The only place I know,” he said, his jaw set, “since you insisted on sharing your quarters with two of the Burgon’s former concubines.”

“It was only right,” she protested.

“I didn’t say it wasn’t, but we could have used your quarters were they available,” he snapped.

Those they passed as he led her through the corridor to the elevator did not miss the annoyed look on their captain’s face or the strange look on his lady’s pretty countenance. If anyone questioned why the couple was prowling the ship instead of consummating their Joining, no one dared do so aloud.

In the elevator, Kendall was very aware of her husband’s taut stance. He was staring straight ahead, her hand clamped possessively in his. She was nibbling on her lower lip, wondering if she should have made such a big deal about his living quarters then decided she had justification. There was no way she would have ever been comfortable lying in the same bed where Quinn had thrust his way into the Amazeen. No sleep—let alone passion—would have ever come to her under those conditions.

When the doors to the elevator opened, Quinn led her out of the cage and down a long, dark corridor.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“The brig,” he replied.

Kendall’s eyes widened. “The brig?” she repeated as they stopped at a door and he slapped the control panel beside it. Before she could protest, he swept her up in his arms and carried her into the cell.

“The other quarters are all taken by my crew and the Reapers,” he said as he took her to the bare cot and lowered her to it. “This will have to do for now.”

“But a jail cell, Quinn,” she complained, pushing herself up on her elbows as she reclined there.

“Nay, wench,” he said, his hands going to his uniform shirt. “A dungeon cell to which your lord and master has brought you to be ravished for daring to deny him his rights.”

A speculative light entered Kendall’s green gaze. “You wouldn’t, Milord,” she said.

Quinn’s dark brow quirked upward. “And pray tell me why I would not when you are helpless and entirely at my mercy here in the bowels of my keep?”

She was staring at his chest as he peeled the shirt from that broad expanse. The dark matting of hair seemed to gleam in the low light from the corridor outside the cell. His muscles rippled, his pecs flexed, his abs tautened and his biceps bulged.

“You believe me helpless, Milord?” she challenged, licking her lips.

With infinite slowness, Quinn unbuckled his belt then slowly pulled the wide leather from his britches.

“You are my prisoner, wench, to do with as I please,” he said, and the words made Kendall’s womb clench. “It will please me to ravish you all evening and into the wee hours of the morn.” He smiled crookedly, evilly. “Perhaps even longer.”

“My men will rescue me before you can do your dastardly deed,” she said, lifting her chin. “I am not without means, Milord.”

A slow, taunting smile dragged over Rory Quinn’s sardonic features and he moved so he was standing right beside the cot, the belt hanging loosely in his hands. “Do you dare to deny me what I want, woman?”

“I will fight you to my last breath, rogue,” she threw back at him.

He moved quicker than she could have thought possible, jerking one arm from where she leaned upon it and looping the belt around her wrist, making quick work of snagging the other and lashing them together, pulling the belt to the top stanchion of the cot and securing it.

“Milord!” she shrieked.

“Deny me at your peril, wench,” he said, his hands sliding down her upraised arms to mold around her breasts. “You are mine and I will have you.”

Kendall wriggled, pulled on her bonds, but he had secured her wrists and she was indeed helpless as he massaged her, his thumbs stroking over the peaks of her breasts until she felt herself growing hard. She tried to kick out at him, but he stepped away from the cot.

“No one knows you are down here in the bowels of my castle, wench,” he said in a gruff voice. “No one will come to your aid. Fight me and I will be forced to hurt you.”

Tremors of delight were shimmying through Kendall and she was breathing hard, feeling the effects of his words on her libido.

“Had I another belt or two, I’d tie your legs open for my ravishment.”

“You are an evil man, Rory Quinn,” she said.

He merely grinned as he sat down beside her and pulled off his boots, tossing them aside. He turned so he could unzip her boots and draw them from her feet. He dropped them to the floor then kicked them away.

She grunted as he stretched out atop her, wedging her thighs apart. “You are—” she began but he swooped down to claim her mouth, bracing himself on his elbows to keep from pressing too hard against her breasts. His tongue stabbed between her lips and took her with a kiss that snatched the breath from her lungs. So thorough was that kiss, so exacting, she felt moisture gathering between her legs.

He released her mouth then swept his tongue across the fullness of her upper lip.

“You go too far, Milord!” she protested.

“One more comment from that pretty little mouth and I will gag you,” he warned. “Do you understand me, wench?”

Her chest was heaving, her breasts pushing into the cup of his hands as he worked his evil magic on her nipples. She sucked in a breath as he tightened his hold on her.

“Do you understand?” he repeated. “A nod will suffice.”

She nodded slowly and whimpered as he pushed himself up and got to his feet.

“I have waited a long time for this,” he said, unsnapping the top of his britches then dragging the zipper down the hard erection she could see pressed against the front of his pants. The rasp of the zipper sent chills down her spine.

Rory Quinn never wore underwear and as he pushed the britches down his lean hips, his steely hard-on sprang forth larger than she could ever remember it being. The length and breadth of it made her mouth water. There was a pearly drop clinging to the broad head and she ached to lap it away with her tongue.

Scaan
men could read minds so easily and he had intercepted her wayward thought. He reached down, caught the drop on the tip of his finger, looked down at it for a moment and then extended his hand to his lady’s lips.

Kendall flicked out her tongue to catch the salty drop, licked it from his finger then curled her tongue back into the warm recesses of her mouth. She swallowed.

Quinn groaned as he stood there naked beside her. He bent over, his hands on her tunic and ripped the material apart, exposing her.

“Quinn!” she protested but he held up a finger, ticking it from side to side in silent warning. She clamped her mouth shut. His hands were on the waistband of her uniform pants, tugging them down over her hips until she lay there on the cot, her tunic flayed apart, shivering in her lacy wisp of a bra and thong.

“Beautiful,” he said, running his hand down between her breasts, flicking his middle finger through the deep indention of her bellybutton—stroking it, circling it—before moving his palm to the crisp nether curls that beckoned.

It was the heat and pressure of his strong sword hand that set Kendall’s juices to flowing. His fingers were splayed over her lower abdomen, the heel of his hand rocking, pressing against her. She could feel her clit hardening and writhed.

“You belong to me, wench,” he said in his throaty voice, the brogue thick. “This belongs to me.” He lightly clawed her abdomen, tensing his fingers, drawing them through her wiry curls. One firm tug removed the thong from her hips. Another tore the lacy band between her bra cups apart. He pushed the material aside and let his hand span the area between her breasts—his thumb on her right nipple and his little finger on the left. “These belong to me.”

She shook her head mutely, denying his claim as his hand slid down her body, but when his thumb slipped into her moist folds, she tensed, going as still as a statue, sucking in her breath as he flexed his thumb within her.

“You’re hot and tight for me, aren’t you, baby?” he asked, circling his thumb inside her. “You want what I have, don’t you?”

Once more she shook her head, whipping it back and forth on the cot. She strained against the belt, tried to clamp her legs shut, but he knelt down beside the cot and pushed her left leg away from the right with his hard elbow.

“Be still or I’ll be forced to do something you won’t like,” he warned. He pivoted his hand, drawing his thumb from her wetness.

Kendall moaned at the loss of that wicked appendage but opened her eyes wide as he slid his middle finger then his index into her, his thumb stroking her bud in little up and down movements that had her wriggling beneath his touch.

He bent over her—his fingers caressing her internally—and slipped his lips around her nipple, drawing it deep into his mouth, suckling it strongly, his tongue laving the tip.

She was lost, giving herself up to her captor’s ravishment. Never had she felt such a strong reaction to his lovemaking. He was teasing her, tormenting her, but it was a silken punishment she was enjoying, aching to feel more, to experience the full depths of whatever he wished to visit upon her. She had not forgiven him for pushing her away two years before, but he was making it damned hard for her to remember why she was angry with him.

Quinn licked her nipple, swirled his tongue around it as his fingers moved slowly in and out of her, coating his flesh with her slickness. He wanted—needed—her to know he loved her, wanted to be with her, had chosen her for his one and only mate. He could read her thoughts and knew it was up to him to atone for what he had done before she would fully accept him again. But at that moment in time, his desire for her, his passion, overpowered his need to make amends. Very gently, he thrust deep into her then withdrew his fingers, bringing them to his mouth to taste, to lap away the sweet moistness.