Stockholm Surrender (2 page)

I nodded. He was the one who’d put me in this position, so why did I feel like he was my protector? It was weird. But then, he had just knifed a poisonous snake that was looking my way, and he had come back for me and, most importantly, he hadn’t actually hurt me. “Can I have some more water?” I asked through a sniff.

He let go of me with one hand and stretched for the water. He tipped it to my mouth and held it whilst I took several big gulps. As he pulled away, a fat drip landed on my inner thigh.

We both watched it slide toward the crotch of my bikini bottoms. Just before it hit the blue material, he caught it with the tip of his index finger. He lifted his hand and sucked the drip into his mouth.

A sudden, furious whack of arousal seared through my body. His mouth was divine, wide and soft with a little fuzzy soul patch beneath his bottom lip.

Our eyes caught.

“Please,” I said.

“Please what?” His voice was low and husky.

I looked at my chest. My nipples were tight peaks. Straining against the flimsy material of my unpadded bikini and giving away the fact that I was seriously aroused.

He followed my gaze and stared at my breasts. “I told you, I’m not a rapist.” He swallowed and I watched his Adam’s apple bob way down low and then back up.

“It’s not rape if I ask you to.” I tipped my head up and pressed my lips to his. I couldn’t help it—my body was in control of itself.

A deep rumble like a growl vibrated through his chest. “Penny,” he murmured into my mouth. “You’re really asking for trouble.”

“I think you already asked for it,” I whispered, then poked out the tip of my tongue and traced the seam of his lips. “When you just took me, like I was yours to take. When you grabbed me and tied me up, you asked for trouble.”

Suddenly he wrapped his hands around my hips and yanked my body flat on the bed. I gasped as my upstretched arms locked and he flattened himself over me on his elbows. His steely erection pressed through his shorts against my leg. Hot, thick and hard.

“I took you to save the life of another,” he said in a gruff voice.

“Not so you could tie me up and fuck me?” I parted my legs.

“No! I told you, this…” He ground against me. His shaft slid up my thigh and the head of his cock prodded my entrance through his shorts and the thin material of my bathing suit. “This is not part of the plan,” he said.

I twitched my hips for more contact and tugged my arms. I wanted to touch his beautiful golden skin, feel it beneath my palms and trace the intricate details of the dragon tattoo with my fingertips. “Untie me.”

“No.”

“I’m not going anywhere, not with you lying on top of me.”

“No,” he said again.

“Untie me and I’ll make it worth your while.”

“What the hell does that mean?” He grabbed my face and squeezed either side of my mouth until my jaw opened.

Scared by the flash of anger in his eyes and his tight grip, I let out a whimper.

“You’re a beautiful woman,” he said. “Think about who you are and what that means.”

I twisted my head and dislodged his hold.

“Don’t let just anyone touch your body.” He shifted his weight again, and this time he made perfect connection with my clit.

I groaned and my eyes fluttered shut. “Please,” I said, desperate for more. I shouldn’t find his domination such a turn-on. I knew I shouldn’t, it was wrong—it was sexy as hell.

“Please what?” he growled.

“Please…touch me.”

His mouth suddenly rammed down on mine in a hard, urgent, open-mouthed kiss. Our tongues connected in a frantic dance. His hands were wild, as though he wanted to touch me everywhere at once but didn’t know where to start.

I arched into him. Knowing I was totally at his mercy and desperate to take what I could, whilst I could. I wrapped my legs around his and writhed beneath his big, powerful body as it overtook mine.

He kissed down my neck and pulled aside my bikini top, exposing my small, excited breasts. “I’d been wondering,” he said breathlessly, “on the beach, what color your nipples were. I couldn’t decide between chocolate brown and petal pink.” He leaned forward and took my left nipple into his mouth. Created a long, hard suction as he cupped the surrounding flesh and nibbled the tight, delicate bud straining for his touch. “Mmm, delicious,” he said, licking his way across my chest. “The perfect red cherry drop, sweet and hard and great for sucking.” He latched on to my right nipple and treated it to the same heavenly suction.

I groaned in delight as my insides liquefied and my legs dropped back to the bed. He kissed down my stomach, tapped his tongue into my navel and curled his fingers into the waistband of my bikini. I wanted to run my hands through his floppy hair, encourage him on, but I couldn’t—I was anchored to the headboard.

He pushed up and knelt between my legs. Jaw set, breaths coming hard and fast. In one quick movement, he dragged my bottoms over my knees, looped them over one foot and then the other.

With glazed eyes, I looked over my bare, moist breasts as his head dropped to the juncture of my thighs. I wanted him to kiss me there so badly it was a need as essential as breathing. I didn’t have to wait long. He pressed a palm over my small landing strip of blonde pubes and pushed the flesh upward. Then he went straight for a long, gliding lick, right through all my soft folds and ending with his tongue flattened over my clit.

“Oh, b-bloody hell,” I stuttered, my eyes fluttering shut. My legs were suddenly heavy and flopped open wantonly. He began to circle my needy nub, rotating the tip of his tongue in hard, confident movements.

A tightness in my pelvis bloomed and took shape, then pulled insistently at every fiber of my body. My heart beat loud in my ears. An orgasm was on its way and I could hardly wait for it to hit.

He pushed two long, thick fingers inside me.

“God, yes,” I groaned. “That’s it.” I thrashed my head and gripped him as tight as I could with my vaginal muscles. He began to pump his fingers in and out, fucking me with his hand as his devilish tongue sent me higher and higher. “That’s it…yes, yes.” Flashes of color exploded behind my lids. My body shook, I was about to be rocked by an amazing climax.

Suddenly he was gone.

I shot open my eyes.

He was backing into the corner. Toward the dead snake and the knife.

“What…what are you doing?” I demanded, puffing for breath. I squeezed my thighs together, desperate to continue the delicious pressure, but it was no good, it wasn’t the same as having him there. I couldn’t tip myself over the edge.

“This is so wrong,” he said, wiping my moisture from his face with his forearm.

“Felt damn good to me.”

“No…this isn’t the plan.”

“Hell to the plan, get back here and finish what you started,” I said angrily.

His face was flushed, his breaths were as hard as mine and his erection tented his shorts. He rubbed at his dragon and his brow creased into three neat lines. “I can’t.”

“From where I’m lying, I would say you most definitely can.” I tried to take the irritation out of my tone. “Come back here,” I said with a strained smile and opened my legs wide.

His eyes dropped to my moist, swollen sex. “But I’ve taken you against your will, tied you up and demanded a ransom. How can I have sex with you after all that, how can you want me to?”

“We were attracted to each other before,” I said. “If you hadn’t taken me, we would still be in this position.” I settled my eyes on his. “We’d still be having sex, it was always going to happen.” I tilted my mouth into a smile. “Perhaps the cuffs would have been optional though.”

He swallowed and I sensed he was swaying. “Come back here,” I said again. “Because out of all the things you’ve done, this is the worst. Taking me to a point where I was just about to come and then running away, hell, I can’t even finish myself off.” I tugged my wrists and squirmed my back.

His boots thudded on the dusty floorboards as he took several quick steps over to the bed.

“That’s it.” I licked my lips. “Now take off your shorts and stop torturing me.”

“Are you sure?” His blond brows drew together and his blue eyes flashed. “’Cause if I get caught for all this, then I don’t want rape on the charges, or if it is I at least need to know myself, in my heart, that it wasn’t rape, that you wanted it, that you want it now and I—”

“Jesus,” I groaned, spreading my legs wider and tilting my hips up to him. “Can’t you see how much I want it?”

That move was like showing a red rag to a bull. He shoved at his waistband. Let his glorious, engorged cock spring free and dropped down on top of me. “Okay,” he said into my mouth. “You asked for it…you’re gonna get it.”

His hips rammed forward, the first stroke missed and his cock butted the top of my leg. But then he pulled back, curled under his pelvis and surged forward again, this time with deadly accuracy.

I cried out, part pain, part pleasure as he invaded my hot wetness. He was big, bigger than I’d anticipated, and he rode right to the hilt on that first pound. Nudging up against my cervix, stretching me wide and filling me completely.

He stilled and looked into my face. “Fuck, you’re so tight,” he said. “So tight and hot and wet, and I promise I’m gonna make all this up to you.”

“Good,” I said breathlessly. “Now get the hell on with it.”

He pulled back, not all the way, so just the head of his cock was sitting inside me. Then he slanted his shoulder, reached his hand between our bodies and pulled at the flesh under my pubes. My clit, swollen and stiff from his previous attention, revealed itself and as it did so he pressed forward again. His cock glided back in and his pubis hit where I needed it most. He began to circle his hips, rotating against my clit at the same time as he was pulsing into me.

“Oh god,” I moaned. “That’s…that’s…” I couldn’t describe it. It felt wonderful. My stomach tightened and my legs trembled.

“Am I hitting the spot?” he asked, rising above me on his hands and looking down at my jiggling breasts.

“Just a bit,” I panted. He was wicked, I didn’t stand a chance. My orgasm was there again, hovering within reach. “Please, don’t stop, not this time,” I cried. I tugged at my handcuffs and curled my fingernails into my palms.

“I won’t,” he grunted and picked up the pace. He slammed in even harder and with even more power behind each beautiful move of his hips. It was the signal my body needed to explode. I bucked to match his speed as ecstasy reached a fantastic, pulsing crescendo. I rode through it, wave after wave of sumptuous spasms. I couldn’t remember ever coming so hard or so fast.

Through my juddering climax, I opened my eyes and saw his head tipped to the ceiling. The tendons on his neck strained as his lips curled back over his teeth. “Fuck, yes,” he said and then he pulled out. He reached down and grabbed his cock, worked it hard and fast in his fist, moaning and groaning above me as white strands of cum spurted onto my stomach, filling my navel and pooling in a perfect circle. “Ah, that’s too good,” he groaned, rubbing his thumb over the slit of his cock.

“It was amaz—” I paused and tipped my head to the window. “What’s that?”

In the distance, a faint siren murmured a long, low drone.

“Shit!” He leapt to his feet and pulled up his shorts. “Police, it’s the fucking police.”

I looked up at his twitching body. Beads of sweat had caught in the golden chest hair in the center of his broad chest. “What are you going to do?” I asked.

“I gotta get outta here.” He picked up my sarong, hastily wiped the cum from my stomach, then dragged my bikini bottoms back over my feet. “Lift,” he ordered when the material reached my hips.

“But what about your friend?” I asked as he pulled them into place.

“This isn’t over.” He tucked my quivering breasts back into my bikini top. “I’ll be back.” He dropped a hard, fast kiss onto my mouth. “When you least expect it, Penny, when you are all alone, in the shadows, I’ll come for you and I’ll take you…again.”

He caught my eyes for a split second, then turned and slipped out the window. I heard a thud as he landed on packed, dry earth.

I arched my body into the bed. My heart was still pounding from my orgasm, my breaths still shaking my chest. It occurred to me that this must be a record for a man leaving a postcoital scene. I squeezed my knees together and felt a final pulse of climax jolt my clit.

The sirens were growing louder, more insistent. They would be here soon.

I wondered what the police and the press would make of the British foreign secretary’s daughter trussed up on a bed, rosy-cheeked, sweaty and beyond satisfied. Of course I’d have to make a show of terror and relief. Hide the fact that deep inside I was hoping my sexy captor’s getaway was going well and that it wouldn’t be long before he was back. Back to take me, hard and fast and this time without asking permission.

Chapter One

Six weeks later

My head was full of criminal law, convoluted words that twisted and spun with past case histories and complex trials. I was tired, that was the trouble, tired and distracted and more than a little frustrated.

Reaching up, I stretched my arms above my head, clicking out the knots in my bones and tendons. I’d been sitting in the reading room of the Bodleian Law Library for hours, trying to get information into my head ready for my first exam. It was getting there, slowly, but it wasn’t an easy task, filling up a brain that had taken a few years off from study.

If I were being truthful, nothing had been easy since I’d returned from Australia. On the flight back I’d felt as if I was leaving a part of me behind. A part of me that had been awakened, revealed, satisfied—if only briefly. Having just one bite out of a forbidden fruit had created a well of lust within me, and I was in desperate need of answers. I needed to know more.

Know more about
him
.

At the time I hadn’t even known the name of my forbidden fruit, just that he was a dangerously hot guy with a vibrant dragon tattoo and eyes so blue they could have been drops of water taken from the deepest part of the ocean, he smelled of sea breeze and tasted of desire and coffee. When he came, on my stomach, he’d groaned in a guttural, agonized kind of way. The pleasure-soaked sound had imprinted on my mind and when I was quiet and melancholy, a bit like now, that noise returned to me, creating a warm feeling in my belly and a hungry sensation in my pussy. Sometimes the memory made my clit swell against my knickers and I was forced to cross my legs to control the exquisite sensation.

I knew his name now. Ty Winters.

As soon as I’d had some privacy I’d fired up my laptop and searched for James Hill on Facebook. Although there were lots of people with that name it was ridiculously easy to find him. His profile picture was of him and Ty holding yellow surfboards on a vast swathe of beach.

A little perusing of James’ friends and I soon found my kidnapper’s smiling face again, which then led me to everything I needed to know. His profile told me that Ty Winters was Australian born, Perth, June 11, 1986. Studied in Sydney and he listed his hobbies as riding waves and base jumping. When he wasn’t seeking his next adrenaline rush, he liked to be surrounded by pretty girls—judging by the long list of scantily clad female friends on his Facebook page.

I’d been careful not to share his identity with anyone. Not my father, not the Australian Police and certainly not my mother who was behaving like a clucking hen ever since my kidnapping. Moving to the student halls in Oxford had been a nightmare with her fussing and her constant need to know where I was.

But the fact that only I had seen my captor had been instrumental in protecting Ty. Also his efficiency at leaving no clues meant the police had no firm leads. Not least because I’d said he was an older guy with graying hair who called himself Peter. Damn it, I knew I could get in seven shades of trouble for that whopping perversion of the course of justice but what choice did I have?

What else could I do?

I’d studied the pictures of Ty almost obsessively those first few weeks, even though I knew I should tell the police who’d stolen me, drugged me, tied me up and seduced me—or was that last bit the other way ’round? Just the memory of my time held captive in the outback had me squirming. Ty had been so masterful and determined, yet so damn sweet and sexy. He’d been worried about taking me against my will, when of course it was what I’d wanted more than anything. There was no question about it. And I wanted it again, so his name was a secret I was keeping close to my heart. Telling the authorities that I knew exactly who he was would have him arrested quicker than I could say “jury service”.

I glanced around the reading room. It was practically empty—the long, polished walnut tables unoccupied except for three fellow students buried in paving-slab-sized books, their fingers tapping away on laptops. Their heads low, they didn’t look up. Like me they’d been here for hours, lost in words.

Studying my own heap of books, I decided to call it a night. The large skylights revealed a dark November sky heavy with stars. The brass table lamps gave the silent room a shadowy, studious glow. I was hungry and my brain felt fudged.

Slipping my netbook into my rucksack, I heaved three thick criminal law books against my chest and went through the small archway leading into the enormous library. My footsteps were loud and echoed around the tall wooden rows of shelving. There was no one else around this late. My new mates were partying tonight. They’d asked me to go with them. “Let’s find some fit guys!” they’d said. But I hadn’t been up for it. I knew they were thinking they’d been dumped with a stick-in-the-mud as the fourth member of the gang in our halls of residence, but I couldn’t help it. My mind and body were stuck on Ty. Thoughts of Ty, images of Ty, memories of Ty. The fact that he was thousands of miles away didn’t seem to make any difference to my lust-addled body or my damn obsessive brain.

It was crazy. It wasn’t as though I was in love with him or anything.

I shoved the first heavy book into place between volumes one and three of
Judicial Sentencing
and recalled his last words. “This isn’t over… When you least expect it, Penny, when you are all alone, in the shadows, I’ll come for you and I’ll take you…again.”

I wished he would bloody well get on with it.

Heading deeper into the library past Juvenile Crime and European Union Law, I was enveloped in the room’s heavy silence. The shelves were tall, easily twice my height, and ladders had to be used to reach the top. The whole place had a timeless quality to it, the acres of pages and billions of words revered by all, including, it seemed, the atmosphere.

Reaching aisle twenty-three, I reached to slip in my last two books, side by side.

A small piece of paper caught my eye. It sat in the space between editions three and six of
Tort Law
. In scrawling black writing it read simply,

Soon.

I spun around, belly clenching. There was no one there.

The books on the opposite shelf loomed over me. I glanced left and right. The blank white walls at either end pressed in, amplifying my aloneness.

Who had written the note?

Ty? Could it be?

Hastily I pocketed the scrap of paper, shoved the books away then stepped toward the end of the aisle. Much as I wanted to see him, there was something menacing about the way this note was written and hidden. The silence and stillness of the library suddenly seemed scary.

I’d made it three steps back toward the reading room before a gloved hand clamped over my mouth and I was pulled back against a solid chest.

“Mmph!” I managed, fear and anticipation reaching dizzying heights. I’d been grabbed like this before. Then, I’d been terrified, certain that death was about to claim me. Now terror was mixed with a perverse excitement I certainly wasn’t proud of.

“Keep it quiet,” a familiar Australian voice whispered hotly in my ear. “I’ve got more of that sleepy stuff if you want me to knock you out again.”

Instinctively I tried to shove free.

It was no good. He had me in a viselike grip.

His voice deepened. “Keep the hell still, I need to cut off a piece of you.”

Cut off a piece of me! Oh fuck!

I squirmed and wriggled, terror overriding excitement and both fight and flight kicking in. Hell, I’d seen what he could do with a knife—that snake hadn’t stood a chance and I suspected neither would I.

“Shit, keep still,” he said, his voice tight and strained. “I won’t hurt you, I promise. Penny, it’s not what you think, calm down.”

I was pacified a fraction and stopped my writhing. His tight hold didn’t let up. He had one thickly corded forearm wrapped around my waist and the other held my head in the groove of his shoulder. His gloved palm was tight over my mouth and his fingertips pressed into my cheek.

The thud of his heart vibrated into my back, its speed matching my own. His chest heaved and his rapid breaths blew like a storm in my ear. Despite myself, a tremble of lust shook up my spine. I’d been thinking of him, of being in his arms, of having him take me for so many weeks and now, finally, it was happening. My traitorous body stopped fighting as desire diluted the adrenaline.

“Are you gonna keep quiet if I take my hand off your mouth?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Promise?”

I nodded again and stilled completely.

The pressure lifted. I knew I should scream and shout for help. Shit, he wanted to cut off a piece of me. This was the man who’d kidnapped me and here he was again, grabbing me.

There were at least three people in the reading room—surely they would hear a panicked yelp. Security would come running, police would be called. He would be hauled off to prison, especially when I confirmed it was he who’d taken me in Australia too.

“Penny,” he said, spinning me to face him at the same time backing me up against the opposite bookshelf. “I’m sorry that I have to do this to you.” His big hands pressed on the balls of my shoulders.

I stared into his handsome face, his full lips even more kissable than I remembered, his eyes an even denser shade of cobalt blue. He’d shaved off the fuzzy soul patch that had been beneath his bottom lip last time I’d seen him. “Do what, Ty?”

He widened his eyes. “You know my name?”

“Of course, it wasn’t hard to find you on Facebook.”

He lowered his thick blond brows. “Shit!”

“I just went through all the James Hills. His profile picture is of you two together on a beach somewhere.” I paused. “And after our last encounter, you were easy to spot even with clothes on.”

“Ah, crap.” He shifted his feet and looked left and right, as if deciding which way to take off. “I didn’t even think of Facebook.”

I didn’t want him to take off anywhere. Having him pressed against me, having his body heat and divine, fresh-from-the-shower smell cocoon me was what I’d been dreaming of for so long. “It’s okay, it doesn’t matter,” I said quickly. “Only I saw you back in Oz so I gave a different description to the police. I haven’t told anyone that I know who you really are.”

“Seriously?” He narrowed his eyes and tilted his head. His flopping blond fringe shifted over his brows. “You really did that?”

“Yes, I didn’t think you would be much use to James if you were locked up too.”

Or much use to me.

“Blimey, thanks.” He flicked his head and his hair shifted again.

I placed my hands on his chest. He wore a dark-gray t-shirt under a red-checked fleecy shirt. The t-shirt material was thin and I could make out the shape of his pectoral muscles beneath. “I thought you were still in Australia anyway.”

He slid a hand up the back of my neck, feathering his fingers through the short hair at my nape. “I had to come to England. Your father’s position as foreign secretary still makes him, and you, my best hope for getting James out.” He lowered his voice. “You are my bargaining tool, Penny, so if you’re in England it’s where I need to be.”

I swallowed as a tickle of sensation radiated from his touch, pricking the skin on my scalp and down my spine. He’d followed me to England, to Oxford. He was a serious as ever about getting James out. He was as serious as ever about me being the key.

“And I am sorry I have to do this.” He pressed his body into mine and, between one heartbeat and the next, he harnessed both my wrists in just one of his big hands, locking them down at my stomach.

A bolt of fear shot through me as he whipped out a lethal-looking knife from his back pocket. The handle appeared to be crocodile skin and the sharp blade was curved like a macabre smile. He held it up between our faces.

“Oh god, no, please, Ty,” I squeaked through the tight channel of my throat. “I want to help. You said you wouldn’t hurt me.”

His intense gaze captured mine. “I won’t hurt you, Penny, if you keep quiet and still. Really still.”

Shit.
Why hadn’t I screamed a few minutes ago when I’d had the chance? He was crazy. A madman. I should have known. Oh, why had I been having all these delusional fantasies about him coming back for me? I was a fool, a hopeless, romantic, sex-starved fool and now I was going to die for it.

A whimper of fear escaped my lips.

“Penny,” he whispered. “I won’t hurt you. I just need a lock of your hair.”

My eyes were filling. “My…my hair?”

“Yes, if I was a real bad guy I would take a finger or a toe to send to your father, but a lock of hair will do.” He clenched his jaw. “Now keep the hell still.”

He released my wrists and fisted a chunk of my fringe.

“Ty,” I whispered, my feet nailed to the spot.

“Shh, don’t move.” His long, lean legs trapped my thighs and his pelvis knocked into my hipbones. The shelves behind me dug into my back and the crown of my head was squashed against book spines.

I gulped as the knife slanted and glinted over my forehead. The roots of my hair complained as he tugged his fistful of fringe and sliced, unnervingly near to the roots, with the sinfully sharp blade.