“Yes.”
Noah increased the attention he was giving to her nipples and clit but laid completely still within her, his cock pulsing and her sheath responding to his invasion. Arousal surged through her, sparking all her nerve endings. Her pussy spasmed all along his length as the onslaught of a powerful orgasm hit her, and her body trembled in response.
“Noah,” she cried in one long wail of desperation and desire.
She opened her eyes and searched his face. She could tell he was determined to make her capitulate to his mastery over her body and soul. He continued to play—no, that was wrong, Noah wasn’t playing, he was toying with her—taunting and challenging her to accept his dominance. The same way a maestro coerced a reluctant prodigy to surrender her will to his. She felt as though she were a Stravinsky instrument—strung tautly with the strings just this side of snapping.
“Cradle me between your legs, sweetheart. You aren’t going to get what you need until you yield to me.”
“No,” she whispered as another climax possessed her, and she shuddered.
“Have it your way.”
He lifted her legs, so they rested against his chest as he raised them over his shoulders. He rocked up onto his knees, so only her upper body remained in contact with the mattress. Zara pounded the bed and tried to clutch at anything that would provide her with some means of evasion.
His response was two staccato swats to her exposed backside.
“Enough, woman.”
Noah thrust powerfully, pulling out almost completely before driving back into her to the depths of her channel. Zara twisted and thrashed, trying to wrestle some measure of resistance to his control over their coupling. She surrendered and laid back as he hammered her pussy, ensuring she felt his prowess and strength.
Zara tried to focus on something, anything, other than Noah’s complete rule of the carnal act—there was something liberating and terrifying in it. She had no concern he would actually harm her, but her fear she wouldn’t be able to fight him and his need to dominate her was real. She needed to find a way to break free of his physical and sexual thrall.
He groaned as he stroked her, his face revealing he reveled in her response to him. He kept her legs pressed to his chest, restricting her movements and increased the speed with which he rode her. Zara screamed at the exquisite torture he demanded she endure and came again.
“Once more,” he whispered seductively.
“I… can’t,” she stammered.
The intensity of the day’s events descended on her. The threat to her life by those who had attacked her home should have been overwhelming, but it was nothing compared to Noah’s demand that she abandon the woman she had fought so hard to forge from the embers of Damian’s death. The thought he wanted her to do so, only to be claimed once again by a dominant alpha male, was far more disconcerting.
“You can,” he said, pummeling her core. “You will.”
Before she could respond, another tidal wave of need for him to find completion and send his seed deep into her core overtook her, and she orgasmed—her pussy clutching at the ramrod pistoning in and out of her. Noah surged forward one last time and flooded her cunt with his cum.
He held her pinned against his torso as she was freefalling from the heights he had taken her. He lowered her legs halfway, ensuring he remained between them with his cock submerged within her wet heat.
“Wrap your legs around me,” he said again.
She had nothing left to fight with, convinced he could force nothing more from her than he had already taken. Zara made a pathetic whimpering sound but complied.
Gently, he laid her down, stretching out alongside her, resting on his forearms and tenderly brushing the hair from her face. He brought his mouth down to hers, and her lips parted, her tongue welcoming his as he coaxed her to return his kiss. Once she sighed, relaxed, and her tongue danced with his as he murmured against her lips, he completed the kiss, then withdrew from her, rolling to his back. Zara tried to move away from him, but his arm snaked out, wrapped around her, and pulled her hard against him.
“You stay next to me,” he growled.
Noah snugged her up to his side with her head in the crook of his shoulder, then reached for her thigh and pulled it over one of his, so his thigh rested between her legs. Nuzzling the top of her head, he inhaled deeply, then soothingly stroked her thigh from hip to knee.
“I’m exhausted and sore, you bastard,” she whispered.
There it was again, that damn self-satisfied, completely masculine chuckle laced with a heavy dose of lust and testosterone.
“When I tell you to wrap your legs around my back, do as you’re told. I guarantee you, the next time, I won’t be as lenient.”
“For your information, battering me with that weapon you keep between your legs is not my idea of lenient.”
He kissed her forehead. “Trust me, sweetheart, my fucking your pussy is the least of your worries.” He reached across her and grabbed one of her butt cheeks, causing her to wince. “The reason you’re sore is you haven’t had a man to hold you accountable for your headstrong foolishness or ride you hard enough to keep you sated. That isn’t going to be an issue for you going forward.”
She pushed against his side with both hands and received another hard swat for her trouble.
“Stop that,” she cried.
“Just as soon as you settle down. Knock it off, Zara, and behave. Go to sleep. We’re going to have a conference call sometime tomorrow, and I think it would be helpful if you participated.”
“I’ll be damned if I’m going to share any information I’ve learned with you.”
“At the risk of really pissing you off, if it’s on your laptop or stored anywhere, our tech guy, Thom, already has it and is compiling it with what we know and what Fariq is telling us.”
“You have an open line to Fariq?”
“He’s currently our guest in Mesa.”
“You’re holding him hostage, too?” she accused.
Noah’s hand descended on her rump.
“Keep it up, Zara, and I’ll put you back over my knee for another discipline session. And, no, he is there at his request.”
“And me?”
“You are here at mine.”
Zara made a fist.
Noah never opened his eyes, but, somehow, he seemed to know—perhaps he’d noticed the tension in her hand change.
“Follow through with that thought, sweetheart, and we’ll have that conference call with you naked and kneeling at my feet. Relax, put your head on my shoulder, and go to sleep. We should be secure at this location. If you behave, we can go for a walk on the beach in the morning. It’s really very pretty here.”
“I despise you,” she seethed.
“No, sweetheart, you don’t, and therein is your biggest issue. You don’t hate me at all. In fact, you’re pretty damn happy the right kind of man has come back in your life to put you over his knee when you need it and give you a good ramming each night before you go to sleep.”
“You’re an arrogant prick.”
He laughed. “You may be right, but it doesn’t mean I’m wrong. Close your eyes, beautiful, and go to sleep.”
Zara could tell when he’d fallen asleep but could also tell it wasn’t a deep slumber, and any bid she might make for her freedom would be quickly shut down. She didn’t want to contemplate his response to an action of that nature. It wasn’t that she wouldn’t risk it, but she wouldn’t do so without at least a fairly good chance of success.