Page 35 of His to Take

I wanted to yell, and tell him he was being a chauvinist, and that I was more than capable of taking care of myself.

I did none of those things.

With a bit of amazement, I realized that underneath that threat, I could see on his handsome face and hear in his low voice that he genuinely cared for me. His hold on my chin lightened as his thumb grazed across my cheek.

“Do you understand me, sweet girl?”

“Yes,” I whispered, staring up into his eyes.

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, sir,” I said, my voice shaky. His leg pressed between mine. The top of his thigh brushed against my pussy, and I quivered at the unexpected touch.

“Good girl,” he praised, and my heart swelled.

He leaned down and kissed me sweetly. I was taken aback by the dichotomy of dark and light within him, and of my response to both. One hand slid down the side of my torso, reaching back and squeezing my bottom tight.

“You should know something else,” he rumbled, and my heart raced frantically in my chest.

“What’s that?”

“You’re going to come for me a great many times on our journey. How, when, or where is not going to be up to you. The only thing for you to decide is how red your bottom is going to be when you do,” he growled.

My face turned beet red. I did my best to hide it, but I had a sinking feeling that I wasn’t doing a very good job.

“Yes, sir,” I squeaked. His finger dipped below my chin, forcing me to look up at him. His gaze searched my face, practically feasting on the vision that was my all-consuming shame.

“I’m looking forward to it,” he mused.

CHAPTER 7

Ryker

I guided a very flustered and aroused Naomi out of her house. There was a black SUV waiting for us outside and we couldn’t dally much longer. I dropped my hand from her back, and she looked over her shoulder, a wistful disappointment written all over her lovely face at the loss of my touch.

It was for the best though. Even now, I questioned what I had done, if showing her what it was like between a man and a woman was too much of a risk. I’d become keenly aware of exactly how completely inexperienced Naomi was; every single bit of this was new to her, including my making her breakfast, let alone making her submit to me so completely, or making her come so many times.

I still wasn’t certain I should have even touched her in the first place.

Back in Pacifica, I wouldn’t have held back. I’d let the world know she was mine, but this was her home, and I didn’t want to put her in danger. There were stories about what happenedto people from New Englandia who had been caught in a relationship or a compromising position or worse, pregnant. Years ago, I hadn’t been sure if they were just gossip or folktales meant to rouse fear and suspicion of their city state, but since then I’d been exposed to something that was most definitely real.

I’d heard the evidence with my own ears more than five years ago. I hadn’t been able to forget about it since.

I still remembered that day like it was yesterday. I had been called into the Central Intelligence Tower as a top weapons engineering expert so that I could give my comments on a new weapons design technology. I remember sitting at the conference table when, not fifteen minutes into the meeting, an emergency situation interrupted our discussions.

Before that meeting, I had thought that New Englandia was just something of an oddball. Sure, they were obsessed with work productivity and frowned upon certain things, but my opinion completely changed that day. I thought back to those dark memories and the sounds and emotions came back to me like it had happened yesterday.

A woman in a suit strode into the room.

“Our monitoring devices picked up this transmission less than thirty minutes ago. We need to decide whether or not to intervene,” she spoke with a tone of dire seriousness in her voice. She lifted her chin, cool and confident despite the concern on her face. Clicking a button, the sound of static blared loudly once over the speakers in the ceiling, then once more before leveling out.

All was quiet for a long moment before I heard the soft sound of crying.

“Please. I didn’t mean to. I just wanted…”

It was a woman. She sounded hurt and my hackles rose.

More shuffling. More static.

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