Into the Shadow by Christina Dodd Page A

pressed it, and that one point of contact felt so good. Reassuring, kind, as if he cared, not about winning, but about making her happy.
    He compelled her surrender based on the most egregious lie of all.
    She yanked at the rope.
    He watched with interest. ‘‘Testing the knots? That won’t help. I was a Boy Scout.’’
    ‘‘A Boy Scout? Is this what they taught you in camp?’’
    ‘‘No, they didn’t offer this merit badge. I imagine camp would have been a lot more popular if they had.’’
    Damn him for tying a good knot. And damn him for making her want to laugh.
    Laugh! Now!
    She used all her weight to drag herself up the bed, but the rope held, and while she moved up he held the legs of the jeans and pulled them down.
    ‘‘You’re a pig.’’
    ‘‘A panther.’’
    ‘‘Don’t flatter yourself.’’
    ‘‘And yet the pants are off.’’
    They weren’t really. They were caught at the top of her thighs, and when he teased the feather over her hips, she wanted to kick the crap out of him.
    She couldn’t, because he’d managed to imprison her legs as efficiently as he’d imprisoned her hands. And her.
    Frustration scorched her, so she gave a warrior’s yell and walked out of the pants.
    What did it matter? He would have her out of them at his pleasure, and she would not lie there while he did with her as he wished. In a frenzy of temper she kicked at his chest, hoping to catch him unaware and knock him backward and breathless. Instead he snagged her ankle and used her motion to leverage her up and onto her stomach. Her wrists crossed. Her face pressed into the pillows, and she bounded up onto her elbows and knees to scream her defiance.
    Immediately he was behind her, between her legs, catching and holding her hips close to his. His erection probed, found, entered, glided.
    She grabbed the brass bars. The cold metal against her palms and the heat of his hard-on formed an electric current through her body, making her arch as lightning shot through her spine. ‘‘You bastard. You lousy jerk. You scumbag.’’
    ‘‘That’s right.’’ He thrust hard and deep. ‘‘Hate me. Call me names. Be fierce.’’ He reached around, under her belly, and used his fingers to manipulate her clit until she undulated beneath him. ‘‘But care . By God. Feel .’’
    Feel? She couldn’t stop feeling. He was deep inside her, controlling her motions with his arm around her hips, making her move for him, with him. Fruitlessly she fought him, trying to establish her own rhythm, to use him like a vibrator, to bring herself to orgasm.
    He would have none of that. His motion inside her was deep, small, controlled, inciting yet not satisfying.
    Her breath rasped in her lungs. She fought her way forward on the bed—and he let her— until she could pull herself up onto the brass bars on the headboard. Her cheek, her shoulders, her breasts, her belly rested against the cold metal, and still he remained below her, thrusting up into her body in those slow, hot, forbidden motions that made the lightning spread along each nerve. She no longer called him names. She begged him. ‘‘Please, Warlord. Please. Deeper. Now. Faster.’’
    ‘‘No.’’ His voice trembled as he fought his desires. ‘‘You wait. You yield. You call me your master and then I’ll let you come.’’
    She was frenzied with lust, but she hadn’t lost her mind. ‘‘I won’t.’’
    He pulled almost all the way out. He leaned against her back and whispered in her ear, ‘‘One of us will win. Both of us will suffer.’’
    ‘‘I don’t give a damn if we both die.’’
    He laughed, his amusement vibrating from his chest to her back, his breath lifting the hairs on her neck. ‘‘But what a sweet death it will be.’’

Chapter Twelve
    What was it Warlord had said? Every time you think of pleasure, you’ll think of me.
    He’d made good on his threat. Karen had no idea how long she’d been confined in Warlord’s tent. She no longer