Sirens - The Gripping Beast Part 8

Slowly, gently, Erik folded her into his arms and tucked her against his chest. "Was that so bad?" he asked.

She shook her head. "No."

He held her until she relaxed. Then he pulled her to the fur and drew her down with him.

Lorelei stiffened again. "Uh, Erik, wait."

His grip tightened and drew her inexorably down. The message was clear. If she went along, the grasp remained firm but gentle. If she resisted, she'd hurt herself. Clever.

"Sit," he said firmly.

She sat.

"Take that off."

She s.h.i.+vered. "Erik, you don't understand. I can't."

He stroked her jaw line gently. "I understand better than you think."

"Do you? I wonder." If he did understand, he'd be one up on her. She didn't understand anything that had happened so far, and some part of her still fervently hoped she'd wake up in a nice, safe hospital somewhere.

She didn't resist when he tugged her dress over her head. At least it was still wearable, she consoled herself. Sort of. His clothes followed, and again she tried to look on the bright side. He wasn't making her help, at least. And this way, they were even. It made her feel slightly less vulnerable and exposed.

Especially the way he kept his eyes on hers instead of leering at her body.

"Look at me." Calm and cool, that was her Viking. She found it just as irritating as his tendency to take everything too literally.

"No." No way was she going to look at any more of him than she had already. Just to be safe, Lorelei shut her eyes, too.

He laughed softly, and the sound caressed her brittle nerves. "Look at me."

She shook her head in refusal.

Erik sighed and lifted her into his lap. "Stubborn. Willful. Disobedient." Somehow, he made the words sound like endearments as he cuddled her.

She opened her eyes to glare at him. "Stop confusing me, Erik. First you scare me, then you're nice to me. Stop being nice. Be consistent."

His answering smile was devastating. "You opened your eyes."

To her horror, her lips started to quaver and tears flooded her eyes. Furious, she scrubbed at her cheeks. "Now look what you made me do," she sniffed. "You made me cry again. I never cry. I hate crying."

"Then why do you cry?" The gentle question, accompanied by a soft kiss on the corner of her mouth crumbled the remainder of her composure and she started to cry in earnest.

"B-because you're scaring me," she sobbed.

"Shh. Hush." The low, soothing words made her shudder convulsively.

"Stop it," she whispered, beating against his chest with one fist. "Stop."

"Stop being nice to you?"

"Stop owning me!" The hoa.r.s.e, tortured cry erupted from the depths of her heart and Lorelei cried harder. "You won't leave me anything. I'll be lost."

Her breath was coming faster, and in some rational corner of her mind Lorelei wondered if she was having a panic attack. Her eyes were tinged with wildness as she pleaded, "Stop it, Erik. Stop it. I can't do it. I can't."

"Hush, now. Hush." He pushed her head against the hollow of his chest and wrapped the silky fur around them both.

"No. I know what you're doing." Lorelei beat at his arms and struggled against his hold.

"What is it that you think I do?"

At the calm, even tone, she closed her eyes and forced herself to match his calm. She was a pebble dropping in a lake. Ripples moving outward, sinking stillness in the center. Still. She held the image and forced her breathing to slow.

When she thought she could speak, she answered through stiff lips, "You're trying to break me, and making me want you to do it. If I let you, you'd be everything to me. Everything." Panic welled up again, and she fought it back. It was so dangerously seductive. He was so strong. She could just let him be strong for both of them. He'd be kind to her. He'd give her anything she needed. He'd be gentle with her when he took her, but they would never be lovers because it would never be a relations.h.i.+p of equals and he would own her, body and soul.

And when he tired of her, it would destroy her. Because he would have taken and taken, and she would have nothing of herself left.

That he would tire of her was as inevitable as the sunrise, Lorelei realized. Because whether he knew it or not, he was like her. He was looking for a strength to match his own. An equal. Erik was a free man, and a free man would never love a slave.

She couldn't tolerate being used and discarded. It wasn't in her. Lorelei breathed deeply again, opened her eyes, and calmly repeated, "No. The answer is no. I told you from the beginning that I wouldn't cooperate."

"That you did." Erik s.h.i.+fted them both so that they lay together in a tangle of limbs. He must have noticed she was cold since he then tucked her more fully into his arms to let his body heat warm her. "I see you like the lynx skin," he remarked as he folded it more closely around her.

"Is that what it is? I didn't know. It's beautiful." Tired, Lorelei curled against him and brushed at the remainder of her tears.

He caught her hands and kissed away the traces of moisture on her cheeks. She went still again, and Erik shook his head in apparent dismay. "Can I not even kiss you without causing you to fear me?"

"Apparently not."

"Then go to sleep."

"This isn't the part where you attack me?" Lorelei asked, trying to be nonchalant but failing miserably.

"Attack was never my plan." Erik smiled at her and held her chin to keep her from looking away. "Taking you, willing or otherwise, was not my plan this night."

She raised a skeptical brow. "Really? You could have fooled me."

"Really." He tossed the word back to her, mockingly. "You will become used to me and to your duties. It is your duty to share my bed, so you will grow accustomed to sharing it, beginning now."

Lorelei's brows shot up as she took that piece of information in. "Become used to you. Uh huh."

"Good. You are following me."

"I am not following much of anything."

"Then sleep." Erik delivered the calm suggestion as he settled her in the curve of his arm again, pillowing her head on his chest.

Sleep, she thought in disbelief. Sure. Right. Just go to sleep and ignore the naked man with the big sword who thinks he owns you. "I can't sleep."

Her disgruntled voice made him smile. "Then perhaps I should introduce you to your other duties."

"That isn't funny," she informed him in a small voice.

"You have odd ideas about when to jest," he returned. He let one hand glide along her waist, then stroke lower to cup the curve of her hip. When he moved to continue downward, she grabbed at his wrist with both of her hands.

"Wait. I'm getting tired. Really, really sleepy. I think I can go right to sleep, in fact," she babbled.

With an effort, Erik refrained from laughing out loud. "Ah. Then your other duties can wait."

"You're too kind," she sneered. Then she quickly settled down and feigned a sleeper's slow, deep breathing.

He listened to the sound until he knew she truly slept. The simple pleasure he took in having this slight, troublesome woman in his arms warmed him. He felt a deep contentment in spite of the unsatisfied desire she stirred in him. He had what he had wanted, after all. An amusing companion. Bedding her would prove as entertaining as he had hoped. She never behaved as he expected but he could not imagine tiring of her, that much was certain. She argued, fought and challenged him every step of the way. It made every battle won all the more satisfying and would make her ultimate conquest all the sweeter.

At the memory of her sudden urge to sleep, he laughed softly.

Harold would have been shocked.

Not at his decision that there was no rush to take what was already his, but that he was showing definite signs of having fun.

Chapter Seven.

Waking up, Lorelei stretched and felt a distinct urge to purr. She lay wrapped in luxurious comfort. The silky fur caressed her on one side and velvety heat rubbed against her on the other. Erik. With the memory came faint surprise that she'd gone right to sleep after all, and now it seemed like the most natural thing in the world to wake up curled around the barbarian.

Well, when in Rome...with a mental shrug, she gave in to her urges and emitted a low, happy purr as she snuggled closer.

"Now you decide you wish to warm my bed," Erik rumbled. His arms tightened around her and Lorelei decided that those muscles were definitely a turn-on. Kind of in the same way the sun was definitely a light source.

"So far, so good," she returned cheerfully.

"Then you will adjust to your place and learn to enjoy your duties."

Lorelei groaned. "Good up until now. Erik, tell me, is it just you, or are all Vikings smug, self-satisfied macho men?"

Without warning, she found herself on her back with an annoyed macho man looming over her. "If I found satisfaction with myself, I would have no need of you," he informed her ominously. "Do you wish me to prove what I need from you?"

Desire and fear rose in equal parts in response. His p.e.n.i.s was hard and hot against her bare skin, all male and blatant need. But along with the proof of his desire came a reminder that he saw her as just another way to find relief, and that cooled her off in a hurry.

"Um, I think you just did," she answered with a wry smile. "And anyway, that wasn't a slam on your masculinity. It was a comment on your lamentable att.i.tude. I just wondered if it was a cultural thing."

At his frown, she tried to explain further, "I mean, I don't know how you men are. With women."

A slow, devastatingly s.e.xy smile replaced the frown and threatened her equilibrium. "I will show you how we are with women."

Lorelei gulped. "No, that's okay. I'm sure you know what you're doing."

To her horror, he slid one muscled thigh between hers and forced them apart, moving to rest heavily against the cradle of her hips. The sensation of being covered from head to toe with muscular, masculine Viking while her spread legs brought him into intimate contact made it difficult to remember why this was a bad idea. But she was hazily sure that it was. "No, wait."

"I tire of waiting," he informed her huskily. His broad chest brushed lightly against her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and teased her nipples as he s.h.i.+fted to probe her l.a.b.i.a with the broad, hard head of his c.o.c.k. The length of him slid along her nether lips in a seductive tease of a caress.

This was good. No, this was bad. Wasn't it? Lorelei closed her eyes. "This isn't happening. It isn't real. None of this is real. I've been on a psychedelic trip this whole time, and-" she ran out of steam, and finished desperately, "Erik, please, please don't."

"You will soon beg me to continue," he saidwith a knowing smile.

That annoyed her enough to glare at him. "Oh, I will, huh? Let me tell you something, Casanova. In case you didn't notice, you're a whole lot readier than I am for this encounter. It doesn't look like anyone but you is going to have any fun here."

He sighed in regret. "You make me wish I had time to prove the truth of my words. But you wrong me to think I would give no thought to your pleasure."

He had her full attention. Lorelei frowned at him. "What do you mean?"

He gave her a typically serious, literal answer. "Think you that I know not how slaves are treated?" While he let her mull that one over, Erik sat up and pulled her into his lap, stroking her as if she were a cat. "I gave you my word that you were not for the use of my men. I would not allow that slaver to take you. Think you I will not have a care for you?"

"Erik?" She tipped her face up to meet his eyes searchingly. "What exactly do you mean, you wouldn't let him take me. Take me where?"

"On the ground. Before an audience." His face hardened along with his voice.

"On...on the..." She stopped, took a breath, and let it out in a rush. "Oh, Lord in heaven. Erik, are you saying what I think you're saying? He was actually going to...I mean...right there?" A shudder shook her at the thought. It was too awful to contemplate. The idea of rape was bad enough, but in public, as some kind of performance? Sickeningly worse.

"I have seen it done before," Erik answered evenly.

For once, she was struck dumb. Lorelei buried her face in the curve of his neck and clung to him while she tried to get a grip on her rocketing imagination.

"Erik. You really didn't have to tell me that." Shakily, Lorelei loosened her stranglehold on him and lifted her head enough to give him a reproachful look. "The curse of the creative. I have this vivid imagination. Now I'm going to see that every time I close my eyes." She shuddered again and gave him a grateful hug. "Did I thank you? If I didn't, Erik, a thousand thanks. Thank you, thank you, thank you."

Then she straightened abruptly and added, "But this doesn't change anything. I still don't want to be a slave. I appreciate your help, really. But if you could just drop me off anywhere convenient, I'll be on my way."

She wasn't prepared for him to laugh at her.

"Ah, Lorelei." She was so taken by the deep, rich sound of his laughter that she almost didn't realize he'd used her name for the first time. "You please me."

Her eyes narrowed in ire. "Oh, I do, do I? Great. Just great. I can't tell you how happy that makes me."

"It makes me happy, as well." The satisfaction in his voice grated on her. It really did. "Now you will tell me why you wish not to be owned by me."

She sighed. "Oh, let me count the ways. For starters, Erik, you can't own a person."

"I can. I do."

"This is going to be difficult, I can see that right now. You don't own me."

"I do. I bought you. Even had I not, I won you by force. By every law, you belong to me now."

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, and I can't argue with the law, can I?"