Red's Mate (Alpha's Woman Book 3) Page 10

  The paddle was deceptively demure looking—not one of the giant ones he knew the commandant of the base where he was raised had several of. The head was only about six inches long, not including the handle, but it was of solid, hard wood, and it carried quite a heft—as Ebby found out seconds later.

  It didn't take but about five strokes before she was singing with each highly satisfying crack that landed. When—even as tiny as she was—he had a hard time keeping her still and not wanting her to feel punished anywhere but on those beautiful curves, he found another use for the spare ties. He set them to work holding her knees apart, tying them off to the middle legs of his freakishly big bed and leaving her legs spread widely, her privates horribly exposed.

  And then he returned to his task.

  Ebby was completely unable to move. All she could do was feel, although definitely not what she wanted to.

  But even her elevated libido couldn't keep up with the rise and fall of that paddle. It surged forward when he raised it away from her flesh, but cringed back down when it struck. And it struck with agonizing regularity and for a horrendous amount of time.

  The whispered chant she had been saying was long since replaced by crying and begging and promises and wails.

  Even above being filled with him, not feeling the singular agony that was that paddle splatting down on her backside with all of his might again became the only thing she fervently desired.

  And yet, when he put it away on his bedside table and returned to crawl between her legs, the bedclothes beneath her—and well beyond—were, as he'd expected despite the anguish he knew he'd brought to her, obscenely soaked.

  He stripped them away and then released her knees, turning her onto her back and completely ignoring how she hissed and whimpered and tried to keep her bum off the mattress. In fact, he stretched out on top of her, which effectively drove her into it.

  Ciaran's sharp gaze drifted over her face as his hands took possession of it, noticing that the fear was gone from her eyes, and, slowly but surely, watching them cloud over with lust again.

  He didn't intend to say it, but it came out anyway, deep and dark and terrifyingly quiet as he gazed into her eyes. "I've killed so many men, I stopped counting. I have faced odds during a fight that were four and five to one without turning a hair. I fully accepted the inevitability of my own death the moment I picked up my first gun at the age of six." His fingers were holding her so tightly that he was starting to hurt her. "But I have never felt fear—marrow deep, shit my pants, life ending terror—until I looked up and saw my naked omega putting herself in mortal danger by exposing herself to a ravenous crowd of men who would have done anything to claim what's mine."

  His mouth found her ear as he rasped, "You do not have the right to entice other men with what is. Not. Yours." He swallowed hard. "You do not have a right to imperil that which is. Not. Yours."

  He had to pause for a second to collect himself, because his mind kept showing him images of things ending very differently from how they had.

  "I've said variations of this before, but apparently, they didn't really sink in. Your body is not your own. Your life is not your own. Everything you are belongs to me and me alone." He pulled away, then looked back into her eyes again, knowing that, if there was any intellect left to her at a time like this, this would put the fear of him in it. "And your mind is mine, too, Ebby, because I can drive you completely out of it, and that is exactly what I intend to spend the next few days doing."

  There was a pounding at the door at that exact moment, and Ciaran leapt from the bed to brandish a knife at the throat of the man behind it—his second.

  Startled beyond comprehension, Kavan back peddled away from his commander, practically babbling, "I-I'm sorry. I thought you might want—"

  "I don't want anything but to be left alone until I emerge from this tent again. I don't give a fuck if it all burns down around us. You have the com." His gaze sharpened as he continued to threaten the younger man. "Unless you don't think you're up to it."

  Kavan swallowed hard, answering back bravely in the face of death. "You know I am."

  "Good." Ciaran pushed him away by his grip on the other man's throat. "Then don't come back here unless you come heavy."

  The man who was not only his legate, but his friend, could barely believe his ears, but he wisely said nothing beyond a smart, "Yes, sir!"

  When he returned to his bed, he crawled into it from the bottom, right up between small, feminine thighs that fell as far apart in welcome as she could possibly move them, despite how much it hurt her to move in any way, considering the condition her backside was in.

  Ebby knew that there was something about what he'd said to her moments ago that she should be scared about, but she couldn't manage to do so with him lying there on top of her, the fulfillment of her deepest wish curving up against her cleft, inches away from paradise.

  Surely, he intended to take her now, since he'd punished her so thoroughly already.

  She wished her hands were free. She loved the feel of him—all that strength and power and muscle called to everything feminine in her, everything omega to his Alpha.

  He kissed her then—really kissed her, his mouth gently twisting over hers, one long finger stroking over a baby soft cheek as his tongue danced across hers, nipping the impudent tip of hers as she sent it boldly exploring past his lips before ending the kiss and moving a bit away.

  As if her nerve endings weren't already sizzling just because of how close he was, her hips undulating beneath him, unable to move enough because of his weight to actually rub herself against him, he began a dedicated campaign of touching her absolutely everywhere, as he had done when he'd first gotten her. He felt a keen need to reinforce—again—that she was his, but he was also very careful to avoid touching her in ways he most knew she liked or in places that would add to her lust for him.

  It was absolutely maddening, and his conscious omissions only made Ebby's need for him grow exponentially worse.

  He spent a lot of time with his fingertips tickling along her collar bone, her lower belly, or the undersides of her breasts, and up—but not too far—the insides of her thighs. His lips found her too prominent ribs, the delicate arches of her feet, and the insides of her wrists, leaving a wet, interconnected trail amongst all of the points of interest he visited on her body.

  And then he settled himself between her legs at a glacier's pace, his keen eyes on her face the entire time, watching, calculating. There was already a fine sheen of sweat on her skin, and her head was thrown back, that beautiful hair spilling in tangled waves over his pillows.

  Using one hand, he splayed her lips open much like her legs were around him, watching the steady trickle of her own dew spilling out of her, every inch of her already—always—slippery for him. And then all he did was take a breath and blow that warm air over her, soft and steady.

  A stranger listening to her reaction might have thought he'd brought her to climax. Her little clitty contracted once, hard, as did her cunny and even her more private place, and she groaned repeatedly, from deep in her chest.

  The severe discipline she'd been subjected to had silenced everything but tears from her for a while, but this prompted her to begin to chant again. But, this time, it was just one word, because he surely knew what it was that she wanted most for him to do to her.

  "Please," she whispered.

  He didn't answer her.

  Instead, he pressed his face against her clit and reached up to find peaks that had been sorely neglected, setting about giving them the close attentions they deserved, fingers reflecting what his mouth was doing to her clit—tugging when he was suckling, pinching when he pursed his lips around that sensitive bud, flicking when he let the tip of his tongue have his way with it and she threatened to come undone.

  But as soon as that happened—as soon as he felt that she was a little too far down the line—he stopped.

  He repeated this torture until he knew she wa
s very close to bursting through. It was easy enough for him to do, having made such a careful study of her, and he took his time raising her need to a fever pitch each time. He had grown quite expert at bringing her to but keeping her from achieving, a peak, even one that would be as mild as one that didn't include being impaled—in both ways—on the spike of his that was weeping almost as avidly as she was through his pants and onto the bed beneath him.

  Her "please" had become first fervent, then frantic, then frenetic as he had played his little game with her.

  Still, he didn't answer her.

  Then he turned her over, hearing her expel a sigh of very premature relief, knowing that she must've thought he was going to take her from behind and finally end the agony of her need.

  Indeed, he made all of the motions as if that was exactly what he was going to do. He pushed her legs up and out—uncomfortably so—using his own to keep them there, so that her backside was almost hanging there, up off the bed, waiting for something to be fit up into it that would hold it there.

  Ciaran reached down to open his fly only enough to allow his cock out. Otherwise, he remained covered from head to foot, and she would soon feel the rough material of his pants against a behind that looked too sore to look at, much less touch—not that he let that deter him.

  He began to tease her again, slipping his cock up between her lips, following the path of that feminine groove of hers, its mere presence holding her lips spread open as he dragged the tip over her clit a few times, then moved on to pretend to dip the head into her opening as it was instantly covered in her juices.

  "Please," she prayed, and he leaned all the way over her, so that he could put his lips to her ear.

  Finally, he answered her question with one of his own, "Please what, omega? What do you want your Alpha to do for you? To you?"

  "I'm so empty, please!" she begged on a sob.

  "Perhaps if you ask me nicely, I might do that for you."

  "Please, Sir, fill me!"

  He kissed her ear tenderly. "Of course, my little omega. Of course."

  Ciaran took his place behind her, his bobbing cock dripping with proof of both of their desires. Then he nudged its purple head against her and pressed in.

  Ebby screamed and began to try to fight him, but her submission to him was much too complete by that time, and it was a feeble, pathetic attempt.

  He kept advancing, even as she wept and wailed and begged him not to, not stopping until he'd done exactly as she'd asked him to. He'd filled her completely.

  But not where she wanted him to.

  His big, hard as iron cock was buried not in the cunny that was on fire for him, or where he would get a child on her, but in her pretty little bottom hole.

  She couldn't believe what he was doing to her—it hurt like hell and served no purpose at all! His cock in her asshole didn't slake either of their desires, nor would it get him the baby he so desperately wanted from her.

  But it did leave her writhing and keening wildly with need beneath him as he stretched the wrong part of her painfully open around him. She was full to overflowing with him, millimeters from where she wanted him to be, but enough out of the way—and too new and uncomfortable—for her to get even the most basic satisfaction from it.

  He even reached between them to pinch her nipples and stroke her clit as he began to move heavily within her, his breath panting over her as he fucked her bottom, slowly at first, then with growing momentum. Each movement nearly caused her to lose her mind at being so close to him giving her what she was sure she absolutely had to have to survive, not to mention how painful it was to be forced to take him there—where he didn't belong, in a place that was not designed to accommodate him.

  And then he began to speak, and it got worse—much, much worse.

  "You asked me to fill you, little girl. Unfortunately for you, I have my choice of where I might put my cock, and I have not chosen to put it where you most want it." Even through her tears, she sounded a bit too close, so he withdrew his hands for the time being, using them to press down on her back, instead, forcing her to offer herself up to him.

  "And you'd better get used to it. I'm going to keep you right where you are now—just about crazy with the need to be bred, every inch of you throbbing and pulsing with it. But, for a while, even though you're in heat, I'm going to leave that beautiful pussy of yours completely untouched and craving, gaping open for me, keeping you more than wet enough that I'll be able to use your own slick to help myself to the next door down. I'm going to take your poor, sore ass, instead, while your neglected cunny dribbles and clenches for want of what your bottom is getting. Perhaps several days of feeling uncomfortable in this very humiliating way will help you realize that I own you."

  What he was doing was atrocious for her, he knew, because she began screaming almost immediately after he'd finished his little speech and kept it up every time he plunged himself into her. But it wasn't very good for him, either. He spilled himself into her after only a few short strokes—and in a drastically smaller amount than usual—because her heat kept him near peak, too. But it wasn't at all satisfying. Neither his barb nor his knot were of any use, and although it was a climax and no climax is really bad, it was nothing like the dizzying heights he attained when she was fully his.

  Still, he kept strictly to his word.

  Chapter 8

  And because he kept scrupulously to his word, and she was not being fulfilled even in the simplest of ways, her heat showed no signs of ending.

  Ebby was miserable. Not only had he continued to punish her bottom on the outside every time he thought about it—using his hand and the paddle and even the belt to scourge it—but he was doing so to the inside, too. But after just a day of only being taken in that manner, even that left her moaning and twisting, desperate to come any way she could. But he was too good for her. He never allowed her to descend from that perpetually unsatisfied high, taunting her with the fact that he wasn't using her the way she wanted him to every time he impaled her twice ravaged behind.

  Every muscle hurt as if he'd taken a club to her, rather than disciplinary implements and his cock. She couldn't sleep, and she ate only what he gave her, only doing that because she didn't want to give him another excuse to punish her—in either method he had decided to employ, both of which were proving terribly effective.

  But, on the second day, Ciaran decided that he didn't like the way she looked. It had not been his intention to compromise her health in the least, and he sent for his personal physician immediately.

  The man examined the constantly moving, restless young woman who couldn't seem to keep her hips from rising up suggestively, then moved to speak to his commanding officer in the corner of the room and in quiet voices.

  "She's exhausted. I'd say she needs to drink and eat more and get some rest. Keep in mind, though, sir, I am not a breeding doctor. I have more experience with jock itch and swamp foot than I do anything else."

  "Thank you, Doctor," Ciaran said, dismissing him and concentrating his attention where it had been for the past few days—hell, since she'd come into his life—on his omega.

  He ran his hand over his beard, pausing to think hard as he stared down at her.

  And then, as if he had made up his mind about something important, he went to the door and gave the guards an order, then returned to the bed, where he removed her restraints, bringing her arms down gently and rubbing her shoulders.

  Although she didn't want to, Ebby couldn't help but cling to him helplessly.

  He didn't seem to mind, though. His entire demeanor was different from what it had been, softer, less angry, which, in turn, allowed her to be less anxious.

  There was a knock on the door, and a large, empty container was delivered. Following after it were several men with large buckets of steaming water, which they poured into the container before leaving them alone again.

  Without a word, Ciaran lifted her off the bed and lowered her into the hot water.
Like a cat, she tried to claw her way up him and out of it, but he purred and petted her. "I know it hurts right now because you're sore. But I promise you, it will begin to feel wonderful in a few minutes."

  She was still clinging to him, getting him soaked in a different way from how she usually did, but he held onto her and lowered her completely into the tub. "Shhhhh, little girl," he whispered. "Let's get you washed and more comfortable." He had to pry her hands way from his shoulders, but he persisted.

  Eventually, he watched as she sank back against the back of the tub, eyes closed. Those sooty lashes of hers stood out even more than they usually did against her now even paler skin. As he washed every bit of her—using his own soap and a soft cloth—he realized that she was much too thin, and had—even in such a short time—taken on an almost frail look, for which he berated himself internally.

  When she was clean and much less tense than she had been—on one level, at least—and long before she could grow cold, he lifted her out again and dried her with one of his spare sheets.

  All of this touching set her off again, and she began to try to curl herself around him, lifting a leg to hook it around his waist as if she would climb him like a tree.

  Ciaran gently discouraged her, setting her on the ground next to him, but humming to her as he did so, which softened the rejection. He wanted to get her dry and under the covers before she caught cold, which he did as quickly and efficiently as he could, because he could feel the heat literally rising off of her, everywhere he touched, her bottom and between her legs most dramatically.

  The covers were warm and inviting, and he tucked the both of them beneath them, hearing her mewls increasing in volume as she immediately tried to turn and present herself to him.

  But he stopped her from doing that—which caused her to protest even louder—pulling her onto him as he stretched out beneath her, instead.

  She looked delightfully shocked at where she found herself atop him, and his hand came up to brush her hair out of her eyes. "I'm always ready for you," he confessed. "Just like you're always ready for me. This time, you may decide when you take me."