Abduction (56 page)

Then they both went still, staring at each other, in shock. He'd done it. He was on her. In her.

The gray of her eyes was dark in the moonlight, her pale skin shimmery with rain and her black hair sticking in waving strings to her forehead and cheeks and neck.

He wanted to give her everything. But there were contradictions.

Vaughn was split in two. One could not touch Devan, except when forced, for fear of frightening or hurting her. That Vaughn was not here.

Now he was the other, fingers wrapped around her wrists sinking into the cold wet mud. This other would touch her, would kiss her, would take her, sensing only her heat, her quivering, remembering only that she'd written these touches and kisses in her stories, that she'd confessed these stories as her own fantasies, feeling within himself no fear and no shame, feeling only his power. Over her. Body. Pleasure.

Dev.

He moved. Took her body with slow, determined, unmerciful thrusts that made her grunt each time he drove home. Her sounds, her quivering, her heat had him so hard, so wanting, so eager. Inside her, feeling her body's hot grip on him, the lengths of their bodies pressed close, still felt a painful longing, a need to give her more, to possess her more completely. He read everything in her face and all of it made him hotter, hungrier. Made him fuck her more fervently, and she kept struggling, trying to wrench her wrists free of his hands, trying to evade his body, and he gripped her tighter, put more of his weight on his arms to pin her down harder, and her brow furrowed as he went on, fucking her. And all her writhing, all her struggling drove him to frenzy, made him come to her harder, thrust deeper. Her shaken grunts turned to cries of some large feeling, dark like sadness, then sharpened.

And it was all them. Just her, and him. Nothing, no one between them.

His body holding hers down, opening her. Penetrating. Filling. Making her pant and part and writhe and quiver. Making her make those little sounds—god, fuck, those little sounds of hers—and that face, wracked and needful and hopeful and afraid.

She was coming. Fuck, she was coming. He fucked her, hearing, watching, knowing he was making her feel that, adoring her as he took her moans and shudders, her body, her wet tight grip on him, the hot, hungry power of feeling her helpless beneath him, and gave in to her, losing himself, emptying all his voracious heat into her open, tender body.

Then they both went still, staring at each other, in shock. He'd done it.

He wondered if there were tears mingling salt with the rain beading and rolling over the counters of her face. If he'd hurt her. But he couldn't say, "Dev, did I hurt you?"

or, "Dev, that's what you wanted, isn't it?" or, "I wasn't wrong, was I?"

So he kissed her. He let go of her wrists, and still deep in the close wet warmth of her he brought his mouth to hers, and made his kiss a question. Her lips were cold as he brushed against them with his, tasting cool clean rain, giving her time to say no, to push him back, but her mouth was hot when her lips parted and he brushed his tongue over hers and slowly settled into a deep, languorous kiss. She was soft and he was sure again. Then her body shuddered and he remembered the rain and mud and cold.

"Dev," he sighed and kissed her tenderly on the lips, the left eyebrow, the right. "I want to stay like this. With you." A long pause. "But you're freezing."

He left her body and pulled her from the mud, pulled her to him, steered them toward the cabin. Now that they were up and walking and he felt the cold his body had ignored until just now, anxiety chilled him as he thought Devan must be feeling it more 510

than he. He sped their pace. As they neared the cabin Vaughn saw Conrad's silhouette in the doorway.

"Strip down, you two. I've got a hot shower going."

There was something strange in the way they were looking at each other. Conrad and Devan. Then he realized Conrad was soaked, too. They all peeled their wet clothes from their cold bodies. For Devan there was nothing to do but lift her little silk slip over her head, and Conrad sent her straight to the shower while he and Vaughn struggled out of their wet pants.

"You surpassed all my expectations, Vaughn."

"You came out. You saw."

"Of course. Can you really imagine I'd miss the culmination of all my efforts?"

Vaughn thought Conrad sounded weird. Sad, maybe. "Come on. Let's get inside."

Devan was in the shower, a muddy waterfall cascading from her hair, down her lower back, over her ass, down her legs, turning to a river flowing down the center of the tub and into the drain. She looked at them as they came in as if she didn't know who they were. Who they'd become in the few minutes she'd been apart from them. Vaughn had an idea that she didn't know what to expect, now that he'd done that out there, after Conrad had been so brutally perfunctory with her at the dining table. And he had an idea that that's just what Conrad wanted. And that he'd go along with it. To a point. So long as his faith stuck, that Conrad cared and that Devan's fear and uncertainty brought her some strange brand of excitement and pleasure.

Watching him as he moved closer, Devan only seemed unsure. Like she was waiting, keeping feeling and thought at bay until she saw how they'd be with her. When 511

Vaughn stepped over the edge of the tub, she backed up. Maybe just to let him in. And maybe not. He smiled. Her look, her face seemed to soften, like she'd let go of something. She let him come to her, touch her waist, pull her to him, put his arms around her. Under the water he held her, loving this—the feeling of her body and his that had chilled in the rain together warming together now under the spray of hot water, how he could feel her breathing, feel the tiny movements of the muscles in her back as she adjusted her stance. She was soft, seemed willing when he kissed her forehead, kissed her cheek just by her hairline. And she held his gaze as he ran his hands over her hair, helping the jets of steaming water to wash away the mud.

Soft, her body, leaning sweetly against him, her arms lax, her neck pliable, letting her head bow and turn as he rinsed the mud from her hair. Soft, her face, her expression tranquil, her eyes lidded heavy and quiet.

But then she was tall and stiff and alert, her head and eyes turned quick on a movement. Conrad. Stepping near. Waiting and watchful she stayed still as he came close, then stepped into the tub behind her. Now she was rigid, her body stiff as Vaughn held her a little, looking over her shoulder at Conrad who gazed back at him with a grin, then stooped, grabbed the shampoo bottle from the ledge, and went on grinning as he squeezed a fat dollop of pearlescent liquid into his palm, then rubbed his hands together. The faint scent of orange. Vaughn felt her flinch as Conrad came forward, pressing his body to hers, and curved his hands against the back of her head, working his fingers into her wet hair, raising froths of white against the black tresses.

"Devan," Conrad breathed as he went on massaging and lathering while Vaughn held her to him, "is this all right?"

Vaughn had never heard Conrad ask permission for anything. Devan was quiet for a few seconds, then said yes in a strange voice, the feeling behind which he couldn't guess.

"And if Vaughn wants to wash your body, is that all right too?" Conrad asked in a tender voice.

She pushed herself back just far enough that she could look up at Vaughn. He felt like she was trying to read what he might be thinking, and after a little while she said yes in that same strange voice and with unreadable eyes. But she was soft again, against his body, under his hands. While Conrad washed her hair, Vaughn caressed her smooth skin with soap-slicked hands, sliding slow over the surface at first, then rubbing deeper, massaging her neck, her shoulders, the muscles between her shoulder blades and on either side of her spine.

Devan, warm and lithe between them, looking and letting as he washed her whole body. Her breasts. Where he had been and where Conrad had been before him.

Where Conrad had threatened but not really gone yet. Her legs. Her feet, washing and rubbing while Conrad held her so she wouldn't slip. Everything she let him touch—her neck, her breasts, her hands, her sex—stirred a tenderness in Vaughn that made him happy and sad at the same time.

When she was pink and scrubbed and rinsed, she stayed with Vaughn, their bodies pressed wet and close, while Conrad washed, and she let Conrad hold her while Vaughn took a turn with the soap and the last of the hot water. Then all stepped over the edge of the tub, onto the thick beige mat, dried off, then went together to the big bedroom. And then Conrad told her to drop her towel. She cast a nervous look back at 513

Conrad, and then at Vaughn before she complied, letting her towel fall to the floor. Even though he'd just spent all that time with her naked in the shower, running his hands over all her bare skin, the sight of her letting her towel fall from her body made Vaughn's prick stir under his own towel. She got into the bed when Conrad told her to. Conrad dropped his towel and slipped up beside her. She looked nervous, but she stayed still.

Quiet.

"Come to bed, Vaughn," Conrad said, and patted the mattress on the other side of Devan.

A momentary flush of guilt warmed him when Devan's eyes flashed to his cock, half hard, as he dropped his towel, and she watched him with an anxious expression as he got into bed beside her.

"Give us a kiss goodnight, Devan."

Vaughn's prick went the rest of the way hard as he saw and heard Conrad go soft and wet into Devan's mouth. But it was just a kiss. Conrad took his tongue and his lips from her, curved his arm over her waist, settled into his pillow, nuzzled against her cheek, and closed his eyes.

Vaughn tugged the chain on the bedside lamp and put the room in darkness. By the moonlight seeping over them, he could discern Devan's eyes, open, on him. Every want conflicted. He sank down by her, looking at her. Dim and silent they lied, gazing at each other. Then he kissed her forehead, smelling the orange scent of his shampoo in her hair. Under the covers he found her hand, and she let him hold it. With her small, warm hand folded in his, he lay awake for hours before sleep finally rescued him.

Voices woke him. Without opening his eyes he knew the room was flooded with light. It was morning.

"Where are you going, darling?"

"I need to pee."

"All right. But come right back."

Vaughn opened his eyes. Saw Devan slipping over Conrad, out of the bed.

"Leave that," Conrad said quietly when she bent to pick up a towel. Reluctantly she stood, empty-handed, and walked naked from the room. Naked she seemed soft and small. More fragile.

While she was gone Conrad spoke and Vaughn was silent. Wants conflicting. But when she came back he started.

Devan came in, obviously embarrassed to be walking around naked, even after everything, even though nothing she'd worn for the last few days had covered much of anything. Hesitant, nervous, she approached the bed where Conrad was lying on his side, his head propped on his hand, and where Vaughn was sitting, his back to the headboard.

Vaughn smiled and stretched a hand out to her, and just that made her breathing change. She halted. Glanced from Vaughn to Conrad and back. Deciding. Then she stepped forward and put her hand in Vaughn's. Her touch, that little gesture of trust—he didn't think resignation—was so sweet, so endearing, Vaughn felt a crazy impulse to leap from the bed and run off with her, into the woods, so they could talk, tell each other everything, hold each other.

But he didn't.

He drew her toward him, and she followed his lead as he guided her with that little touch, her fingers curved into his hand, until she was in bed with them, facing him, straddling his thighs. Maybe it was dumb to think 'love' at a time like this, both of them Conrad's hostage, or Devan their hostage—Vaughn hardly knew anymore—but that's what it felt like, the way she'd come to him, how she was looking at him, the way she felt, the way she looked. Everything in him wanted to freeze this moment, keep it forever.

But there was no way, and he combed his fingers into her hair, pulled her close, kissed her face, already feeling want catching tenderness, smothering it, his demanding erection already rising between them, nestled against her warm, smooth belly. Hotter, harder, he left her cheek, brought his mouth to her lips, sucking, biting, parting, bringing his tongue to hers, kissing her deep, laboring their breathing.

He tipped forward, laid her down under him. He wanted inside. But first. First. He kissed her, slow, deep, with all the hot and tender feeling in him, loving the taste of her, loving how her lips felt—so soft and full—between his lips, how her tongue felt sliding against his. And how she looked at him after, her gray eyes bright with trepidation, clouded with want.

He watched her, could watch her forever, as he brought his hand between their bodies, between her thighs, and touched her. Sweet Devan. Her eyes still lit up with amazement at how a touch like that could feel, startled still by the way a finger could brush against her and make her shudder and suck in a breath. "Dev," he heard himself sigh as she groaned, holding his gaze as he found her silky wetness and painted it over 516

her hidden folds, forward and back, slow and soft, feeling her tremble as he touched her, opened her, ripened her, juicy and full. Already quivering at the brink of climax.

"Dev," he sighed again, and coaxed her legs apart with his. Adoring. Wanting.

Dev.

When he went into her, she made a little noise and he groaned, his want so acute that feeling her cunt sheathing his cock only made him hungrier. He went deep, but slow, holding her tight to him with a palm on her ass and a hand in her hair. She made another little noise, and was so tense, so quivery under his body he thought she was about to come, already, just because of the way he'd touched her right before, and because there was something about their want this morning, but he didn't want her to yet, wanted her still aching for him and he sighed "Shhhh. Not yet. Wait Dev," as he slowly moved inside her.