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Ruth looked up at the man who pinioned her knowing she was poking a lion with a stick. She was under no illusions that this marauding man was determined to claim her physically and mentally. While holding him off was her right, the walls of the civilised world had crumbled. Blocking him out and fighting him off would only work for so long. Perhaps gaining his trust was the only way. For now. ‘You know what your problem is, Jack? You think like a soldier. You're so used to giving orders, to physically forcing people to do your will, you think it's going to work for you in the bedroom.'

‘You're right about that. Take your clothes off and dress in that white see-through, crotchless underwear.' Jack looked in his element like a boy scout who'd discovered the cookie jar.

‘Oh please.' Ruth shook her head. ‘You really are hopeless.'

Jack pushed himself off her. ‘Do it.'

Ruth sat and saluted him. ‘Yes, sir.'
Dickhead.

Dressing up might turn him on, but to her it was just another stupid activity designed to appeal to men. Did nothing for her, which suited her just fine. This should be a snack. She looked at her watch. Nine o'clock. All she had to do was put up with Jack for twenty-five minutes and he claimed he wouldn't bother her with his demands for sex ever again. Sure, he'd wrung the last orgasms out of her, much to her surprise, but this was different. Her freedom depended on this. Perhaps when sex was off the table he would see her as the highly functioning, well-educated professional she was.

Anyway, unlike Jack, she could switch her body off. She'd never been a pants-on-fire sort of girl. Unlike Sue, she could do without sex. Spent years of her life without it after her boyfriend had broken up with her. Her mother had ingrained in her to never be emotionally reliant on a man and to be respected for her intellectual gifts. Excellent principles.

Jack lay on his side watching her with narrowed, sexually appraising eyes, his big brooding body tensed so that his abdomen muscles laced. She'd never really noticed how sensuous his mouth was until he'd kissed her. His physicality had been the first thing she'd taken in. Big, brash and barging into the room like the world was his to command. Handsome and bloody annoying.

Ruth looked him right in the eye and stripped off her T-shirt and then her pyjama bottoms. She strode over to the dressing table, opened the drawer and pulled out the ridiculous white, see-through, crotchless joke panties and slid them on. She should have thrown them out when Sue gave them to her. She admired herself in the mirror, aware that Jack waited like a hungry dog on the bed. The panties were kind of sexy in a porn star type of way. ‘So is it your porn-addicted past that makes you want me to dress up like a whore?' she added in a breathless, porn-star voice.

‘Time's wasting. Get on the bed,' Jack growled.

She sauntered over and stood in front of him. ‘How do you want me?'

‘Climb onto the bed and stay on all fours.'

This was different. He wanted her kneeling so he couldn't see her face but what could it hurt? Lying down or kneeling, she was not going to break. Five minutes had already passed by on her reckoning. What could he do in the remaining time?

Jack took the cuff from her side of the bedhead, attached the end to the brass rod in the middle of the bedhead and restrained one wrist. From his bedside drawer, he produced another cuff, pulled her forward so she was prostrated like a slave and restrained her other wrist. He had a grim, determined expression on his face and an enormous erection under his boxers. Once he'd secured her, he slid off his boxers. There was no mistaking his urgency. Thick, big and hard, his cock sprang forward, which would have scored the trifecta on Sue's cock-calling card.

‘I said no weird stuff,' Ruth said in a shaky voice, vulnerability flooding her like a wave.

‘Cuffs are standard military issue.' Jack pushed her shoulders down so that her bottom pointed up. He walked behind her. She turned to see what he was doing.

He was staring at her exposed slit, his green eyes gleaming and rubbing himself like he'd won the virgin sacrifice prize. God if he broke his word and slid that thing in her, it was going to hurt.

She was just about to say it to him when he switched off the light and darkness sealed the room. The mattress shifted. A ripple of alarm passed through her. The man moved like a lion in the jungle. He parted her thighs so that she was totally exposed to the night air. Something hot blew against her vulva. Mentally, she prepared herself not to react to whatever he planned to do, but her nerves were jumping on hot coals. No doubt this was some sort of prisoner taming technique. He'd cut off her sight and touch. She strained to hear, waiting for more movement in the darkness. Bloody hell. She couldn't even hear him breathe.

Jack speared his tongue right into her.

Ruth's hips jack-knifed with the sheer pleasure of it. Her gasp echoed around the room. He used his tongue like a penis but it was hotter and wetter and Ruth had never felt anything like it. She hadn't been prepared for this. She tried to switch her mind off but when he thrust into her, he pulled out and his tongue slid down to her clitoris, quickly flicking over it before penetrating her again. She rolled her hips, groaning and sighing, unable to fight the raw intensity of it.

If he'd rolled her on her back and gone down on her, she would have been prepared. She would have clenched her pelvic floor. She knew the sensations that entailed, but this was different. This was a sensual assault. Here, on her elbows and knees she was so utterly bared and unprepared.

She tried to bring her knees together, to lock out the sensation as his tongue flicked back and forward over her clit, but he forced them even wider with his forearms. There was something weirdly kinky about his nose being so close to her arse. God, she hoped, he wouldn't lick it. Just when she fought for mental control, to ease the heavy sensation building in her lower abdomen, he speared her again with his tongue, deep this time, so that she swore he found her g-spot. How was that even possible? There it was again. Ruth groaned. Pure sensation heated inside her, making it impossible to ignore. ‘Oh God, Jack, stop. Let me catch my breath.' He'd reduced her to begging.

She tried to claw her way up the bed so that she could climb onto her hands, so she wouldn't be so exposed to his seeking tongue. The hot wet sexiness seemed everywhere. Inside her. Over her clit. His merciless tongue swirling over the sensitive bud, until she thought she would lose it.

A moan left her lips. Every bit of her body seemed attuned to his touch. Her breasts hung down within his reach and he reached up and tweaked each of her nipples. His touch was not respectful, it was hard and it hurt, but not enough to register as real pain. Instead he rubbed his fingers and thumb over her nipples until they tightened unbearably.

She didn't know how much more of this she'd be able to take.

She didn't want to respond but her will defied her. No man had ever wanted to eat her in this position but Jack licked her like a man possessed, like a man who adored pussy and didn't want to waste any of the juices. He was a man who loved the scent of pussy and wanted to devour her. His tongue wove a ring around her entrance before entering her again. Jack's tongue impaled her, flicking her inner walls as she clenched and unclenched, knowing she was going over the edge whether she liked it or not. He withdrew his tongue to skim it lightly over her arsehole. The shock of it made her clench her butt cheeks together, arching her back to try and get away from his crude invasion. She wiggled her hips from side to side but he pinned her with his big shoulders while keeping one of his hands flat on her back forcing her to expose her cleft to his mouth. It was impossible to escape. He consumed her like she was a rare delicacy, sucked on her clitoris like a freshly discovered pearl in an oyster. Her sex throbbed and though she fought not to, her hips rocked back and forward to meet his rhythm.

He pinched her nipples, hard this time.

When she came it was with a roar that flooded her whole body. Jack mouthed her sensitive clit and sucked, his tongue oscillating over the top. Ruth screamed as the rush of the most intense orgasm she'd ever had, hit her, zinging up her spine, flooding her mind as well as her sex, until she saw stars. Just as it subsided, Jack pushed his tongue deep inside her and she clenched around him, groaning, wanting him deep, deep inside.

Finally, he withdrew. She couldn't see or hear him, not above her own panting, but she knew he was there. Her whole body rippled with tension knowing he was about to claim her.

A slap rang in the air. Ruth's butt stung and her whole body jerked in shock. ‘No.' She couldn't believe he'd spanked her like in some cheap porn movie. The weird thing was although it hurt it was pleasurable too.

He paddled her backside with the flat of his hand and just when she thought she couldn't bear it anymore, he rubbed his hand over her bottom in large round motions so the sting faded to a warm glow.

Her body relaxed.

Then he drove himself into her, deep.

He leaned over her back, his breath blowing in hot pants against her nape as he thrust into her. His huge thighs encased hers and he kept her in position by gripping her hips. His rhythm was fast and hard and so deep she gasped every time the head of his cock stroked over her inner walls. She didn't expect to come again. She'd thought he'd wrenched that out of her. She was wrong. This time it was a deep internal draw that started inside her and seemed to resonate outward taking over her whole body so that she groaned and bucked, any idea of fighting him, totally obliterated by his domination.

His deep growl and jerky hip motion signalled he was just about there with her. When he came with a harsh exhalation, he held her tight for a long moment, before he finally released her and allowed her to slump forward. Dazed, she tried to catch her breath. If she had any fight left in her body, he'd knocked it out of her. Every part of her tingled and seemed sensitive and swollen at the same time.

A big, fat tear rolled down her cheek.

Jack had succeeded in what he set out to do.

The captain had made her his.

Chapter 10

When the alarm went off the next morning, Ruth woke expecting to find Jack's arms around her. Eyes still closed, she reached out to find he wasn't there. Disappointment resonated in her body and she told herself to get a grip. She was
not
going to enter into some weird Stockholm syndrome relationship. At least Jack hadn't cuffed her last night, which was a first, though he had drawn her into his arms and fallen asleep, his steady breathing tickling the nape of her neck. What was it about him that he could do things to her body that other men couldn't? A vague memory of him tenderly kissing her cheek that morning as he left, came to mind. She rubbed her cheek where his touch still lingered.

Last night had changed things between them and she hadn't had time to process it. His scent, his touch, the taste of him still lingered. Her body ached with a pleasant reminder of what they'd shared. It hadn't been the desperate user sex she'd expected of Jack. It had gone far beyond anything she'd experienced.

The alarm sounded louder. She reached out to turn it off and found a still warm cup of coffee complete with milk, next to her on her bedside table. She felt past the cup and slammed her hand down on the alarm. Time for a shower.

An hour later she heard the expected knock on the door of the house. ‘Come in, Vassar.'
Come in, grump.
She was just getting used to Jack's chief guard dog, though she supposed he had good reason to be miserable given the state of his brother, Mike.

She knew better than to try and open the door herself. Despite plundering her body last night, Jack didn't trust her. The truth was, she didn't trust herself. Everything had changed since last night. She wasn't angry at Jack about her loss of liberty. She should be. Instead, she felt like she'd entered a club where people who loved sex were members. She'd never understood why people, intelligent people, the same people she admired, would get so excited about the subject. But the lovemaking she'd experienced in the past had never been passionate like Jack's. Totally all consuming. Don't be fooled, she repeated mentally as she stood by the door waiting for Vassar to unlock it. This was not a normal relationship. Oxytocin was a tricky hormone.

When the front door opened, Vassar greeted her with a nod. Although he had dark marks under his eyes from lack of sleep, he smiled at her with real warmth. ‘Hi, Ruth. Ready for work? The guys are doing much better since you came. The orderly said they had a good night.'

What had happened to the grump? ‘Hi, Vassar. How's Mike?'

‘He hasn't turned. He ate his whole dinner last night.'

Ruth grabbed her medical bag and looked at her watch. ‘Let's go there first. I need to take blood for Lea.' She left the house conscious of the warmth on her face and the brilliant blue of the sky. Even the air had lost some of the rotting smell since Jack had cleared Balmoral slopes.

‘Do you think Mike has a chance? Have you ever had a bitten patient eat after the fever set in?' Vassar strode up the hill towards the cells beside her.

‘Some would take fluids but all desire for nutrients ceases when the fever kicks in. So for Mike to eat and a whole dinner…' She stopped walking and stared at him. ‘He ate everything?'

‘Smothered with our farm's truffle oil,' Vassar added, his voice proud. ‘Mike loves it.'

She shook her head slowly and started walking again lost in thought. ‘This is unparalleled, but it's too early to tell. Maybe they make you Tasmanians differently. There were no reported outbreaks on the island.'

‘That's because we checked everyone who came in. You'd be surprised how protective Tasmanians are of their island.'

No she wouldn't, but she kept that thought to herself. Tasmanians were a very sensitive lot. ‘That's a whole bunch of Australians unaffected by this virus. How could that be? It doesn't make sense.'