Captive Heroes (2 page)

Pain knocked like crazy inside her head and queasiness continued to attack her tummy as she stared at a delicate, silver chain-link bracelet she wore on her wrist. A stars and stripes flag was engraved on one corner of the plate. “Allergic to Bee Stings” was stamped in big bold letters across the middle and “Kinley Hero”
was in smaller letters beneath.

Huh? Kinley Hero? Kinley?
Somewhere…something in the back of her mind told her Kinley was her name. Kinley. Pretty name.

A dense quiet permeated the pod interior and pushed away the thoughts of her bracelet. The silence crept around her like a dangerous lover. She wanted to give in to it. To fall asleep and dream, but the eerie stillness also frightened her. It became deafening to the point where she wanted to yell again.

She would have too, but a loud
thump-thump
, as if someone was banging against the other side of the wall, had her jerking against her restraints.

What the heck?
Where was she? What was going on? She gazed dumbly at the harness ensnaring her naked body. It kept her bound tightly against a warm, pliable foam chair. As if through a long, black tunnel, frantic muffled cries came from outside the structure. Someone was yelling at her to open the door. To wake up. To get out.

She didn’t want to get out. She wanted to stay here and fall asleep.

Hot, acrid air and blinding brightness swept inside as someone opened a door, and Kinley closed her eyes against the brilliant orange light.

Everything hurt. Her head. Her body. Just everything.

“Kinley! Get out! The ship is on fire!” a woman yelled in a frantic voice.

Fire. The stench of smoke.

She didn’t like the smell. She didn’t want to die in a fire.

Someone was unlocking the belts keeping her hostage and hands pulled at her arms. She kept her eyes closed and moaned a protest as dizziness swept over her. In a flash, she was released from those awful restraints but was forced into brown, stagnant water.

And then she was swimming. Tasmanian devil swirls of orange-blue flames swept all around her. Moss dangling from nearby creepy-looking trees flared and burst into flames.

Everything went black.

“Come on, Kinley, say something.” A young woman she didn’t recognize snapped her fingers in front of Kinley’s face. Kinley closed her eyes again as another wave of dizziness swept over her. Nausea slammed into her stomach but, thankfully, she wasn’t sick.

Okay, she’d passed out. She needed to stay awake. Felt the urgency in the other woman’s voice as she kept yelling.

“Oh come on, don’t do this to me. We need to get Piper some help. She got burned in the crash.”

Piper? What the heck was a Piper? A plane. She was talking about a plane, right? They’d been in a plane crash?

Kinley forced herself to open her eyes as the woman cursed a streak of blue words that truly impressed her. Her gut clenched uneasily at the pale face bobbing nearby in the water. Someone dead? Then she realized the pissed-off chick’s arm was slung beneath an unconscious woman’s neck, keeping her face out of the water.

Okay someone was hurt. She wished she could help, but she could barely keep herself afloat.

“Just keep up with me, Kin. Just keep up. Keep swimming. That’s it. Dear God, please don’t make me choose whom I have to save.”

The woman’s anxious voice snapped some serious panic into her. She needed to swim. To get out of this inferno. Even though they were in water, the air was intensely hot from the blades of flames popping up all around them. Black smoke billowed into the air, blocking the sky as the fuel on the water caught fire. They would burn if they didn’t swim away. And fast.

Instincts told her to keep her head above the murky water. She told herself not to drink it, but she’d swallowed some already, leaving a lousy, swampy flavor in her mouth. Trees surrounded her as she swam. The branches were twisted and menacing, reaching toward her as if wanting to grab her.

She needed to get away from them before they caught her. She swam faster.

* * * * *

Kinley must have blacked out again. She didn’t know for how long, because she awoke to discover she wasn’t surrounded by intense flames and heat or black rolling smoke that bit into her nostrils. The woman yelling at her to keep swimming was gone too. Thank goodness, because her shouting had irritated the hell out of Kinley.

Her surroundings were peaceful. Lying on her back in some wooded clearing, Kinley touched the cool cloth on her forehead.

Fresh, yet sticky, air shifted into her lungs, and aside from her temples throbbing and a few aches and pains here and there, she had no complaints.

Above her the sky was a breathtaking blue, and all around her were gorgeous, tall green ferns that waved gently in the humid breeze. Beneath her a warm material hugged her back and, when she turned her head, a tiny zing of pain snapped against her right temple, reminding her she had a head injury.

Fear hit her as she discovered a big black-haired man lying on his side right beside her. His elbow was propped on the ground, his head resting in his hand while he studied her. He had a nice, friendly face with a dark, sexy shadow that hugged his chin and cheeks. He had a straight nose and the blackest eyes she’d ever seen. He was smiling too, as if enjoying himself, and, to her surprise, his smile eased her anxiety.

“Ah, you awaken again. The bump on your head is subsiding. How do you feel?”

His voice was husky and the distinct feather-light brush of his fingers danced across the lower, right-hand side of her belly. His touch was erotic as he caressed her flesh. The lusty glitter in his eyes had her breath halting in her lungs. She wished for him to dip his fingers lower, to touch her between her thighs. She ached for him to rub her clit and extinguish her neediness.

“Um, better,” she admitted, wondering who this guy was and why she wanted him touching her intimately. Her eyes widened as she lowered her gaze from his face to study his broad shoulders and chest. Curly black hair partially hid an abundance of scars that looked like lash marks from a whip.

Wow, so he’d obviously been whipped? Did he take BDSM that seriously?

Her temples resumed throbbing as she remembered flickers of being tied to a cold stone wall in a dark BDSM dungeon. She was laughing and clenching her teeth as the cat-o’-nine-tails bit into her tender flesh. Yeah, she was into the scene. It had been fun. But who the hell was this guy? Who was she? She couldn’t remember.

“Do I know you?” she asked, trying really hard to resist the urge to grab his hand and move it lower, to between her legs, where she needed him to be.

His grin widened. “You must have forgotten again. I have told you several times. My name is Blackie. It is the head wound that makes you forget. It should get better soon.”

She would be better soon. She would remember things. Why did that thought make her unhappy?

“What happened to me?”

“I do not know. I discovered you near the Fever Swamps. Your body is bruised and I am sure you drank some of the water. As you know, when ingested the swamp water arouses a female. I had to…” Intense longing crossed his face and heat suffused her body.

Swamp water aroused a female? What was he talking about?

Flickers of something… His warm, tender mouth kissing her tummy. His fingers rubbing her clit and then dipping inside her vagina. Of her convulsing into one orgasm after another. Wanting more.

Her cheeks flamed.

“I had to make you come.” His voice was hoarse and thick with arousal. “You enjoyed it immensely. Do you not remember?”

My goodness!
He had to what? Her pussy throbbed. Excitement swept through her. Yeah, she remembered feeling really nice with what he’d been doing to her.

“Do you wish me to do it again?”

She creamed. Hard.

Oh my. Yes, actually that would be nice.

She should be afraid of him, shouldn’t she? She ripped her gaze from his intense stare and gazed down past her bared breasts to his dark tanned fingers caressing the light flesh of her belly. A black hair-like blanket covered her lower half. The texture tickled her thighs. She didn’t have to be told she was naked beneath that blanket.

So why wasn’t she afraid of him? She should be scared. She
should
be. But no fear came. Just a yearning for him to keep touching her. A craving to have sex with him.

Concern dipped his mouth into a frown and sadness whipped through her for making him worry.

“You do not answer me. Do you still have your headache?”

Oh wow, now she remembered. She’d had a blinding headache. Some woman had been yelling at her to keep swimming. What had happened to that woman and the one she’d been rescuing? Were they all right?

“Was there anyone with me? Two other women?” she asked.

He shook his head. “You were alone. Unconscious and naked. You had taken a blow to your head.”

The woman had said something about not making her decide whom to save. Obviously she’d chosen the unconscious person she’d been dragging through the water.

Oh well. At least she was alive and safe here with this guy.

She grimaced as he reached up and removed the cool cloth, touching a tender spot on her right temple.

“I am sure it still hurts, but the swelling is down. I will place more salve on. But before I do, do you wish to come again?”

Oh my.

His eyes sparkled with heat and, yeah, she wished to come. She swallowed. She had to be dreaming this guy. He was too good to be true. His big body was laced with muscles and he wore nothing but a breechclout. She certainly didn’t miss the huge erection pressed against the material between his very muscular thighs.

She resisted the urge to curl a hand over his hip, turn her body toward him and slide up against him. Resisted the urge to undo that breechclout and palm his cock and slip his solid flesh into her throbbing, empty pussy.

His biceps flexed magnificently as he moved his hand from where he’d touched her temple. That frown of his deepened. Yeah, he was worried about her.

“Are you not feeling well?”

“Um, sure. I feel okay.” Yes, she had to be dreaming. A guy she didn’t know seemed overly concerned for her well-being.

“Then I shall make you come?”

Sure, why not?
She nodded.

He grinned and arousal burst through her entire body. The sexy way he smiled, the intense lust in his eyes as he looked at her made her feel so desirable.

“Your scar makes me very aroused.”

“My scar?”

“It is very sexy.”

She peered past her heaving breasts. Tried to ignore how ripe and red her nipples looked as they poked straight up into the humid air. She gazed down to where he touched, just below and to the right of her bellybutton.

Yeah, there was a two-inch diagonal scar. Appendix. She must have had it out, but she simply couldn’t remember.

“A scar excites you?”
Amazing.

“Most females have their scars immediately erased.”

Plastic surgery.

She wanted to ask him why he had so many scars. Did it turn his women on? Someone she knew got turned on by scars, but damned if she could remember whom.

A flare of jealousy zipped through her. A good-looking guy like him must have tons of chicks. Why was he here with her? Where was here?

Who cares, the guy wants to make me come. Right now that’s all I want. Questions I can deal with later
.

She moaned softly as the heated palm of his hand slipped over her stomach like an erotic brand.

“Lift your knees and spread your legs,” he commanded. His voice was firm, yet gentle at the same time. An endearing combination.

She did as he said and the blanket slipped off her knees and down over her belly. She widened her legs and his hand dipped beneath the blanket. He slid a finger between her slick folds and sunk it deep into her vagina. Her muscles clenched eagerly around him.

Oh yeah, perfect.
She moaned her approval. He groaned softly. She liked that guttural, wild sound of his. Liked it a lot.

“You are creaming very nicely,” he whispered.

Understatement.

She swore he read her mind as the tips of his full lips curved upward into another magnificent grin. Endearing laugh lines erupted at the sides of his eyes. Eyes so dark brown they were almost black. Awesome coloring.

He slid his finger out and rubbed her clit with her cream. She was quite sensitive there. He’d said he’d made her come.
Yeah, like how many freaking times?
Her pussy lips were heavy and swollen, her vaginal muscles gently aching. Had he fucked her while she’d been unconscious?

Wow. She would have to ask him that. But later. Much later.

She creamed harder at the thought of him doing her while she slept and reached up to massage her nipples. And boy, they were sensitive too. Had he been sucking on them? Touching her here? Pinching and rubbing her nipples like she was doing now?