Dominated By Desire (19 page)

“No.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “But they are smart enough not to challenge me when it comes to training. They know to do what I say when I say it.”

So was he saying she wouldn’t listen to him? He was asking for it if that was the case. “So are you saying that when you challenge me I don’t respond properly?” She tried to word it so he wouldn’t be seen as anything less in the men’s eyes. He watched her with his predatory gaze and she didn’t think he was going to rise to the bait, until a sly smile spread across his face.

“I had to use a different strategy with you and making you lose one piece of clothing every time I pinned you seemed like a good idea. It did work out in my favor.”

“Ultimately.” She smiled back. “But if you feel I didn’t learn my lesson properly perhaps we need to redo my training.”

“We can continue that lesson anytime.” He looked at the men before looking back at her. “When we don’t have such an audience.”

“I look forward to it.” The spark in his eyes grew to a distinct flame.

“What about her training with us, sir?” They weren’t going to give up on their request.

She could see he didn’t want to give in, but how could he say no? She’d think he thought her unworthy of working out with them and his men would probably think the same thing. Heather crossed her arms and waited.

“Fine. We will start training again in a few days. I will make sure her schedule is clear so she can join us.”

In other words he was going to run her through the paces so he could be sure his fragile little woman could keep up. She was looking forward to showing him what she was capable of doing.

****

One of the suns was starting to peek up over the horizon when they finally made it back to their suite. Storm had planned on moving them to his apartment yesterday but things got in the way. He thought about taking Heather to his apartment when they headed back but knew he hadn’t been there since he went to Earth and had no clue what condition it was in. He needed to get a crew in there to get it ready for them. Then he looked over at his mate.

Heather had sunk into one of the overstuffed chairs in the main room and curled into a ball in slumber. She wanted to wait for him but sleep wasn’t letting her.

“Come on, my heart, get to bed.” He helped her up and pointed her in the direction of their room. He wanted to set up the cleaning before joining her. It only took seconds for him to send the message.

Trying to be quiet, he followed the trail of clothing she had left on her way to the bed. He picked up her dress, the bra, panties and garter. The hose she had removed before they headed back. He placed them on a chair near her side of the bed.

He was tired too, but watching her slumber there filled him with a peace he hadn’t felt before. Most arranged marriages ended in disaster but he didn’t think he could have picked a better person to be his mate if he tried. A yawn reminded him he hadn’t gotten much sleep since arriving home. A few hours of rest would do him a lot of good. If he could keep his hands off his mate.

****

The smell of coffee brought him around the next morning. He found Heather fully dressed and sitting on the edge of the bed with a cup for him.

Normally he was the one waking her in a very pleasurable way. Had he slept that late?

“We have company.” The worry on her face told him to dress and come out as quickly as he could.

He leaped out of bed and out into the room in seconds. There stood three of his security men. What were they doing there? “Problem?”

“Yes, sir.” That was all they needed to say. He stalked back into the bedroom and dressed in his uniform. Heather stood to one side as he walked past and out the door. Whatever happened to make them come to his mother’s house had to be bad. They filled him in on their way.

“You hired a crew to clean your apartment this morning?” asked one of the men. He held a small handheld and started entering data in it as Stormed answered his question.

“Yes. Why?”

“They walked in on someone ransacking your apartment. When they were late in reporting to their superiors, the crew’s leader sent out someone to check on them. They found your apartment broken into. One of the cleaners is dead and the other has been taken to the med area. No one has been able to give a description of the assailant or what they were after.” Storm walked into the apartment. It was a mess. He couldn’t believe the devastation done. “What about the security cameras?”

“They were turned off.”

He stepped over items that had been strewn about the room. This was aimed at him. It got worse as he headed back to his bedroom. He found his bed slashed, furniture smashed and in tatters about the room. Across his bedroom walls in black letters was the question. ‘Where is she?’

Whoever was after Heather was now on his planet.

****

Heather could feel his distress. Whatever he was dealing with he was taking personally. Several guards took up residence outside their suite, making her nervous. Not knowing what was going on made her trepidation worse.

Storm walked in the door and went into their room, ignoring her and closing her out for a moment. When he came back out he had a uniform in his hand. He dropped it on the table. “Put it on.” She was surprised to find a Vespian uniform in her size. Once she had it on she asked. “You going to explain what happened?”

“They’re here.”

“Who is here?” She wasn’t sure what he was talking about.

“Whoever has been after you. I had hoped it was someone from Earth but they were at my apartment today. Looking for you.” He pulled up the image of the words scrawled on his bedroom wall onto the main screen in the room. The words explained what she felt from him. “This is now very serious. You have training. I know that, but you’re going to learn to fight as a Vespian, think the way we do. You need to understand what you are up against.”

She wanted to argue that she knew what she was up against but knew he was in no mood. The anger etched on his face showed his worry over her safety. What she had to do now was prove how good she was at her job.

Earth picked her to protect him for a reason and he needed to see that to help him understand she wasn’t defenseless. “So when does my training start?”

“Now.” And he came after her. His first lunge came up empty handed.

She had been quick enough to jump over the couch but he wasn’t stopping.

She didn’t want to hurt him but she had to prove that she could protect herself against someone much bigger than her. Everyone who saw her only saw her size. That included her mate. It didn’t matter how many times she had stopped someone from harming her, until she could stop him it didn’t matter.

His sole intention was to protect her and she knew that but the whole thing reminded her of her training when she was pitted against some big lumbering ox who didn’t think a skinny girl could get the best of him. He used his weight and strength to try to subdue her. The first time he did triumph, but only because she allowed him to. She made a misstep to see what he would do. To learn from it.

Her security instructor made them do the technique again and she outsmarted him. Ten times in a row she knocked that big guy down and secured him before he could move.

Storm was a lot smarter than her opponent years ago, but then again she had a lot more training. She studied him, trying to figure out what she needed to do to triumph.

His height could be what she needed to use against him. Get him off balance enough and he would fall. Once she got him down she would have to move quickly to secure him. So what was she going to use? She needed a rope or cord to bind him. Glancing around, she did find something that would work and she slipped it into her suit.

No matter what though, she needed to be sure she was out of the way of his long reach. He reached for her again and she dropped back far enough that he ended up with air a second time. He was determined to get her and she was determined to prove he couldn’t. She watched his movements as he stalked her. She needed to plant a side kick right between his shoulder blades to knock him down. Now she had to figure out how to get him to move past her long enough to hit him.

They seemed to know what the other was thinking most of the time, anticipating needs and wants and she knew he would use it to best her here.

She had to do the same thing.

He watched her. So far so good. He was trying to read her. She gave him a smile, making him frown and make the first move. His first mistake.

He moved to the right and she started left. The moment he compensated and headed in the same direction she stopped, back-stepped and spun around him. Jumping, she landed the kick square between the blades and knocked him to the ground. She grabbed and pulled one of his arms back and as quickly as she could she wrapped the cord around his hand. She had thought about wrapping it about his neck which was what she would have done if it wasn’t Storm but found she couldn’t. She didn’t want to hurt him, only stop him for a few seconds. Then she pulled his foot behind him toward his back and wrapped the other end of the cord there.

She stepped back because she knew it wouldn’t hold him long. “That should take you about thirty seconds to get out of. But you need to know I can protect myself, even against the head instructor of your planet.”

“What makes you think I am the head instructor?” He pulled his hand free then rolled over.

“I have a brain in here too.” She tapped her head. “It’s the little things like the comment one of your men made. Something about that was the way you trained them. They didn’t refer to anyone else.”

“So I could just teach the men who were there with me.”

“The next leader of the planet? Please.” She offered him a hand up.

“Know I can put up a fight and I’ll do my damndest to win.”

“And I will worry every second until we end this.” He took her hand and got to his feet. “But I do have to say that wasn’t bad. There aren’t too many people who can get the drop on me.”

“Your focus was off. I’m sure if you had been on your game it wouldn’t have happened.”

“Really? And what do you think interfered?” He took a step toward her.

She gestured to her body as she stepped back. “And don’t think I’m going to relax enough to let you take advantage of the situation.”

“Glad you’re paying attention, and as much as I’d like to take advantage of you once again I need to be sure you know what to do with someone who knows our ways. I’d never forgive myself if you weren’t trained properly.”

“Because you’re the best?”

“Yes.”

****

She worked hard. Harder than any of his other trainees. He had never seen anyone like her. If he knocked her down she got right back up and tried again. Once she mastered it she never lost at that particular maneuver. No matter how many times he might throw it at her.

He could push and push and she never complained and always gave more than one hundred percent. If she was any other trainee he would probably force her to go home, knowing she was working too hard. But part of him knew she had little time to learn as much as he could teach her so he kept pushing.

Their lessons were private. What he taught her never went past the two of them. Her training was more intense and sometimes more advanced than anyone he had ever worked with. He wanted her up to speed with the seven men and two women he had been training. They were the best of Vespia and she needed to be able to keep up.

When she worked out with his team she learned what everyone else did. She never received special treatment, was normally the first one to volunteer to try a new maneuver, and always asked the right questions.

His men and women grew to respect her quickly. He would give them challenges and her ingenuity always helped whatever team she was involved with, to win. She excelled in a group that already had the best. He had never been so proud of a student before.

She was now as good if not better than the elite team she was working with. There was one more test he wanted to give her but no one could know what he was about to do.

“Tomorrow we get to play.” People nodded and smiled. Heather just watched, arms behind her, legs slightly apart. Some sort of military stance from Earth. “Go home, get some sleep, be back here first thing in the morning.”

Everyone filed out one by one until they were the only two.

“You’ve been so serious lately.” He picked a few weights that were accidently left out and put them back on the racks.

“Yeah.” She picked up her gear and wiped her face with a towel she had sticking out of the bag. “My mate would expect nothing less. My teacher would tell me I’ve learned faster than any of his students, but my mate would argue that I don’t have as much time as the rest might and I need to push, and to be honest I want to keep my mate happy.”

“Well, you’ve earned a well-deserved rest.” He grabbed his towel and swung it around his neck then picked up his bag.

“Is that my mate or my teacher speaking?”

“Both.” He gestured for her to go out the doors first so he could lock up.

She nodded.

“Unless you feel we need to train.” He gave her one of his heart stopping smiles. “Like we did on your planet. I do have a lesson I never finished.”

“With all the cameras running in this place?” She stepped out the doors, shaking her head. “Really don’t want to see that on any of your newsfeeds.

We were at the embassy the last time and I know you took care of the recordings.”

“You do?” After locking the doors, he wrapped an arm around her waist and ushered her back to his mother’s house.

“Yes, because I went to have them erased and was told the cameras weren’t even on.”

“How about that.” He stopped moving when he noticed the large screen in the middle of the park. “How did they get that information?” Heather looked up and saw her picture flashing across the screen. They were talking about the intensive training she had been going through since his apartment had been vandalized. Somehow they knew, as she did, that the exercise tomorrow was to test her. “Oh, boy, that is going to make my mate very angry.”