Rule Breaker: A Novel of the Breeds (39 page)

“Think it won’t?” A heavy press of his hips and his cock head breached her vagina further, separating sensitive tissue and clenched muscles as a cry of pure pleasure escaped her lips. “Let’s see if we can’t make it work, mate.”

His hands smoothed along her flanks before the caress was gone. Moving over her, he pressed deeper inside her, the smooth, short strokes of his cock creating a passage for the heavy width of his flesh as the heated stretch of her tissue sent pleasure-pain striking at a deepening well of hunger.

Hard, muscled, his larger body stretched over hers for an instant as he pushed deeper, deeper, filling her, taking her an inch at a time. One burning, lightning-sharp sensation at a time, until he was buried fully inside her.

Seated to the hilt, the taut sac of his testicles pressing into her clit, Rule gave no concession, took no mercy in the erotic combat playing out between them now. The more she tried to sever that steadily evolving link he’d made with her soul, the more firmly entrenched it became.

“Think of this, Gypsy.” His lips seared the tender flesh at the point between neck and shoulder where he’d marked her the night before. “Remember this. If you ever. Ever attempt to steal from me the mate I’ll kill to protect. The mate I’ll betray all others to protect. Remember what the hell you’re stealing from both of us.”

Straightening behind her, she felt him reach for something, knew what he was doing, knew how he would imprint himself in her soul and still, she couldn’t stop him. His touch returned between the narrow cleft of her rear, his thumb, slick now with lubrication, pressed firmly against the tightly clenched entrance there. Rubbing, pressing, exciting nerve endings she’d never known could be so erotically sensitive, he began preparing her.

Without conscious volition, without any attempt to accept and with every intention of rejecting, still, she felt the tightly puckered entrance ease and allow the broad tip of his thumb to enter her slowly.

Gypsy was helpless against the cries that escaped her throat. Helpless against the smooth, stretching burn that parted the snug opening and began stretching it, caressing inside, fueling a hunger she shouldn’t know, shouldn’t feel.

His hips shifted, the wide head of his cock shifting and caressing inside her pussy with such resolute sensual destruction that she nearly orgasmed for him in that second.

That diabolical thumb pressed deeper inside her, pulled back, then slid in again. He took her in a way she couldn’t fight, neither mentally nor emotionally, and that emotional edge was going to destroy her.

Gypsy could feel it rising inside her, a wash of so many emotions—

“No. Please, Rule.” She jerked against him as she felt it coming, felt the breaks in the barriers she’d built over the years as the connection to him began to tighten, to strengthen.

Her head shook as she pressed it into the pillow, her fingers clenching tighter, a band of sensation beginning to tighten in her breast.

“I have you, Gypsy,” he crooned behind her, that wicked, wicked thumb easing back as she felt his cock stroking her internally in a way that had her breath catching in near ecstasy.

A second later, his fingers returned instead.

Parting her buttocks, she felt one ease inside her, stretching her again, filling her as more of the lubrication slicked his way.

He repeated the penetration. Pulling back completely, he returned seconds later, another layer of the slick gel coating her inner, untouched flesh as she panted beneath him. But this time, it wasn’t just one finger, but two. Parting them, stretching the entrance and internal muscles of her anus further, he blazed a path of complete surrender through her senses.

She should tell him no. That was all she had to do.

She could do it, she told herself desperately.

Instead, her hips lifted as his cock pulled free of her, a cry breaking from her throat that shocked her. A sound of such wild hunger, of such need that she couldn’t make sense of it.

What she could make sense of was the fact that once this was finished, he would own her.

Her breath caught, fear edging at the boundary of pleasure . . .

“Oh God. Rule.” She cried out his name as that wide crest of his cock pressed against the tender entrance he’d prepared so carefully.

“That’s it, baby, so sweet and hot,” he groaned as virgin flesh began parting, stretching with such incredible heat that Gypsy found herself trembling in anticipation as the snug, tightly stretched entrance rippled at the intensity of sensation. “So fucking mine.” His teeth were at her shoulder, raking the little mark he’d left there, scraping it with his teeth. “Feel me, Gypsy. Feel me, inside all of you.”

He
was
inside all of her.

A scream tore from her throat.

Sensation rushed through her like a firestorm of rich, thick lava. She flooded with not just her pleasure, but his. Bound by not just the velvet emotion he was wrapping around her, but also the tightly woven threads that led from him to her. From her to him.

“Rule, please . . .” she cried out, her voice hoarse as she shuddered at each sensation. The wide, brutal heat of his cock sinking in where she’d never imagined she’d allow a man to take her sent her senses spinning.

It was just as sensual, just as exciting as she heard it could be, with none of the feelings of degradation or repulsive control she’d feared it could hold.

What it held was her submission, and it was complete.

That realization swept over her as the heavy length pushed deeper, the blunt head of his erection easing that tighter, more sensitive ring of muscles deep inside her anus wide enough to take him fully. As the head popped past the last barrier, he buried himself completely inside the tight channel to the hilt before pausing, before letting her
know
what he had done.

“Rule.” She couldn’t scream, she couldn’t cry.

The sound was rough, the sob that hitched her breath something she hadn’t heard from herself in so many years.

And she was terribly certain she might become scared. There was something about being impaled in such a way, taken with such intimacy that was shattering something inside her.

“I have you, Gypsy.” His lips pressed to that mark and pleasure clenched every muscle further, strained her already ragged defenses. “You held yourself for nine years, baby. Every day, every dark lonely night that I was too fucking stubborn to claim you.” He licked the little wound then and she felt the muscles gripping him suddenly tighten with the wave of sensation that rushed through her senses. “I’m here now, baby. You don’t have to be brave by yourself anymore, Gypsy.”

Brave?

She jerked in his arms, crying out as she felt the final wall between them beginning to fall. His hips moved with easy, powerful movements as he fucked her with such elemental eroticism that it was impossible to fight.

The feel of the broad length of his cock impaling her anus, shuttling back and forth across nerve endings never before stroked in such a way, inflamed her senses.

“I think I don’t want this.” Her fingers clenched tighter on the blankets beneath her as he began moving, small, shallow thrusts that began to heighten each sensation in the heated, oversensitive flesh to the point she had to fight to remember what it was she might not want.

“Sure?” His voice was a croon, heavy, indolent with wicked, sensual intent and primal demand as his thrusts began to lengthen, to increase. “Are you sure you don’t just want this, baby? Are you sure both of us don’t fucking need it?”

His teeth tightened on the mark, his tongue stroking over it, easing any fear, heightening the pleasure, the erotic need pulsing through her.

Following his lead now, her hips lifted to him as he pulled her to her knees, straightening behind her once again, his hands gripping her hips, holding her steady as he began thrusting harder, faster inside her.

Every deep, stretching thrust spilled wave after wave of not just pleasure, but something more, something darker, something so intense, so hot and completely all-consuming that she knew she was lost.

“God yes, Gypsy,” he growled behind her, each stroke pushing her closer, shafting inside her with a heavy intent that Gypsy knew would shatter her.

There was no fighting it.

It was blazing through her senses, taking her, laying waste to trepidation, to fear, to anything but the knowledge that never again would she face the night alone.

“You’re mine.” His lips were at her ear, his voice darker now, deeper as the animal that ruled so many of his senses surged to the surface. “Do you hear me, damn you? Fucking mine.”

And she felt it. The animal, the beast that lurked inside him, that marked her, determined to imprint itself just as deeply inside her as the man had.

Dark. Prone to savagery but controlled by a fierce, ever-deepening honor that guided it within the man. Primitive and primal and he was claiming her.

Her eyes shot open.

Experienced, knowing fingers pushed inside the weeping depths of her pussy, fucking inside her and filling her with more than just the pleasure. More than just the alternate stretching heat of his thrusts between her thighs even as his cock laid claim to her rear.

The added sensations were too much. Too many.

It was too much heat, too many waves of striking, ecstatic bolts of hyperpleasure being hurled through her.

Before Gypsy could counter them, before she could balance herself, she was suddenly flung into the heart of a flame so intense, so rapturous that she swore she felt the brand it left on her soul.

...

He couldn’t hold on much longer.

Rule clenched his teeth as the sweet clench and burn surrounding his cock began to ripple as shudders began racking the delicate body beneath him.

It wasn’t just the physical pleasure, this link his instincts had established with his mate with such suddenness. It was an intensity of pleasure. A knowledge of it. A certainty that though the mating took the choice from her hands, still, that choice had been made before it happened.

It was being inside her, buried in the heated depths of her rear, his fingers stroking and caressing the snug tissue of her pussy as the pad of his palm pressed into her swollen, hypersensitive clit.

It was feeling her explode as her breath caught and a brilliant wash of incredible, engulfing heat blazed through her senses and into his.

Her pleasure merged with his. It became a double-edged sword of such pleasure, such desperate ecstasy, that he wondered if he could possibly survive.

White hot, a surge of energy raced up his spine; as it hit his brain a storm of intense, brilliant sensation began to wash over his body. He had seconds. Another thrust, two . . .

A brutal snarl tore from his lips as he felt the barb extend, bringing his thrusts to an instant halt as the first ejaculation shot from the depths of his balls. Where the thinner, but no less intense ejaculation from the barb originated from, he wasn’t certain. What he was certain of was the pure, undiluted ecstasy of feeling his pleasure riding so close on the heels of hers, even as he felt her knowledge of it and the sensations of his pleasure engulfing her.

A brutal, never-ending circle of rapture.

He’d never heard of it existing with another couple before. To his knowledge, no others had attained this link with their mate.

A mating so deep, so never-ending, that as the final pulses of his release shuddered through his body and she relaxed beneath him, Rule felt his senses sink deeper inside hers.

And felt the wispy tendrils of knowledge as it crept from her subconscious, seeking the warmth of the animalistic senses that were now a part of her.

A vision formed in his mind. A fact, a history, a betrayal so deep, so resolute Rule knew that before the night ended, he would do what he’d ached to do nine years before. Tonight, he would shed the blood of a man, to defend a child whose brother had died to protect her.

The same man who had bought her brother’s death.

Frightened, uncertain, that hidden part of his mate touched his senses as he felt her drift into sleep. It reached out to him, and still locked to her, buried deep inside her, he felt the tears she still held inside, felt the pain, the rage, and the ragged uncertainties that filled that dark corner of her soul.

“Don’t cry. Be brave, Peanut,” Mark’s voice whispered through her mind, as it did each time she tried to sleep, tried to escape the guilt that had plagued her for so long.

He was trying to give her a message that had been unable to penetrate the shocked, terrified senses of a fifteen-year-old child.

He’d always told her that her tears healed all her wounds. He’d told her she didn’t have to be brave all the time, that was what big brothers were for. And he had hated the pet name, Peanut, that his best friend had given her.

It was the only clue he had to give her.

Jason had betrayed them.

“I have you, Gypsy,” Rule whispered against her ear then. “You can cry now, baby. You don’t have to be brave alone anymore. Never again, sweetheart. You’ll never be alone again.”

CHAPTER 28

Kandy wasn’t waiting on her as Gypsy assumed she would be the next morning as she was taken from the hotel to the secured base where her parents were being held until Gypsy’s forty-eight hours were up.

So far, neither Dane Vanderale nor Dog had come forward, but with a weary heart she knew it no longer mattered. Rule would take care of the situation before the time was up.

Inhaling slowly, deeply, she stepped into the surprisingly comfortable rooms they were waiting in. The sitting room was tastefully appointed with a private bathroom and small bedroom off the side.

Her mother sat alone on the sofa, while her father stood at the small window on the far left side of the room that looked out onto the desert.

There were no security cameras, no electronic security period in the building she had been taken to. Old-fashioned locks and radios were used, though the weapons the Breeds carried were anything but old-fashioned.

Her mother looked up as the doors closed, her tear-swollen face still appearing far younger than her years while her green eyes were dark with grief.

“Gypsy.” It was her father who moved quickly to her, stopping a second before touching her, his gaze suddenly frantic as he stared down at her. “Mr. Wyatt said we couldn’t touch you,” he said hoarsely, the hand that had dropped to his side lifting, then falling helplessly before he raked both hands through his hair. “I haven’t hugged you in so long, have I, baby girl?”

Baby girl. That was what Mark had called her. It was what her parents had called the tiny, delicate little bundle they’d named Kandy Sweet.

Gypsy felt her throat tighten, the tears she could feel building in the ragged depths of her soul threatening to spill at any moment.

She swallowed tightly as a hard, single shake of her head did nothing to dispel the emotions tearing her apart.

“Jonas will release you sometime tomorrow,” she stated, unable to answer the question. “There’s a gag order on the crime you’re being held for until you can be questioned regarding the reasons for trying to betray the Breeds—”

“They’ve always meant more to you than anyone else did.” Her mother’s tone was hoarse, tears and anger filling her voice as she rose shakily to her feet.

“That’s enough, Greta,” Hans demanded, turning to her, his expression tortured. “For God’s sake, let this go.”

“When you were five and the Breeds revealed themselves, you cried for them and told Mark all you wanted was for someone to save them. Until then, Mark hadn’t involved himself in hacking, or in trying to save anyone. He was a good boy who loved his family . . .”

“Mark still loved his family,” Gypsy stated, her heart breaking, burning in pain as the accusation deepened in her mother’s eyes.

“For God’s sake, he acted as though you were his child,” her mother cried painfully as her father turned and paced away, a grimace contorting his face. “From the moment you were born. He even diapered and bathed you.”

“Because otherwise she cried in constant pain because her diaper wasn’t changed often enough, or stank of urine because she wasn’t bathed regularly,” her father finally bit out, turning back to the room as Gypsy’s gaze swung back to him in surprise. “We were too busy building a business that went nowhere and running a store that was no more than a fucking joke.”

Anger filled his tone as tears fell down her mother’s face once again.

“That isn’t true,” her mother sobbed.

“God, Greta, it
is
true. Mark was barely ten when Gypsy was born, and within months he was the one caring for her, because we were too damned busy or too damned drunk,” he assured her with such loving gentleness that Gypsy had to turn away from the sight of it or lose control of the tears she was barely holding in check. “By the time Gypsy was fifteen, neither of us even knew who or what our child was becoming, except that she was Mark’s. And Mark made certain we didn’t forget it if we tried to step in.”

“No . . .” Greta fought to disagree, the pain that filled her expression so great that the hollow grief in her eyes was almost alive.

“For God’s sake, admit it.”

Gypsy flinched at the anger in her father’s voice as it rose in response to the continued denial.

Greta lowered herself back to the couch, shaking her head as she lifted shaking hands to cover her tear-drenched face.

“Wyatt told us that night what happened,” he said furiously, moving to the couch to stand over her mother, his rare display of anger shocking Gypsy. “If Gypsy had been home that night she would have died as well, and you know it. Just as Mark would have . . .”

“If she hadn’t made him hack those bastards, then it wouldn’t have happened.” Her mother came off the couch, rage engulfing her as she pointed a shaking finger at her daughter and faced her husband in blind grief. “She made him do it.”

“I’m starting to wonder if your parents weren’t right where your mental abilities are concerned,” he accused her roughly. “Because God as my witness, Greta, we both know even now that there wasn’t a force on this Earth that would have convinced him to do something he didn’t want to do. And that’s the same lesson he taught the child he raised. He raised her, and he did a damned fine job doing so, because from what I’ve heard, she’s done nothing but honor him since his death.”

“You’re as blind to her as Mark was,” Greta cried out as Gypsy watched the anger now flowing between her parents.

“And you’re still just as blind to the fact that you’ve always blamed an innocent child for the fact that Mark had far more of a life than the one we forced upon him when he took her to raise.”

She’d never seen such displays from them, but as she watched them, she realized the tension she’d always felt around them might not have been just the anger her mother felt at Mark’s death but perhaps their anger with each other as well.

“The person who betrayed Mark is at fault, no one else,” Gypsy interceded during the apparent lull in the argument. “Mark lived the life he wanted to live, even I know that.

“I was too irresponsible.” Her father shoved his hands into the pockets of his cargo shorts before pacing to the window once again. “Too damned stupid to be the father I should have been.” He shook his head as he turned his back on them. “And your mother was no better. She simply refuses to accept it.”

Her mother’s breathing hitched on a sob as she sat down once again, staring at the floor.

“Where’s Kandy?” Greta whispered a second later, her head lifting to stare back at Gypsy miserably. “I kept trying to keep ahead of her at the hotel so she wouldn’t be in the elevator with us, just in case we were caught. She didn’t know about the device. You can’t punish her.”

“I’m not punishing anyone, Mom,” she breathed out painfully, aching for the parents she’d never had, and the ones that had never existed. “I thought Kandy would be here, but she must have decided to wait.”

“She decided she can’t face either of us,” Hans sighed, his back still turned to them. “And I don’t blame her. I don’t blame either of you.”

Weary acceptance stooped his shoulders as Greta covered her face with her hands once again and lost the battle with her sobs.

He turned back, glanced at his wife heavily, then stared back at Gypsy. “What will happen to your mother, Gypsy?”

He loved her, Gypsy knew. Loved her mother until nothing or no one else mattered. Or had mattered.

“As I said, you’ll be released soon, by tomorrow afternoon, though mentioning this to anyone will see you very publicly arrested and formal charges filed.” She pushed her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. “Don’t say anything, pretend it never happened, and if we’re extremely lucky, perhaps I can make it all go away.”

“You?” Her mother questioned her, voice rough and filled with doubt. “How can you do anything?”

“The same way I managed to get you released pending a review by the Breed Ruling Cabinet of the charges and a decision made regarding whether justice would be best served by killing my parents for breaking Breed Law or convincing them to cooperate by turning over the person who gave you a nit equipped with a technology more advanced than any they’ve seen so far,” she informed the other woman, realizing that the bond she’d always ached for with her mother had never been there.

She’d indeed become an orphan when her brother had died.

“And you were able to do this how? A good-time party girl. How did you make the Breeds owe you so much that they would do that for you?” Her mother’s disbelief in her ability to do anything but party was apparent.

“I guess party girls have their uses,” she sighed, resigned to the fact that her mother would never accept the truth.

Why hadn’t she seen any of this over the years? she wondered. Hell, she hadn’t even heard rumors to suggest the woman her mother truly was beneath her quiet, generous façade. Or perhaps it really was just her elder daughter she so hated.

“Thank you, Gypsy,” her father said softly, the regret and, surprisingly, a father’s love, echoing in his voice. “Even I saw the rapport you’ve developed with them. And I meant what I said earlier, Mark would have been incredibly proud of the woman he raised.”

“Give them what they need, Dad,” she all but begged him. “Please. Don’t let this happen to you.”

He gave her mother a weary look then. “I didn’t even know she had the damned thing,” he said softly. “Only she can answer that, and she won’t even tell me.”

Because she believed she’d found the closest she could get to the son she had lost
, Gypsy thought sadly.

Maybe, she thought. If it just hadn’t taken her nine years to figure out what he had been trying to tell her.

“We need to call Jason,” her mother said then. “He’ll have to make some decisions regarding the company. Perhaps Kandy can handle the Breed account . . .”

“Mother, you know that account is gone now,” Gypsy sighed as she fought to push back the fury at the sound of Jason’s name. “The contract you signed became null and void the second you brought that first device into Jonas’s suite. Surely you realize that?”

The look her mother shot her was one of resentment and anger.

“How do we handle losing the contract if we can’t say anything?” Hansel asked then, confused, wary. “What do we do, Gypsy?”

“They can’t afford to take that contract,” her mother burst out then, her expression becoming calculating, conniving. “There’s more to this than merely helping us because of her.” She flung a hand in Gypsy’s direction. “She’s lying and we all know it.”

Guilt, anger and grief had destroyed her mother, Gypsy thought sadly, wondering if there was any way to repair the damage Jason Harte had inflicted when he betrayed his best friend.

Hansel McQuade ignored his wife’s declaration but continued to stare back at Gypsy.

“Jonas will discuss everything with you before you’re released,” she promised, tired, drained by the knowledge that nothing could ever convince her mother that there had been no way to save her only son once his best friend had learned his secrets.

“Gypsy,” her father sighed, the regret, the desperation in his gaze breaking her heart.

She shook her head at whatever he would have said.

“I need to know who she was working with, Dad.” She didn’t bother asking her mother. There was far too much anger there. And she needed to hear it. She needed to hear his name.

“He doesn’t know,” her mother bit out then, furious. “I never told him. And I won’t tell you.”

“You’ve already lost a son,” Gypsy stated, the chill building inside her unrelenting now. “Dad will be convicted beside you. He’ll die with you. Is that what you really want?”

Greta’s eyes widened as tears began to fall once again, sobs shaking her shoulders. “If you had just stayed home,” her mother cried brokenly. “Mark called Jason that night. He told him he had to find you. You didn’t even tell Mark you were leaving as you were supposed to. Jason told us all about it, Gypsy.” Greta’s strangled scream was accompanied by an accusing finger pointing to her with shaky determination. “Jason told us how you were responsible.”

Gypsy shook her head, fury building, tearing at her.

“Mark knew where I was going,” she snapped back at her mother, furious now. “I would have never left without telling him, Mother. Never. He knew of the only party in the desert that night, and he knew I had wanted to go. Just as he knew that if he yelled at me and ordered me not to go without discussing it with me, I would sneak out and go anyway.” Gypsy had to swallow past the hatred burning inside her now. The need to kill. To destroy Jason as she had been destroyed. “Mark knew me. He raised me. Just as Jason knew you.” She couldn’t hold back the contempt in her voice now. “Knew you so well that he knew he could lie to you and you’d never even face me with it,” Gypsy cried out. “You couldn’t even face me with his lies. You let me rip myself apart day after day for nine years and never told me . . .”

She turned away, fighting to breathe, to find that place in her heart where she would always remember,
they were her parents!

“I have to go,” she finally whispered, the realization that Jason had destroyed more than he probably ever knew burning through her mind.

“Gypsy, I’m so sorry,” her father whispered, and the sorrow he felt filled his eyes, his expression. “Tell Mr. Wyatt we’ll do whatever he needs.” He glanced at her mother before turning back to her. “We’ll tell him everything he needs to know.”

He watched her with such resignation and regret that her heart broke for him.

“I wish . . .” Her voice broke, taking precious moments to find her control once again. “I wish I could have stopped this from happening.”

“You can’t stop what you’re unaware of, sweetheart. The blame doesn’t lie with you, it lies with me.” His voice was heavy with regret, with pain and a resignation born of the knowledge that some things could never be fixed.

She nodded shortly, turned and moved to the door.

“Gypsy?” Her mother’s voice had her pausing, her fingers on the doorknob, though she didn’t turn back. “Stay away from Kandy, don’t destroy her too.”

“God, Greta.” Shock filled her father’s voice now.

She didn’t wait to hear more. Pulling the door open, she stepped out, closed it behind her, then stood as still as stone to pull in a ragged breath.