THEIR_VIRGIN_PRINCESS (8 page)

And just the fact that she thought of them as
her
men was proof enough that she’d gone
half mad. She should shove Cooper away right this second before he found out
how cold she was.

“Baby, your nipples are hard.”

He backed up just enough to brush his knuckles over them.
Rough, work-callused skin touched her own, lighting a fire deep in her belly.
She shivered and gasped, then tried to shrink away. He wrapped an arm loosely
around her waist and kept her close.

“You respond just fine.” His voice sounded rough. “Let me
kiss you.”

Alea shook her head. “I-I can’t stand too much touch. I
can’t close my eyes without…”

“Shh, baby. You can’t stand being tied down or having
someone on top of you. We can work on that. It’ll take time and patience, but
I’ve got both.”

“It’s more than that.” But he wouldn’t understand, and
frustration welled. She needed to grab her robe and run away. She looked around
for an escape, but the only way out was through Coop. “I don’t know how I would
handle hands really…touching me.”

“Let me do all the worrying. We’ll work it out.”

That sounded nice. No, it sounded like a huge relief,
letting someone else bear the strain and horror of all she’d endured. God, she
was so deeply lonely, but she feared the risk. What if Coop touched her and she
panicked? How could she ever look at him or the other two again if she freaked
out and made an idiot of herself? They’d know she was frigid. Hell, she’d
confessed it. But they didn’t know she woke up screaming and fighting some
invisible attacker far too often.

Slowly, Cooper slid to his knees, somehow making the move
deeply graceful. “I won’t touch you with my hands, baby, but I want to show you
that there’s not a damn thing wrong with you. You can respond. I can prove it.
Let me kiss you.”

He wasn’t talking about her mouth.

Cooper was right
there
,
staring at her. She should be horrified. No one had seen her naked since she’d
come home from South America. But there was something heady about the intimacy of
being bare and alone with Cooper that she couldn’t deny. She felt frozen,
hopeful.

And then she felt desperate because Cooper didn’t wait for
an answer. He leaned in, and she felt the heat of his breath right on her
pussy.

Alea braced for the panic to set in. She parted her lips to
warn him that, any second, she would kick out and try to fight him. She lifted
her hands, ready to push him away.

But everything stopped—time, her heart, her breath—as he
kissed her with such aching tenderness, placing little butterfly kisses across
the mound of her pussy. Women in her culture waxed their bodies, and now Alea
was glad she’d kept up the practice because she could feel every press of his
lips against her sensitive skin. Heat flared, but she found herself trembling
as she looked down, watching his golden brown hair move as he tilted his head,
seemingly determined not to miss tasting an inch of her.

“You see, you could handle a little kiss,” he whispered
against her thigh, and his words tingled along her flesh. “The key is to go
slow so you know you’re safe. But we can push the boundaries just a little. Do
you know how long I’ve wanted to taste you, baby?”

She’d been kissed before on the mouth, short, groping
attempts at affection when she was younger. Her childhood had been deeply
protected. Growing up behind palace walls with three male cousins had ensured
she’d gone to college with very little experience, but she’d been kissed a few
times. She’d even been touched by two male suitors.

But nothing had ever been like this, a heady, trembling rush
of amazing pleasure.
Oh god...
And no
one had ever gently drawn his tongue across her swelling folds.

She couldn’t stop the cry that fell from her mouth. Suddenly
she was glad she was leaning against the wall because she was pretty sure her
legs nearly dissolved underneath her. She couldn’t quite catch a full breath.
His mouth felt so good.

“You taste so sweet, Lea. So fucking sweet.” He drew his
tongue right up the center of her pussy, stopping at her clitoris to press little
circles there.

Alea could feel herself getting soft and wet, her pussy
nearly pulsing with desire. Pleasure drummed behind her clit. And she ached
everywhere.

He sucked half of her labia into his mouth, pulling gently,
tonguing her with wicked purpose before returning to her clitoris. She’d read
about this feeling, but she’d never thought her parts actually worked.
Apparently, she’d been wrong because every nerve in her body now stood at
attention, expectant as he laved affection all over her pussy. He licked her
clit with the tip of his tongue, and she moaned, melted, dying for more.

But he seemed intent on making her wait for it, making her
crazy. He tapped her clit, then drew it between his teeth, suckling in gentle
passes that had her panting for more. A plea sat on the tip of her tongue. Her
head fell back against the wall, and her eyes slid shut. Her fingers filtered
into his hair.

“Yes…” she moaned.

Oh, god, she was soaking wet. He was eating her up, sucking down
everything she gave him. And still, he seemed hungry for more. These foreign
sensations he gave her made her feel powerful and sexy and right. She started
rolling her hips with every brush of his tongue, pushing toward him, forcing
him to tongue her harder as she silently begged for more. He could make her
come. He could give her everything she’d secretly craved. And she would thank
him because she’d never felt more free.

So close. As he rubbed her clit with his tongue, worrying
the perfect spot over and over, she fisted as much of his hair in her hands as
she could. Her eyes were going to cross. She held her breath. Soon—in
seconds—she was going to scream his name. She was going to find that bliss
everyone talked about and shout her pleasure from the heavens.

Suddenly, he gripped her hips, caging her against the wall
and stilling her movements. Her brain blanked and readjusted. Memories
catapulted her to a different place. Pleasure vanished.

No love. No affection. Just chains and pain and heartache.

Fat bitch. Stay where
you are.
They were always telling her how ugly she was. How she wasn’t
worth the food they gave her. How some day they would just slit her throat and
leave her to the dogs.

She could hear the sound of that hand coming for her. They slapped
at her stomach because the skin was thin there. They caned her feet so she
couldn’t walk, much less run, for days.

“Lea! Lea, baby, stop!”

She couldn’t. They would kill her, rape her. They told her
she was nothing. A piece of trash. Worthless. And they would annihilate
everything inside they hadn’t yet destroyed.

A stupid princess without her own family. She was cursed and
useless, and it would be better if she’d died.

The worst part was, those words were her own. It was her own
voice in her head, in her sleep…when she considered how much easier it would
have been if she’d rotted in that jungle.

“Lea!”

Strong arms caged her, and Alea fought harder. She kicked
out, determined to get away. They wouldn’t take her this time. She refused to
let that happen. No way was she going back to hell. She would rather die. She
heard a long, tortured scream, then realized it was her own. She refused to go
quietly. Never. She would make them kill her before she’d go back into a cage.

“Please, baby. I won’t touch you again. Please come back to
me. Please.”

“What the fuck is going on here?” A deep voice cut through
everything.

Authority dripped from that voice. Authority decided how she
was punished, how and where she would hurt that particular day. Authority meted
out “justice” swiftly.

“Fuck you!” Alea shouted. She was done. They could kill her,
but she wouldn’t go meekly. They wouldn’t shove that needle in her arm and make
her compliant again. They wouldn’t make her crave the drug that made her
kidnappers’ job easy.

Not again. Not again.
Please not again.

“Alea!” That voice was insistent, pulling at her. “Alea,
you’re in Bezakistan. You’re safe. You’re here. No one is going to hurt you.”

Strong arms shook her, forcing her to open her eyes.

Dane?
When had
Dane come to South America? Had he come for her? He couldn’t see her this weak
and pathetic. She tried to push at him, but he was a massive brick wall. “Go
away.”

He refused to budge.

Tears ran down her face as she thrashed violently for
freedom.

A sharp shock hit her skin, and the fleshy part of her ass
flared with a stinging heat, forcing her into the present.

Then reality hit her harder than any smack to her ass.

She was in the palace, and she wasn’t alone. She was
surrounded by all three of them. Cooper was on his butt on the floor, staring
up at her, guilt carved into his face. Lan had a hand on Coop’s shirt as though
he’d pulled his friend back. And Dane stood in front of her, his gorgeous face
stern and tormented as he stared down at her. His blue eyes were steady as he
braced his big hands on her shoulders, seemingly ready to shake her back into
reality. He was the one who had slapped at her ass, jarring her long enough to
return to the present.

And suddenly, Alea realized that she was naked in every
sense of the word. “Get out of here!”

None of them moved.

What had she been thinking? What the hell had she been
doing? A sob formed in the back of her throat. She couldn’t handle this. Panic
was still there, rolling in the pit of her stomach. Those memories were so
close to the surface, she could smell the dank sheets and hear the cries of the
women around her. She shoved out at Dane, but he was a tower of pure muscle.

He didn’t even register her pitiful attempts at freedom. “Calm
down, Princess. Do you know where you are?”

Alea hated his perfectly sensible tone. She was past sanity,
and he sounded so completely cool. She tried to calm down, but they were all so
close. “I need you to back off. Back off!”

It wasn’t fair to lash out at them, but she
needed
to be alone so she could regroup.
She had to get them out of here before she lost it again. She’d humiliated
herself enough. And more panic hovered at the edge of her consciousness, stuck
in her throat, threatening to escape in a long scream.

They had all conspired against her, even Landon. He’d known
about the investigation. It was the only explanation for how he’d known where
and when that meeting about her life had been taking place. All three of them
had been complicit.

Broken and ugly. That was all she was.

“Alea, I’m just about ready to put you over my knee and
smack that ass until you’re in your right head again.”

“Nice. Well, go ahead. It’s nothing I haven’t been through
before. You think you’re so big and bad? Go ahead, abuse the stupid, weak
princess. Maybe that will make you feel like a man.” She spewed bile his way
because she wasn’t about to let him know that she needed them to hold her, to
surround her until she was sure no harm could reach her. Eventually, they’d find
out she was broken. Then they would leave. She had to erect some really high
walls that would protect them all, so their rejection wouldn’t hurt so much.
“Men only see women as punching bags anyway, right?”

Dane’s face went a bright red, his jaw tightening to the
point she was sure it would break. He was so righteously pissed that she
thought surely he would beat her and prove who was stronger.

Instead, he jerked away from her, then pivoted, giving her
his back. He didn’t look at her again, merely reached out and grabbed Cooper’s
shirt, where Lan’s hand had been previously. He twisted his fist in the garment
and started dragging his friend out behind him.

“Goddamn it, Dane.” Cooper struggled, but nothing seemed to
faze Dane. “Let me go. We can’t leave her like this.”

Dane merely stalked out of the room, hauling his partner
along.

Alea’s hands shook as she felt warm, soft fabric cover her
shoulders suddenly. She looked up. Landon. He was settling her robe around her
body, covering her nakedness. His face was a careful blank.

“I’ll admit that I knew you were all kinds of fucked up,
Princess,” Lan began in that down-home Texas drawl of his.

She laughed, but there was no humor to the sound. She pulled
the robe around her like a coat of armor. “Good for you, Lan. You just proved
you have eyes and a brain that halfway works.”

He flinched, and his face closed up. Alea fought tears. What
was wrong with her? Why did she keep saying such horrible things? Why was she
hurting them?

Because they terrified her. Because if she hurt them first,
they might not be able to hurt her back.

“Wow. That’s a good one, Princess. You know how to go for
the throat. You definitely kicked Dane where it hurts the most. Did you know
his ex-wife thought that BDSM was abuse? Did you know that even though he never
touched her like that, when he asked her to experiment she called him a wife
beater?”

She gasped. How horrible. And how terrible she felt now.
Dane would never hurt a woman.

Alea closed her eyes for a moment. Sometimes, she didn’t recognize
herself anymore. When she lashed out like she just had, the fear and hurt
talked, not her. “No. Oh, Lan, I didn’t know. He wouldn’t have abused her.”

“Well, you have great instincts, Princess. Dane feels like
he failed everyone, his whole family, definitely his ex-wife. I’m pretty sure
I’m the dumbest idiot ever born, so reinforcing that is a surefire way to hurt
me. Let me give you some advice on how to hurt Coop because I’m not sure you
figured him out yet. He hides his insecurities really well.”

“Don’t.” Alea felt hot tears scalding her face.

Lan thumbed away the tears, but his voice didn’t change. It
remained a deep, polite monotone. “Coop came from a big ranching family. When
he was a little kid, the ranch hit real hard times. His family almost lost
everything. Every dime they made went back into the land or to pay the
mortgage, so he grew up poor. He was the youngest of seven boys so by the time
the hand-me-downs got to him, they were patched up and worn and he was so
skinny that the kids in his school called him Scarecrow. Call him that a couple
of times and it’ll cut him to the quick. Since you’re not only fucked up but
cruel, that should give you some ammunition. Enjoy it.” He shook his head. “The
way I see it, either you were always mean or you let them make you mean. Either
way, it’s a goddamn shame.”