Dark Stallion (7 page)

Despite his almost frantic haste of before, though, he entered her with far more care than she would’ve expected, with determination, shaking as if he had the ague, but slowly. She gasped when he hit her womb. He stopped, shaking harder for a moment and then withdrew … and plowed into her again a little more quickly than before. He allowed her a handful of shallow strokes to adjust to his length and girth and lost his control.

Uttering a breathless groan, he began to move faster. Almost the moment he did, she felt her body gather itself to take the leap to glory her heart was hammering so anxiously for. She groaned, afraid to move for fear he’d thrust more deeply into her than she could handle, but that only seemed to drive her over the edge. She sucked in a sharp breath as her climax exploded through her, shuddering at the force of it. He managed a handful of strokes while her climax peaked and then withdrew abruptly, sliding his cock along her cleft. She felt it jerk against her as he spilled his seed, shivered as she heard the breathless grunts that seemed to be driven from him as he ejaculated.

He pressed his forehead against the back of her neck, gasping hoarsely.

“That was … incredibly stupid,” he muttered under his breath when he pulled away from her.

Emma whipped a shocked glance at him.

His lips tightened. Pulling her away from the tree, he scooped her up into his arms. “Put your arms around my neck,” he growled.

Still stunned and vulnerable, she complied before she’d even considered whether she wanted to or not. He strode back to the stream and swam across with her. He didn’t set her down until he reached their campsite.

Colwin had apparently been awakened by the stir they’d created when they dashed off, but he was clearly disoriented. He stared at the two of them blankly when Aydin set her on her feet.

Aydin studied him broodingly for several moments and finally seemed to dismiss the temptation to give him the sharp edge of his tongue. “Get some sleep,” he growled.

Emma settled weakly on the ground, staring at him as he stalked off.

Colwin stared at him in dawning anger, but finally moved to the spot Aydin had vacated earlier and flung himself down to sleep.

Keenly aware of every movement Emma made, Aydin didn’t relax until she finally lay down. At that, it wasn’t much. He knew she wasn’t asleep. He felt her gaze, her confusion, her anger.

Scrubbing a shaking hand over his face, he tried not to think about what had just transpired between them, but it was impossible to completely dismiss the images that kept playing in his mind over and over. He should’ve guessed, he thought in disgust, that he was within a hair’s breadth of doing something really stupid.

And fucking her was about the stupidest thing he’d ever done in his life—especially in his centaur form—not the least because he’d wanted to do it again the minute his body had stopped convulsing with ecstasy.

It was because he had not been with any female in far too long, he told himself angrily. The females of his tribe were more prone to taunting him with what he could not have than giving him what he wanted of them.

He gods damned well did not want any of them as a mate, the spiteful bitches! He would not have given
any
of them his seed! It wasn’t enough that his father’s life had been a misery to him until he had met Sarah and claimed her as his mate? It wasn’t enough that
his
life had been a torment to him? Why they thought he would risk bringing another child into this life to suffer for being different was beyond him, but that was generally their excuse for turning him away even as a lover—the possibility that he might give them a dark one.

Not that he hadn’t learned his lesson in
that
respect! He ignored them now—now that he was no longer young and stupid and naïve enough to mistake their flirtation for anything but a taunt. It worked far better for enticing them into his bed.

It rankled that they would sneak into his bed and sneak away again, fearful of being spotted visiting him when they openly took their other lovers, but he had needs. He took what was offered when it was offered and tried not to think about it, or them, once they’d sneaked away again.

At that, it had still been a while since he’d had a lover. He’d decided solitude might suit him better when he had grown sick of having no mate of his own. It hadn’t. He’d been far more miserable alone, and he’d finally realized that it was stupid to deprive himself of the only family he had. He had the love of his father, his uncle, his mother, and his brother. It wasn’t enough. He wanted more. He wanted his own mate, his own family, but becoming a hermit certainly wasn’t going to gain that for him.

If Emma hadn’t looked at him as she had, hadn’t responded to him as she had, he didn’t think he would’ve lost his head. Right up until that moment, he had been sure it was firmly fixed in his mind that she was hoonan and he had no business touching her at all—shouldn’t
want
to.

There was no getting around the fact that he did, unfortunately. He was already wound so tight by the time they’d stopped from all of the rubbing her body had done against him he was ready to explode. It hadn’t taken much to push him over the edge, especially after she’d scared the pure hell out of him at the gods damned river! He’d been certain she would drown! He’d never felt such panic, such a sense of desperate fear in his life! He’d never seen a hoonan swim—except his mother, but then she wasn’t actually hoonan. She was an other-worlder.

He should not have touched her! He should not have given in to the churning fear, remorse at hurting her, desire, and anger that she’d tried to escape him and nearly gotten herself killed in the process! The moment he had, he’d lost his mind.

Because she’d responded to him. He’d
felt
her kiss him back. He didn’t believe for a moment that he’d imagined it. She’d wanted him, and it had set him on fire to have her—as if he hadn’t already been on fire!

Gods! He hadn’t even
thought
about the fact that he was in his natural form! That she wasn’t
made
for him in that form!

At least he’d managed to gather his wits to a degree. He’d been careful of her, if he’d been too maddened to stop—which he should have! At least he hadn’t spilled his seed into her!

Gods! He had wanted to! It had taken all he could do to pull out of her. He didn’t think he could’ve managed it then if fear hadn’t suddenly hit him, the fear that he might find fertile ground, impregnate her.

And there’d still been the voice of want riding him, encouraging him to dismiss the notion, to ignore the possibility!

It had been a near thing! He still felt cold all over at the thought of what he’d almost risked only for a few moments of pleasure.

She couldn’t really want him, he told himself furiously. It was a trick. She was using her beauty against him, trying to manipulate him. He
knew
that had to be it!

And he still wanted to ignore that warning in his head and just take what she offered. He wanted to fuck her until he was exhausted, drunk with it, too weak to move. A part of him didn’t care if she was trying to manipulate him.

And there was the danger.

He wanted to believe she wasn’t like the others of her kind, and he knew they weren’t to be trusted. Hoonans viewed them as animals, felt justified in using them as beasts of burden. She couldn’t have any other view of him, which meant she couldn’t possibly desire him.

Unless she realized his darkness was because he was part hoonan himself and that actually did appeal to her?

Why not? It was the reason his tribesmen despised him—they knew he was not a pure blood because he had the coloring of the hoonans. Just as they knew Colwin was a half-breed other-worlder because his father, Chandler, had taken Sarah as his mate, making him almost as much of an outsider as he was himself, despite the fact that Colwin had been fortunate enough to be golden like their tribesmen.

That was even more dangerous thinking, he realized, because he was trying to convince himself that she was as attracted to him as he was to her and he knew better! Even if she suspected that he was part hoonan, she’d seen his true form! She knew what he was!

She’d looked hurt, he realized after a while. He didn’t think he actually had hurt her, not physically, but what the fuck did he know? He’d
behaved
like an animal the moment he caught the scent of her arousal, the moment he’d touched her and felt her yield to him, and he’d completely lost it when he’d stroked her woman’s place and found her wet for him.

His cock rose on the thought, tenting his fucking loincloth. He ignored it, trying to will it to lay down again, but it was reluctant to obey and anxious to test the tight, hot, wet cavern of her body again.

“Gods!” he muttered under his breath. He was going to be insane in no time at all if he had to stare at her for days on end and not touch her!

They should leave her and let the king’s men find her, he thought abruptly. Colwin’s half-baked plan of using her to get the foals back wasn’t going to work. The only thing it was likely to do was to bring the soldiers down on their tribesmen!

Chapter Five

“Tell me you did not fuck her!” Colwin growled the moment they reached the river.

Aydin stiffened and turned to look at his brother. “I will not tell you anything, brother! Because it is not your gods damned business!”

“You did fuck her!” Colwin snapped. “I knew it!”

Aydin’s lips tightened. “What I did,” he growled, “was chase her down because
you
fell asleep on guard duty and she escaped!”

Colwin reddened. “I dozed only a moment,” he muttered.

“It was more than a moment! It took her a while to work her way up that sapling and free herself!” Aydin shot back at him.

“It did not waken you!” Colwin said pointedly.

“Because I thought it safe to close my eyes because I believed you were on watch! And it
did
waken me or I would not have caught her! She nigh drowned, I might add. If I had not awakened ….”

Colwin paled. “That is why she was soaking wet when you brought her back? That is why you were carrying her?”

Aydin felt his face heat with discomfort. Crouching down, he focused on cleaning his teeth and washing his face. “I had run her to ground,” he muttered finally. “And I did not want to have to chase her again.”

“You did not … ravish her, then?” Colwin said after a prolonged moment.

Fury surged through Aydin, and he came to his feet. “I am not like the hoonans!” he snarled. “I have never forced myself upon any female! If you were not my brother ….”

Colwin’s anger rose to match his. “You did fuck her, though, did you not?”

Aydin slugged him in the mouth. Colwin flew backwards and slammed back first on the bank, sliding into the edge of the water. He was on his feet again in a moment, charging up the bank. Aydin met him with another punch, but Colwin managed to kick his feet out from under him and both of them went into the stream.

They wrestled, trying to overpower each other, slipping and sliding in the muck on the streambed until they’d worn their anger out and finally settled to glare at each other. “I took her,” Colwin said when he’d caught his breath. “She belongs to me!”

“She does not belong to you, brother! She belongs to the king, and he will have both of us castrated if he catches up to us and even thinks for a moment that we have soiled her!”

That sobered Colwin. “He will not catch us,” he said finally.

Aydin shook his head. “You did not go after her to avenge yourself on the king,” he ground out. “You went after her because you wanted her … and that is a gods damned dangerous thing, Colwin. She is hoonan! We are animals to them! You may think when she looks at you with those big blue eyes that you see admiration in them, but it is nothing but calculation!”

“I had not set eyes on her before we found her!” Colwin disputed him immediately. “Granted, I had not thought things through. I’ll admit it was an impulse and very likely not the best I might have had, but it was revenge that drove me to seek her out. I am not a complete fool, whatever you think! And I think you are more in danger of succumbing to her wiles than I am!
I
did not fuck her last night!”

“If you did not have that on your mind to the exclusion of all else you would not be so convinced that
I
had!”

“I never said it was not on my mind! Gods! I had not expected her to be so … beautiful! She is far too fine for the likes of those bastards! You are saying that you did not lose your head and do anything?”

Aydin ground his teeth together, but he had no intention of either admitting what he’d done or lying about it. “You are not thinking what I suspect that you are thinking,” he said instead.

“If you believe that I am thinking about keeping her then I will admit that it has crossed my mind.”

“Then uncross it!” Aydin growled. “We cannot keep her!”

“I do not know why not! She is the spoils of war, gods damn it!”

“
We
do not behave as the gods damned hoonans do! We do not take their women and despoil them!”

“Because they are disgusting creatures, and we do not want them!” Colwin snapped. “Emma is different. And I have said nothing about despoiling her. If she will have none of us, then we can let her go. Neither of us have a mate and I, for one, am sick to death of not having one!”