“Well, well—are you two lovebirds done with your fancy fuckin’ brunch?” Tainer’s coarse voice interrupted us.
I realized that I’d been leaning closer to Jake, looking into his eyes as we talked. Now I instinctively ducked behind him—as much as his cuffed arm and the headboard would allow, and watched mistrustfully as the huge mountain man climbed back up the ladder and into the attic. Ophelia was right behind him, a bright smile on her face.
“Did you enjoy your brunch?” she asked, beaming at both of us. “I hope it was to your satisfaction.”
“Well I hope it was to their fuckin’ satisfaction, too,” Tainer drawled. There was an ugly grin on his face and he had the gun in his hand again. “Because play time is over—now it’s time to get down to business.”
FIFTEEN
“What do you want? Just leave us alone,” I said, trying to stay behind Jake as much as I could and cover my exposed breasts with my arms and hands at the same time. I had my legs tightly closed, hiding my pussy as well.
“Can’t leave you alone or you’ll never get nowhere,” Tainer said. “He pronounced “can’t” as though it rhymed with “paint,” setting my teeth on edge.
“That’s a double negative,” I pointed out. “By your own admission, what you just said was that you ought to leave us alone and we’ll get somewhere.” Which had been Sorenson’s theory—where was he, anyway? I absolutely hated the charismatic cult leader, but I really wished he was here now to rein Tainer in.
The hillbilly’s forehead creased for a moment, as he apparently tried to figure out what I had said, but then he shook his head, like a bull shaking away an irritating fly.
“Nevermind your fancy talk—you’re as bad as the Professor,” he snarled. “Always tryin’ to explain things. Well, here’s an explanation for you—if you two don’t fuck, we’re all gonna die. So get to fuckin’!” And he waved the gun at us.
“Tainer, you can’t do that!” Ophelia exclaimed, aghast. “Professor Sorenson says that’s not how it works. Anastasia has to be brought into her Heat Cycle gradually.”
“Well, she’s actin’ a little too gradual for me,” Tainer snarled. “I wanna see ‘em breed.”
“It won’t do any good for the Alpha Heir to knot her now,” Ophelia said, looking exasperated. “It has to be done under the light of the full moon for the prophecy to be fulfilled and a good strong pregnancy to take!”
“Well, they at least need to get closer to fuckin’,” Tainer exclaimed. “What do you wanna see ‘em do, ‘Phelia? C’mon—you know you wanna see ‘em do something.”
A romantic, dreamy look came over Ophelia’s open, mild face.
“I’d like to see them kiss,” she said softly. “Not a rough, angry kiss like you get sometimes when everybody’s getting rowdy under the full moon. But a sweet, gentle, romantic kiss. You know?”
It was all I could do not to roll my eyes. Clearly Ophelia had been watching way too many Hallmark movies and now she wanted a live action recreation of one.
“You heard the lady.” Tainer gestured at us with the gun. “Go on—kiss.”
I looked at Jake and he looked at me. As erotic orders went, this was a pretty mild one, but who knew where it might lead? Still, we couldn’t exactly say no—Tainer had the gun trained on us. At least he was no longer ordering us to “get to fuckin’.”
“All right,” Jake said, frowning at them. “I’ll kiss her. Just stop waving that damn gun around—it’s not a toy.”
“Boy, I know my way around guns, don’t you fear that I don’t,” Tainer snapped. “No go on and kiss her before I decide to ‘play’ with this here trigger a little. You can still fuck if I blow one of your knees out,” he added meaningfully. Then he looked at me. “And you, little miss Royal bitch, you better do a good job for ‘Phelia here. She’s been waiting on you two hand and foot and she wants a good show!”
“Don’t listen to him,” Jake murmured, catching my eyes with his. “Don’t look at him—at either of them. Look at me, Ani.”
I did more than look at him. Turning my back to our audience, I took his face in my hands. His morning beard scratched my cheeks as I looked into his pale, pure-gold eyes, so like my own. My heart was pounding as I leaned towards him.
“Only because we have to,” Jake murmured, looking into my eyes.
“Only because we have to,” I repeated breathlessly. And then I pressed my lips to his and kissed him.
It was, as Ophelia had requested, a soft, gentle, romantic kiss. It was also, I was ashamed to admit, the best kiss I’d ever had in my life.
Jake had teased me about having “never been kissed” but that wasn’t true. I’d been kissed before—plenty of times. Well, maybe not plenty, but enough to know I didn’t like it much. I always felt like whoever I was kissing somehow had the wrong kind of mouth. That his lips were too dry or—God forbid!—too wet. That his mouth was too big or too small. That he used too much tongue or—but no, I never felt like a guy didn’t use enough tongue because I had never wanted any guy’s tongue in my mouth before.