Page 39 of Brigand

He’d told her in no uncertain terms. She was not to run fromhim.

He hoped to God she hadn’t been gone long, that the sound ofthe door was what had awoken him.

He ran outside and scanned the tree line, his heart thuddingpainfully in his throat. He’d only just found her. He couldn’t bear to lose heragain. He couldn’t.

And that terror raging in his breast? A panic far beyondthat of a captor defied. He didn’t dare scrutinize that.

He saw the light in the distance, flickering like a bobbingstar. He set off toward it at a dead run. How dare she. How dare she? Fury andexhilaration and the bitter aftertaste of dread twined together in his gut.

It did not take him long to catch up with her. His nightvision was good. He skirted the fallen logs and leapt over gullies and rutswith ease. Wayward branches were no match for his resolve.

She was in sight within seconds.

She glanced over her shoulder and saw him coming. She letout a little cry and started to scamper away, in another direction. There wasno hope for her. No way she could outrun him. Not with her short legs, thehampering of her skirts.

He captured her easily, looping an arm around her waist. Hehefted her off her feet, turned around and, pausing only to pick up the lamp,which she’d dropped in that headlong fruitless flight, towed her back to thecabin.

She kicked and squirmed and pummeled him with tiny fists.“Beast!” she bellowed more than once. As though it was the only word she couldthink of.

When they came to the door, she hooked it with her grip andtried to stop him from taking her farther. He pulled her free with ease anddumped her onto the bed and glowered at her.

She was a sight. A glorious sight with her hair all a’muss,her bosom heaving, her lips parted, her eyes ablaze. She perched on themattress, clearly poised to run again, glaring at him.

“I told you.” A gruff, feral snarl. “I told you not to runfrom me.”

“Go to hell, McCloud!”

He wasn’t sure what infuriated him more, her defiantexpression or her words. Or his blood was simply running high. But theprovocation she presented was more than he could resist.

He took hold of her arm and yanked her to her feet, then saton the bed himself and flung her over his lap. His palm landed on her upturnedbottom. The smack resonated.

“Noooo!” She writhed and thrashed on his lap.

She shouldn’t have. She really shouldn’t have.

This resistance enflamed his ire.

He smacked her again, and again. But spanking her throughthe muffling folds of her skirts was not nearly satisfying enough. He yankedthem up.

She warbled a shrill, incomprehensible howl.

He ignored it.

When his hand fell again, it was with the satisfying splatof flesh to flesh. Even more satisfying was watching his handprint rise inglowing red on her alabaster ass. She stilled. The sound emanating from herthroat was something very different. A low, wild cry. One he’d heard on severaloccasions.

His burning anger curled in upon itself and became adifferent kind of burn altogether. His cock rose, throbbed in tandem with histhrumming pulse.

He smacked her bottom again, several times in succession,then swept his palm over the flesh. She murmured something he couldn’t make outand rubbed against him—ostensibly an attempt to escape but Ewan knew better.

He’d had her many times now. He’d brought her to bliss morethan once. He knew, could tell, she was aroused. He didn’t need her to turnjust then and glance up at him with that simmering expression.

He clenched his teeth and smacked her once more, this timefollowing it with a swipe between her legs. And ah, yes. She was dripping wet.

“You like this.” An accusation. A jubilant crow.

“No.”

“Admit it.” He toyed with her pearl, that hard, slick littlebutton bathed in cream.