"Hooray," she said glumly.
"Don't tell me you're going to miss falling out of bed at five-thirty in the morning?"
Amy giggled in the hallway. "Troy, don't!"
The newlyweds were getting ready to check in before they left. Every afternoon right after tea they raced back to their apartment, where Molly was fairly certain they jumped into bed and made very noisy love before they had to return to the B &B for the night.
"Lucky us," Molly muttered. "Now we can get lectured on our sexual inadequacies by both of them."
"Like hell." With no warning Kevin grabbed her, pushed her against the refrigerator, and crushed his mouth to hers.
She knew exactly what he was doing. And while this might be better than her hickey idea, it was a lot more dangerous.
His free hand caught her leg beneath the knee and raised it. She snaked it over his hip and curled her arms around him. His other hand dipped under her top and covered her breast. Just as if he had the right.
It was all for show. She told herself that as she parted her lips and let his tongue slip into her mouth. He felt as if he somehow belonged here, inside this one small part of her, and she wanted to kiss him forever.
The kitchen door thumped, reminding her they had witnesses. Which, of course, was the whole point. Kevin drew back a few inches, not even far enough for her lips to cool. His eyes never left her mouth, and he kept his hand on her breast.
"Go away."
A gasp from Amy. The thud of the door. The sound of quickly retreating footsteps.
"I-I guess we showed them," Molly breathed against his mouth.
"I guess," he replied. And then he started kissing her all over again.
"Molly, I-Oh! Excuse me…"
Another quick thud of the door. More retreating footsteps, this time Lilly's.
Kevin muttered a dark curse. "We're getting out of here."
His voice held the same note of determination she'd heard in television interviews when he promised to dominate Green Bay. He released Molly's leg. His hand slipped more reluctantly from her breast.
She'd gotten herself right back where she wasn't supposed to be. "I really don't think-"
"No more thinking, Molly. I'm your husband, damn it, and it's time you start acting like a wife."
"Like a-What do you-"
But Kevin was fundamentally a man of action, and he'd done enough talking. Shackling her wrist, he hauled her to the back door.
She couldn't believe it. He was abducting her to have__
Forced Sex!
Oh, jeez… Fight back! Tell him no!
She knew from watching Oprah exactly what a woman was supposed to do in this situation. Scream at the top of her lungs, drop to the ground, and start kicking her assailant as hard as she could. Oprah's authority had explained that not only did this strategy have the advantage of surprise, but it used a woman's lower-body strength.
Scream. Drop. Kick.
"No," she whispered.
Kevin wasn't listening. He was dragging her across the garden and along the path that ran between the cottages and the lake. His long legs ate up the ground just as they did when he was trying to beat the final whistle. She would have stumbled if he didn't have such a tight grip on her.
Scream. Drop. Kick. And keep screaming. She remembered that part. You were supposed to keep screaming the whole time you were kicking.
The idea of dropping to the ground was interesting. Counterintuitive, but it did make sense. Women couldn't compete with men when it came to upper-body strength, but if the male assailant was standing and the woman dropped… A shower of hard, fast kicks to the soft parts… It definitely made sense.
"Uhm, Kevin…"
"Be quiet, or I swear to God I'll take you right here."
Yes, this was definitely Forced Sex.
Thank goodness.
Molly was so tired of thinking, so tired of fighting what she wanted so much. She knew it was a lousy reflection on her personal maturity that she needed to believe that the decision had been taken out of her hands. Even crummier to regard Kevin as a sexual predator. But at twenty-seven she wasn't yet the woman she wanted to be. The woman she intended to be. By the time she was thirty, she was absolutely certain she would have taken charge of her own sexuality. But for right now let him do it.
They were bump, bump, bumping down the path, passing Fairest Lord Jesus, passing Noah's Ark. Lilies of the Field lay right ahead.
She reminded herself of Kevin's shortcomings as a lover and vowed she wouldn't say a word to him about them either during or afterward. He wasn't a naturally selfish person. How was he supposed to know about foreplay when he'd had all those women servicing him? And a little slam, bam, thank you, ma'am would be a good thing. Those feverish nighttime images that had been robbing her of sleep would finally fade in the harsh glare of reality.
"Inside." He jerked open the cottage door and gave her a push.
She had no choice in the matter. No choice at all. He was bigger, stronger, apt to turn violent at any moment.
Even for an imaginative person that was a stretch.
She wished he hadn't let her go, but she liked the way he'd braced his hands on his hips. And his glare definitely looked threatening.
"You're not going to start giving me crap about this, are you?"
This posed a dilemma. If she said yes, he'd back off. If she said no, she'd be giving him permission to do something she knew she should resist.
Luckily, he wasn't done being angry. "Because I'm sick of it! We're not kids. We're two healthy adults, and we want each other."
Why didn't he stop talking and just drag her to the bedroom? If not by the hair, then at least by the arm.
"I'm packing all the birth control we're going to need…"
If only he'd said he was packing a gun and he'd turn it on her if she didn't lie there and let him do what he wanted. Except she wanted to do a lot more than just lie there.
"Now, I suggest you march your little butt right to the bedroom!"
The words were perfect, and she loved the way he jabbed his finger toward the door, but the expression in his eyes was beginning to look less like anger and more like caution. He was getting ready to back off.
She hurried to the bedroom. She couldn't make too much of this, couldn't let it be too important. She was a beautiful slave girl forced to give herself to the ruthless (but gorgeous) man who owned her. A slave girl who needed to get her clothes off before he beat her!
She pulled off her top so that she was standing before him in her bra and shorts, which weren't really shorts but gauzy harem pants. Harem pants he was going to rip from her body if she didn't take them off first.
She bent her head and kicked away her sandals. Then she pulled her shorts-harem pants-over her legs and cast them aside. When she looked up, she saw her owner standing in the bedroom door, a slightly befuddled expression on his face, as if he couldn't believe it was going to be this easy. Ha! Easy for him! He wasn't staring death in the face!
She was wearing only her bra and panties. Lifting her chin, she gazed at him defiantly. He might possess her body, but she'd never let him have her soul!
He moved toward her, his confidence restored. Of course he was confident. She'd be confident, too, if she had an army of guards stationed right outside the door, ready to drag a disobedient slave girl to her death if she didn't submit.
He stopped in front of her and gazed down, his green eyes raking her body. If she'd left her top on, he would have torn it off with his dagger… no, his teeth!
He burned up her skin with those imperious eyes. What if she didn't please him? Such a merciless master demanded more from her than simple submission. He demanded cooperation! And (she'd just remembered) he'd vowed to have her dearest friend, the gentle slave girl Melissa, tortured to death if he was displeased. No matter how it destroyed her pride, she must satisfy him!