The Cherished One by Carolyn Faulkner Page B

bit.  He wasn’t any too happy with the fact his attempts at soothing her were being met with resistance.  “Why were you crying?  Did I hurt you?”
    She was of a mind to say yes, and if she hadn’t known that he could hear what she was thinking, she would definitely have told him that he had done her grave injury.
    “You would have lied to me?” he was surprised to find that she would lie quite that blithely.
    “To an enemy?  Yes.”
    He had to give her that.  Although he had, at one time, considered himself to be an honorable being, even then he would have had absolutely no compunction about lying to someone he considered to be an enemy. 
    What he didn’t like was the fact she considered him to be her enemy, despite the ample provocation he knew he’d given her.  He’d already admitted to himself that his heart had begun to soften quite considerably towards her.  Apparently, hers was nowhere near softening towards him.
    As a matter of fact, she had been so involved in her own pleasure that she hadn’t paid much attention to what it had felt when he had entered her beyond more pleasure.  She’d been quite sure she would have felt a bit of discomfort but apparently not.
    “I’m glad of that.  I didn’t want to hurt you.”
    “Stop reading my mind!”
    He frowned at her.  “Definitely not.  I need all the advantages I can get with females, especially in this day and age.  Now, you know that I’m not fond of repeating myself.”  That huge hand of his hovered threateningly over her hind end.
    “I’m unhappy.”
    “I know that.  But what are you unhappy about?”
    Fawna craned herself as far away from him as he would allow and gave him an incredulous look, as if he was a complete dolt.  “Do you really need a list?  Put yourself in my shoes!  Jeez!  I’ve lost someone I loved dearly, who chose to leave me without a word, I was nearly killed a couple nights ago and am now being held prisoner by the same man who tried to kill me and who just violated me sexually, but who also went out of his way to make sure that I enjoyed the hell out of the process – against my will, of course, but then, my body’s not my own, as he reminds me at every given moment by either forcing me to orgasm by merely looking at me, it seems, or spanking me to within an inch of my life!”  By the time she’d finished her diatribe, she was practically screaming, and dissolved into tears again, covering her face with her hands.  “I guess thought I was a strong woman.  I thought I had some control over myself, some resistance of some sort, but I can’t keep my body from responding to you, as hard as I try.  Apparently I’m a complete and utter slut.”
    “That’s ridiculous.  Of course you’re not.”  True, he didn’t know that much about her, but he had several of the most intimate connections one could have with another being – through her blood and through her mind – and he had no such impression of her.  She was as he thought she was – an innocent.  He knew from what he’d gleaned from those connections that she didn’t give any portion of herself away casually, and that she was sensitive and easily hurt.  There wasn’t a touch of whore in any corner of her being, and he told her exactly that.
    “You should be soundly thrashed for thinking such things about yourself.”
    “How can I not?  The proof is in the pudding – or rather the orgasms.”
    Max found himself in the unusual position of having to defend the fact the woman he was, essentially holding hostage, was responding to his advances against her will.  Freud would have had a field day with that one.  “Bebe, you’re a sensual woman.  There’s nothing wrong with that.  And I,” he said, deliberately puffing himself up and adopting a very vain air, “am an excellent lover.  Of course you couldn’t resist me.”
    His arrogance had the desired effect, and she smiled and even laughed a little.  He lifted his eyebrow