Eliana's Warlord Read online

  She felt no pity for what might happen to her so-called parents as a result of her escape. But she couldn't suppress the shudder at what would happen to her if she was caught and returned.

  Jax released her fisted hair to brush his knuckles against her cheek. His expression was as emotionless as his voice. "Do they deserve to die?"

  Did they? "I don't know."

  She hated them, but another girl, given the same opportunity to be molded into the wife of one of the elite, might think them saviors.

  By the standards of the elite, Stefan was considered a handsome man. By the women who sought the status that came with being a wealthy, powerful man's wife, he was considered a prize.

  The majority of the girls she'd been educated with would have willingly married him and gone to his bed, even though his second wife had given him a son and heir who was years older than they were.

  Not her. Never her.

  She didn't want a man old enough to be her father. She didn't want the man who'd been responsible for her being stolen from her family, who wouldn't allow her to be herself, a man she believed had killed his second wife so he could marry her, who'd kill her when he could no longer pretend she was his first wife.

  Her hands moved from Jax's chest to his shoulders, then over the whip-scarred skin on his back. Among the tribes, the whip was used for atonement.

  Only those who committed the gravest crimes were tied to a center pole, their remorse witnessed by everyone, from newborn to the eldest. Even then, atonement wasn't just their choice, especially if their crime was against another in the tribe. Forgiveness was required, and if it wasn't given, then instead of the whip, the wrongdoer might be branded and shunned but allowed to remain, or branded and cast out.

  She thought of the day she'd slipped away to meet Ansell, heart pounding and stomach fluttering, her head full of a young girl's fantasies, only to have him subdue and sell her to the men who'd then turned her over to the slavers. If she could make it back home, she'd offer no forgiveness to Ansell.

  Her eyes burned. He was not the only one who'd done wrong that day. She'd left her young brother unattended, picking berries and promising not to move from the spot until she got back with the surprise she'd told him she was fetching.

  Guilt thickened her throat. All these years later it still had the power to crush her in a way Stefan's plans for her couldn't. If anything had happened to Michael because of her, they could flay the skin from her back and there'd be no atonement for leaving him.

  She blinked the wetness from her eyes, but not before Jax noticed and captured a tear with the touch of a finger. "Because of your parents?"

  She shook her head. "My younger brother. Something in the past. Something I'm sorry for. Something I can't undo."

  "How old were you? How old was he?"

  "Twelve. Michael was five."

  A muscle spasmed in Jax's cheek. Something dark and raw and deadly moved through his eyes, sending hers to the ink over his heart. NO MERCY.

  "You had a younger brother," she said, the words out before she could stop them.

  "I have a lot of brothers."

  His voice was a warning against further discussion of them. Her hands returned to his chest.

  Still inside her body, his cock spasmed and began hardening. He rocked against her and pleasure pulsed through her, driving out guilt over the past and the fear associated with the future.

  Her small moan softened the corners of his mouth. It changed the dark, lethal anger radiating from him into heated desire, and she told herself that when it came to the risk of pregnancy, the damage was already done.

  Regrets were for later—if there was cause for regret, if she survived to have a later.

  Now was for pleasure.

  "Let's do it again," she said, stroking the nipple bar above his heart, the tattoo that proclaimed him a man without mercy.

  Fuck, Jax thought, the blood leaving his head in a rush and filling his cock.

  He should be pulling out, suiting up. He wasn't his father, leaving a trail of bastards across the warrens and not caring about any of them.

  Her fingertips stroked across his nipple again and he couldn't care. He wanted her. She got to him.

  If she knew he'd never gone in bare before, she'd understand just how hot he'd been for her, how hot he still was. How close he rode the edge of control with her.

  It'd been bad before. But knowing he was her first…

  Her pussy clenched on his dick, sending a surge of heat pulsing through him and filling his head with white noise.

  The muscles in his back and arms went rigid. He fought against the need to piston in and out of her tight pussy.

  A single thrust. That's all he allowed himself.

  Satisfaction roared through him with the flash of pleasure in Eliana's eyes, the flush of it across her cheeks, the sound of her soft cry and the sight of parted lips begging for the return of his mouth.

  Desire shuddered through him with the memory of how good it felt to swallow her moans and cries, to feel the utter submission of her body beneath his and know each of her breaths was mingled with his.

  He lay more heavily on her. The catch of her breath peeled away any possibility of denying himself what he wanted. Her. And he didn't lie to himself—the next time wouldn't be any different than this time, or the last one.

  He wouldn't suit up. He wouldn't deny himself the feel of her snug, hot pussy squeezing and rippling against his bare dick.

  "Where are you in your cycle?" he asked, the image of her swollen and carrying his kid flashing through his mind and bringing a surge of possessiveness, protectiveness.

  He rebuffed those emotions by telling himself they had everything to do with shit from his childhood that talk of the past had brought up, and nothing to do with her.

  He'd never leave a kid of his to go unclaimed. He'd never allow a kid of his to go unprotected. He'd never allow a kid of his to go unloved.

  He wouldn't fail a child who depended on him. Never again.

  "It should be safe," Eliana said, her voice begging him not to pull out.

  "Good."

  The primitive feelings intensified. They became primal urges driving the need to pound in and out of her. And keep doing it so that when whoever she was running from showed up, it'd be clear that she'd been with him.

  Jax thrust, his mouth covering hers, his chest swelling with the soft sound of pleasure that moved from her into him.

  He thrust again, shuddered at the exquisite feel of being inside her without a condom.

  She's no different than the others, he told himself, surging into her again and again, his tongue dominating hers and claiming every inch of her mouth.

  It'd feel this good being bare inside any pussy. Except with the next thrust he had to get deeper. And with the one that followed, he craved the taste of her skin.

  He kissed his way to her neck. Raw, scorching possessiveness poured into him with the tilt of her head, the submissive way she offered her throat.

  He thrust harder. Took her delicate skin between his lips.

  The light sucks he'd intended became hungry pulls that matched each stroke into her slick, clinging pussy.

  She writhed against him, whispered Jax, and he needed to hear her scream it. He wanted the sound of it to blast through the bedroom wall and ring through the house.

  He captured her hands and held them to the mattress. He bit, sucked, bit, and she became a wildcat demanding he subdue her, demanding he fuck her into senselessness.

  He was up for the challenge.

  A final bite. A final suck and his mouth returned to hers.

  The violence in her kiss matched the violence of his.

  Her body met his thrust for thrust and he felt her climb toward release, knew the instant she was on the edge of it.

  He jerked his mouth off hers.

  "Say my name," he demanded, halting his thrusting so she'd know the price of disobedience, though the bluff took every ounce of control
.

  "Jax," she sobbed.

  And sobbed it with the next thrust, and the next, and with the one that turned her pussy into a vise grip around his cock, into a trigger that had him pistoning, pumping, coming inside her.

  He lay on her, captured her mouth with his again. He needed breath but he needed as much of him as possible touching her more.

  He rubbed his tongue against hers, absorbed the trembling of her body beneath him, soft and feminine and submissive.

  He stroked his thumbs across her palms then released her hands.

  Her arms immediately encircled his neck, holding him to delay the moment his mouth would leave hers.

  Satisfaction surged into him. But that didn't mean he wouldn't demand the full truth.

  She might be running from her parents, as she claimed, but everything inside him said the reason for it involved a man. Tomorrow he'd find out exactly who that man was. Tomorrow, he'd determine if that man needed to die.

  Chapter 4

  Warmth. Safety.

  Eliana knew the first was temporary and the second, an illusion. It'd be a mistake to think anything had changed because she'd spent a night in Jax's bed and shared a small portion of herself with him.

  She was just another female body to him. And he was a threat to her.

  There would be other trackers, not just Stefan's man. Eventually one of them would realize she'd doubled back, reentered Diego's territory then passed through the warren controlled by Elias. Eventually one of them would follow her trail to Jax and he'd learn there was a reward for her return.

  She didn't know what it was, but whatever was being offered, if Jax found out that one of the elite wanted her back, then he'd be in a position to bargain for something far more valuable—guns, ammunition.

  No warlord would turn down that opportunity. Not when weapons were a source of power, a way to control and defend, even expand territory.

  She needed to leave. She should be frantic to escape his bed and house and warren.

  It scared her how strongly she wanted to stay where she was, with her back pressed to his chest, her buttocks pressed to his cock and her thighs touched to his. With his muscled, tattooed arm draped across her side and his calloused, possessive hand cupping her breast.

  I've got time to enjoy this, she told herself, noting the quality of the sunlight streaming through the windows. It was early morning. As long as she found the railroad track today, tomorrow she'd be speeding away from New San Jose.

  Jax's cock began hardening against her buttocks and she couldn't suppress a sigh of anticipation. Her sex slickened and plumped. Her nipples stiffened and she was fiercely glad she'd lived for twelve years in the wild lands, among people who accepted the sex act as natural and didn't impose a different morality on woman than they did on men, as the elite of the city did.

  Jax rubbed a hardened nipple and pleasure streaked to her clit. His mouth whispered a kiss over her ear and down her neck. His lips settled on the place that still stung from last night's attention.

  He sucked, bit, licked and traitorous heat coiled in her stomach and wove its way through her chest to wrap around her heart. This was what it could be like with a mate.

  She pressed her buttocks more firmly to his erection. He kissed his way back to her ear. "Touch yourself, Eliana."

  The husky command sent flutters through her stomach. It had her cheeks flaming and her heart banging a warning.

  What he wanted was too intimate. It would make her feel too exposed, too vulnerable.

  "You don't want to defy me," he said, a hardness entering his voice that only made what he wanted more erotic, more intimate.

  He took her nipple between his fingers, squeezed and twisted, adding a hint of pain.

  The muscles in her stomach quivered. Shivery desire beat back her heart's resistance.

  Jax squeezed her nipple harder and she grew wetter.

  A needy sound escaped her mouth and his cock pulsed along her spine.

  Her hand went to her sex and the catch of his breath rewarded her obedience. Then his mouth did, capturing her earlobe, sucking.

  Pleasure shivered through her, colliding with the bursts of ecstasy generated by the press and stroke and rub of her fingers on her clit.

  She closed her eyes, all resistance melting away.

  He fucked his tongue into her ear.

  She thrust two fingers into her slit and needed more, so much more.

  "Jax," she whispered, knowing she was forever destined to compare any man in her future to this one.

  He squeezed her nipple, sending a burst of pleasure downward and following it with his hand.

  He cupped her hand where it was pressed to her mound. Two of his fingers slid along hers, joined hers inside the snug heat of her channel.

  "You're so fucking wet. You're so fucking hot."

  His raw, husky praise made her wetter, hotter. Her channel clenched on their fingers. Her clit throbbed against her palm.

  "I need you," she whispered, feeling stripped and exposed by the admission.

  "Then you're going to get me."

  He kissed his way to the spot she suspected now bore evidence she'd been with him. He sucked and bit, used the hand anchored in her sex and his superior strength to roll her onto her stomach and then lift her so she was on her elbows and knees with him behind her.

  He took his hand from between her legs. But before she could cry out in protest, his cock was there. Forging into her. Stretching her. Filling her. And that became all that mattered.

  Jax moaned as electric pleasure streaked through his cock and exploded behind his eyeballs. He fucking couldn't get enough of her.

  Now he understood why men covered their bedroom walls with mirrors, so they could always see their woman's face while they fucked her—

  And fuck. She was not his woman. He wasn't that weak. He'd never be that weak.

  He fought against thrusting in favor of absorbing the tight, sultry heat of her pussy clenching his bare cock. His hands stroked upward along her sides, moved around to palm her breasts. Perfect. They were the perfect size. The perfect texture, the nipples practically begging him to flip her onto her back and put his mouth on them.

  Later, that's exactly what he'd do. He suck them long enough and hard enough that when he finally let her cover them with a bra, she'd remember he'd been there.

  He rubbed his palms over her nipples and her little moan set off detonations of pleasure inside him and had him nearly panting with the need to thrust, with the desire to elicit more of those little moans from her.

  He stroked both hands across her smooth stomach. She was so feminine. Feminine in a way that stirred feelings no other woman had, in a way that went beyond getting horny and needing to get off.

  One hand cupped her hip. The other pushed through the small triangle of pubic hair to her clit.

  She clenched on his cock. Trembled. Made that soft begging sound that heated him up to ignition point.

  He was like a junkie. Wanting to extend the high but incapable of delaying gratification.

  He worked her clit and began thrusting, every fisting of her pussy on his cock sending white heat traveling up his spine. Every surge of heat making his balls get tighter and tighter. Every thrust building the pressure to come.

  He liked it that she was right there with him. It satisfied him even as Eliana's release became the trigger that had him grunting, panting, coming. And all he could think about was how soon they could do it again. How much he wanted to keep his cock inside her rather than pull it out.

  Like a fucking junkie. Like a fucking addict.

  A sudden pounding on the door had her trying to pull away and him refusing to let her go.

  "What?" he yelled, forcing Eliana down to the mattress and silently cursing when his cock slipped from her body.

  "Need you at the bar," Rand said.

  "Handle it."

  He and Eliana weren't going farther than the kitchen today, and she might not get that far.


  He rubbed his cheek against her silky hair. Buried his nose against her neck, loving her scent. Loving the shiver of pleasure and want that went through her. Loving the soft mounds of her ass cheeks pillowing his cock and that she smelled like sex and him.

  "Can't," Rand said, amusement in his voice.

  Fuck! Go away already!

  "Why not?" He let Rand hear the pissed-at-the-continued-interruption in his voice.

  Jax found the mark he'd left on Eliana's neck and touched his mouth to it. She made that hot little sound and trembled beneath him.

  He took her delicate skin between his lips, sucked, pleasure going straight to his dick so it started hardening.

  Next time he'd flip her over first so he could watch her face, see how much she liked having him inside her.

  He still couldn't get over that she'd been a virgin. That he was her first.

  Rand hit the door again. "Luke has someone at the bar. Up to you how much he can be sweated."

  It took a minute to remember why Luke was sweating someone, and then anticipation surged into Jax. He wanted Eliana. But he wanted answers too, he wanted the full truth when it came to her.

  "Be out in a few," he told Rand, but didn't lift away from Eliana.

  He could picture Rand leaning against the door, smirking. Counting the minutes it took for him to come out of the bedroom.

  He didn't care.

  He rubbed his cheek against Eliana's and pushed his hand between her body and the sheet. He cupped her breast, his mouth going to her shoulder, his hips moving under the control of his dick.

  He couldn't stop himself from fucking against her ass. Hell, maybe he'd even take her ass.

  Wasn't usually his thing, but she made him feel primitive enough to want that too.

  Her nipple hardened against his palm, sending another spike of pleasure straight to his dick.