Pleasure Bound - Complete (58 page)

“The quickest way from here is to follow the rising sun which would lead you straight through this first valley, then over the hills and into the second valley. Or you can go via the Fever Swamps but it is longer from this area. I do not know the exact location but Jarod told me your brothers are in the far corner of the second valley beneath some large cliffs, but as I said, it is very dangerous.”

“Too dangerous for a woman alone.” Jarod’s crisp voice broke through the stillness of the early evening making Piper jolt.

Looking up she found him standing right beside her.

Good grief! The man walked around like a ghost. She hadn’t even heard him sneaking up on them.

He stared down at her with a combination of fury and lust in his one eye. Despite his anger, his gaze roamed freely over the so-called clothing Taylor had brought her.

She almost cried out at the intensity of desire shining in his eye as a soft heat shimmered through her. Her nipples suddenly felt hard and achy; her breasts throbbed and felt swollen, and terribly heavy. She resisted the urge to reach up and cover her breasts from his bold view.

Mercy, but she’d forgotten how sexy that black patch made him look, and the luscious way his chest was heavily laced with muscles and scars. Scars she wanted to kiss and touch, and sit on and grind her wet pussy into, while he eagerly sucked her nipples into his mouth.

She swallowed back the embarrassment at being on such a carnal display, reminding herself that he was a stranger, and she deserved to indulge in a savage little fantasy of wanting this man between her legs again.

As if he knew what she was thinking, his gaze dropped down to the apex of her widespread legs where she had planted Taylor’s foot to the ground. She followed his gaze, and realized the way she sat with her legs widespread she was giving both men quite the intimate view of her pussy.

A wonderful zip of excitement shot through her, and she couldn’t stop the slight inhalation of breath at her sweet reaction.

Snap out of it
,
girl
!

“I can handle myself,” Piper bristled.

Jarod ignored her remark and turned his attention to Taylor.

“Did you see anything?”

She detected the bulge behind Jarod’s loincloth was getting much, much bigger.

When she restarted her exploration of Taylor’s thigh, she noticed the way Jarod’s eye strayed to where her fingers massaged the knotted muscles. Much to her amusement, his eye narrowed and his lips tightened with what she could only perceive to be more anger.

Good. The man deserved to get a little irritated for not being nice to her.

“I saw one set of female footprints carefully concealed. Did you?” Taylor asked.

“Yes. I saw them as I was heading back. I also found a dead fire. I assume it didn’t belong to you.”

“I didn’t make a fire. I know the rules.”

Jarod nodded.

“What rules?” Piper asked.

Once again Jarod ignored her question and said, “I discovered why she was covering those footsteps. She had a struggle with a couple of males. There was blood.”

“No,” Piper whispered, as shock seeped into her bones.

Jarod’s hand gently cupped her shoulder in reassurance. “Rest easy, she escaped unharmed. It was one of the males who was injured. I followed her trail until she entered the river system. Then I lost her. If she stays in the river, she will be safe. I also discovered a second set of woman’s footsteps running near the tip of the swamp.”

“I didn’t get that far,” Taylor acknowledged.

Piper’s head snapped up. “It has to be Kayla. She’s a jogger. Did you follow them?”

“I followed her tracks until she met up with a group of women and joined their party. I decided to return.”

“Both women are alive as I suspected,” Taylor commented.

Piper exhaled a sigh of relief. Thank God! Her sisters were okay. Now all she had to do was find them.

“Perhaps this one might have been better off dead.” Jarod said quietly, a severe frown marring his face.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“The one I followed may be in trouble. I believe the group of women she met up with are The Breeders.”

Taylor cursed quietly.

“The Breeders?” she whispered. With a handle like that, it was easy to figure out what they did for a living.

Taylor frowned, “The Breeders are a large group of women. They steal males from hubs and sell them to other hubs. Or they use males to impregnate women and sell the babies. I have heard they have recently sold a woman or two to the Death Valley Boys.”

“Who are the Death Valley Boys?” she asked.

Now that she knew her sisters were alive, her curiosity about this planet and its occupants was growing by the second.

A peculiar look passed between the two men.

“You don’t want to go near them,” Jarod said tightly. “But if they are planning to sell her to the Death Valley Boys then she is safe for a while as they put her through training.”

“Training? What kind of training?”

Again, that strange expression passed between them. It made her nervous, and for a second she wished she hadn’t asked the question.

“Sex slave training,” Taylor whispered. “Inside a week she’ll be begging to be fucked by any male, even one or maybe all of the Death Valley Boys.”

“Sex slave training?” Piper echoed not believing her baby sister would be subjected to something like that.

“I will go after her at first light,” Taylor said quickly.

“No, it is too dangerous,” Jarod growled.

“The hell it is!” Piper snapped back at him. “My sister is not going to become some sex slave. I’m going with Taylor when he heads out.”

“I’d prefer you didn’t. I can travel much quicker alone,” Taylor said with a frown.

“But your leg is—”

“Please do not argue. The quicker I can get to her, the faster I can get her out. You would only slow me down.”

This time Jarod didn’t argue, but she could tell by the way the muscles twitched in his jaw that he was getting angrier by the minute. Suddenly he squatted down beside her and wiped out the makeshift map Taylor had drawn in the dirt for her.

She didn’t protest.

A good memory on her part did have its advantages. If Taylor’s map had been accurate, she’d have no trouble finding the valley where her brothers were staying.

As a small way of payback, Piper moved her hands higher along Taylor’s muscular thigh, and much closer to the lovely bulge pressing against his loincloth. From the corner of her eye she noticed Jarod follow her hand movements and didn’t miss the curious smile tilting Taylor’s lips.

“Your hands are giving me quite a hard-on, Piper,” Taylor sighed.

Oh, my goodness!

Her face flamed yet again. Despite her embarrassment at what he’d just said, she forced herself to keep her fingers kneading at his tense muscles.

Jarod’s jaws clenched tighter as he stared at her hands sliding over Taylor’s flesh, practically nudging against his erection.

“If you keep going further up, I am sure I can give you a good time tonight.” Taylor threw her a teasing wink—at least she thought it was a teasing wink.

With a huff which she perceived as frustration, Jarod stood.

“Too bad Jarod came back so soon. Who knows where your fantastic massage would have led.”

“Then I had best leave you two to find out,” Jarod snapped. “I bid you good night.”

Before Piper could so much as blink, he stomped away.

“Must have been something I said,” Taylor grinned.

“Must have,” Piper mused as she watched Jarod stomp up the steep steps and disappear into the other tree house that he was apparently sharing with Taylor while she stayed in his.

She returned her attention to her patient.

“Will you really go and rescue my sister?”

“I will.” He wiggled his leg. “Seems whatever you have done has loosened me up.”

“But isn’t it dangerous for you with those Breeder people wandering around catching men?”

“I’ll only get caught if I want to get caught.” His grin widened. “Why? Are you worried for me?”

“Actually, no. I’m more worried about Kayla. She has this thing for big guys,” she giggled, and began massaging his thigh again. Her fingers immediately found another knotted muscle to work on.

“If she is half as beautiful as you are, she will have every reason to be worried.”

Piper’s head snapped up at his serious tone.

Dark lust brewed in Taylor’s eyes. Instinctively, she knew he was telling her the truth. If his sex-starved gaze was an indicator then Kayla was in deep trouble when he caught up to her.

Chapter Four

Early the next morning, red-hot anger roared through Jarod as he studied the message Taylor had scrawled into the dirt near the fire pit.

Back in a few days
, it read.

Damn the Goddess of Freedom!

When Taylor had turned in for the night, Jarod had tried to talk some sense into him, but he hadn’t budged on his plan to look for the other woman. Jarod had planned on waking extra early and trying again to talk Taylor out of his crazy idea, but his friend had fled the tree house sometime in the night.

If the Breeders had her, Taylor would need much more than one male to get her out of their top security encampment. Besides, he wasn’t totally convinced Piper was telling them the truth. For all he knew, she was here to kill the Hero brothers. Until he was sure, he’d planned on keeping a constant eye on her, and secretly sending Taylor for the Hero brothers who would confirm or deny her story, and help them rescue the missing women.

But he couldn’t do anything now because Taylor
and
Piper were gone.

Obviously, they had left together.

Last night he’d caught the quick wink Taylor had given her after his comment about if Jarod hadn’t come back so soon he would have made her happy.

He’d assumed it had been a teasing remark aimed at him.

Apparently he’d been mistaken!

His anger boiled to a higher degree as he imagined Taylor and Piper in each other’s arms.

Why that should bother him so much, he had no clue. But when he caught up to them, he was going to…

Jarod sobered.

Going to what? What else did he expect his friend to do? He’d told Taylor he could take her for himself, as he wasn’t the type of male who could stay away from sex for very long. He’d obviously taken Jarod seriously and taken him up on the offer.

And what about Piper?

She’d enjoyed massaging Taylor’s thigh a little too much last night. Not to mention virtually touching his sex, as well as giving them quite the view of her pussy.

Women!

They were all the same. Interested in one thing.

Sex.

To hell with them! They could have each other!

* * * * *

The sickening stench of death made Piper gag as she surveyed the array of wooden scaffolds containing human bodies in various stages of decomposition.

Shoot!

She must have taken a wrong turn somewhere. Taylor hadn’t mentioned any graveyard. And by the awful smell sifting through the late afternoon air, it was still in use.

Lovely.

Just lovely.

After watching Taylor sneak out of the tree house in the wee hours of the morning, she’d decided to make the trek to find her brothers on her own. If she’d hung around with Jarod, then he would only have been in her way, distracting her with his gorgeous muscles and that succulently large cock.

Besides, he didn’t trust her anyway, why stick around and get insulted?

So she’d grabbed a tattered knapsack, stuffed it with some food and water she’d located in the tree house and then she’d snuck away before Jarod had awakened.

Now as the hot afternoon sun beat down on her she wished for some sunscreen, some sunglasses and a proper topical map so she could at least figure out how big this cemetery was.

Taylor had said she needed to go through two valleys.

This was the first one. The other one had to be over the next set of hills in the far distance.

She hadn’t realized a valley could be so large and so wide.

Grimacing, she stared at the nearest white skeletons lain out on the wooden scaffolds. The scaffolds were decorated with various bird feathers. Each had a pole at the head side with bone necklaces and colorful pieces of cloth and feathers hanging from them.

She’d seen burial grounds like this in the movies. Never in real life. Weren’t these types of places full of evil spirits or something?

A tinge of uneasiness slipped up her spine as she squinted into the haze drifting over the cemetery which stretched for miles in both directions. Maybe she’d get lost if she went straight through it? Maybe it would never end? Perhaps it would be better if she went around?