Ryland (14 page)

“Could you please sit in the
chair? I’d like a few words with you.” She didn’t move for several seconds then
looked up at him. “Please. I’m not going to kill the messenger.”

“You want me to have a seat?
On a chair?” Ryland nodded then looked at her.

Bronwyn wanted to tell him the
girl was confused by him being nice to her, but she thought he got it.

When the girl sat down she
didn’t look up. Sindy had been much the same way when she’d first been mated to
Dana. Wouldn’t look at anyone or have an opinion on anything. It had been
terrifying for Bronwyn to see her friend so beaten.

“Who is your male and how
did you come to be with him?” She would have to answer. Ryland was a male, he
required respect, and truth was one of the things he would get. Just not all of
it. Not if he didn’t ask the right questions.

“When did he take your
streak?”

She looked from her, to
Ryland, then back down.

“You will answer.”

“Six months ago. He came to
our streak the day before saying that he wanted to see if he could get some
ideas for his own. He’s…the male, my lady, he’s not at all smart.”

Ryland sat on the edge of
her desk and spoke to her through their link
. “You’ve done this before so
ask her what we need to know so that we have an advantage over the idiot. Is he
really not smart?”

“He’s stupid. And I don’t
mean in just the leading sort of way. He’s really stupid.”
She
looked at him.
“You don’t mind me doing this?”

He kissed her nose again and
told her to go for it. She nodded then looked at him again.
“She can’t go
back. Crawford fully expects you to kill her for this, as does she. If she does
go back, he’ll think she failed and kill her anyway. She’ll need safe passage.
I can offer her that. I have a system in place, but it will have to be as soon
as we’re finished. I don’t have any cash to—”

“You get the information we
need and I’ll make sure she’s funded. But promise me something.”

She nodded.

“Please let me help you when
you do that from now own. I want to help and I’ll feel better if you let me
help, too.”

She nodded and turned to the
girl. It took her over an hour to get what they needed and in the end, the girl
was sobbing out her story. She had been raped by the entire ambush, what
Crawford called his ten or so men. The razing had left her entire family dead,
as well as all the other children in the group and all the men that weren’t
strong enough to fight them for less than five minutes.

Brock had gone back to his
office to dress. Bronwyn found out that all of them that worked here had
several changes of clothes in their offices in the event something like this
happened. This was the first time for both of them. He came back and took the
girl to the cafeteria, and then he was taking her to a point, a place she’d set
up for her while they were eating. There she would be taken to another streak
then moved on from there until she was far away. Her ability to be contacted or
to make contact with Crawford had been severed. She followed Ryland into his
office.

“She is starved. Do you
suppose he does that to all of the people he takes?”

She nodded.

“There should be someone
making him pay for what he’s doing instead of allowing it to happen all this
time. What do you suppose him and Cunningham get out of treating them this way?”

She stood up to pace. This
was one of the things she had to tell him. It was something that she’d found
out from Sindy and now from this girl. She started bluntly. She wasn’t much for
beating around the bush.

“He keeps the younger
females because they make excellent whores for him and his men. They’re fed
better, but only marginally. The older females are used up in the kitchens and
any other projects that he has them do. He’s even farmed them out as house
servants to other larger males. There they are raped when the mood strikes the
male and, when they fight back or do something wrong, they’re killed.” She
looked at him. “I can read their minds. I can see their every thought, their
every memory, but I can’t you. Not you or Alistair. I don’t know why because I
can speak to you both, but I can’t read you.”

“That’s how you know what’s
going on all the time. How you knew that she was here to cause problems instead
of just coming to the office with an appointment.” She nodded. “Okay. That’s
helpful to know. But why do you suppose you can’t read Alistair and me?”

“You’re not pissed about
this? About me being able to read her mind? You can’t possibly be okay with
this.” She looked at him and frowned. “You’re not like anyone I’ve ever
encountered before.”

He laughed. “Good. I’ll keep
you on your toes. But your ability to read minds? I had already figured that
out. When those animals came to the building to get you I remembered how you
simply knew where they were aiming their guns. You seemed to be just one step
ahead of them all the time. Thankfully, because I doubt we would have survived
had you not been.”

“I don’t understand you.” He
laughed again. “You keep…I think you’re going to react one way and you do
something else. You’re not like other males I’ve met. Neither human nor other
species.”

“I want to be different. I
want to be…my father was like you said. You would have liked him, I think. And
he would have adored you. He was a man who didn’t wait for committees to make
decisions. He did what he said felt right in his gut. He was well respected
when he died. And well loved. I’ll never be able to fill his shoes. He was a
great man.”

She went to him and crawled
into his lap. “You’re a great man too. You drive me crazy, but you’re a great
man.”

“Thank you.” The phone rang
and she started to get up. “I turned the service on. How about if I get through
this last bit of paperwork then we get to shopping? I take it you didn’t order
anything online.” She told him no. “Good. I want to watch you try things on and
then know just how to remove them later from your luscious body.”

~~~

She wasn’t a good shopper. But
he was having a blast making her try things on. Every time she looked at the
jeans and shirts, he would bring her to something much softer and feminine. She
hated him for it. Laughing when she came out of the dressing room with
something he’d asked her to try on, she had put the dress on backwards and had
pulled on her tennis shoes.

Walking up behind her in the
three-way mirror, he studied her. When he was behind her again, he sent the
woman helping them away. He wanted her all to himself for a little while.

“I like this one very much.”
He peeled it off her shoulders to her waist, trapping her arms. “Especially how
easy it is to get to you when you wear it like this. Especially like this.”

He cupped her breast and
pulled her back against him. He had a perfect view of her in the mirrors as he
unsnapped her bra and filled his palms with her breasts. They were heavy and
full, her nipples hard and pink. Pinching them between his thumb and finger, he
rolled them until she moaned.

“I want to take you, right
here right now.” She moaned and he rocked into her ass. “Lean over the couch in
front of you. I’m going to do this fast and dirty. I promise to make it up to
you later.”

She moved forward out of his
grasp and did as he requested, taking the dress off completely as she moved.
Opening her legs, she looked over her shoulder at him. Christ, he was going to
enjoy this. Moving up behind her he reached for the clerk, another cat friend
of his family, and told her to lock up and go to her office. He tore Bronwyn’s
panties off her even as he heard the lock click into place.

Reaching around to her pussy
he felt that she was wet and gathered her cream on his finger. They watched
each other as he took his soaking finger to his mouth and licked it clean. She
moved her ass back against him and he groaned.

“You’ll have to try not to
scream. I love that you do; your screaming out my name makes me come all that
much harder.” He opened his pants, not bothering to take them off, and lifted
his shirt out of his way. “I’m not going to last long. Watching my cock go in
and out of you like this is going to be delicious.”

“Please fuck me, Ryland. I
want to feel your—Christ, yes.” He entered her hard and grabbed her hips. She
moved back against him every time he pulled back. Holding her as still as he
could, he leaned over her and took her to the couch, her head resting on it as
he fucked her.

Ryland wanted to bite her
desperately, but he knew that if he did he’d roar, and this was neither the
time nor the place to have him doing that. He reached between her thighs, ran
his fingers though her cream again, and pressed against her clit.

“Come for me, Bronwyn. Come
so I can join you when you tighten around my cock.” She put her hand in her
mouth and screamed. Her release was so powerful that she nearly bucked him off.
Pinching her clit again, he came with her. His body felt his climax from the
tip of his toes to his head. He held her down while he licked along her
shoulder.

“Do it. Bite me. I want to
feel your teeth sink into me and make me come again.”

He couldn’t stop his canines
at they dropped and he bit her. This time when she came she screamed, but not
loudly. He fucked her through that climax and another as her body reacted to
him licking the wound closed. He held her this way, under him, both of their
heads on the couch until he could move again.

“We’ve ruined this dress.” He
looked at the mess under his feet and grinned at her. “If you think I’m wearing
that thing again then you’re nuttier than I first thought.”

“What if I wanted you to
wear it like you just did? Would you wear it just for me?” Her eyes darkened
and he had his answer. “We’ll take it with us so we don’t have to explain what
happened to it.”

They were on the way to
another shop, this one furniture, thirty minutes later. He had the clerk send
over ten pair of varying types of jeans and t-shirts in her size as well.
Everything was going to his hotel room where they would sort things out.

They went to an antique
store to get some things there. She wandered around the place, not touching
anything, and he walked up behind her after telling the cashier they would look
around and find him if they found anything they liked. He wrapped his hands
around her waist.

“They have memories too.” It
took him a second or two to realize what she meant. “Not many sad ones, but a
few. Would it be alright if I said no even if it was a lovely piece?”

“Yes. Of course. I never
thought of you being able to feel that sort of thing. I’m sorry. If you’d
rather go to a new store, we can—”

“Sir. I’m sorry. I just
heard that you and your lovely bride-to-be were in the store. Let me show you
around.”

Bronwyn looked at him and
smiled.

“Oh my, Tommy said you were
a beauty, but you’re more than that, aren’t you?”

They were shown some of his better
pieces, he said. Ryland was looking at a desk that he thought would be nice in
his home office. He was about to make an offer on it when the owner and Bronwyn
came up behind him.

“He’s a crook.”

 
He
turned fully to look at her.

“Some of these things he’s
stolen and a few that he didn’t are in such ill repair that if you got them
home, they’d fall apart the first time you used them. The only nice pieces he
has are in his own office. And I want that desk.”

He grinned at her. “You want
it, you’ll have it.” She shook her head and he stepped back. This was going to
be fun, he just knew it.

She looked at the owner. “You
do know that you’re the only antique in this room, don’t you?” He looked ready
to deny it and she smiled again. “Lie to me and I’ll shoot you in the foot.”

He noticed then that her gun
was at her thigh. “Miss, perhaps you should go to another establishment. I
don’t like to be accused falsely in my own store.”

“Then we can step outside
for all I give a shit. This desk here is a fake. You made it look old by buying
some stain and putting it on sloppily. And the second my mate throws me onto it
to have some fun, it would likely kill us both.” She reached over, shook it
hard, and it groaned. “And don’t even try to tell me it’s oak. Its pine and we
both know it.” She handed Ryland her gun and hopped up on the desk in question.
It fell under her weight. She looked at the broken mess, picked up a board, and
handed it to the owner. He moved back from her.

“You are going to sell us
that desk in your office. And you’re going to have it delivered to our new home
today. Understand me?” He started to sputter. “I’m this close to calling my
uncle Gusto and telling him about you.”

“Gusto Macneary of Macneary
Services is your uncle?” She didn’t move, but the owner started nodding.
“You’ll get it today. I’ll have it cleaned out at once. There is a lovely lamp
that I picked up for a song that I’ll throw in as well.” He walked away yelling
for his assistant.