Tex's Revenge: Military Discipline, Book Two (21 page)

At the squeal of the curtain rings on the rail above his head, Savage turned towards her. His expression brightened when he saw her, then faded when he saw the hurt that had to be written all over her face. “Zora...”

“No.” Zora shook her head and backed away. “No. Why is she here?”

“She had nowhere else to go.”

Staring at Savage, she gave what was almost a full body shake. “I can't believe you bought her here. She wants to kill me.”

“Zora, let me explain.” He stood and reached for her, squeezing her shoulder in what would have been a reassuring way if he hadn't been dragging her worst nightmare around with him.

She shrugged his hand off. “What's to explain? She's basically my mortal enemy. No. She's literally a mortal enemy who wants to kill me. Who shot me. Actually shot me. And you brought her here.” Her eyes were wide with rage. “Here!”

“What did you want me to do?”

The question struck her as insane. “She shot me. What the fuck do you think I wanted you to do?”

“She didn't kill you,” he pointed out with a pragmatism that was completely lost on Zora.

“Oh okay, so you want to give her another shot at that huh?”

“Zora...” He lowered his voice, indicating she was on thin ice.

“Don't Zora me. You're supposed to protect me, instead you run off to find the woman who tried to kill me and you bring her back.” She flung her hands into the air. “Fuck Brett. What the actual fuck?”

He stepped forward, looming over her physically as his attempts to reason with her failed. “You want to modulate your tone.”

The looming didn't work on Zora one little bit. She took a step forward, meeting his challenge. “I really don't actually. What I really want is for you to not bring murderous whores back to the place I'm trying to live.”

She took another step forward, bumping into him and brushing him aside as she did her best to walk through him. Unfortunately Savage wasn't really the sort of man who could be brushed aside quite that easily so what she really did was bounce off him at an angle and have to weave around to get back on the path towards the door. It made her feel even more silly and insignificant than she already did and she wiped away angry tears as she stormed out, wishing the swinging doors could slam.

Zora was barely out of the room before Tex sauntered in. “Trouble in Paradise?” His drawl was irritatingly punctuated by the stomping of Zora's feet down the hall.

Savage gave him a dark look but did not reply.

“Ladies generally don't like it when you bring another woman home, let alone one that put a bullet in them,” Tex said condescendingly. He was clearly enjoying the conflict that had been stirred by Anja's arrival.

“Thanks for the tip,” Savage said. “I have to go deal with Zora.”

“You do that Mr Savage.” Tex's gaze went to Anja. “You do that.”

* * *

 “Zora!”

Having thrown herself onto her bed and been summoned up from it almost as soon as she'd buried her head under a pillow, Zora couldn't help but notice that Savage seemed to be angry. That was rich considering what he'd been up to in recent days. Even richer considering it was the first time they'd seen one another in weeks and he had the damn nerve to damn near shout her name.

She sat up and threw the pillow down, her face screwed up in irritation as Brett Savage stepped into the doorway of her room. Stupid tall stupid handsome man.“What? You don't live here anymore. I've asked for separate quarters.”

He came towards her slowly, somehow managing to look powerful and strong in even the most casual movements. “Why?”

She pursed her lips and shrugged. “Well I figured three is a crowd. You and Anja can find a cosy little room for yourselves someone else.”

“It's not like that Zora. You know damn well it's not like that.” Again he seemed frustrated, as if she had no right to be angry. That made her more mad than ever.

“Isn't it? She's infatuated with you and you know it. Don't you?”

“Zora...”

“Tell me she doesn't love you.”

Savage shook his head wordlessly.

“Exactly. So we can share quarters when she's gone. Unless you're trying to get her a job here too...” She trailed off as she saw his expression shift. “You are trying to get her a job here!”

“She would fit in here,” he said, as if that was supposed to make her relent.

Zora's biting sarcasm flared. “She would fit in at a mental hospital.”

“That's enough, Matthews,” Savage snapped back into his old military way of talking. It failed.

“You can't tell me what to do,” Zora sneered. “You're not in charge of me.”

He came closer still, his eyes dark with authority. “You better rethink that attitude quickly.”

“Or what?”

“Or I'll spank your bottom for you.”

He'd chosen the words to be as embarassing as possible, but although she blushed Zora was not cowed. She had Johnny's techniques up her sleeve if Savage actually had the nerve to try to discipline her now. “Go kiss Anja's ass some more and leave me alone,” she sat dimissively.

He didn't give her another warning. She squealed as he hauled her up, just one arm wrapped around her waist. She'd forgotten how damn strong he was. She always forgot how strong he was. But she  was ready for him. Just as he tried to place her over his lap, she jabbed her fingers into sensitive regions with a viciously dark grin on her face. Let him see how it felt to be hurt.

The result was not precisely what she wanted it to be. Instead of howling and dropping her, he grunted and sent her sliding sideways onto the bed. Almost immediately his palm came striking down across her ass with the fury of a cobra. It was she who howled as he yanked her pants down and set about spanking her very, very, very hard.

Her cries could be heard up and down the halls but nobody came to help her. She was entirely at Savage's mercy as his hand met the red flesh of her bottom in a fast hard tattoo. There was no lecturing, there was no room in the thrashing for words. Savage was saying everything he wanted to say with his hard palm.

Her pants wriggled down her legs and her hot red cheeks bounced and rolled with every slap. When her pants finally fell free of her feet her legs began flailing and parting, showing Savage her tight dark anal bud and her pink slit which was, for reasons she could not have hoped to explain, slick with her own juices.

Savage growled low in his throat. The spanking stopped and she heard the belt slipping out from the belt loops of his trousers. She thought she was going to feel the sting of the leather but instead she felt the thick bulbous head of his manhood pressing between her lips.

She was sniffling with tears from the spanking as he slid inside her, taking her with more care and consideration than she'd expected. “You are mine, Matthews,” he growled, his cock deep inside her, his thighs pressed to her red hot rear. “Don't make the mistake of forgetting that.”

Zora moaned and growled almost simultaneously. She could not deny her arousal, nor how good it felt to have Savage buried inside her. But her rebellion still burned as she jabbed her elbow back and up into his solar plexus, winding him momentarily. He rolled off her and she scampered backwards, yanking her pants up quickly.

“What the hell has gotten into you?” Savage breathed, holding his hand to his midsection. She must have hit him harder than she thought.

“You can't treat me like this,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “You can't disregard my feelings and you can't just smack me because you don't like what I have to say.”

He growled as he replied. “I didn't smack you because I didn't like what you had to say. I smacked you because you were rude and insubordinate.”

“Well I just got a whole lot more insubordinate, didn't I? So what are you going to do? Beat me?” She watched defiantly as Savage stood upright, moving gingerly as he did. Her eyes narrowed. Something wasn't right. She was damn sure her elbow hadn't done that much damage. Before he could stop her, she stepped forward and lifted his shirt, revealing a white bandage wrapped around his lower ribcage. “What happened to you?”

“Broken rib or two, nothing serious.” He winced slightly as he tugged his shirt back down. It was obvious that he wasn't pleased for her to be seeing him injured. The man was like a wild animal that way, never willing to show the slightest bit of weakness.

“Fuck. I'm sorry.” Her ass was throbbing, but the guilt was way worse than any physical pain. She'd never meant to hurt him, she'd just wanted him to respect her a little.

“You didn't know.” He smiled a small, tight, non-smile.

His politness was much harder to deal with than his anger. She started speaking quickly, almost babbling. “I am really sorry. I missed you and then you bought back... her... I would never have hit you if I knew.”

“You should never have lifted a finger to me in the first place,” he said in a tone so solemn it was almost sad. “But we will deal with this later. Enjoy your new quarters.”

* * *

Tex sat watching his silent captive sleep. Hooked up to several IV's, she barely moved. If it weren't for the slow rise and fall of her chest he might have worried that she was dead. There was something about this woman, something that drew him in spite of his reservations. The stories he'd heard about her piqued his curiosity for sure. To satisfy that curiosity he'd had a nurse inject something into the IV to wake Anja up. He needed some alone time with the woman before Savage came back and interfered.

As the drug took effect, she began to stir. Her pale eyelashes fluttered then she made a small groaning sound and suddenly sat bolt upright, her hair flying around her head in a pale gold halo as she went from barely concious to a hundred percent alert in a split second.

Tex held back the utterance of surprise that had risen to his lips and exchanged it for something more debonair. “Hello, my dear.” He let his voice go low and husky, the tone that ladies usually melted for.

Anja ignored him at first, only eyeing him suspiciously as she looked around the room. Oh yes. This one was legit. This one had seen real action. It was in every line of her body, her muscles already tightly prepared for fight or flight.

“Who are you?” She spat the question at him viciously.

There were many responses he could have given. The one he did give was driven by an impulse of possession. “I'm your new owner.” It was true, if a tad on the incendiary side.

Anja growled. “I don't have an owner.”

“Oh but you do,” he corrected her.

She wanted to do him violence. He could see it in her eyes, in the way they flashed with furious passion. Ordinarily he would never have tolerated such a display but he wanted to know this one in a way she could not be known if he simply frightened her into submission.

 “What's your name?” She sneered as she asked the question.

He kept his cool, his voice staying measured and even. “You can call me Tex.”

“Tex.” Recognition glimmered in her eyes. “I know who you are.”

“I see my reputation proceeds me.”

“As a bottom feeding mercenary pimp.” Anja's eyes blazed. “I'd rather die than work for you.”

Tex's voice was silky smooth. “That can be arranged.”

He was impressed by how thoroughly unconcerned she was at his threat. She called his bluff immediately. “Go on then, draw the gun and do it.”

Tex smirked slightly. She was very presumptuos. “Who says I have a gun?”

The sneer established itself under her nose. “You're an idiot if you don't.”

Leaning forward, Tex lowered his voice to a soft drawl as he held her rebellious gaze. “I don't need a gun to handle you, little lady.”

The impact of his display was lost on her. “Call me little lady again and I'll crush your balls.”

Tex's cheek twitched in what could have been a smile. “Fiesty, aren't we.”

“Don't call me fiesty,” she said, looking around the room again, appearing to have dismissed him entirely as a viable threat. “Fiesty's a word you use for stupid fat women who won't shut up.”

Tex's brows rose. “Abraisive then.”

She tilted her head to the side and thought for a moment. “That's fair.”

His prediction of her allure diminishing with the opening of her mouth had proven to be quite accurate. She was abraisive. She was rude. She was a hundred times worse than Zora Matthews on her worst day. How the hell had Savage ever managed to run a team with these sorts of people on it?

A flash of movement interrupted his thoughts. Anja had ripped the IV fluids out of her hand and was steaming towards him at a fast rate of knots. It was difficult to take evasive action or direct action either for that matter, her movements were quick, erratic and almost impossible to predict. He reached out to try to stop her, but she wasn't there anymore, she ducked under his arm and drove the base of her palm up into his nose.

There was a crunch and a sunflower burst of pain as he fell backwards. She was instantly atop him, her hands around his neck squeezing. Trickles of blood from the places where the IVs had been roughly removed spread down between her fingers, smearing his skin with her blood. It quickly mingled with his own as the flow from his nose flooded all the way down his neck making a complete mess of his shirt.

It all happened so quickly Tex was quite unprepared to respond. She had immobilized him easily using pressure points which made it almost impossible for him to fight back as she choked the life out of him. It was quite likely, he thought in the recessed part of his brain that was forever the observer, that he was going to die there on the floor at the hands of the femme fatale that had so fascinated him.

There was a loud noise, but the world was going blurry and he wasn't sure he quite cared anymore. Then Anja's hands slipped away from his neck. Air rushed in with his deep choking breath, bringing with it the fear and anger of the fight for survival. They were impulses that came far too late, for he had already been saved.

“GODDAMIT ANJA! YOU DO NOT TOUCH ANYONE. YOU DO NOT MOVE FROM THAT DAMN BED. YOU DO NOT FUCKING BREATHE WITHOUT MY PERMISSION, YOU UNDERSTAND ME?” Savage was in the room, shouting angry words at Anja as he backed her down towards the bed. Where she had looked crazed, she now looked cowed as she slunk back up onto the mattress.