ISAK & Red: An enemies-to-lovers Dark Romance Read online

  “What! Wait!” Should I stop him? Could I?

  It was straight and gleamed dark red, and about the length of a man’s hand. Only a little blood seeped from the hole. So neat was the entry wound, it might have been punched by a tool.

  I might know first aid and CPR and all, but this made me nauseous.

  “We need a doctor for that.”

  “No doctors. The nearest is male.” So he couldn’t control him. “I will heal. You know I heal.” He leaned on me, and we returned to the house.

  Maybe I did. The grazes from the cliff rescue had been gone in two days. “This could have penetrated something vital. Like your liver… or worse.”

  “It hasn’t.”

  “Huh. Antibiotics then.”

  He grunted. “We have some. Got them off that pharmacist, in case of emergencies like this.”

  I had no idea when that was, but I could see he would not budge.

  Banjo whined at this human strangeness, at the slowness of our walking and the painful grunts from his master. He got in the way, but apart from stiffness he seemed fine. I would have him checked by the local vet, later.

  Once we were inside, he limped to his food bowl and ate some kibble. That must be a good sign.

  Isak sat on a chair and let me clean the hole, pick out the bits of bark and dirt and then bandage it.

  Then he lay down in bed for a day and a night and a day.

  The dog stayed with him, even sneaking up onto the quilt when he could – apart from allowing me to feed him and following Isak when he hobbled to the bathroom. Georgia came by to peer at the patient. She ordered in some men to haul away the carcass. We were not to blame apparently, as the cow was a known psycho.

  If only we had been told. What’s done is done.

  * * * * *

  Dan: We found the vehicle. We stuck a tracker on it.

  Jacob: Good. Hold on a sec. I’ll get orders.

  Dan: Yep.

  Jacob: Boss says keep watching. Find out everything you can. Addresses. Phones. People. He switches cars a lot so be ready for that if it happens. More to come.

  * * * * *

  When I least expected it, Isak rose like a miracle from bed and entered the kitchen, where I was puzzling over a recipe for something called Toad in the Hole. I’d found an ancient cookbook on a shelf above the fridge.

  He picked me up, sat me on the kitchen bench and said quietly. “Thank you for saving me from the cow.”

  I snorted. “Said so nicely too. You should not be lifting anything heavy.” So, I was the cow savior. I peered into his icy blue eyes and saw nothing new there, but his actions, his words, those were kind. “Who is in there now, Isak?”

  “You said my name.” His lips quirked. “I like that.”

  “I do too.” I was so screwed. “Strangely.”

  I wasn’t sure of anything. I’d been waiting for some damning, horrible, evil thing to be done to me. It was his way. Always.

  “I want to look under that bandage.”

  While he stood in front of me, I sat on a chair in the kitchen and removed the dressing. This was a wound I would swear should have – according to Google – caused internal damage. It was now no more than a scab surrounded by dark pink tissue. A stick had gone in there. Any deeper and it would have been projecting from his back.

  “Damn. So clean.”

  “That’s me. Clean.”

  I laughed. Ohmigod, I’d laughed at his joke. He made a joke. It felt like a milestone.

  Your toddler took his first steps today? Well, my evil fucking monster guy made a fucking joke. Beat that.

  Shirtless, he stretched his arms toward the ceiling, making his muscles lengthen and shift. He groaned in relief.

  “Much better.”

  I dared to reach and touch him, gently stroking over that wound. He shivered as if tickled, and I smirked.

  “I found your weakness? Tickling. You are—”

  He caught my hand and stopped me.

  I looked up and whispered, “Like some dark superhero. That healed way too fast.”

  “More like a supervillain.” Thoughtfully, he pulled my hand to his lips and kissed it, while giving me a very villainous under-the-brow stare.

  That had not been a threat. An amused remark, I guess?

  “Yes.”

  The quiet note in that conversation drifted along for the rest of that day, and still I felt as if a thunderstorm was in the offing. Fire and brimstone, danger and evil and corruption must be brewing past the horizon.

  Yet, even if my list had been sidelined, I was certain Isak was turning into something better. I had written out that list and pinned it to a cupboard in the kitchen, and I hadn’t seen him look at it once.

  Not that I’d ever been sure it was the be all and end all of being a good person.

  I prayed… and I did not really ever pray… that he would become something good. On a few nights, in bed with him snoring beside me, tears silently leaked as I considered this.

  I liked this, and I was beginning to think I liked him, as he was. Now.

  On a Tuesday afternoon, we drove to a creek on the remote corner of another property, twenty minutes away. We’d arranged it with the owner, and no one would disturb us. The creek looped in then out again to enter an adjoining farm. Banjo was left behind. He was too bruised to run about, which he would have done if we had brought him – as well as chase the cows, sniff butterflies, and stalk our picnic food. Georgia had promised to look in on him.

  The wire fence went into the water and climbed the banks where this property ended and another began, and the cattle could reach the water and drink from it. Mature ghost and paperbark gums shaded the creek, flickering leaf-dappled light on the water. Some cows grazed under the trees near us, as we set up a picnic on the bank.

  “Hmmm.” The champagne was in the ice bucket, which was really a plastic container, but ice is ice. The food was on a platter—

  “All done.” Isak dropped his sunglasses onto the hamper. “And you’re wearing too much. Strip for me until I say stop.”

  “Are we going swimming?” I tongued the inside of my mouth. Neither of us had a bathing costume, but I was being deliberately naive.

  “Not yet.” He toed straight the picnic blanket, then sat opposite me on the blanket and crossed his legs. That smile… it was becoming more and more frequent.

  Strip for me. Those erotic words sent a shiver through me. As always, I tried to ignore it. He knew the effect he had on me, and sex was never far from his mind, even with the drug regulating his worst impulses.

  Horndog, yes. Or avid lover. Or Casanova. Choose one.

  Sex was never far from my mind, either.

  For once I’d not worn the de rigueur T-shirt and jeans or shorts of country life. I shucked my black trainers – pumps were hopeless on the uneven ground – then plucked at the hem of the dress, only to be hissed at.

  A finger was waved. “Slowly. Much more slowly. I want to enjoy this.”

  A million times, more or less, he’d seen me naked.

  “But… there is only this. And these.” I flipped the hem, then slipped a hand beneath, pushing up the side of the dress to pluck at my panties. “And the bra.” Tease, tease. I traced my finger over the contours beneath the bodice, lifting my breasts a tad, as if they had accidentally fallen in the way of my drifting hand. His gaze sharpened. “You?” I raised an eyebrow as I nudged the dress strap off one shoulder. It slipped down my arm.

  “Not me. Continue.”

  The unyielding command galvanized me – it was as if I was truly a stripper, a nothing to him, apart from my female form, and this was a form of humiliation. My betraying nipples scrunched in at the thought.

  Another fetish I had grown? I could no longer tell what was me, my original state before Isak, and what had been created by association.

  I let the other strap roll down, then let the dress slither past my breasts to my hips, and I shrugged it lower to pool on the grass, revealing my matchi
ng red bra and panties.

  “Hmmm. Stop there, sit and eat.”

  When I sat, propped on an arm with my legs folded off to the side, he leaned forward and readjusted my bra. He edged down the fabric on both sides to expose my breasts. Heart in mouth, I watched him suck on first one nipple then the other while his fingers explored below, rolling aside the crotch of the panties then pushing along my slit, until he found my entrance.

  After a few languid insertions of two fingers, he stopped, with those fingers left in place up to the second knuckles.

  Mouth falling open, I looked at where his hand was. How indecent, to see, to feel, a man’s hand violating me here, out in the open air. And on a picnic rug.

  Such small obscenities impressed me.

  “I can tell you like this.” He slowly removed his fingers then fed them over my lips and teeth, observing as I sucked them clean. “You are well-trained, my Red.”

  My Red. Had he ever called me that before? Not this way. Eyes bright, he sat back, studying my breasts: framed but no longer concealed by the bra, as if they were a revelation.

  “Better. Much better.”

  The picnic went by in a haze. He poured champagne into champagne flutes and we picked at a cheese platter, smoked salmon, cherry tomatoes, and crackers with pâté. He fed me and played with the parts of me he’d made naked.

  It was nothing dirtier than what he had already done, though the casual toying with clit and pussy, and being on display while he was clothed, it was more than enough. My desire soared, and I whimpered. I shut my eyes and swayed as he bit me, sucked on me, or stroked. He circled my clit while he talked about things I never quite listened to.

  This was as delicious as the food.

  I was dying to be fucked.

  The food and champagne ran out, and still I waited. We packed away food and plates then he dragged me closer and sat me kneeling before him.

  “Tell me what you want.”

  “Kiss and tell?”

  “Bad girl. No kissing until you confess.”

  My guilty secret? He wasn’t making me and that made this problematic. After pinching in my lips, I managed it. “You.”

  For a second that predatory look possessed him. I decided that look was fine when he was controlling himself.

  “Take out my cock.”

  An unambiguous order. I unbuttoned and unzipped his fly and took out his erection. With my palms placed on his thighs, I slowly lowered myself, my mouth opening.

  As the distance narrowed, I stuck out my tongue then… I taunted him by circling the head with the very tip of my tongue. Around and around, five times, six—

  He chuckled and seized the back of my hair, pushed me down until I must engulf him. Gently I worked my mouth up and down, sucking and using my tongue. It was a subtle action that pulled curses from him. He shoved me fully down, half-choking me, the zip jammed onto my nose, cloth muffling me, and his dick halfway down my throat. Then he let me up.

  I gasped a moment with my fingers wrapping into the rug and his pants until I felt the wrench of a mental command.

  “Hands behind you,” he grated out. “No more nice guy.”

  Gripping my head and shoulder, he shunted me up and down.

  With my hands at my back, I was rendered a mere fuckable thing. At the top of one slide, with my mouth almost off him, he paused me, wrapped one hand to my throat, and squeezed, hard.

  Harder.

  Caught at the verge of a raw moment, I wondered if he would truly choke me. Spluttering a strangled “stop,” I glanced up. He showed teeth, hissing through them. His fingers clawed into my hair.

  “Get up. Take off the underwear. Get in the water. I’m fucking you there.”

  I scrambled to my feet.

  I was aware of how swollen my pussy was, of the heaviness of my breasts, and of my arousal, while being followed by a man intent on fucking my exceptionally slick pussy, or elsewhere. Of sticking that cock in me.

  There was muscle memory and there was pussy memory, and I remembered the feel of cock pushing in.

  I could still taste him…

  So intense and fraught with sexual possibilities.

  I waded in and heard his body stir the water behind me. My feet fumbled at the smoothness of rocks on the bottom. The recent rain up north had washed away most debris, and I could see my feet.

  Knee-deep, then waist deep, I shivered as the cold hit me and prodded my nipples into tightening.

  “When you wriggle those hips and this ass…” He slid his hands about my waist, meandering them upward until he cupped my breasts. Kisses and bites mauled the side of my neck.

  I sighed and pushed my ass back against him.

  The baritone of his voice melted into me. I let everything wash away with the water and the sensation of this man wanting me, holding me… the heat of his body against mine. His cock was supremely hard and obvious.

  “Was that your good deed?” I murmured a silly question as he pressed more kisses onto my skin at nape and shoulder. His thumbs circled my areolas, and I moaned as tingles swirled upward.

  “Not fucking you on the picnic blanket?”

  Not choking me. Though I wasn’t saying that – besides, it had a certain appeal. My throat now had memories of his hand squeezing in.

  He chuckled. “Maybe. Open those legs, or I’ll fuck you in the ass. You have… no… idea how much I am restraining myself.” He pushed his hardness into my back, sliding, shoving, then he flattened my nipples in finger and thumb making me gasp.

  Pain had become a thrill.

  “Open.”

  I pressed my legs together, on principle.

  Fuuuck though. “You think I’m easy?” My throat felt raw, and I’d rasped the words.

  “I hope not.” He began to pull on my damp hair, twisting it over his hand. “I want to make you beg, of your own volition. Ass fucking?” he whispered. “Or maybe I should ride you into town strapped naked to the roof with a dildo inside both ends. With my Red on a spit.”

  “No!” God, no.

  He laughed again. “The cowboys would love it. I could rent you out. Judgment time. Be good or else.”

  We were toying with each other, dueling.

  He wound more hair about his hand. Soon he would have an inescapable rope of sorts. With his fist gripping my hair he could do anything, command or no command.

  “Okay. Okay.” My breathing turned ragged, and he bit my shoulder, leaving dents.

  “Move to that rock.”

  Beneath the water I was slippery, wetter than ever. As I walked to the smooth rock that parted the rush of water in mid-stream, his erection prodded at me. I paused to angle myself – kinda hoping he would fuck me then and there, but not wanting to make this straightforward.

  “Go.” He pinched my butt. “If I had anchor bolts on that rock you would be screwed.”

  Screwed? Yes, please.

  He wanted to fasten me to the rock, then he could do whatever pleased him, take his time fucking me.

  Suddenly, I wanted those bolts there too.

  A mesmer could do anything, but we had entered a new realm where he made me do what pleased him simply because…

  Because we both needed it.

  I matched him. It was a twisted thought. I loved the chase, loved him forcing me, loved the rough, insane fucking when he pinned me down in the bed at the house. My dirty smutty fantasies.

  It was only when he disregarded my sanity and safety that I hated him. Maybe this could work? Us, together.

  When I reached the rock, he shoved me onto it, splaying me out, kicking at my ankles underwater. He covered me with his body and slid his cock along my slit, never quite inserting it.

  “What a slippery cunt you have.”

  “What big teeth you have, sir.”

  He laughed.

  “What poor aim too.” I wriggled to get him in me, and I failed.

  “Tsk-tsk. Naughty Red.”

  He pressed on me with his bodyweight until moving wa
s on his terms. My clit found itself squished onto rock. If he fucked me really hard, it would suffer.

  And I would likely come in seconds.

  He ground on me down, up, down, crueler, harder. I sobbed shamelessly.

  “I can tell… that feels good.”

  I whisper-moaned a yes.

  “You are such a slut. Here.”

  His cock slipped into me an inch, less maybe, but enough to raise my hopes.

  I wriggled and whimpered in gratefulness. I opened my legs wider to let him have what he wanted.

  More.

  “Should I tie you to a tree and fuck you upside down, or this here?”

  “Here. Please.” I wormed my ass again, but he kept teasing, taunting, entering a fraction and withdrawing. My pussy throbbed, ached, and I tried again to make him enter me.

  The water sloshed and gurgled by, washing away my wetness.

  “Uh-uh.” He grasped a handful of ass and crushed it. “No.”

  The weight of him was mind-blanking, inescapable.

  His hand remained in my hair, and he nudged me onto tiptoes then finally speared into my entrance. Forcing his way in, relentless, splitting me.

  “Oh. Ohhh. Fuck!” I moaned and tried to flatten myself to the rock, but he dragged my head higher. My breasts were squashed with every thud onto my butt.

  “More?” He stopped deep within, and I spasmed onto him.

  “God. Yes.” Any second now and my pussy would have mapped out every contour of his throbbing member. I bucked, futilely.

  His bite on my back felt muscle deep, and he hung on with his teeth as his cock pistoned in and out. Arousal climbed with every penetration, with the grind of body, the liquid press of our joining, the thrash of water.

  Our breathing coarsened.

  “I want—”

  “Quiet.” His hand covered my mouth, then both his hands found my throat.

  I closed my eyes, thrown into minor ecstasy by that alone. I tried to arch, but there was little room for me to maneuver. Warm rock teased my nipples.

  My throat was used for leverage and for possession. My fantasy of struggling to escape was subsumed, dominated, and destroyed by this, a far better one.

  The next thrust pounded me onto the rock and maybe into rock, and whether it was a mesmer command or my clit worshiping that boulder, or those hands, I shuddered into the savage peak of an orgasm. While my fingers clawed for nonexistent holds, I was coming, and he was thrusting once more and filling me, and his hands… fuck me… they were tight on my neck.