Tremors Page 2

  Squaring her shoulders, Marie nodded toward him. “Very well. I can always call for a taxi from your house, I suppose.”

  He studied her facial features as he walked the remainder of the space that separated them. A predator’s eyes. That’s all she saw when she looked at him. “There are no taxis in Göthmoor,” he said simply.

  A moment later, one muscle-roped arm was flung around her as he drew her in closer to his side. His hand settled possessively on the intimate juncture where her right thigh and hip met. He rubbed the area in small, lazy circles as he led her deeper into the woods and down a new path she hadn’t seen before. Marie’s entire body clenched in nervous reaction. How would she ever get out of this?

  The man was strange. And his touch was too familiar.

  “Where are we going?” she asked ten minutes later, every bone and muscle in her body screaming in protest. “Are we almost there?” she said wearily.

  “Almost,” he confirmed. He squeezed her hip gently, telling her without words that he understood how tired she must be. “I’ll bathe you when we reach the castle,” he informed her. “It will help your muscles to relax.”

  Alarmed once again, Marie nibbled at her lower lip. He hadn’t said she could take a bath. He had said he would bathe her. There was a difference. A massively big difference.

  And then her thoughts were no more when, a few moments later, they rounded a bend and were spit out of the forest and onto a deserted moor. The castle Fredrik had spoken of sat at its tip, as large, dark, and ominous looking as the man who dwelled within it.

  “This is my home,” he murmured. “For over three centuries my family has lived within these very walls.”

  Marie nodded, but said nothing. She wanted to ask him if they had been buried there as well, but decided to hold her tongue. She had a feeling she would need it later. To help her scream.

  Her eyes raked over the castle’s stone walls. The very tall, very impenetrable looking stone walls. Biting her lip, she glanced upward toward Fredrik. The moonlight cast his features in harsh relief, one half of his face left in shadow.

  But she could see his eyes. Those damn eyes. And she was starting to understand their promises.

  Marie was beginning to fear that Fredrik would never let her leave this fortress alive.

  Chapter 3

  Marie stared into the flames crackling before her as her hands nervously rotated the cup of hot tea she’d been given to drink. She was so cold that the fire felt positively warm and inviting. She knew the hot tea would feel like a soothing balm to her parched throat, but she feared for what it might be laced with.

  “Only honey and lemon,” Fredrik murmured from the chair beside her, as if reading her thoughts. He smiled that half smile, amused by her not so subtle hesitation. “I promise.” He nodded his head. “Go on and drink it while I draw your bath.”

  Marie’s head shot up. She cleared her throat as she made a valiant effort toward meeting his gaze. “I, uh…I don’t want to take a bath.” She looked down toward her lap and stared at the teacup in her hands. “I just want to go back to the inn. Please.”

  Fredrik was quiet for so long that at first Marie thought he hadn’t heard her whispered plea. But eventually he spoke, his voice low and controlled. “The storm outside has grown worse, ängel. I think it best that you remain here…with me.”

  A rumble of thunder boomed loudly as he finished speaking, underscoring the truth to his words. But Marie didn’t care. She just wanted to leave.

  “I’m tired,” she said wearily. “Very tired, very cold, and my body aches.” She cleared her throat nervously. “I just want to leave. I don’t care how bad it’s storming outside. Please. Let me go.”

  Silence ensued for a drawn out moment. The only sound that could be heard was that of the flames crackling in the massive fireplace they were seated in front of.

  At last Fredrik spoke, breaking the unbearably tense silence. “How old are you?” he asked, ignoring her previous statement.

  Marie studied him quizzically. She shook her head slightly, wondering where that question had come from when she’d been speaking of something else entirely. “Twenty-eight. Almost twenty-nine.”

  “I’m forty-one.”

  She nodded, then began sipping from her tea. The flavor was good, she quickly decided. If he’d poisoned it, she thought to herself, at least her last sips would be tasty ones. “So I was told.”

  A dark brow shot up. “Oh? And who told you that?”

  “Helena Anders.”

  “So you’ve made inquiries about me?” he asked softly.

  Marie’s cheeks tinted scarlet. She shot her gaze from her host back down to the teacup. “Well,” she replied defensively, “you were staring at me a great deal. It was only natural to inquire as to who you are.”

  “Because you’re beautiful,” he said darkly. “The loveliest woman I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

  Marie picked at a piece of imaginary lint on her cloak. “There’s more to me than that, you know,” she said bitterly. “A lot more.”

  And really, was that all men saw when they looked at her? A pleasing visage and a plump chest? It was no wonder she shied away from dating, she admitted to herself. No man knew the real Marie and no man cared to get past the physical aspects of her body long enough to understand her. She was just a doll, an ornament, a trophy to put over the fireplace and let her decay emotionally from neglect. Even her father, as much as she loved him, thought her to be no more than a pretty face.

  “Then tell me,” Fredrik encouraged her as he lifted his own teacup to his lips and took a sip. His gaze found hers and commanded it. “I want to know everything.”

  Marie was momentarily startled by the abrupt sincerity in his voice. True, he had issued the request as an order, but he seemed to mean the words he spoke. And because he did, her manner softened toward him…somewhat. She just hoped this was a good sign, and that the handsomely odd man with the eerie blue eyes didn’t make a habit of inquiring into the backgrounds of his victims before he did…things…to them.

  “I love to paint,” she whispered. “Actually,”—she cleared her throat and spoke louder—“I’m quite good at it.”

  Fredrik inclined his head. He took another sip from the tea. “I’m certain you’re good at anything you love doing, ängel.”

  “I also enjoy writing,” she replied, warmed by the honesty in his simple proclamation, “poetry mostly, but I pen short stories as well.” She threw a wayward golden lock over her shoulder as she broke eye contact and stared at her lap. “But those are silly endeavors,” she relented, her voice trailing off, “nothing important or meaningful.”

  “Who told you that?” he asked quietly.

  Marie shrugged her shoulders. She set the teacup down and wrung her hands together on her lap as she met his gaze. “Everyone. My father mostly.”

  “He’s wrong. They’re all wrong. If you have a gift, never squander it.”

  She stared at him strangely, wondering why he should care. Finally, she looked away. “I suppose you’re right.”

  “I am right.”

  She shrugged her shoulders but said nothing in reply.

  Another interminable silence ensued, the only sound that of the crackling flames, as well as rumbles of thunder and patterings of rain pounding against the castle walls.

  Marie took a deep breath, wanting to leave, but knowing that even if Fredrik relented and allowed her to go back to the inn—which she doubted he would—it wouldn’t be right for her to ask him to take her there during the brunt of such a fierce storm. As solid and impenetrable as the stone walls were, she could still hear the outside elements slashing against them.

  Fredrik stood up a moment later, diverting her attention toward him. She looked at him quizzically.

  “I’m going to draw you a hot bath.”

  Her eyes widened nervously. “But I—”

  “—Am chilled to the bone and in need of a hot bath.”

  Marie bit at h
er bottom lip as she anxiously considered the man hovering over her. What did he want from her, this reclusive stranger? She’d heard ugly things about him. Terrible things. Unmentionable things. She didn’t want to end up like—

  “People don’t see or understand the real Marie Robb,” Fredrik murmured, staring down at her from his powerful six feet and three inches, “because they see only what they want to see, know only what they want to know.” He inclined his head crisply before turning from her and walking toward the twisting stairwell. “It’s much the same for me.”

  Marie stared after him, guilt tugging at her conscience a bit. On one hand, if the things she’d heard about him were true, there was no reason to feel remorseful for judging and condemning him, but on the other hand, she shouldn’t have assumed he was a monster just because of village gossip.

  Perhaps he was. But maybe he wasn’t. “Fredrik?”

  He came to a halt mid-step, then glanced over his shoulder to make eye contact. He raised a brow, but said nothing else.

  Marie wrung her hands together in her lap, anxious, nervous, terrified…but wanting to know her fate, needing to know it. She cleared her throat and met his gaze. She didn’t care how offended he became by the question she was about to ask. She needed the answer. “Are you going to rape me?” she asked quietly.

  He made not a movement for the longest time. Not a flinch. Not a grimace. Not a nod of the head or a verbal negation. Not anything that would clue her in as to how and what he was feeling and thinking. He was like a statue, Marie thought, as impenetrable and unmoving as the cold stone walls surrounding them. She shivered, wondering if she’d just given him ideas he hadn’t contemplated beforehand.

  And then at last, after what felt like hours, the corners of his lips tugged upwards into that all-knowing smirk she was now coming to associate as belonging only to Fredrik Sörebo. “No.” He turned away from her and strode up the remainder of the spiraling staircase at a leisurely gait. “I won’t need to rape you, ängel.”

  Chapter 4

  Marie sat in the intricately carved bathtub, the hot water lulling the aches in her muscles and bones. The water level reached to her waist, exposing her breasts to the chill in the air outside of the gold-gilded basin. Her nipples were hard and elongated, dark beige with a sprinkling of dusky rose at the tips.

  She glanced about, trying to locate some sort of washcloth she could use to scrub her body with. A pad of sweet smelling soap sat to her left, but no washing towel was anywhere within the vicinity. As she looked around, it dawned on her that there were no towels at all lying about, nothing even to dry herself off with when she finished bathing. Apparently her host had forgotten to leave her a couple before he’d left her to her bath.

  Her host. Marie sighed, thinking back to those words he had spoken to her from the staircase. “I won’t need to rape you, ängel,” he had said.

  She nibbled on her bottom lip as she considered what he could have meant by that bald statement. At the exhibit, she reluctantly admitted, her body had responded to him in ways it shouldn’t have. And he’d known it.

  Marie had had lovers before…she was almost twenty-nine…but her body had never pulsed for a man, throbbed at his touch, the way it had for the bizarre and brazen Fredrik Sörebo.

  Shrugging her shoulders and calling herself ten kinds of idiot, she took a deep breath and twisted her hair into a quasi-bun on top of her head. That accomplished, she laid back, lowered herself into the waters, and closed her eyes. Her nipples poked up through the liquid, not enough in the tub to conceal them.

  “This has been such a long day,” she said tiredly, her voice scratchy from exhaustion. “Such a very long day.”

  Sighing, she allowed her body to be soothed by the steaming water. She wanted to think of nothing, consider nothing. Later she could deal with her predicament. Later she could contemplate her body’s prior reaction to the reclusive Mr. Sörebo. Later she could figure out what to do. For now, she just wanted to relax. It was the last thought she entertained as she drifted off into a deep slumber.

  Unknown minutes later, Marie slowly emerged from the mindless fog of sleep as tendrils of desire began coiling in her belly. She was so out of it that she couldn’t register why her body was turned on to a fever pitch, only that it was. She was so near to climax, so deliciously close. She smiled, her slumbering brain idly wondering if she was experiencing her first ever wet dream.

  It felt as though a naked body was holding hers, cradling her wet flesh from behind. Fingers, oh god the most exquisitely callused fingers were penetrating her vagina as a thumb briskly rubbed her clit in methodic circles. “Yes,” she murmured, her eyes still closed, “yes.”

  More fingers. She opened her thighs for them, wanting them there. They filled her flesh, massaging her clit. So good. So incredibly good. On a moan, she opened her legs even wider, needing completion.

  A hand at her breast. Fingers plucking her nipples. Fingers thrusting deeply inside of her. She wanted this. Needed this. It felt so—“Oh god.”

  Marie’s eyes flew open as an orgasm ripped through her insides, causing her uterus to contract and her nipples to lengthen impossibly further. She groaned, releasing her juices all over the fingers, wanting more.

  She had barely come down enough from nirvana to register the fact that the fingers were real before she was being turned around and a long, thick cock was poised at her entrance preparing to impale her. Wide emerald eyes met possessive sapphire ones. “Fredrik,” she breathed out.

  He searched her gaze for a long moment, giving her the time to tell him no, giving her one final chance to dismiss him. But she didn’t. He surged upwards, filling her completely.

  “Mmmm… ängel,” he groaned, his teeth gritting at the feel of her flesh enveloping his. “Din fitta är så skön. Så trång och skön.” He sucked in his breath, then translated his words for her. “Your pussy feels so good,” he said hoarsely. “So tight and good.”

  Straddling his lap, Marie bit down on her lip hesitantly. He was incredible to look at. Not beautiful perhaps, but harsh and masculine, primal. His chest…so powerful, sprinkled with black hair that tapered off into a vee at the place where they joined. His cock…so thick and filling, pulsing even now inside of her, heightening her own reaction. And his eyes…those hypnotic icy blue orbs that held so many secrets. What did they see when they looked at her?

  “Fredrik,” she whispered, “I…” Don’t want to end up like her.

  “Shh. Do not fight this.”

  “Please,” she begged, “this…” Is frightening. My god, what if the things I was told are true?

  “Marie, ängel,” he murmured, “do not fight this.”

  He slammed his shaft upward, filling her entirely, as he simultaneously covered her lips with his own. Thrusting his tongue into her mouth, his fingers dug into the flesh of her hips as he guided her body up and down the length of him. He broke the kiss as he sucked in his breath. “Yes, Marie. God, yes,” he ground out.

  Marie threw her head back on a moan. She shouldn’t want this, shouldn’t crave this. But she did. It made no sense. It defied everything she believed about herself.

  And yet the desire remained. She burned for him.

  And then he was popping one of her nipples into his mouth and sucking on it from base to tip, his eyes closed, his breathing heavy, like it was the most delicious elixir he’d ever tasted of.

  She quit fighting the ecstasy and allowed herself to feel, to enjoy. Groaning, she sat up on her knees, then thrust downwards, re-impaling herself on his cock. “Fredrik.”

  He groaned in reaction, releasing her nipple long enough to further encourage her. “Yes, ängel,” he said thickly. “Move up and down on me…just like that.”

  She rode him hard, up and down, over and over, again and again. Her breasts jiggled with every movement, tempting him to palm her full flesh in each hand, stroking the nipples, plucking at them, making her convulse from the pleasure of it.

  And then
she was coming, screaming from the intensity of it. Her vagina began to contract, pulsing around his shaft, milking him for release. “Oh god. Oh yes. Oh god.”

  “Jag behöver dig,” he groaned. Grabbing her by the hips, he thrust upwards once, twice, three times more, and then he burst. Closing his eyes, his muscles corded and tensed, his nostrils flared, as he buried his face in her neck and spurted himself deep within her.

  “I need you,” he murmured against the flesh of her neck. “God how I need you.”

  * * * * *

  Fredrik held Marie tightly against him in the tepid waters, her back to his chest. Stroking her hair, he allowed her to sleep in his arms, warm wet flesh cradled by warm wet flesh.

  Kissing her temple, he sighed deeply.

  So many thoughts intruded. So many memories.

  But Marie…this woman was different. Not like the others. Especially not like Helena Anders’ daughter.

  Twisting a lock of Marie’s golden hair about his finger, Fredrik murmured her name, then kissed her temple again.

  He could not let her go.

  Amazing, really, but from the first moment he’d spotted her ambling around Göthmoor two days past he had known she was the one.

  He would not let her go.

  She was different…so unusual and intoxicatingly naïve. She would never turn on him once she was bound to him.

  He needed her.

  He’d been dead inside for so long. No joys. No sorrows. No dreams. No nightmares. No nothing. Just a void…a black abyss.

  Fredrik rolled one of Marie’s nipples between his thumb and forefinger as he considered the sleeping woman in his arms.

  Long hair the color of flowing honey. Wide, innocent, luminous eyes. And so trusting…naïve to the point of being a danger to herself.

  Kissing her temple one last time, Fredrik continued to tweak at her nipple as his other hand reached down to stroke her clit. His erection prodded at her entrance from behind. “Wake up ängel,” he murmured in her ear. “It’s time to bind you to me.”