Taken for the Hunt: A Dark Romantic Suspense Read online

  “Im going to!” I shout, closing my eyes. I know that he wants me to hold back my orgasm for him but I don’t think that I can. It’s going to tear through me and there’s not a fucking thing that I can do about it.

  “Not. Yet.” His voice is a low growl and he digs his fingers into my hips so hard that I feel a flash of pain tear through my body. “Don’t you fucking come yet, Natalia.”

  Whimpering, I drop my hand to my clit. I can’t help the fact that I’m so close, nor that I’m going to come and there’s not a fucking thing that he can do to stop me. As soon as I feel my clit, the nub hot under my fingers, I start to rub it, the pleasure making my mouth fall slack.

  He’s hitting every single nerve in me, his cock pushing me so close to the edge that I’m about to fall over the edge, and I suddenly do.

  “Fuck!” I scream, my body tightening around him. Every muscle I have seems to tighten at the same time, my toes curling as I bite down hard on my lower lip. My teeth break through the skin and I taste blood pooling in my mouth, but I don’t stop.

  I can’t stop.

  He’s wound me so tight that right now I can’t seem to do anything but fall apart. The most powerful orgasm I’ve never had tears through my body, but before I can collapse and rest, which is what I really want to do, I feel him come, too.

  His cock thickens, which I didn’t think was possible, and I feel his hot come shoot deep into me. I moan, enjoying the way it fills me as he thrusts once more, pushing as deep into me as he can.

  “Holy fuck!” He cries, pulling me to him, spearing me on his cock. I cry out, trying to pull away, his cock is so big that it hurts.

  But small waves of pleasure continue to rock over me and he holds me in place until he finishes, then roughly lets me go. I step forward, shivering as I feel his cock slip out of me, then turn to face him before collapsing on the ground.

  Chapter 16

  Marco

  For a moment, I stand over Natalia, looking down at her, my cock in my hand. Fuck, being in her was just as amazing as I thought it would be. She collapsed as soon as I pulled free from her, exhaustion coursing through her body, but I could go again.

  Now that I’ve had her, I don’t know that I’m ever going to want to do anything else. She’s ruined any other woman for me and I feel a pang of doubt shoot through my body that she’s going to have to die.

  Because she is. No amount of training, of healthy eating, of great sleep will be enough to keep her alive, no matter how much I might want it to. It’s unfortunate, especially given the fact that I want to pull her to me and fuck her again, but it’s the facts.

  I made the rules.

  I created the island.

  I just didn’t think that there would ever be a rabbit I might want to keep.

  A strange cocktail of regret and guilt wash over me but I do my best to push them aside. Those aren’t feelings that I’m used to experiencing, especially not when it comes to a rabbit.

  Rabbits are expendable. They’re the women that nobody will miss, the ones that we can take, train, and use. I’m not supposed to feel anything for one of them.

  Especially not a mouthy rabbit like Natalia.

  But looking down at her, I’m surprised not only at how broken she looks stretched out on the tarmac, but also the wave of compassion that washes over me. Before I can stop myself, I bend down.

  “Get up,” I tell her, looping my hands under her armpits and helping her up to a stand. She lets me help her, then steps back from me, a little uneasy, obviously worried about what I might be doing.

  “You don’t have to help me,” she says, suddenly self-conscious. I see the burst of it break across her face as she looks around for her clothes.

  Without speaking, I bend and pick them up, then hand them to her before getting dressed myself. As soon as we’re both clothed, I can feel the wall grow between us again. She wants nothing with me, which I understand.

  I just don’t know what to do about how I feel about her.

  “What now?” She asks, and I eye her. She looks worried and glances around us like she fully expects someone to walk up and see us.

  “I’m the only owner who lives here full time,” I tell her. “The others all have jobs that make them come and go from time to time. Right now they’re all gone, so you don’t have to worry about one of them spotting us right now, okay?”

  She nods but still looks nervous. “I mean, what do we do now? Do we walk around the island? Do you and I…”

  Her voice trails off, but I have a feeling that I know what she’s asking. She wants to know if anything has changed between the two of us now that we’ve fucked.

  “You’re still a rabbit,” I tell her, and her face hardens. It’s a tiny change in her expression, but I can see how her jaw tightens a little bit at my words.

  “I thought that maybe — ”

  This time I cut her off. “You thought that since you let me fuck you that you wouldn’t be a rabbit any longer?” I scoff and start walking away from the helicopter, knowing full well that she’s going to scramble to keep up.

  She does, the sound of her shoes loud on the tarmac. “So you’re telling me that you fuck all the women you bring here?”

  I ignore her question for a moment, just thinking. The truth of the matter is that no, I don’t fuck all of the women who come here. In fact, she’s the first woman I’ve been with in a while, rabbit or no. For the longest time I was beginning to think that I was broken and that there was something terribly wrong with me.

  But then I saw Natalia and I knew that I wasn’t broken, I just hadn’t found the right woman to want. The fact that she’s a rabbit complicates everything.

  “I’m taking you back to your room,” I tell her, spinning around to walk back to the building. “You defied me this morning and you shouldn’t get rewarded with a walk around the island.”

  “I defied you?” Her voice is incredulous. “I defied you and then you fucked me, so I think that we’ve even.” She’s standing behind me, obviously refusing to move until we talk this out, but I’m not interested.

  “If I remember correctly,” I say, turning to look at her, “you wanted it. You asked for it.”

  Her face grows bright red and she glares at me. “I’m going to tell what you did to me,” she says, spitting the words at me like they have barbs, like she expects to be able to wound me with them.

  That makes me laugh and she narrows her eyes to look at me. “You think that anyone is going to believe you? You think that other rabbits haven’t tried to claim something like that to garner pity? No, Natalia, nobody who works here gives a shit about you. Nobody’s on your side.”

  Even as I say the words, though, I feel a squeeze of pain. Part of me wants to give a shit about her and be on her side. She’s defiant, strong. She’s the type of woman I would want at my side.

  But she’s a rabbit.

  “How did your rabbit like her tour of the island?” Dale asks, lazily pouring a bit more whiskey into his glass. The four of us are outside the building on the side away from the rabbit’s rooms, all enjoying something to drink.

  It was a long fucking day for me, although they don’t need to know that, and I slam down my whiskey, handing him my glass to refill it. He raises his eyebrows in surprise at how quickly I drank it but doesn’t comment on it as he refills it.

  “She’s strong willed,” I say, which is probably the safest thing that I can say about Natalia right now. I swear, if I close my eyes, I can still see what it looked like to have my cock slipping in and out of her perfect little cunt.

  I can almost hear her little whimpers and moans as I fucked her. Blinking hard, I look back at my three friends, who are all staring at me.

  “She’s feisty,” Zach agrees. “You think that she’s going to be too much for you to handle?”

  I shake my head. The last thing that I want is for my friends to have any idea of what I feel for Natalia. Or, at least, what my brain and heart are trying to make me f
eel. I don’t have feelings for rabbits, never have, so why she’s doing this to me, I can’t quite explain.

  All I know is that I don’t want her to be in training tomorrow. I want to take her on a tour of the island the way I was supposed to today. I want to stretch her out on the beach and fuck her until she screams my name.

  She has a special way of saying my name that makes me shiver and gets me hard instantly and she doesn’t even know it. Even when she’s throwing it in my face, I love hearing my name on her lips.

  “I can handle her,” I tell the three of them. “But what about your rabbits? We have a full house, right? Who’s got the first hunt?”

  Dale grins and leans back in his chair, pointing at Nathan. “He’s up, lucky bastard. Only has a few more days training too, am I right?”

  Nathan nods, a sick grin on his face. “My rabbit’s trained hard, but not hard enough, I don’t think. I want to let her out to run this weekend when the moon is almost full. It’ll give her a bit of a fighting chance, and you know I love it when they fight.”

  The three men all laugh and cheers, holding their glasses together before looking at me expectantly. I plaster a smile on my face and lean forward, touching my glass to theirs.

  I’m not supposed to feel anything for a rabbit, but the thought of Natalia alone and running through the woods scared suddenly shoots through me and I feel a pang of regret.

  “How much longer on your new one from the restaurant?” Zach asks, pulling me back from my thoughts. “She looked like she needed a little extra time to get some muscle on her, didn’t she? It’s not like you to go for the ones who need more time. I know you love to just move them through.”

  I nod, unsticking my tongue from the roof of my mouth before taking another sip of my drink. The whiskey burns my tongue but it also helps me concentrate, and that’s what I need to do right now.

  “She’ll need at least a month,” I say, and the three men groan. “Maybe two. She’s not particularly strong and I took her out on the island today for a walk around it but she hadn’t eaten enough and got sick. Had to cut it short.”

  Dale shakes his head. “You need to be firm with her, Marco. There’s something about her I just don’t like. She’s not like the other rabbits. Might be best to put her down if you think that she can’t play the game.”

  I have a feeling that I need to tread really carefully right now and I nod, trying to look like I’m giving his thought any real consideration.

  “I think she’ll come around,” I finally say. “She’ll be fun to break, at any rate, so I hope that she does. Don’t worry, I’m not afraid to put her down if she’s not working out.”

  Even as I say it though, the thought of Natalia dead sends regret shooting through me. I don’t want anything to happen to her, including me.

  Chapter 17

  Natalia

  All night last night I laid awake in bed watching the stars and the moon through the single window in my room. The moon has been waxing for a few days now ,the light of it streaming in through my window and making the entire room bright.

  With everything white in my room, it’s amazing how it all seems to glow. I have a very faint memory of going on a vacation with my parents when I was younger, when they were still alive.

  We stayed at a shitty little roadside motel — the only kind of lodging that we could afford — and the curtain hadn’t gotten shut all the way when we all went to bed. My parents fucked before they passed out, hopefully thinking that I was asleep, but I just kept staring at the space between the curtains.

  Light streamed through the space, falling right on my face as I lay in the hard little bed and I made up the most incredible dreams about it being the moon. I pretended that I was an explorer on my way to the stars, but when I finally crept from bed to get a better look at the moon, it wasn’t anything celestial at all.

  There was a street lamp right outside our room, the light from its incandescent bulb shining straight into the room and keeping me up. I’d stood there at the window for a long damn time, tears streaming down my face, before closing the curtains and getting back into bed.

  Last night, though, it had been the moon. It was gorgeous, almost full, so bright that I could almost make out the beach below. By the weekend I was sure that I’d be able to pick out different parts of the beach and I actually found myself looking forward to going back to bed.

  First, though, I have to make it through the day.

  Owen gets me and leads me down to breakfast. Before I walk into the cafeteria to get my food and sit back in the hall, though, he stops me, his hand on my arm. “Marco wanted me to tell you that you’d be touring the island today since you got sick on your tour yesterday,” he says.

  “What?” Panic creeps through me. I’m supposed to train as much as possible so that I can try to make it off of this hell island, and now Marco has taken away not only one day from me, but two.

  “He wants you to see the layout of the island,” Owen tells me, giving my arm a little squeeze. “You be careful out there, okay? Look for anything that you can find that might give you an advantage over him when it’s your turn to run.”

  I look up into his face for a moment, surprised by what I see there.

  It looks like compassion, but that can’t be right, can it? There’s no way that Owen would feel anything for me, because if he did, that would put him at risk.

  Then again, if I do well, he does well.

  “Thanks,” I tell him, walking into the cafeteria and leaving him and all of the questions that I want to ask him behind in the hall. The other three women are already there eating, each of them at their own table, but none of them look up at me as I walk by.

  I’ve learned my lesson not to talk to them. As much as I want to save them, I don’t think that I can save them and myself. Honestly, right now, my main goal is somehow getting off of this island in one piece.

  If I can take them with me, I will, but I’m not sticking around longer than I have to to try.

  Helen hands me a loaded tray without a smile and I carry it back out into the cafeteria, deciding to sit in there instead of in the hall. Maybe if they see that I’m on my best behavior they will start to trust me some and I can use it against them.

  I sit down silently and start eating, barely tasting the food she’s made. It’s another omelet, this one with spinach, feta, and some bacon, and there are home fries and fresh cut apples on the side.

  I pack it all away even though I’m not terribly hungry because I know that I need to keep my strength up. When I finish the last drop of my milk I leave my tray and walk into the hall, unsurprised to see Marco standing there waiting for me.

  He has the same bag in his hand that he did yesterday and he sweeps his dark eyes over me when I walk up to him.

  We’re both silent at first, but I’m the one who breaks the silence. Of course. I’ve never been able to handle the idea that someone was mad at me, even when that person was my kidnapper.

  “Another tour this morning?” I ask, tilting my head a little to the side to take him in. He’s so strong, so sexy, and I hate myself for thinking of him like that. I should be terrified of him and I should hate him, but there’s just something about him that draws me in.

  That just goes to show how fucked up I am, I guess.

  “You didn’t make it through the last one.” His voice is even and calm and although I halfway think that he’s going to smile when he talks to me, he doesn’t. I wonder if I’m going to be punished for what happened yesterday, but I can’t ask that here. Not when people are listening.

  Sure, Marco said that nobody would believe me about what happened, but I’m still nervous. If the three other guys found out that we fucked what would they do? Would they take me out back and put me down like a rabid dog?

  The thought makes me nervous and I rub my hands on my jeans. “So what are we waiting for?” Without waiting for a response, I walk past him, leading the way to the outside door even though I don’t h
ave a fob to let us out.

  We don’t see anyone else as we leave the building, and as soon as we’re outside, I suck in a breath.

  Fuck, it feels good to be out of there. The building is full of recycled air that makes it difficult to breathe and I swear I can smell the panic on the other women. We’re all terrified, each of us holding it in the best that we can, but it seeps out a little.

  I can smell it. I can feel it. It’s getting in my bones, soaking in through my pores. If I’m not careful I have a feeling that I might never sleep again. I’ll just stand at the window all night long like a sentry, keeping an eye out for the moon.

  Marco turns to me. “Do I need to remind you not to run?”

  I shake my head. When I close my eyes I think that I can still feel his cock in me. He fucked me like nobody else ever has and I can’t help the fact that I want it again, but there’s no way that’s going to happen.

  It’s too dangerous.

  “I’ll behave,” I tell him, then pause, trying to decide if what I want to say next is going to be a mistake. Fuck it. I’m already living on borrowed time. “Thanks for bringing me out here again.”

  That makes him raise an eyebrow and he looks at me curiously. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a rabbit thank me for anything,” he tells me, and I feel my spine stiffen.

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “But it’s what you are. We can’t pretend that you aren’t a rabbit, Natalia, that you weren’t brought here for a very specific reason, can we?” His jaw twitches as he speaks and he strides away from me, fully expecting me to follow.

  Even though I hate myself for it, I do, taking long strides to keep up with him. “I thought — ” I say, but he whips around and cuts me off.

  “You thought that just because we fucked yesterday that everything would be different? Is that what you thought? Believe me, Natalia, that doesn’t change your role here on the island.” His words are harsh and make me take a step back from him, but there’s sadness in his eyes.