She elbowed him in the back as hard as she could. His muscles felt like slabs of concrete. He didn’t even pause his easy jog when she landed her strike. Not even a hard exhale. The helpless feelings began to mount. The second time she was determined to make sure he’d feel it. She rammed her elbow between his shoulder blades and thought she heard a grunt.
Ro was congratulating herself on a least scoring a hit when a large hand came down on her ass in a hard smack.
Conan had just spanked her! Oh, hell no. Rather than being subdued, Ro’s temper flared white-hot. No one had spanked Ro since her beverage container of choice was a sippy-cup. And Conan the Barbarian with the camo-painted face was not getting away with it. Ro wished for the acrylic claws the Mistress of Evil had for nails. The ones she’d trailed down Ro’s cheek in that über creepy way that made Ro struggle not to projectile vomit. The memory made Ro shiver. Focus on now. I am not helpless. Not then and not now. So Ro did the next best thing she could think of. She bit him.
“Motherfucker!” Graham wanted to rage, but the word came out as a low growl. Operational security required silence. The bitch and her bony elbows and vampire canines weren’t going to fuck up Graham’s simple mission.
He smacked her round little ass again, harder this time. She squeaked and jabbed his back with one of those pointy little elbows. At least she couldn’t yell with her teeth embedded in his back. That had actually kind of hurt. Not that Graham would ever admit it. He probably should have been more pissed about the bite mark that he was going to be sporting, but he found it a little hard to condemn the girl when she was probably scared out of her damn mind, and her instincts were ricocheting between fight and flight. It didn’t take much combat experience to become intimately familiar with the human instinct to survive. How many combat virgins had Graham seen run at the first sounds of live fire? Or duck when they heard mortar rounds whistling into camp? Too many to count.
But still, Graham wasn’t a fan of teeth marks on his back. Fingernail scratches sustained during a marathon three-way? Perfectly acceptable. But teeth marks while fully clothed he could do without. Thoughts firmly in the gutter, as usual, Graham’s cock twitched. Little fucker didn’t know or care whether now was the appropriate time to stand up and take notice. Graham slipped back through the gate and turned to make sure it was latched.
He started a brisk jog toward the walled compound that housed their living quarters, which was located about forty acres in from the southwest corner of the spread. Her struggles ceased in favor of gripping Graham’s back to hold on. Graham still had no idea why she’d ended up near his fence, but he was damn curious to find out.
From her upside down vantage point across Conan’s back, Ro watched another man close, bolt, and bar a small porthole-like door in a giant steel wall topped with razor wire. It closed silently, but it might as well have slammed like a cell door. Panic rose as Conan strode farther into the camp.
Ro renewed her struggles. And she didn’t keep quiet this time either.
“Put me down! Let me go! Umpf—” Ro’s words were cut off as her still-stinging ass landed on a picnic table bench.
Conan got in her face. “You’re in no position to be giving orders. And until you answer my questions, you aren’t going anywhere except where I put you.”
Ro opened her mouth to let out a scathing reply, but snapped it shut when she realized she could see the angles and planes of his painted face in the glow of artificial light. She hadn’t seen any working lights in the last week and was shocked to see one now. It was amazing how quickly things she used to take for granted became oddities. But back to the face in front of hers. He had lowered himself into a crouch in front of her. He looked like G.I. Joe come to life. But even bigger than the Channing Tatum version. His face was covered in smears of brown, black, and gray, and a black long-sleeve t-shirt stretched tightly over linebacker-esque shoulders. He looked as if he was easily twice Ro’s size. The bulging muscles and defined pecs briefly distracted her, but the rifle held casually in his grip, barrel pointed in her general vicinity, caught and held her attention. An M4, the smaller, more compact version of the M16, if she remembered her dad’s lessons clearly. Her eyes darted between his face and the gun, trying to figure out her best course of action if he decided to unload the thirty round magazine in her direction. Nothing. There wasn’t a damn thing she’d be able to do if he decided to use her for target practice. And the look on his face wasn’t inspiring any confidence that he wasn’t intending to do just that. His piercing dark eyes cataloged every detail of her appearance. Thinking it was best to present as small a target as possible, Ro wrapped her arms around herself and shrank back until the edge of the picnic table dug into her spine.
Under the camo paint, his dark brows furrowed, as if he was confused by her actions. He followed her eyes to the gun and lifted his dark gaze to hers.