She did as she was told, the frightening Callum still fresh in her mind even though his voice was no longer harsh, his eyes were no longer hungry or enraged and his warm tone indicated an extreme sense of relief.
When they alighted from the plane, one, tall, dark-haired man was standing beside a hunter green Range Rover that Callum, holding her hand, guided her to immediately.
The man was looking at Sonia curiously but he did not drop to a knee.
He bowed his head deeply to her and to Callum before he lifted his head and, to Sonia, he murmured reverently, his Scottish burr evident even though he spoke two words, “My queen.” When she nodded and gave him a tremulous smile, he grinned at Callum and said, “She’s pretty, your grace.”
“Yes, she is, Drogan,” Callum answered as the man threw Callum a set of keys which Callum caught.
“Good to have you back,” Drogan called as Callum practically pushed Sonia into the left side passenger seat.
“It’s f**king good to be back,” Callum answered, slamming Sonia’s door without bothering to introduce her to Drogan.
“Hail victory, my king,” Drogan went on, his voice was soft but it was also filled with pride and relief.
“Hail victory,” Callum repeated, his voice was threaded with a vein of steel.
Callum drove them through the darkening afternoon of a wooded countryside just as swiftly as he drove them to the airfield hours before.
She wanted to ask him to slow down. She was too numb to speak.
He didn’t bother.
However, finally he said, “There she is.”
Sonia turned her head from her silent, angry, fearful contemplation of the countryside whizzing by on her left to look straight ahead.
On a small rise sat a castle.
In the waning light she saw it. Not exactly large and also not like any castle she’d ever seen in the times Gregor had taken her to France and Germany.
This one was like out of a fairytale.
It had eight (she counted them) turrets upon which long, streaming pennants flew. It seemed to have no straight sides, no sharp angles. It was all rounded with sweeping edges. It didn’t ramble across the rise but was compact and tall, at least three stories except the turrets which were much higher.
She barely got a good look at it before Callum swung around the circular drive which had a small, round fountain dancing in the middle, stopped the Rover and parked.
She also barely got a good look at the two statues (she could swear they were wolves) guarding the banisters on either side of the six (or seven, or even eight) foot wide set of steps. These led to the studded, wooden, arched double doors that seemed fifteen feet tall and had enormous, scrolled, iron hinges.
She also barely got a look at anything in the welcomingly lit interior as he dragged her up a winding, stone staircase lit by sconces on the wall and cut by thin tapestries hanging on the rounded walls.
One flight, two, three, four and on the landing of the fifth he walked them straight into the only room that led straight off the landing. A bedroom that she didn’t see at all.
Because she was concentrating on the fact that Callum was almost tearing her clothes from her body.
“Callum –” she began.
“Quiet,” he ordered in his kingly voice.
“Cal –”
He kissed her.
She struggled. Not against him but against the urge which was fighting to emerge during his deep, heady, hungry kiss. She struggled because she was never going to sleep with him.
Not ever again.
But concentrating on her inner battle, she lost track of him taking off every last stitch of her clothing.
So when she was na**d and he had his hands on her bottom, lifted her and threw her on the bed but caught her ankles and yanked her forward at the same time he pulled her legs apart she was losing the fight in her head.
And when Callum, still fully clothed, dropped to his knees beside the bed, that was when Sonia was lost and the urge took over because he bent forward and suddenly his mouth was between her legs.
The soles of her feet planted themselves at the edge of the bed. With a brazenly deep moan of pleasure starting at the core of her, tearing its way up her throat and through her lips, her h*ps surged up to meet the voracious, consuming demands of his mouth. He cupped her bottom in his big hands and took from her like a man who’d been wandering a desert for days without water and had just dropped to his knees at the pool in an oasis.
In what seemed like seconds, Sonia came against his mouth. Her orgasm was so intense she barely noticed him flipping her to her belly then tugging her h*ps up. Her knees going into the edge of the bed, he entered her savagely.
The urge devoured her, causing her to reach her arms straight out in front of her and her fingers to fist in the hides there as he took her, rough and fast and hard. Then harder, then harder and she met his every thrust with mindless abandon and reared back in desperation to deepen the contact. Her first orgasm seemed never to stop as the next one came and then the next before he seated himself to the root one last time, filling her full, and growled his release.
But he wasn’t done.
He took her again, Callum on top, Sonia wrapping her limbs around him and letting him ride her, again hard, again fast, again rough, until they both cl**axed.
And he took her again, Callum behind her, his hands on her inner thighs holding her suspended and steady for his thrusts as she grasped the headboard of the bed, her head back on his shoulder, her whimpers piercing the air.
And he took her again, Sonia on top and riding his shaft as Callum, sitting up, coaxed her to go faster with one hand on her hip and the other hand cupping her breast and feeding it to his mouth where he tormented her nipple.
And lastly, he took her again, but neither of them cl**axed as they were spent, lying on their sides, spooning, his shaft sliding tenderly, almost lazily, in and out of her and his arms were wrapped around her tight.
“Sleep, baby doll,” he whispered after he seated himself to the hilt and remained there.
Exhausted, all she could do was as he commanded.
Now, she lay in his bed in his castle in Scotland, her body exhausted and aching but content by his play. Content in the knowledge that he again fell asleep inside her and she again fell asleep full of him. All of which she told herself she would never be and would never again do.
Humiliation crept into her muscles alongside the ache and the bitterness that guarded her heart turned to hatred.
The tears of that bitter hatred started stinging the backs of her eyes when she heard a knock on the door.
She froze and stared, silent, hoping whoever it was (for it wasn’t Callum, she would smell him, and anyway, he would never bother to knock) would go away.