MadetoBeBroken by Lyra Byrnes

of her neck and pressed the chain
against her tender throat.
    “Take off the shirt.” She could feel his warm breath
stirring her hair. “Take off skirt and shoes.”
    She toed off the shoes but it wasn’t easy to unzip and
wriggle out of her skirt. The chain’s tension never relaxed while she struggled
out of her clothes. Finally she grasped the hem of her shirt. He gave her a wry
look and increased the pressure on her throat slightly with a tug. Understanding,
she yanked hard and tore the shirt in two pieces. Finally she sat back on the
floor, her knees raised, panting from exertion. All she had on was a pair of
her “work panties”—plain black cotton that were serviceable enough but made her
pale skin glow. Alexi seemed to like what he saw. He stared greedily at the
scrap of fabric, a growl in his throat.
    “Rise and walk.”
    She stumbled to her feet, a hard nub digging into one heel.
The pill—he’d spit it out when she wasn’t looking. All alone in this secluded
place with a mad warlord, now was not the time to be anything less than on top
of her game. Fiercely she willed herself to focus.
    They shuffled toward the bed and he dropped her on it, face
first. She rolled over in order to lunge at him upright, maybe jam her fingers
in his eyes, but before she could sit up he snapped apart the chain between the
handcuffs as easily as if they were made of wax then fell on her, flattening
her body against the bed.
    She felt vulnerable and helpless with his hard-muscled body
pressing against her bare skin. Again his scent invaded her nostrils, an
intoxicating blend of autumnal air, leather and sweat. Fight, she told
herself, you’re not beaten yet. But all her training had drained away,
been pressed out by his weight and his smell and the feel of his wild hair
tickling her forehead. But more than anything, it was his eyes—those weird,
brown-gold eyes—that pinned her in place. They did not look gloating or
triumphant, but stared steadily into her blue ones.
    For a long time neither of them moved. She could hear his
breathing and the sound of night creatures stirring as they came awake outside
the windows. Otherwise, the house was silent. He had one hand clamped around
both of her wrists. Coco had never felt so helpless.
    His lips touched hers with whisper-lightness. She felt
herself pucker to receive them but he only brushed across her mouth, as if
tasting her. He took her plump top lip between his teeth and sucked gently then
flicked his tongue across her teeth, her bottom lip.
    “Alexi ¼ ” she
groaned, not knowing what it was she wanted to say next.
    “Shhhh.” Again he bent his head to hers, brushing his lips
over her cheek, her forehead, her nose. He kissed her lightly. The sensation of
that one soft touch sent an electrical zap directly to her crotch and she felt
her legs soften as he settled his thighs between them, hard-muscled and erect.
He kissed her again, not experimentally this time, but deeply, his probing
tongue and leather-and-tobacco breath making her delirious.
    His mouth became her whole world, a warm, intoxicating place
where each nibble and swirl stoked another leaping flame from the fire inside
her. She met his tongue with eagerness, whimpering. Her arms trapped above her
head had gone limp. He pulled up to put space between them and moved his free
hand to her bare breast. His massive palm covered the soft mound firmly, moving
in slow circles to tease the nipple upward, harder and harder, until the
pleasure turned to an ache. She heard herself moaning, felt her back arch into
his hand as she silently begged for more pressure, or a hard pinch, anything to
intensify his touch. But he continued to palm the needy breast leisurely.
    He pulled his lips from hers and she almost cried out with
disappointment.
    “Not yet, krahsniy ,” he whispered.
    “What?”
    That glorious smile overtook his grim face again. Coco
realized with a start that she had lifted her hips into his, grinding