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  I was going to make her bleed. I was going to make her cry. I was going to hurt her again. As full of rage as I was, I relished none of it. Pushing down the undergarment she had put on me while I had been unconscious, I stroked myself. “Come here and spread your legs under me.”

  Her gaze dropped to my erection, and she sucked in a breath as her hand went between her legs, but she moved a fraction closer. “What are you going to do?”

  Fuck her. Taste her. Break her. “Closer.” Make her come again.

  Her chest rose and fell rapidly, but she did what I commanded.

  She sealed her fate and came a breath closer.

  “Under me,” I ordered, my strength waning as my blood rushed south.

  Her gaze cut to my right side. “Where you were knifed, it’s bleedin’ again.” She looked back at me. “There was a lot of mud in the wound. I tried to clean it before I stitched it.” Her voice went quieter. “That has to hurt. And your ribs and your leg.”

  My ribs were not broken. I had experienced that before. This was not that. I was bruised and bleeding from the beating I’d taken from my brothers at River Stephens’s command, and I was weak from lack of food and water for seven sunsets before I was left in the swamp for dead.

  But I was neither a coward, nor feeble.

  I was a man, and she wanted to become a woman.

  Doing something I had never done, I used her name. “Come to me, Shaila.”

  Her pale skin flushed from her checks to the open collar at her neck, and she scooted forward. Threading her legs under my chest, she rested them on either side of my thighs.

  Holding her gaze, I cupped her.

  She sucked in a breath, but she did not move back.

  Dropping my thumb, I circled where I knew it would feel good. “You are going to release again.”

  Her lips parted and her eyes closed, but she did not say anything. With her legs spread and her hands on the ground behind her, she was the first female who gave me the desire to swell her body with my seed.

  Leaning closer to her, I kept a slow rhythm with my thumb to give her enough pressure to relax, but not enough to stimulate her to climax. Stroking myself, I brought my mouth to her ear. “You are going to feel my hands on you.” Still circling her clit, I rubbed my fingers through her soft reddish-blonde curls. “And you are going to feel me inside you.” I brought the head of my cock to her entrance.

  She jumped, and her voice turned to panic. “Wait.”

  No female had ever told me to wait. “Does this hurt?” Holding her thigh, I rubbed the head of my cock against her wet desire.

  She struggled to keep her eyes open and her gaze focused as she shook her head. “No, oh Lord, it doesn’t—”

  “I am not hurting you right now.” But I would. Her tightness was barely letting the head of my cock in. Breaking her natural barrier would make her bleed.

  Her green eyes focused, and she looked at me like no other female had ever dared to look at me. “Right now?”

  I was not just a brother on the compound. I was the digger. I was the one who buried all the secrets. I was the one who made people disappear.

  I was avoided.

  Except in the men’s quarters after nightly prayer.

  Then I was the brother who garnered a reputation with the females.

  I made them wet before I even touched them.

  I was told I smelled like earth and sex.

  I knew where to let my breath land on their skin. I knew how make nipples hard with just a look. I knew my tongue across my own lips made them desire my mouth on them, except I had never kissed any of them.

  Not on the mouth.

  But I wanted to kiss this female with new-leaf-green eyes who spoke like a cursed man but trembled like a fawn.

  I wanted to face her while I entered her.

  I wanted to kiss her while I fucked her.

  I wanted to take her smile and break it so no other man ever witnessed it.

  Circling her clit, I rubbed the head of my cock through her desire again. “No pain right now.”

  “Oh, sweet Jesus,” she moaned softly as her eyes fluttered shut. Then in the next instant, they were back open and focused on me as she gripped my arm. “You’re gonna hurt me. I know you will.”

  I could have thrust into her.

  A week ago, I would have.

  But I was not in the swamp because of her.

  “Lift your shirt,” I demanded.

  She did not lift it, but her slim fingers started to unbutton it. “You’re not gonna answer me?”

  “You did not ask a question.” She had made a statement. I increased the pressure of my thumb because I did not want to talk. Females never spoke to me while I took them.

  “It was supposed to be a question.” She undid the last button and her shirt fell away from her body. “And I don’t just mean physically hurt me.”

  Her breasts were pushed together in an undergarment the likes of which I had never seen. “Take it off.” I hated it at the same time I wanted to stare at her in it forever.

  She shrugged her shirt off. “You’re nothing like any boy I ever met.”

  “I am not a boy,” I growled, offended.

  “Says the guy who told me he was only fifteen years old.”

  “I have taken many turns, maybe eighteen, maybe twenty.” Maybe more. I did not start counting until I was given my first shovel as a small child and told to dig until my hands bled and my arms were too heavy to lift.

  Her fingers curled around the hand I had on her womanhood and she pushed me away. “So why lie in the first place and say fifteen?”

  “I do not lie.”

  Instead of anger, hurt spread across her face. “But you did.”

  My initial instinct was to not reply, to keep the compound life a secret. But I was not River Ranch anymore, and I had never conversed this much with a female. Not seeing a benefit to withholding the information, I pushed up with my good arm and leaned back on my legs. “Age is not counted since birth on the compound, not unless someone counted it for you, which was rare. When I was old enough, I began to count my own turns, but my first years were not marked. I do not know how many turns I had taken when I started to keep track, so I do not know how many in total I have aged. I knew it was at least fifteen. I did not lie.”

  She bit her lip and nodded. “So you gave a girl a flower?”

  Cautious of her change in subject matter, I studied her a moment. “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  I flexed the muscles on my arms. I did not know what she had done to my shoulder. It was sore, but it was no longer useless. “The female looked sad,” I admitted.

  She pulled her shirt in front of her. “So you risked getting the crap kicked out of you to give her a flower?”

  I wanted to move her shirt away. “I did not realize there were others watching.” But I should have. On compound, there was always an audience, and loyalty was reserved for River Stephens.

  “Did you like her?”

  She asked the question as if it upset her. I gave her the truth. “No more or no less than any other female.”

  “So she wasn’t your girlfriend?”

  I had heard the term before. I gave her the simplest answer. “No.”

  Her gaze drifted as she pulled her shirt closer, then she changed the subject again. “I saw the news about a raid at River Ranch a couple years ago. Were you there when it happened?”

  I nodded.

  “Were you….” She bit her lip. “Were you involved?”

  “Every male was trained on how to use a weapon. We all took up arms when the compound was under attack.” I used to think it my duty to protect the brothers and sisters.

  She frowned and her gaze momentarily drifted down my body before she caught herself and looked back at me. “You didn’t worry about getting shot?”

  I was a man. “No.”

  “At all?” she asked, surprised.

  “No.”

  Her gaze droppe
d to the ground, and she made a derisive sound. “Well, if I’d been your mama, I would’ve worried plenty for you during that raid.”

  No one had ever worried about me. “The sister who birthed me was deceased.” I had buried her when I was nine turns.

  Incredulous, she looked up. “Sister?”

  “Mother,” I corrected, using her terminology. I knew the language on the compound was distinct from the world outside its gated perimeter. There were dozens of members not born on the compound, and all of the elders had come to River Ranch from previous lives of sin and corruption. They often spoke about the impurities of the outside world, language being one of them.

  “Your real mama is dead?”

  I nodded once, not explaining the distinction in her term versus mine. I was raised to hold no more sentiment toward a female who gave me life versus the sisters who had raised me. Formative years were not held against a male once he was of mating age. Then all females became one and the same. Or they were supposed to, unless you showed a preference for one particular female, then you would have to fight for rights to her by enduring a beating. If you survived, you earned rights to the female for this life and the next, and no other brother could take her.

  But that was not my life anymore, and I did not have to fight for rights to this female in front of me.

  Tired, weary of conversing, telling myself I owed her nothing, I dismissed her. “I am done talking.” I needed to fuck or make her leave so I could sleep.

  “Oh, sorry.” Putting her arms through her shirt and holding it together, she scooted back and made to get up, but paused. “Do you miss it? The… compound?”

  Without welcome, a memory surfaced. River Stephens, the man who called himself my father, the brother who presided over all of River Ranch, the man I had had fearful respect for until I was nine turns around the sun, flooded into my head unwanted. I was asleep in my bunk when he had woken me in the middle of the night and told me to get my shovel.

  Doing as he said, I followed him outside to find my birth mother, lifeless and beaten, lying in the dirt. Unable to cover my shock, I had daringly asked what had happened. The next words out of the Holy One’s mouth were the ones that made me grow up.

  “The same thing that will happen to you if you do not do your job, digger.”

  In that moment, I had vowed to never be like him, or any of the elders.

  It was that same sentiment that had compelled me over seven sunsets ago to give a young, forlorn-looking female a wildflower.

  But it was later that night, all those years ago, after having dragged my birth mother’s body through the woods and past the usual burial grounds to where I had dug her a separate grave, that I lost faith.

  I told the female in front of me the truth. “I will never miss River Ranch.”

  I had so many questions, I didn’t know where to put them all.

  But more, I was inches away from his nakedness, a nakedness he seemed to be comfortable in, that was making both my mouth water to touch and kiss him, but also terrifying me beyond a single lick of sanity.

  If only a fraction of what was racing through my blood and fluttering up my belly something fierce was what my mama felt about my daddy, then I was screwed seven ways from Sunday. With a cherry on top.

  Caught up in my thoughts, his voice took me off guard.

  “I am told, outside the compound, that females of birthing age make their own decisions.”

  I didn’t even know which part of that twisted-up sentence to address. “It’s a free country.”

  “Then decide,” he commanded.

  “About?” I hedged, trying my hardest not to let my gaze stray from his eyes to his bruised but sinfully gorgeous body and his larger-than-life… everything.

  “Becoming a woman.”

  Oh, sweet Jesus, I had no comeback for his brand of honesty. “Maybe we should douse that fire.”

  Reaching forward like he had a right to touch me whenever he so well pleased, he pushed his hand between my legs and his fingers found that magic spot. “No one has ever tended to you.”

  Lord help me, I didn’t shove him away. I didn’t want to. And he didn’t say what he’d said like a question, but I gave an answer anyway. “I’m not a garden.”

  His fingers slowly stroking my most private parts, he stared at me for a full thirty seconds. “You wanted to become a woman tonight. With me. Why?”

  Embarrassed, a half laugh came out, then my mouth ran with it, sinking me further. “I can’t be the first girl to ever come on to you. I mean, look at you.” My hand waved through the air in the general direction of his body. “Even beat all to heck, you’re….” My mouth went suddenly dry, and I cleared my throat. “You’ve got a lot of muscles.” A whole, whole lot.

  He didn’t say a word, but his fingers continued to slowly caress me.

  “Right,” I scoffed, somehow managing to sound indignant while he was touching me like he was. “Of course you got nothin’ to say to that.” Using every ounce of willpower I had, I pressed my legs together and made to scoot back.

  His hand shot out, and he gripped my thigh with shocking strength.

  Then he yanked.

  My ass slid across cold concrete, and in the next instant, his hard length was at my entrance and his lips were at the edge of my ear. Desire exploded inside me like a weakness as his breath landed on my neck.

  “I am going to take you,” his rough voice rasped.

  “Tarquin,” I whispered, shivering as goose bumps raced across my flesh.

  “I am going to tend to you. I am going to make you a woman.” Each dominant statement he murmured in my ear was another breath-stealing swirl of his hardness through my aching need.

  Panting and mindless, except for one single thought, I said the only thing I could say. “Okay.”

  His mouth landed on mine, his fingers pinched my clit, and he shoved into me.

  Sharp, horrible pain stole my breath.

  My mouth shot open, my back bowed, but no words came out. My hands flew to his biceps, and my fingers dug into his flesh as tears sprung and fell.

  Oh my God.

  Oh my God.

  Hard and merciless, his thumb stroked my clit. “Take a breath, woman,” he demanded, caressing the last word.

  Air filled my lungs and a whimper, half terror, half plea, spilled out of my mouth. I squeezed my eyes shut. “Stop, stop, stop.”

  His huge hand grasped my hip, holding me to him as his other hand took my face. “Look at me.”

  My body no longer my own, my eyes opened.

  His stark blue gaze void of emotion, he stared down at me. “It is done.”

  Tears dripped down my cheeks, and I was suddenly that ten-year-old girl begging her daddy not to let her drug-addicted mama who’d overdosed die. “Please,” I pleaded. “Stop.”

  His stare unwavering, he studied my tears, my eyes, my face, then his hand on my hip moved between our bodies. “Feel this.”

  His thumb stroked my clit again, but this time it was gentle and caressing. Then he pulsed deep inside me.

  The burning pain didn’t recede, but something else started to happen.

  He stroked and pulsed again.

  Fluttering, aching, my inner muscles moved in response to something other than pain.

  His eyes closed on an inhale, and his head dipped as his mouth landed on my neck.

  He tasted my tears and pulsed harder.

  Oh sweet mercy.

  A thousand feathers of the need I’d felt earlier brushed across the burning ache of my core, and my breath hitched through my starved lungs. The full scent of him filled my head. Fresh dirt, the air after a summer rain—he smelled like raw earth and musk and sin and heaven.

  My taut muscles gave in to his touch.

  As if knowing my legs were no longer locked, his hand moved from my face to behind my knee. He pushed my leg up and sucked just below my ear. A second finger joined his thumb, and he pulled back only to push in deeply.

  �
��Oh,” I gasped, as an entirely new sensation filled my womb with a different kind of heat. A pleasurable heat.

  “Feel me inside you,” he growled against my neck before pulling out further and looking down at me.

  My fingers still digging into his biceps, I lifted my other leg and my voice came out in a scratchy whisper. “I feel you.” But I wanted something, I needed something…. “More,” I begged.

  His eyes on mine, he thrust deep inside me.

  This time the breath he stole from me wasn’t from pain. “Oh, sweet Jesus,” I moaned as the burning pain became burning need.

  Slow and measured, his body moved in and out of me.

  His thumb and finger rolled my clit. His mouth and tongue kissed away my tears. And he did exactly as he said.

  He made me a woman.

  My body inside hers, I thrust until she could feel me deep. Then I eased back and did it again. Controlling the urge to take her hard and fast, I moved in and out of her and kept my fingers on the center of her pleasure.

  Her body went from rigid resistance to pure submission.

  I grew harder.

  I had never taken a female like her.

  Her body was softer, rounder around the hips and thighs, but her womanhood was tighter, much tighter than anything I had ever felt. Her fertile body under me, her fingers digging into my flesh, her eyes locked on to mine, I had never experienced anything more consuming. I wanted to release inside her over and over.

  But she needed to release first.

  “Come,” I commanded, dragging my nail across her sensitive flesh. “Give me your release.”

  Her body at my command, her core constricted, and her eyes fluttered shut. “Oh God.”

  “All of your release,” I barked, pressing harder with my thumb.

  Her legs jerked, and she spasmed around me as she cried out. “Tarquin!”

  Hearing my name for the first time cross a female’s lips as I was tending to her made every muscle in my body tense.

  Then I was pounding into her as her tight contractions around my cock drove me over the edge. Pulsing harder than I ever had before, I let go and released inside her.

  My chest heaving, my breath short, I filled her womb with my seed.

  Then my thrusts slowed, and I did something I had never done with any female on the compound.