Savages Recruit (10 page)

Zora managed to make it to the tree line before he could make it to the window and see where she went. She lay flat on her belly in the undergrowth, peering at the cabin from her hiding place. She saw the curtains thrust aside and Savage's burly frame standing in the window. He looked around for a moment, then went back outside.

He walked around the back of the cabin and seemed to be looking at something on the ground, his eyes following along the path she'd run. Fear gripped her heart. Surely he couldn't know which way she'd gone? She hunkered down as he started walking towards her hiding spot, but at the last moment he veered away and walked into a different part of the forest.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Zora stayed motionless for a few minutes before gathering the nerve to move. When she popped her head back up above the line of mulch and bark she couldn't see or hear anything. Standing up gingerly, she shrieked as a powerful hand came down on her shoulder, accompanied by a low drawl. “There you are, Ms Matthews.”

“Oh god,” she whimpered. “Please don't hurt me.”

“That was quite the little chase,” Savage noted as he urged her towards the cabin. How he'd found her she didn't know, but he'd managed to move almost silently in the forest and now he was looking at her with grim satisfaction that did not bode well at all.

“It wasn't my fault, I didn't mean it, I... I wasn't trying to be bad,” Zora stammered. Whenever he was this close she was reminded just how much bigger and stronger he was and as they walked her heart sank into her stomach with every step.  He was going to destroy her.

“Well you did a remarkable job of it for someone who wasn't trying,” Savage said, ushering her into the confines of the cabin. He wasn't so obviously angry anymore, but she knew well enough that didn't mean anything. He hardly ever seemed angry when he punished her.

“Right,” he said when the door was bolted with them both safely inside. “We need to have a talk.”

“I'm sorry,” Zora apologized. “I got scared.”

Savage sat down at the table, not breaking eye contact with her for a moment. “Well that's a first I think.”

“It's not the first time I've been scared,” she said, confused.

He shook his head. “I mean it's the first time you've apologized prior to having your backside tanned.”

“Maybe I'm learning?” She spoke hopefully, clasping her hands behind her back, keeping just out of arm's reach. She kept glancing towards his thighs, hoping that she was not about to end up over them.

“I'll consider you to have learned when you no longer think that leaping out of a window will solve your problems,” he said sternly.

“You were mad!” Zora tried to defend her actions, but she was forced to step back when he rose from his seat and came towards her.

“Because you were unbelievably foul mouthed and you attempted to escape your punishment and on top of that you locked me out then disobeyed me again when I told you to let me in. You finished things off by jumping out a window for the second time in our acquaintance and hid in the forest until I tracked you down,” he paused for breath before continuing. “That's quite a mouthful of misbehavior, isn't it Ms Matthews?”

“Yes,” Zora agreed mournfully.

He put his hands on his hips and shook his head at her. “You're writing checks with your behavior that your backside can't cash, Zora.”

“I know,” she agreed. Her lower lip began trembling. She was terribly afraid of what was going to happen next. She squeaked with fear when he grabbed her firmly and pulled her shorts and panties down. His sigh of displeasure as he looked at her bottom didn't make her feel any better.

“We'll deal with most of this in the morning,” he announced, putting her clothes to rights once more. For the moment, stay here.”

She stood where she was, watching curiously as he went to his toilet bag and pulled out a bar of soap. “What are you...”

“Open,” he said, holding the bar of soap out towards her.

Zora's eyes became wide with incredulity. “Open what?”

“Your mouth,” he said dryly.

“You are not putting soap in my mouth,” Zora spluttered.

“Yes I am. Perhaps this will teach you not to express every foul thought that comes into your head.”

“It wasn't that baaa...” Zora protested. As she opened her mouth to say 'bad', Savage slipped the soap in and held it there whilst she squirmed and foamed. It was the same trick he'd used to get the gag in her mouth and she felt stupid for falling for it twice. The soap tasted bitter as all heck and she was forced to concentrate on not swallowing any of it as it began to bubble inside her mouth.

When he finally removed it after what felt like an age, she rushed to the door and spat foaming soap bubbles into the grass outside. Her face was flushed bright red with outrage and embarrassment. With that single act he'd managed to make her feel more like a bratty child being punished by a school master than he ever had when spanking her. She wanted to cry, but she refused to give him the satisfaction.

“You're supposed to wait until you're told to rinse, but I'll make an exception on this occasion,” Savage said, appearing by her side and holding out a bottle of water. She took it and rinsed her mouth which helped a little, but the bitter taste still lurked especially where the bar had managed to grind over her teeth, leaving shavings of soap. Pouting to herself, Zora slinked inside and curled up on one of the bedrolls on her side. The punishments never seemed to end with this man. When one wasn't possible, he just found another. It was quickly getting to the point where she wouldn't be able to do anything except what he said. It wasn't fair. She was a grown woman and he was reducing her to a petty subordinate whose opinions and thoughts didn't matter in the slightest.

“You're cute when you pout.” The low rumble of his voice surprised her. She looked up at him, surprised that he had said anything remotely positive to her at all, let alone a compliment. He was looking at her with an amused smile, as if he was enjoying her reaction.

“Well I am glad my pain amuses you,” she said stiffly.

He laughed. “You're not in pain.”

“I am in mental and emotional pain,” she asserted.

His lips quirked. “Is that so?”

“Yes. Yes it is. That was cruel and unusual punishment.”

A dark smirk established itself on his handsome features. “When you say things like that, Ms Matthews, it rather makes me want to show you what cruel and unusual punishment actually is.” He spoke in a purposeful drawl that made the words sound like more than just an idle threat. He spoke like a man who knew what he was talking about. What if he was some kind of sick sadist? Zora wouldn't have put it past him, after all, a man who thought spanking a grown woman was appropriate probably had some very strange ideas about other things too. His smile grew wider as she sat there silently. “Now you're curious, aren't you?”

A tingle of excitement zipped through Zora's lower belly. She forgot all about the taste of soap in her mouth as she looked into his eyes and saw something new there, something more open and more intimate than he'd shown her before. “I'm always curious,” she said, “but judging by what you've done to me today, I'm guessing you'd just end up sticking a bunch of things in my mouth.”

She'd intended it to be a witty, playful comment, but the moment it left her lips she realized how sexually charged it really was. “Sorry,” she squeaked, covering her mouth with her hand. His deep chuckle made her squirm quite involuntarily. “You'd be lucky,” he smiled. “Now get over here and get dinner started.”

“What's the point of making dinner when all I can taste is soap?” Zora argued almost reflexively. His smile faded into a punitive frown and just like that, the moment was gone. The fragile spark of mutual attraction faded into their usual dynamic of command and churlish rebellion.

Chapter Seven

Evening came to the mountains bringing with it the sort of silent calm that is unique to the uncivilized parts of the world where traffic and street lights are alien. Safely tucked up in the cabin Zora knelt on her sleeping bag and nursed a cup of tea whilst Savage tapped away on the computer she wasn't allowed to look at, much less touch. The uneasy and unspoken truce that had been declared and maintained for most of the evening was shattered when Savage checked his watch. “Time to go to bed,” he announced, closing the lid of the laptop.

Zora almost snarled. Not because she wasn't tired, she was exhausted physically and emotionally. No, the impulse that made her upper lip rise was born of frustration. She slammed her mug down on the table with petulant vigor and glowered at him under drawn brows.

“Let's not end the evening with a tantrum please,” Savage said in mild tones. She wished she knew what he was thinking, she wished she knew of some way to unsettle him, some way to claw back the power he'd taken from her so easily. But there were no hints, no clues. “You can get cleaned up and changed, or I can do that for you,” he said calmly, laying out a false dichotomy. It was a cheap trick and it wouldn't work on her.  She growled, but the growl caught in her throat and turned into a cough. Instead of sounding threatening, she sounded like a cat with a fur-ball. He smirked at the sound. “What on earth was that?”

“Shut up,” Zora muttered, breaking the self imposed silence she'd maintained for over an hour.

“Enough.” His tone became curt as his expression hardened. “I'm not going to tolerate any more disobedience or rudeness from you tonight. Go get ready for bed.” He gestured towards the door Zora hadn't noticed when she first arrived because it was hidden behind a curtain. She'd been busting to go to the toilet before he'd casually pulled the dark fabric back and revealed the cabin's one luxury, a functioning bathroom with hot running water that was heated by the fire.

Zora's bottom lip slid past her upper lip as she folded her arms across her chest. His overbearing attitude did nothing but make her more resistant. “Very well,” Savage said. “I guess we're going to do this the hard way, like we do everything else.” He closed the distance between them, took hold of her by the wrists and leaned down so that he was eye to eye with her. “Are you ready to go have a shower?”

“No,” Zora sulked. She was aware she was behaving childishly, but he was treating her like a child, so it was his fault. Where did he get off telling her she had to go and have a shower? Sure, she was covered in mud and dirt, but he had no right to question her personal hygiene. It was insulting, that's what it was.

“Okay,” Savage stood upright, hoisting her over his shoulder in one easy motion. Zora maintained her stoic pout as he carried her into the bathroom and deposited her unceremoniously in a sitting position on the toilet. He stood back, his arms folded over his broad chest. “If I leave you, are you going to have a shower?”

“No,” Zora growled.

“Very well then.” He reached down, grasped the bottom of her sweater and pulled it up and over her head. It was done so quickly that she reflexively lifted her arms to allow it to be pulled free of her body The next thing she knew, he was standing with her sweater in his hand and she was down one piece of clothing.

“Wait,” she squealed as his hands descended towards her undershirt. If she lost that, she'd be in her underwear in front of him.

He arched a brow at her. “Are you ready to do as you're told now?”

Zora's lips parted in dismay as she stared at him. “If I say no are you going to keep undressing me?”

“I am,” he confirmed.

“Surely you can't be serious.”

“I am serious, and don't call me Shirley.” He grinned as if he'd made the best joke in the world. When he smiled his entire handsome face was transformed by little dimples in his cheeks and laugh lines that crinkled around the corners of his eyes and mouth. The staunch, stern military man disappeared and a younger, more carefree man stood in his place. Smiling, he looked positively dashing and for a fleeting second, she almost smiled back.

Quickly making up for the close call in which she'd almost reacted positively to him, Zora stomped her foot. “Why can't you ever let me have my way?”

“Because that's not how this works,” Savage said, rolling up his sleeves in preparation for the coming battle of the undershirt. “ Besides, you're far too used to getting your own way.”

“How do you know? You don't know me,” she disagreed.

“I know you well enough, Ms Matthews,” he said, reaching down and taking hold of the back of her undershirt. She tried fighting him as he pulled it off, but her wriggling only made it easier for him to peel it away from her body. As a last resort she tried clamping her hands by her sides, but he tickled her and made her lift them.

Having lost her second to last defense,  Zora wrapped her hands over her bra clad bosom in a futile attempt to hide her body and glared at him. “Get out!”

“Are you going to have a shower?” His smile had grown wider and she knew it was because he'd glimpsed her cleavage. She was a fairly well endowed woman and the brassiere she wore just barely contained her breasts at the best of times. She'd been meaning to buy some new bras, but with one thing and another she'd never managed to get around to it and now she was half spilling out of something ridiculously lacy in front of her tormentor.

“Yes, I'll have a damn shower,” she growled. She had no choice. It was have a shower or be stripped naked and she would not allow him that victory.

“Thank you ma'am, that's all I wanted,” Savage said with exaggerated courtesy as he retired from the room with that damned annoying smile still plastered all over his face.

Zora shed the rest of her clothes and got into the shower, which was hot and wonderful. As the warm water beat down on her tired skin, she almost forgot how mad she was at Savage. The memory of being half way stripped by him wasn't going to fade quickly though, as she soaped her body, she remembered the way his hands had felt on her body, strong and sure. Under other circumstances it might have been erotic to have a determined man rid her of her clothing, under other circumstances she might not have hidden her breasts from view. Under other circumstances...