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of this house in the shape of whiskey, food, and a willing woman.
    Taking another peek out the window, she saw Kai motion them all inside. There must have been twenty men out there. “Erik,” Kai yelled. “Let’s find you a warm meal and a hot bed, my friend.” As though he felt her gaze, he looked up, straight at her.
    She clenched her fists, barely feeling the sting of her nails. She hoped Kai came to her. And not because of the road she’d been set upon, but because she wanted his company. She’d surely lost her mind.
    The noise downstairs was so merry and bright she had to force herself to stay in her rooms. An hour later, the party was still going strong, and her heart hardened. She mattered to no one, and she needed to remember that.
    When the door slammed against the wall, she’d been dozing. She sat up quickly, startled and disoriented. Kai, was her first thought, but it wasn’t Kai. It was one of Kai’s drunken soldiers, blundering about in the wrong part of the house. Or…had Kai sent him here, to her?
    She jumped to the side of the bed, not bothering to grab a sheet to cover her nakedness. “What do you want here?”
    “Eh? I can’t see anything. Turn on the fucking—Where’s the goddamn light switch?” He toddled into the room. The hall light illuminated him from behind, making him look like a giant, lurching shadow.
    His searching hand hit the switch, and his gaze homed in on her. “Holy—Oh my, my, my. Lewis is a lucky bastard tonight. Oh yeah. Come here, baby. Damn! Look at your tits!”
    She wasn’t about to let this man near her, whether Kai had sent him or not. She needed to stay in Kai’s good graces, but there were some things she refused to do. At least if she had a choice.
    He grabbed handfuls of her naked breasts, squeezing and massaging them. “Baby, baby. Come give Lewis some lovin ’, sweet thing.”
    Ugh . She jerked away from him but he just followed her, his sour breath making her gag.
    He thrust a hand between her thighs, lowering his head to pull a nipple into his wet mouth.
    “You have to go,” she said. “I belong to Kai.”
    “Sure you do, honey,” he mumbled from around her nipple. “You all do. Lucky fuck, Kai is.”
    Shit . She brought a knee up, hard.
    As soon as the pain registered, he loosened his hold and bent over, groaning. “What the hell? Bitch—”
    She’d sent his nuts halfway through his belly, but he was Kai’s soldier. Those guys could take horrendous amounts of pain. With the added bonus of being drunk, it would take more than a knee to the balls to take this one out.
    She vaulted onto the bed and, with a quick look over her shoulder, sprinted into the bathroom. Two more seconds and she would have had the door shut and locked, but he slammed into it. The door knocked her halfway across the room, and he came roaring in after her, drunk, infuriated, horny.
    “Son of a bitch!” She scrambled back, the tiles uncomfortably cold and hard against her bare skin. “Get the fuck out of here, idiot!”
    But he was not in the mood to listen or comply. He reached for the waistband of his pants. “I’m going to fuck you so hard, girlie girl.” His dazed eyes darted from her breasts to between her legs. He dropped his pants and wrapped his hand around a rather intimidating cock. “So hard.”
    “What you’re going to do is get your ass kicked.” Carefully, she stood, dancing on the balls of her feet, waiting for him. “Come on, then, monkey. Let’s get this over with.”
    He smiled, perhaps thinking she meant something entirely different. “I like to take my time, girlie girl. Pleasuring the woman means more than my own pleasure.”
    She rolled her eyes. “Yeah. Right.”
    “You sure do have some tits, lady.”
    She sighed. He was a mean son of a bitch, but he was drunk and full of dinner. She should be able to get the drop on him, maybe bang his head against the tile wall.
    But when she started toward him, she saw a shadow against the wall in