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didn’t keep him from ringing an arm around her waist and jerking her forward, her small body thumping against his. Just the feel of her up against him was stimulating to him. He should tell her she was free of the promise to service him and his men, but he wasn’t quite ready yet. He jerked her mouth beneath his and kissed her until she melted bonelessly in his arms. All the tension simply bled out of her and she went lax and sweet against him. Her mouth fell open and he readily took the invitation, slipping a searching tongue into her mouth.
    Ah, damn she was sweet. There was just something about the way she tasted, so smooth and sultry and beckoning. He found himself wishing she hadn’t stolen from him the night before, wishing they were on equal terms and he’d been able to bed her like he’d wanted to in that inn room.
    Then she bit down on his tongue, kneed him in the crotch, and ran.
    She reached Hero in a flash, throwing herself up onto his bare back. She heard a bellowing roar of pain and fury, but she didn’t stop to look. She kicked Hero’s sides and sent the horse bolting forward. So what if Hero’s saddle, her saddlebags, and provisions were all on the ground by the bedroll she had laid out? She didn’t care. She was getting out of there as fast as she could.
    She was riding like the eight hells were yawning open to get her. She didn’t look back once, which was why she wasn’t expecting a hand to grab her at the back of her neck, seizing a fistful of her shirt and plucking her right off Hero’s back.
    She screamed and kicked and fought against him. She went for a dagger but only got it out of the sheath before he was wrenching her wrist and forcing her to drop it to the ground.
    “Enough, you little hellcat! Enough!” he bellowed.
    He dragged her across his lap, her fanny up in the air as he kneed the horse to a halt. He smacked a hand down hard on her buttocks and she yelped with pain and indignation.
    “Let me go!” she cried, as she tried to wriggle away.
    “If you’d shut up and sit still for two seconds we can put an end to this!” he roared.
    With that terrible tone it sank in that she was done for. There was nothing she could do. She might as well stop fighting. If he was this determined to have her, she would just shut her eyes and be done with it. She would find a way to escape him come the morning…or whenever they got to Docking Bay.
    She deflated in his lap, hanging there over the sides of his horse dejectedly. She rode like that as he walked the horses back to the campsite in total silence. Maxum’s men were all still sitting around the fire, watching their leader with an unconcerned air. When they approached his bedroll he dropped her unceremoniously to the ground, sending her onto her butt in the dirt, and dismounted. Then he reached for her, causing her to back away on hands and heels. But, of course, he caught her and yanked her up off the ground and into his body.
    “Take off your pants,” he barked at her.
    “No!” she shouted back, unable to keep from fighting him even though it was a lost cause.
    “Do it!”
    Defeated and with shaking hands she moved to obey, untying the laces of her breeches. She then hooked her thumbs into the waistband and shucked them down her legs.
    She stood there shivering in her underwear as she handed him the pants. She tried to hide herself from the interested gazes of his men but there was little she could do other than to put Maxum between their eyes and her body. He folded her pants neatly, dropped down onto his bedroll and tucked them under his head like a pillow as he settled in. She stood there in puzzlement as he closed his eyes and made as though he were going to sleep. She stood indecisively for a full minute.
    “Go lie down and go to sleep,” he barked at her. “Cover up. It’s chilly tonight.”
    Not knowing what else to do, she dropped down onto his bedroll and snuggled up under the blanket. He was right—it was cold and he