She hissed, but he held her down, made her take it, scissoring with his fingers as she began to make raw, bleating cries, her hair spilling forward as she thrashed. Crowding his knees against her fulcrum as he kept pumping into her, he yanked her head up by the hair so he arched her like a filly under a cruel bearing rein. Each pounding of his cock, the tightening of his fist, exacerbated that straining angle. His testicles were still slapping against her clit, which was spasming beneath his working fingers. Even that wasn’t enough. He wanted to hammer into the center of her, make her feel his agony and need all the way to her heart, to her soul, if she had one. Dropping his head onto her shoulder, he bit savagely, holding on to her, tasting the unusual exotic flavor of her blood, that rejuvenating stuff that could heal physical wounds, that he was using to heal his emotional ones.

More, deeper. His belt was on the bed. Seizing it, he ran it beneath her body, just above the sensitive nipple tips, and pulled her up off her arms so that he could slam into her at a different angle. She’d caught the curtain, ripped it in their struggle. The now fortunately dark landscape flew by, lights of the infrequent stops strobing across his face, leaving his ghostlike reflection when darkness fell again. He saw a man whose face was contorted in battle rage, not pleasure, but his body didn’t care, for his release was coming, making his thighs tremble.

Don’t worry about me . . . all for you . . .

But he didn’t want it like that. He demanded that she release with him. Forcing himself to slow, he made his penetration of her rear opening a smaller motion. Reaching under the belt, holding it one-handed, he found her nipples, circled them with now excruciatingly tender fingers. It made her spine curve impossibly, so her hair brushed his chest, his jaw, and he turned his face into it, smelled the soap she used. Her hands found his thighs, gripped him, long, slim female fingers. Soft female arse and cunt.

Releasing the belt entirely, he began to stroke her clit with sure, clever fingers, even as he kept up his teasing of her nipple, the weight of her breast, kept his hips moving, working inside her.

“You’ve got the tightest, sweetest arse I’ve ever buggered, love,” he muttered against her ear, and saw her lips pull back in a soft smile that revealed fang, even as he also saw the strain on her face, the tracks of tears. “Come for me. Let me hear you cry out.” And judging her ready, he eased up the clit hood, claimed the sensitive bundle of nerves beneath between two knuckles, and returned to being ruthless. Her scream reverberated throughout their car, lost to the other cars in the rushing wind outside, the vast, empty spaces of the Outback. His cries joined her, for he could hold back his release no longer, taking her body back to the bed as he crouched over her, using her hard, pistoning his hips with all the finesse of a stake and mallet.

When he was done, his body rested on top of hers and his arm was banded around her front, the other bracing them on the bed.

She was gasping, breathless little sobs. As he turned his head, he felt the wetness on her face.

“Love?” He lifted up, but her hand gripped his, keeping him where he was.

“No, just turn, Dev. Stay inside me, but turn.”

He did as she bade, spooning with her with some difficulty in the narrow bunk made for one. “Did I . . .” Rationality was returning, and with it, incredulity. What in the hell had he been thinking, listening to her? Yeah, she was invincible and all, but pain still hurt.

Shhh . . . you’re fine. She was shaking, and he wanted to pull out, see her face, but she simply held his arms banded around her, so she could shelter inside the weight and size of his body, while he still impaled her. He knew he would soften and gradually slide out of her, but the sphincter was such a tight ring of muscles, sometimes a man had to work his way out. And she didn’t seem to want to let him go yet.

“I’m a bloody bastard,” he muttered against her ear. “A fucking monster.”

“No,” she said softly, and now she turned her face enough that his lips brushed her cheek. He saw one blue eye, too close up to distinguish the look in it. “I owed you that one, Dev. You wouldn’t have had to do everything you had to do in the last three days if it hadn’t been for me seeing you in Elle’s. If anyone’s the bloody bastard here, it’s me. I’ve used your darkness, needed it.” He did pull out then, slow and easy, though she still bit her lip as he completely got out. Turning her over to face him, he pulled her up close. She allowed it, letting him wind his arms around her body, rub soothing hands down her back, over the tense buttocks.

“Over on your stomach, love. Let me help.”

“No, it’s fine.”

He tipped up her chin, gave her a look. “Don’t make me pull out the Superman strength I’ve been holding in reserve.”

“Really?” She arched a brow. “And here I was, already impressed by you.” But still she balked. “Dev, I can take care of things like that . . .”

“Yeah, you can. But wouldn’t a servant take care of all sorts of things for you, including intimate things like that?”

“Some do, but—”

“Well, then.” He rose up on an arm. “Don’t make me resort to tickling.” At her look he sobered. “Please, Danny. Let me check.”

“I’ll heal.”

“Yeah. But I can make it easier.”

When he tugged on her, she capitulated, but he could tell she wasn’t very excited about it. As he’d figured, he’d torn her, and there was blood. He hitched his pants and shirt back on, went and found some hot water, coming back with that and some cloths to do a hot compress.

Danny put her cheek on her hands, watching him, the concentration on his face as he gently parted her buttocks and cleaned her, then pressed the hot compress to the abused area. It did make it much better, and she let out a hum of relief. “You might have some blood on you, too,” she noted, glancing at the heavy weight of him, held in his strides again.

“I’ll take care of that in a minute, after I take care of you.” He blew out a breath through his nostrils. “Danny, it wasn’t supposed to be like that. I know . . . it was our bet. But if ever you’re willing to trust me again, I promise I’ll show you how much pleasure I can give you from doing it that way. If not, you don’t have to worry. I won’t ask again.”

“You asked for it to be the reward for your survival and I obliged. And you can ask again, for less dire reasons, I hope.” She smiled at him as his gaze turned her way. “Dev, it’s far easier to trust you than for you to trust me. I can read your mind, after all.

And I see what kind of man you are.” Lifting up, she feathered her fingers over his cheek. “This is how I wanted you. Raw, uncontrolled. I like everything about you, bushman. Except your sadness. That I can’t bear.” Dropping her hand after that surprising statement, she changed direction. “After we get cleaned up, let’s go eat in the dining car.” They sat at a corner table. The other passengers gave them a close scrutiny, because he supposed they did make an odd couple, a rough stockman and a woman of obvious aristocratic lineage.

Danny was amused by his thoughts, for he didn’t recognize that the female attention was almost exclusively on him. They checked out her appearance in that catty way women did, but he captured their interest and didn’t let go. You should have seen him an hour ago, ladies. Sitting on the edge of the bed, his hands so gentle, face so concerned, easing her pain. Or a half hour before that, raging like an oversexed stallion let loose on the first filly he’d seen in ages. It had hurt like holy hell, but she’d taken every inch of him, knowing she’d given him a way to eradicate some of the darkness in him, take it to a manageable level again.

Completely bound to him in mindless need and pain, she’d found a tranquil center, an almost Nirvana where the pain didn’t matter anymore, only the connection between the two of them. It was quite peculiar, because she’d seen it demonstrated before, by third-marked servants completely enraptured by service to their Masters. It had happened to her, because she’d been immersed in the need to take away his pain and see what lay at the darkest depths of his psyche.

A curious thought. Mulling on it, she chose several items off the menu, handed it back to the waiter without giving Dev any options, waving off the man imperiously when he tried to ask. Her bushman studied her. “What’s going on now, my lady?” As he asked, he picked up the glass of water they’d brought out, downed it in about two seconds, so that she pushed hers over to him, let him finish that one.

“Dinner,” she said simply.

When the food arrived, she gestured to have it put before her. After they had arranged it suitably, she took up the knife and fork and cut the meat. “Slide your chair over here.”

Giving her another curious look, Dev slid his chair over. He almost jumped when her hand ran along his thigh beneath the tablecloth, high enough that her smallest finger grazed his groin. She didn’t worry with the fork, simply picked up the piece of cut meat, the juice staining her fingers, and brought it to his lips.

“I’m going to feed you every bit of this, because I like the way you take it from my hand.”

“You really needed a dog as a child,” he observed. But he took the meat from her fingers.

Christ. From that first bite, he had a desire to taste more than the food, pull her fingers in as well, but they were causing enough of a scandal as it was. She’d moved to his testicles and was stroking over him, easy, calm, as if they weren’t surrounded by thirty other people taking their meals. While they couldn’t see beneath the tablecloth, Dev realized it was the way she was toward him that had glances coming their way. Blatantly sexual and possessive, attracting attention because of the subconscious recognition of temptation, even if the brain wasn’t sophisticated enough to name it that. There were some castigating glances, but he saw a few surreptitious, fascinated ones.

Here they were, sitting at a table in the first-class dining car, his arm comfortably stretched behind her chair, certainly a more intimate pose than most chose for a public meal, but it was evening, after all, and they weren’t having sex. Though, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, her knuckle was continuing to glide up and down the curve of his testicles beneath the inseam of his trousers to the base of his cock, a teasing swirl, then back down again. And the fingers of her other hand, now stained with the juice of the meat to the knuckle, were still extending the bits of it toward his mouth. He wondered if that waiting look, that stillness to her, explained the erroneous lore that vampires were dead. She didn’t move her eyes, no quiver to her hands, not even a flutter from her bosom from breathing. Anyone who studied her long enough would get the uncomfortable impression he was viewing something not human. But her beauty would continue to hold him as she approached, closer and closer, until a man realized he didn’t really care if he was prey.