Man of the Mountain (Siren Publishing Classic) Read online

  Man of the Mountain

  A life of enslavement, prostitution, and degradation was all Alice Dove could look forward to. However, one night changed all that. Across a crowded room her eyes met the smouldering gaze of a dark, mysterious stranger who would change not only her circumstances but her life as well.

  A gruelling climb across the mountains besieged by bandits and other dangers. Alice wondered whether she would ever make it back home to the loving arms of her family. However, the mysterious stranger, Quentin Hawk, was resolute he would get Alice home whatever the cost. And the cost was going to be the highest he had ever paid.

  The heat of the desert and the cold of the mountains were nothing compared to the sizzling passion Alice found in Hawk’s arms. A shy virgin kidnapped from all she knew and forced to dance for the amusement of men, she soon discovered not all men were to be feared.

  In Hawk’s safe arms she became all woman, powerful, enticing, and passionate.

  The Hawk had finally captured the Dove.

  Genre: Contemporary

  Length: 33,443 words

  MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN

  Rosemary J. Anderson

  EROTIC ROMANCE

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Erotic Romance

  MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN

  Copyright © 2015 by Rosemary J. Anderson

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-63259-454-9

  First E-book Publication: June 2015

  Cover design by Harris Channing

  All art and logo copyright © 2015 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  Letter to Readers

  Dear Readers,

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  DEDICATION

  Dedicated to Helen Howarth a new friend.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN

  ROSEMARY J. ANDERSON

  Copyright © 2015

  Chapter One

  Alice was motionless, her hands held loosely by her sides and her mind blank. Lifting her head she attempted to shake off the apathy that had become part of her existence and scanned the room. It was filled with the same men doing the same things, and she felt empty. Gone was the shame and the fear and in its place—nothing. The men, eating, drinking, laughing, and fondling the girls, for her once held disgust, but no longer—now, she just didn’t care. With lackluster eyes she stared blankly around until her gaze was caught, captured by the blazing sapphire-blue eyes of a man that was as handsome as the devil. His eyes glowed with his disdain as they summed her up with just one look. She gnawed at her lower lip. She knew men like him, happy to sample what the place had to offer, the wine, the dancing, and the girls. But when it came to respect he had none. Lifting her chin she stared bravely back. Boldly he held her gaze, his chiseled jaw clenching, his lips firming, and an eyebrow lifting in wicked amusement. Suddenly feeling uncomfortable she looked away. However, there was something about him, something charismatic, and she couldn’t help risking another peek. He was dressed all in black, his flowing robes cinched in at the waist by a gold twisted belt, but it didn’t disguise the strength and broadness of his shoulders, muscular frame, thick thighs, and narrow, lissome hips. Olive-skinned and dark-haired he was the very epitome of masculine beauty, and he was also someone new—someone she had not seen before and for some reason she felt afraid. More afraid than when she’d first been brought to this vile place, more afraid than when she’d been beaten and starved, and much more afraid than when she realized she really was in fact completely alone.

  Briefly she closed her eyes, attempting to clear her mind. It didn’t do to dwell on things she couldn’t change. This was her life now, and she had no choice but to get through it one awful day at a time.

  Breathing deeply, she attempted to marshal her thoughts, but tonight for some reason they wouldn’t be tamed and kept returning to the past.

  * * * *

  She’d had plans, grandiose plans of becoming a prima ballerina. She’d worked hard and had given up any chance of a social life. Gave up all the usual teenage attractions of coffee bars and burger joints and gave up the delights of having a boyfriend. Momentarily she came back to the present, smiling in cynical amusement at the whistles and shouts from the audience as the dancer on stage divested herself of the filmy scarves that were her only covering. Leaning her head back against the wall she drifted off to that time in her life when everything seemed so very clear.


  By the time she’d reached her twenties her hard work and absolute focus had paid off. Offered the part of understudy in a small stage production of Sleeping Beauty, she’d been ecstatic. The first weeks went well, but then audiences began to drift away, forcing the production to eventually close. The company had been desolate that they’d been unsuccessful and, with six months still left to run, the future looked bleak, until amazingly one of the backers managed to get them another contract. It was an exciting opportunity that was guaranteed to run for at least a year, a chance most people would kill for. A tour had been arranged, an expedition through hot desert countries where rich and powerful audiences appreciated the performing arts and the ballet in particular. How excited they’d all been, counting the days, planning and organizing, and practicing long into the night, and then practicing some more. But it had all been for nothing. There hadn’t been any rich and powerful audiences, hadn’t been any ballet, and now, there wasn’t any freedom. Upon arrival to this barren desert wilderness their passports had been confiscated and they’d been shepherded into a dark tavern where fear and pain had become the order of the day. They had been bullied, starved, and sometimes beaten until they had become performing puppets, marionettes to the cruel and vicious slave masters. There hadn’t been any way out, hadn’t been any way of going back, and now, there wasn’t any chance of escape.

  * * * *

  Coming back to the present she briefly closed tear-filled eyes and pulled herself together. She had to accept that this was her life now, her prison until the day she died. A ramshackle village of badly built huts in the middle of a desert, with miles and miles of sand on one side and on the others, mountains inhabited by dangerous bandits. Escape was impossible. A person would be dead after only a few miles, that was if they got that far, and if their captors didn’t get to you first and slit their throat. Such was the fear. There was no need for physical chains. The mental ones were the strongest in the world.

  Lifting her head as the music rose to a crescendo, Alice gracefully moved to take her place behind the curtain as she waited for her turn to dance.

  The music began. The exhilarating pulse of a percussion instrument, the sistrum, the beat of the drums, and the reedy sounds of a woodwind instrument, the mizmar, sounded to her English ears exotic, tempting, and thrilling. Lifting her arms she stepped out from behind the curtain and became lost in the dance, her gauzy, multicolored skirts floating around her legs like a whispery mist. The gold bangles adorning her ankles and wrists jingled in response to the movement of her hands, and her feet in their silver-jewelled sandals flashed like quicksilver. Moving her hips the way she had been taught caused her naked stomach to undulate and her breasts in their minute silver mesh bra to quiver. Her silken legs flashed through the slits in her skirt as she swayed and dipped to the heady, intoxicating pulse.

  The rhythmic notes engaged Alice as she began weaving and shimmying her way through the tables. Teasing and tantalizing she pushed out her bottom and wiggled her hips, the transparent folds of her skirt drawing mesmerized gazes as each man wondered… Was she naked under the fine gossamer folds?

  The music got faster as did her whirls and spins. Her fine hair appearing like spun gold floated around her shoulders, spellbinding the audience by her perfection. Finally, as the music rose the dancing combined with the thump of the drum and the pulse of the sistrum grew electrifying, whipping up a plethora of lust in the testosterone-filled room.

  Crashing to the floor as the music reached its climax, Alice barely acknowledged the applause before quickly scurrying back to the safety of the curtain.

  Sweat beading her brow and her heartbeat now racing in her heaving breast, Alice filled a glass with water, grimacing at its lukewarm taste.

  Suddenly her arm was taken in a merciless grip, and she was spun around and pushed up against a hard stone wall. The glass she was holding fell to the ground, shattering into tiny pieces, and nervously she licked her lips. Now what?

  “Your admirer Faisal is back, Alicesss.” Abdul drawled her name, tapering it to a hiss. “He pay much for sex, so you will now oblige ’im, comprende?”

  “No, I’ve told you before I will dance but nothing else. I’ll dance, but I won’t become a prostitute.”

  Abdul caught her face with his podgy hand and squeezed unmercifully, pushing his face close to hers, so close she could smell his bad breath and feel his spit on her skin.

  “You will do as you are told, I ’ave no more patience with you. The other girls they do it. They not care. The rewards are most pleasant, eh?”

  “Not to me. I have no use for perfumes and silks. I just want to go home.”

  “This is your ’ome now. There is no escape, and the longer you defy me the ’arder it will be for you.” Leaning forward he licked her cheek, grinning at her look of repugnance.

  Closing her eyes Alice squirmed in disgust and attempted to twist her head away from his marauding mouth.

  Inserting a knee between her legs, Abdul rubbed up against her, and she gagged at the smell of body odor emanating from his clothes and skin.

  Pushing a hand between the folds of her skirt, he cupped her almost naked pussy and inserting a short, less-than-clean finger between her feminine folds he stroked her clitoris. Her breath caught in revulsion.

  Choosing to mistake the reason for her sharp intake of breath Abdul breathed heavily into her ear. “You see, ’ow good it can be ’aving a man fuck you, yes.” He glanced at her heaving breast. “Faisal will pay an ’igh price for your virginity, and you will enjoy ’is possession. You see it will be easy.” He released her as suddenly as he had grabbed her.

  “No!” Alice shouted, finding courage from somewhere. “No, I won’t be used this way. I won’t.”

  Spinning quickly for such a large man, he slapped her hard across the face. Falling to the ground with the force of the blow she held her stinging cheek and stared up at him with tear-filled eyes.

  “Now see what you ’ave done. You ’ave forced me to punish you. Why do you always make me ’urt you, Alicesss?” He nodded at the two men that shadowed him everywhere. “Take ‘er to the cage.”

  Wanting to cry and scream, Alice pursed her lips and determinedly remained silent. The cage was something to be dreaded. She’d only been in there once for an hour, but it had been one of the worst experiences of her life.

  Dragging her behind them and down the crumbling steps, the men roughly pushed her up against the wall as they opened the cage. However, before pushing her in, one held her arms from behind whilst the other ripped off her bra and fondled her breasts as they spilled out into his hands. Bending his head he suckled a nipple, then gave a vicious bite to the crest of her breast. Biting her lip she remained quiet knowing that to protest would incite a brutal reprisal. Realizing she wasn’t going to fight the man fell to his knees and thrusting an arm between her thighs pushed back her skirt and flicked his tongue across her feminine mound. Alice was frightened. This was more than their usual assault, and she was helpless in the face of their determination. Would she end up as a rape victim after all? But no, if they raped her they would suffer the wrath of Abdul. She was worth more to him with her hymen intact. Wanting to beg and cry for their mercy she instead remained doggedly silent withstanding their disgusting ministrations with determination and pride. Moments later she was suddenly released and pushed into the cage.

  The cage was a stone-built bunker partly submerged under the ground. One side had a small barred window at the front, the only part of the prison above ground level. The room was dark, the only light filtering through the thick bars. Smelling of damp and rotting vegetation, the moss-covered walls trickled with water that smelled strongly of sewage. The ground was hard-packed mud and seemed to swell with crawling, biting insects. Her real fear was of the scorpions, snakes, and the rats that would soon inhabit the cage, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to contain her panic. Pacing backward and forward, she recited nursery rhymes in an attempt to take her mind off the aw
ful scurrying things crawling over her feet and trying to climb her legs, but “Little Miss Muffet” just didn’t cut it. So instead she began to sing long-forgotten songs from her teenage years, pop songs that she’d danced to when unwinding from a day spent at the barre.

  It was growing dark, and with the temperature dropping dramatically her flimsy outfit was no barrier against the cold. Fearfully she gazed up at the small window watching in trepidation as the sky grew darker with the coming night. Although tired she carried on pacing, backward and forward, and round and round. Suddenly she stilled her hearing, attuned to every sound. Rats, more than one by the sound of it. She peered into the shadowy corners, knowing with utmost certainty that people, she knew not who, had been killed by rats, and she was scared. Something hit her on the head, and she turned quickly, brushing frantically at her hair, only to realize that bread had been thrown through the bars onto the ground. Bread that was supposed to have been her supper but was now already covered in rats and crawling things, and it was only then that she realized just how hungry she really was. Shuddering in revulsion she hoped and prayed that she would be released soon. The usual punishment was an hour in the cage, and she must have been in there for three or four hours judging by the fast-falling darkness.

  Time seemed to lose all meaning, and as Alice grew colder the insects and rats grew in volume as more entered the cage. Kicking at a rat as it clawed at the edge of her skirt she gathered the material up around her waist when more seemed to be advancing on her. It was then her steely control broke, and she began screaming and sobbing, begging to be let out of the cage and agreeing to do anything, anything at all if only they would release her.