Acquired Possession (The Machinery of Desire Book 1)

by Cari Silverwood

  He spat on the palm of his hand.

  “While I get this one to fuck on the way to the Swathe. I hope you don’t mind me getting pleasure.”

  He took out his cock, greased it with his spit, centered on her asshole, then wrapped his hands over the bench’s edge and squeezed himself into her. The slowness was debatable, he was too busy feeling. And no doubt it hurt her, but he had no choice.

  Emery had screamed then cut it off, but her jaw muscles were clenching and her hands twisted as if to break the bonds.

  “This has to hurt,” he said to her ear, while he pushed in deeper. “Not how I’d planned our first assignation. But circumstances have intruded.”

  “Like your fucking dick.”

  Struggling not to laugh at her words, he pulled in a slow inhale. His cock pulsed. It’d been so long since he’d fucked a woman. The tightness of her asshole around him...

  The Scav laughed. “I like how you convince me. Fuck her all you like. We get that weapon. Deal. I will tell my brothers.”

  He withdrew his cock, drawing another squeal from Emery. Hand planted on her back above her tied hands, he tucked himself away. “Brothers?”

  “A way of speaking. Just...” He waggled his hand. “Just relatives. Now. Go, before someone accidentally shoots her. The bitch. My one piece of vengeance.” He moved to her and crouched slow, swinging his hand at Emery’s face.

  Mako caught it.

  “Uh-uh. Mine to punish. Fuck off with your gun.”

  Reluctantly the man stepped back.

  Once the Scav had souvenired the rifle and departed, Mako hauled Emery to her feet. He rarely apologized, especially not to slaves, but...

  “Sorry.” He pulled her pants up, adjusted them.

  “After what you just did, how can you expect me to trust you?” The rims of her eyes were red as if she’d held back tears.

  And he loved tears on women, making them cry, but on his terms, with side orders of pleasure.

  “I had to do it.”

  Wary of possible rebellious Scavs or Grounders, he walked crablike to the Ramm’s open side door, gun out, his other hand on Emery’s arm.

  “I will not be a slave again. I will not.” Her raggedly choked-out words were brimming with such tragedy that he ceased to pull her and turned her to face him.

  “I did sign that document, and a blood contract is sacrosanct.”

  “Then according to you, you have to lame me and hand me over for justice or kill me.”

  A sore point and a good one. “I helped write it. Some of the words, I believe I can twist.” That was mostly true.

  Then he grabbed her and tossed her into the Ramm so that she rolled across the floor, before he jumped in after her.

  The vehicle roared as she ascended. They passed over the market street and he saw the aux-mech standing and watching them, a tall and lonely metal figure.

  A lonely mech seemed the ultimate oxymoron.

  Except if it was self-aware, it was possible. How many of them were out there?

  He’d strapped Emery into the co-pilot seat and now he reached over and smoothed his hand from her shoulder to her neck where the collar circled it, then down her arm until he found the bindings that wrapped her small wrists. She’d killed many men today.

  “Don’t even think about grabbing controls. If they worked for anyone but Mekkers, the Scavs would’ve stolen some of our craft by now.

  From beneath tangled and dirty locks, she stared at him – as wild a look as any woman had given him, slave or not.

  “I will fight you every step of the way.”

  “Oh?”

  Her retching then subtracted some of the force from her ferocious little statement.

  “Are you okay?”

  She shrugged. “My stomach is empty, that’s all.”

  “So you couldn’t even feed yourself enough? I’ll get you something before I track down that JI-mech.”

  Her breathing betrayed her annoyance, said she didn’t even like him feeding her.

  “Untie me,” she whispered while staring at her feet, as if afraid of what his answer might be.

  “Demanding little slave. After I’ve fucked you and made you beg.” He watched her reaction in the reflections in the glass of the cockpit. “The one part of the blood contract that already comes true is that you are again the property of the Swathe. Each slave must have an Owner. Your new owner is Mako Laste.”

  “Legally, maybe that can come true. I don’t know your contracts, your freaky fucking laws. In my head though, and that’s where it counts – never.”

  Of all the slaves he’d had, this one he wanted to come to him of her own volition.

  “What are you tracking the JI-mech for?”

  “I have to kill it. That’s a part of the contract too.”

  “No!” A hushed but vehement denial. “Please, don’t. He won’t harm you or any Mekker. He couldn’t even kill the Scavs attacking me. He’s harmless.”

  Was that why she’d had it wait outside town? The aux-mech with her had done nothing also.

  More importantly, Emery was pleading with him. This was something he could use. Seize this and use it.

  “How much do you want this? How much!”

  “He’s a friend. My one true friend on this world. You might think that odd but it’s true.”

  “Friend?” It was an odd declaration. “I figured he’s self-aware. You don’t understand how impossible this request of yours is. I don’t even know how to begin to do this. The Governance will demand proof. However, offer me what I want and I will see what can be done.”

  “What you want?”

  “I want you willingly my slave and at my feet.”

  Her sigh was long and tortured and he almost smiled. He’d found the fracture in her armor. Her cheek creased as she thought, clearly agonizing over his stipulation – ideas turning this way and that way.

  “You want from me what I don’t want to give up. What I have never wanted to gift to anyone. I’ve been out there, on your world, seen what there is, how far the land runs. It looks like my world might have two thousand years ago. It was beautiful.”

  He frowned. It was still out there on the other side of the glass. This wouldn’t make Aerthe disappear, and yet he understood. Understood completely.

  “How can I just...give up?”

  What she said echoed his own sentiments. The world was more than the metal confines of the Swathe. It was the dust stinging your face when the desert winds whipped up a storm. The rage of waves against the cliff faces of the shore. The salt smell of the sea and the splash against your skin; the taste of smoke from a campfire; the lowing of a herd of land beests in the night.

  Freedom was his own craving.

  “Emery, no one is ever entirely free. Not me, not you, not the board members of the Governance or those Scavs out there, wandering the plains in warbands. All you can do is find the best path you can.”

  Slowly, he turned her seat so she faced him, took her jaw in his palm, fingers, and thumb, and held her so they were eye to eye. “I can’t tell you how to give up. What I can tell you is that I will care for you in my own way. This won’t be the same as it was before.”

  “In your own way. You’re not what I’d call normal.”

  “No, guess I’m not.”

  She muttered through a list of swear words then lowered her gaze. “I want to give JI his own chance at freedom but I hate this. If this is what you want, I will do it – I’ll come to you willingly, but only if you succeed. Only if JI is left alive and free.”

  He nodded. “Agreed.”

  Emery coming to him of her own will, not fighting him every step of the way, it was worth the price.

  Except he had no clue as to how to keep JI alive.

  Either way, even if he failed, he still possessed her.

  “Also.” She smiled ruefully. “I have an idea as to how you could kill him so the Governance thinks he’s dead, but not exactly kill him.”

  The w
ily little bitch. He barked out a laugh. “Tell me, though I may have to spank you for being too smart.”

  Her eyes segued from ferocious glare to a softening consideration of his words.

  His manner wasn’t the same as when he was House Master. Deliberately so. She’d possibly never seen him laugh. To grab a kiss in that instant of acquiescence? Nah. He’d rather make her wait. He stood and gathered all her silken red hair into his hand, stretched her neck back against the seat.

  “Tell me your idea, after you show me how willing you’ll be.”

  One-handed, he unclipped his pants. “Open your mouth. I want to feel those lips around me.” He brushed the back of his fingers up her throat.

  “I said –”

  “Open your mouth, Emery. If you can’t do it now then you won’t be able to do it later.”

  Chapter 36

  Open your mouth. Mako waited but how long would he give her before deciding her offer was false? She wasn’t sure herself if she could do it – to offer herself, her mouth, as a hole for him to fuck.

  This had so much of that first time, of that day when her time on Aerthe as a slave had begun.

  Similar yet different.

  Different in that she had a choice. Give in to him, give her friend, JI-mech, a chance at life, to maybe escape the deadly punishment of the Governance.

  What if Mako couldn’t help her and she ended up on the spear again?

  For now she belonged to him anyway, willing slave or not. At least she’d have tried to save JI-mech.

  “It’s not so difficult is it? One step at a time, girl.” The clasp of his fingers in her hair sent splinters of pain into her skin, sidetracked her mind for a few seconds, and somehow...somehow, that made this easier.

  She parted her lips, licked them once, opened wider, and waited.

  “That’s it. Good girl.” The little wrinkles forming around his eyes and the way he looked down at her... that was not exactly triumph in his gaze, just that he was pleased.

  Uncomfortable with her own submission, she began to close her eyes as his erection nudged between her lips, but he tapped her nose.

  “Open eyes, please. No closing them, Emery. Look at me while I fuck your mouth.”

  Jesus. With him studying her, this seemed more intimate than sex. He leaned in and his cock slid further along her tongue, stretching her mouth, until it reached the back and she gagged.

  He stopped, withdrew a small distance.

  “Your limit? We can improve on that, with time.”

  She could do nothing more than stare back, her mouth too full to speak, eyes watering, his hand tight on her hair, and her hands trapped at her back.

  “I’m going to enjoy teaching you,” he added softly. Though his cock twitched a few times he barely moved. “Listening to you struggle to breathe through your nose with my cock in you...”

  Smiling, intent on her, Mako placed both hands either side of her face, shunted in and out twice, then slid all the way out. Spluttering, saliva dripped from her mouth before she managed to swallow. His taste was still there, on her tongue.

  She gulped again but found it impossible to remove all evidence of where he’d been.

  At least he hadn’t come, hadn’t really face-fucked her.

  “Not done yet. Your other end, please.”

  All these pleases. As if they meant something.

  And strangely they did. They made this feel less an impersonal act, even with what he did.

  “I’m tied.” The implication that she couldn’t rise was there. She shrugged.

  “Willing or unwilling?” He stepped back. “Which?”

  She could do it and both of them knew that.

  Emery heaved herself to her feet.

  “Not hard to do now was it?”

  She shook her head. Pointless denying it. “If you don’t fulfill –”

  “I will. Oh I will. You’re so worth it to me. Don’t you see that? I’d thwart the Governance for this. If you don’t understand what that says about how I value this, I pray you soon will.”

  It jarred her views of him and this act he wished of her, but not to the point that she wanted to leap about being his puppy slave. Fuck him still. She scowled. “Where do you want me?”

  “Now that is not willingly. Where do you want me, Mako. Wait. Use Sir. I don’t think you’ve earned the right to use my name.” He pointed at the seat she’d vacated. “Say it then put your head to the back of that. Face down, so I can use you.”

  From speaking of prayers to this. She sighed.

  “Where do you want me...” She sniffed then went on. “Sir?”

  “You know.”

  Arms folded, his cock still out, he waited. Again.

  The tick of some nonexistent clock severed this into bloody seconds.

  Until she caved in.

  Where had her sense of inviolate and free self gone?

  Well, it wasn’t on holiday.

  Feeling as if she was bound rigidly in space, into the position she stood, as if the very air resisted her movement, she turned to face the seat. Not difficult. Not. Then she went to her knees, taking care so as not to over balance, and she crept her upper body along until her head butted the back of the seat.

  “Good. Though your idea of willing is not up to my standards, we will work on that.”

  Oh really.

  She heard him approach and shut her eyes. He wriggled her pants down then his cock pressed and slid against her pussy lips. There was wetness there. It seemed he affected her whether she wanted it or not. Failsafe mechanism, her mind insisted. Better that than a dry fuck where things might tear.

  Not a comfort really. Not.

  Not when he shoved himself all the damn way inside, flattening her to the soft upholstered seat bottom, then stayed there. That first thrust, being opened and invaded, it would undo any woman. And with him still inside her, she gasped at the pleasure, found herself struggling not to pant.

  And not entirely succeeding.

  “Eyes open.” His breath on her nape, then his hand brushing at her hair. She shivered at that light touch, then made herself open her eyes.

  “Good, though you disobeyed, didn’t you?”

  “Umm. You never said this too.”

  “Never said open them if I’m inside your cunt? Perhaps not. I am now.”

  He forced himself in farther, if that were possible.

  Her eyes were drifting shut when she remembered not to do that.

  “Next time,” he added quietly, his mouth quirking into a menacing smile. “Punishment.”

  Next time.

  Same as when in her mouth, he barely moved. Her traitorous cunt refused to co-operate and clenched onto him in spasms when the sensations overwhelmed her.

  The man was teasing her, maybe.

  As if he read her mind, he began to talk. “This is just me marking my territory. Think of me as like a big predator guarding its prey. They do that on your world?”

  Her pussy chose then to clench, and she had to wait to take a breath, to swallow, to think. “I guess. Yes. They do.”

  Only maybe they pissed on things they wanted to mark. She was not telling him that. They certainly didn’t screw their prey.

  “Good to know.” He fucked her once then, smacking into her hard, but as if an afterthought – out then in, then he was still. “I’m not going to come in you, girl. And you, also, won’t get to come, this time.” While he spoke, he began to twist her hair around his hand, wrapping his fingers in deeply, into the roots.

  It caught at her attention, focused her thoughts on him.

  “Hear this too. I don’t ever want to see you masturbating without permission. That’s punishable.”

  A lecture on sex – as if that was possible to dictate. Even at House Oren she’d done that, when she could.

  With his hand still meshed in her hair, he turned her face into the seat then covered both her ears with his palms.

  God. Masturbating. Her greatest need as of this mome
nt.

  Face stuffed into the upholstery, her sight and hearing restricted, she mumbled out an okay.

  It seemed less a terrible deed, giving in when held down and tied, with him inside her. She felt her muscles relaxing and even groaned as he slid out while keeping his hold on her head.

  His tip of his wet cock touched her ass, and she couldn’t help wishing he’d fuck her properly.

  It’d been so long since a man had been inside her. Now she was empty. If he was going to own her anyway, why didn’t he? Then she found herself squirming a tiny amount, with her thighs gently squashed together, to contain the lust. Because she’d like to keep that inside her a small while. He wouldn’t know what his cock being in her had created.

  Those feelings circling, swelling, spreading to become a little tide of lust. Her shirt had been ripped and she felt her nipples scrunching up until this gentle seat fabric rubbed at her like a rough caress.

  He kissed her nape above the collar, bit her, and spoke from close beside her.

  Listening was easy.

  “I’d fuck your asshole a little too, but once today will do. Now I know what you feel like. And you know how I do. This collar will be replaced once they affirm my ownership of you.”

  Still didn’t see how her being punished with death could become what he wanted. Maybe he was delusional. Maybe she’d still be killed by being exposed on that spear. Her bones felt cold just remembering how that’d been.

  “I’m going to give you a red one. To go with your hair, and other things.”

  Other things? But what she asked was: “Do you have to do that? Draw out my blood?”

  “Yes. Because you taste so good.” His lips found her ear then he licked her neck. “Gorgeous girl. Just soaking my dick in your wet cunt is inspiring.”

  That tongue of his bewitched her with the slide across her skin, eliciting frissons of delight. “So,” she whispered, attempting to distract herself. “You’re going to write a Shakespearian play about it then.”

  “Maybe.” He lifted her shirt and moved down her back, punctuating his speech with nips that shot sparks of pain. “Emery’s cunt...” Bite. “By any other name...” Bite and lick. She writhed just a little, wanting more. “Would taste as sweet.”