The circumstances and foundations of their relationship had moved without her telling them to.
She wanted to obey, simply because... And the whys wouldn’t be defined so easily. The reasons were fucking with her mind.
Would doing this be so awful when she wanted him to touch her?
She reached down with both hands and slowly gathered the hem of the dress. To her bemusement, at first he didn’t watch her hands, he watched her face, which only made a blush wash her with heat.
From the weight of the cloth she could tell where it was, on her thighs, past her mound, across her stomach then whispering over her breasts and starkly upright nipples.
Exposing herself at Mako’s command had become what she wished to do the moment he’d asked. If this wasn’t the right thing for her to do; she’d gone past the point of caring and could only lie there, waiting, strung out on the exhilaration of being desired. Control equaled want. Force would’ve given him a similar result, but instead he’d asked.
Asking even when he could use force flipped the tables, and there went her reasons again, flying about where she couldn’t catch them.
She’d obeyed and it said something momentous and scary, filled a veritable chasm in her deeper, darker self. She could almost see the drops, filling her to the brim. Darkness, darkness, need, need, need.
The wonders of a good imagination.
In that instant, she nailed down one reason for her change in perception – trust. There was a measure of trust where before there had been nothing.
“Thank you, beautiful. Stay as you are.”
The smile she glimpsed made her want to touch his mouth, trace his lips, but she stayed, her fingers curled in the fabric, her nipples growing harder, her pussy already swelling with need.
Mako sat and dragged off both boots, unclipping the silver trinkets from them. In a pocket he found a bag and poured out more – bells, little foxes, or something resembling foxes, suns, rocket ships, and many other strange designs. Each trinket fell from a tiny chain with a miniature bulldog clip at the other end.
The heap at her side tinkled when he turned to her holding a trinket with a tiny sun dangling from the chain.
“Emery, today, are you willing?”
It was true her previous agreement had been a farce.
“Why?”
“Because there are slaves and there are slaves.”
This was as bad as asking the Sphinx a question.
“The blood-letting collar on your neck has been removed. I had the physician do it.”
But he was going to keep her, had always said that. A willing slave or an unwilling one – that was his meaning. It came to her then. The long, long talks he’d had with her while she was ill had been about freedom and reality. They’d sunk into her subconscious no matter that she’d lost the words. This was a hard world, and he doubted she could survive in it without a protector, not when her very hair marked her as different.
The brilliance of her red hair was a curse.
Freedom was relative. She must choose. Be a slave he trusted or one he came to as a convenience.
“Willing,” she said and waited for the ground to swallow her. Nothing happened except his gaze tightened. And yet, she had dodged. Tomorrow she might feel differently.
His reply was unhurried and only came after he searched her eyes. “Good.”
He’d judged her lacking, and her heart jumped a beat. She almost said sorry.
“I’ve seen how you react to pain, Emery. I’m going to put these on you. You’ll like this...eventually.”
He took her right nipple in finger and thumb, squeezing it, poising the clamp over the targeted spot.
“Those aren’t punishment?” she asked in a hushed voice.
“No.” The clamp closed over her nipple and she gasped and focused in, shutting out everything except the clamp, the pain, his fingers and how he looked at her – quietly passionate, like a man who’d found a butterfly in a trap. “That’s one.”
“Owww,” she whispered.
Blood throbbed where the pain caught at her skin.
Next, her left nipple was decorated with a matching silver sun. He paused then went on, as if he expected her to cope because she had before.
“Three.” A fish was fastened to her navel and that startled her more, made her hiss, but she stayed, her hands tightly wrapping into cloth.
“I loved your stories, Emery, the ones you told up on the top hull of the ship to the mechlings, though I never understood why you did that.”
She blinked, processing pain and this admission...confession, of his while he held a handful of devices that would nip at her skin. He liked her stories?
“I told them to JI, as well as the mechlings.”
“I see. They were allegories for life?”
“Maybe. Some.”
“Of kings and queens and love. Always love.”
Shiny trinkets draped from his fist – one creature, a star, and a horned beast.
“I also love decorating you. Hold your breath.”
She did, eyes wide as he laid his hands on her.
Four, five, and six went onto her mound, one poised just above her clit, the cold metal lying over that nub that surely protruded more than it should from this torture. Then he paused in his application of the little clamps and soothed her with words of praise and fingers and hands. Sliding hands, cupping hands, over breasts, thighs, her face, her lips, and inside her mouth.
With two of his fingers lying over her tongue, she subsided, mind quiet, letting the many pains mesh into some greater thing. He began to play between her legs, and she arched.
Suffering became an echo of desire.
“You want to be free? There’s a primitive freedom in pain and sex.” His fingers penetrated her, edging deeper.
Philosophy while he fucked her, hurt her...made her sigh. He was right...she liked.
He slid damp fingers from her pussy and around and over the trinkets, kissing, tracing elaborate paths to reach her nipples. Then he sucked on each until they shone with his saliva and stuck up red and aching. He went south down her body, tugging at the trinkets, placing new ones – down the slopes of each breast and across her stomach. Little silver fangs.
If she roused and peeked over the bunched cloth she saw twin silver trails. They tinkled when he flicked the bells.
Dear sweet unknown gods, the delving of fingers, the searching with tongue, how he caressed each deviant ornament or kissed her with force and delicacy when he happened to be at her head end. She writhed into his grip, into his wrecking hands and nipping teeth.
Just when a climax neared he’d find some new place to set a trinket and roadblock her desire.
“Spread your legs, wide.”
More?
Panting, she parted her legs, eyeing his advance with suspicion. From the sensations, he attached a trinket to each side of her pussy entrance. Then he stepped back from the bed, a yard or so, admiring her.
“Pretty. If only you could see this as I see you. Wet, swollen lips and the silver marking out where I should go. The red spreading from where they bite your stomach...” He padded nearer, chuckled. “Lucky I bought so many of these at the market.”
Luck? She didn’t believe that for one second and twisted out an answering smile.
“A little more, Emery, and I’ll show you nirvana.” From a pocket he drew an object then placed it on the bed. “The accuator.” This was a blue metal object shaped like a penis – even here men made sex toys like dicks.
Then he took a pincer hold on her clit and clipped a trinket directly over the middle. She squeaked and almost released her hold on the gathered dress.
Why, again, was she suffering this? Logic had blurred.
Why? Him. Complicated, so complicated. He ate up her pain. She loved the darkness in his eyes, the pleasure he gave her, the way he stopped to watch when she whimpered and wriggled. To her consternation, she also loved her own subjugation to whatever he wished
to do to her.
At some point, in the middle of this unrepentant sadism, that alone had become enough.
Your wish is my command...
“Hold your legs up, hands beneath your thighs.”
Such soft words. If he’d yelled, she would’ve thought less of him.
Tomorrow, yes tomorrow, she would be normal and defy him.
She raised her legs and held them, aware of every clamp and how they wreaked their small damage, holding her in their biting teeth. As he leaned over her clamped nub, she stiffened, for already it throbbed as if about to burst.
But he only squatted and licked her delicately with the very tip of his tongue, drawing a whimper from Emery. Go toward or away from his attentions? At the last, she sighed and gave in. The coaxing of his soft tongue would convince an angel.
Then he rose and picked up the device he’d left on the bed, unclipped his fly and took out his cock without bothering to lower his pants to the floor.
Being fucked while he was clothed...it had its allure. She rocked her ass, inviting him.
Imagining that first touch, that penetration, she would swear she could feel the warmth of his cock. Blindsided by desire, her legs began to shake.
Carefully, he splayed his fingers atop her knees. “Remember what I asked you to do that day on the top of the hull?”
“Yes.” How could she forget?
To open herself.
Already her hands were wrapped over the back of her thighs. As an offering she couldn’t get much more obvious.
“What do I want you to do?”
Fuck.
She cleared her throat. How had she come to this?
“To open myself.”
“Then do it, Emery.”
Her name. A pivotal word. He made her a fucktoy but she was his fucktoy, and he acknowledged it. Not a throwaway thing. Not merely a slave.
She sneaked her hands lower and found her labia and she pulled them apart.
Tomorrow would she try to put a bullet in his head? That possibility receded further with every excruciating moment, every demand he made, with every time she gave in.
“You want me to fuck you?”
His eyes were hard, intense. He hadn’t tied her down and here she was, saying yes, yes, yes.
She shut her eyes, opened them, and he was still there, asking.
“Yes, please.”
Was she getting wetter just saying this? Wondering if he’d noticed only made her feel like squirming.
“More.” He snapped his fingers. “What do you say?”
“Sir.”
He pressed something on the accuator and purple light haloed the business end.
Oh fuck. That purple?
“Remember the Hall of Lawgivers? It’s the same energy. This should both hurt and feel good.”
What had she agreed to?
Then he pressed it to her clit as he put his cock to her entrance and pushed into her, riding on her slipperiness, spearing her in that delicious way. Her thighs shook, again. She dug her fingers into them to try to control herself.
That first thrust, that ultimate invasion.
Overcome, she bowed her spine, her fingers making bruises, her gasp ending in her stopping her breath. In her ears was the thrum of lust, the squeak of the bed as he leaned on her.
Mouth open, she registered the purple humming into her clit and flashing off his face. Her clit was on fire, or worse. Groaning, she felt every muscle in her body lock. She screamed and came, and came again, rolling into the orgasms as he fucked her, with each thrust slapping her thighs, jarring her breasts and the trinkets, and seeming to go motherfucking soul deep.
Chapter 40
The accuator almost blew his mind. He’d used it before on slaves as he’d penetrated them, but never on a human woman. Factor H had to be the culprit. The feel of Emery around his cock had been incredible before, even minus real fucking but this...
The purple blaze wrapped over her clit, over his dick as he shoved in and out, and it flowed to his balls. She was screaming silently with her mouth open, her eyes rolled back, arching – so pumped with ecstasy the veins showed clearly at the sides of her neck.
Her offering herself so beautifully made this the ultimate present. Balls deep with the energy lashing at him he came, jetting inside her monstrously, and he wondered if the wetness spurting out of her and around his cock was hers or his.
Still erect, he flipped her over and tested her ass with his thumb, before he pushed the accuator beneath her to relax her asshole enough to let him in. Her pussy lubrication was more than enough. He nudged his cock inside, slipping in smoothly. Again the device boosted his arousal to the nth degree. He clamped his jaw and turned up the power, set her to writhing and pushing back into him. Her ass seemed to swallow his shaft like magic.
As he rocked in and out, he realized that using the accuator in tandem with fucking her could get as addictive for him as for her. He wasn’t sure that was wise, but he would be doing it again.
He unbuckled his belt and ripped it from its loops then forced her down, wrapped her elbows together, so she was helpless, used her hair as a handle.
The legs on the bed began to creak and sway. The bed would collapse if he kept this up, but he couldn’t...wouldn’t stop jamming himself deep inside her ass.
The fucking may not have lasted long but he staggered when he pulled out at the end.
Emery on the other hand was a drooling, gasping mess.
Aim achieved.
He undid his belt, freed her then managed to squeeze onto the bed by rolling her onto her side. The two of them lay together in a hopelessly tangled puzzle of limbs until he decided to extricate his arm and spoon properly.
Sleep was entirely possible and wrong. He was supposed to be the stronger, dominant one.
Then again, when he levered himself onto his elbow and looked down at Emery, he could see she was exhausted, her eyes fluttering, her mumbling barely comprehensible.
“What?” He lowered himself to hear her better.
“Oh. God. Nothing. Shhh.”
Laughing he snuggled back into her body.
She hadn’t been bound to the bed for the past week because she’d been too weak to attempt anything, but she was recovering fast. Maybe he should sleep with her from now on.
Wise. And good for quick fucking. Though he might just wear out his cock.
“I think you’ve undone me,” he whispered, licking her ear.
“Me? You? Never. I’m sore, so sore from all those things on me... Never. I could never undo you.” She smiled weakly.
He’d forgotten. He rolled her onto her back and began undoing each trinket clamp, watching each wince she made as he did so. Those were cute. A couple on the underside of her breasts had made her bleed. He kissed the tiny abrasions better.
“Oh. Um.” She fumbled at words. “You’re not starting?”
“Sex? Again? No. Just taking these off.” The pile gathered and he dropped the trinkets onto the bed in an empty section of sheet. “If you want to sleep, we can clean up later.”
Well, he’d clean her. Her muscles could do with more rest. He eyed her unoccupied neck, drew a line over her collarbones as he thought. Partly shuttered eyes regarded him. Her red hair sparkled in the sunlight piercing the barn.
She was pretty and an amazing fuck, but his patience only ran so far.
A collar on her was in his plans...but which class? Blood concubine or service slave? Her lies came between them, her evasions. He wouldn’t stand for more lies.
That she fell asleep didn’t surprise him. After he was sure she was deep in her dreams, he climbed from the bed and cleaned himself.
The Governance would try to reverse whatever he made her but he’d make her his; he’d have her. He would. He dried off the last of the wash water with a threadbare towel then shrugged on his shirt. Her training would take some time but if she submitted, in full, he’d make sure to do it properly.
And if she didn’t? He e
yed her sleeping form. Then he’d be sorely disappointed. Her life would be harder, but that would be her fate.
He lay down with her again and pulled her into him, listening to her waking – the deepening of her breaths and her small grumbles. Best to remember some pets could never be tamed.
Chapter 41
Waking up with Mako behind her was novel, also scary and sobering. She’d done what she’d never thought she would.
It must be late afternoon and a storm seemed to be gathering, judging from the gloom and the whistle of the wind, from the small patter of rain.
“Storm,” she said, wondering how awake he was.
“Yes. To be expected. We’ve been here a week. If we stay much longer, another week, worse will come.”
She frowned. “Meaning?”
“The Aerthe stirs. She’s never liked us Mekkers.”
“What do you mean by that? Is this the secret?”
“You don’t know? Of course you wouldn’t. There will be storms, increasing in severity. Small quakes. Floods. High winds. Maybe worse. Stay a month or two and this place will be devastated, but we won’t stay that long. I promised them, and it’s common sense not to.”
She thought that through. It was impossible. “That’s crazy.”
“It’s our past. I cannot alter what the Aerthe does.” He shifted behind her.
“So...that’s why you were at the door with the gun – the locals don’t like this. Us staying?”
“Yes.”
Or rather he’d been defending her against them. She’d been ill and so he’d been the guard at the door.
Again, it colored him with light when all she’d seen before was his darkness.
“I’m...” She shook her head against the rough pillow, feeling the hairs on his arm under her neck. She lay on his arm and angled her head so her nose was to his skin. Biting him, taking his skin between her teeth, tempted her. He smelled good too, whereas she needed a bath. And the bed needed to...
Acquired Possession (The Machinery of Desire Book 1) Page 21
