Hunting Julian

by Jacquelyn Frank

  At that, Julian had to chuckle. “Sit pretty like a queen? Zini, what about this world have you seen that makes you think a queen would have the luxury of merely sitting pretty and making babies? The only creatures in this world who live a true life of luxury and leisure are the creatures that now surround you. But that’s only because they only have one purpose in their lives. They lost their rights to all other purpose. As my queen you will be responsible for the lives and well-being of an entire colony. Every child, every woman, and every man. Every man, Asia. You cannot begin to imagine the strain living a life without women puts on our men. It sets them on edge in a way I can hardly describe. Think of the women as well. Only kindra are allowed to form exclusive relationships for the whole of their lives. Every other woman must leave herself open to choosing multiple partners in order to create as wide and varied a genetic pool as possible. Imagine being a woman who has fallen in love with a man, but because they are not kind they cannot remain exclusively together. I know. You think this is cruel, but you simply cannot appreciate the fact that this world you see all around you is dying. Every day it dies quicker and quicker. We don’t want these rules, but we have no choice.”

  Julian lifted his gaze from hers, casting his eyes around the room and feeling the attention that had become focused on them. None of these men or women were starving, but neither were they flush and fat with energy. Just the kiss he had shared with Asia had alerted them to there being something crucial and special among them. Unfortunately, being among women known for committing capital crimes, usually pertaining to violence, could easily have them looking on Asia as a threat.

  Very carefully, Julian took her under his arm and tucked her in close to his body. He kept cautious eyes on the crowd the entire time, seeing everyone there as a potential threat as he took Asia up to an exit at the far eastern end of the pavilion. There, several guards were standing about and watching the events taking place in the room.

  Julian was so heavily on alert that he instantly was aware of the tension that shot through Asia as they approached the guards. Suspicion growled through Julian and he wondered if she had been misused by one of the men before him. The idea raced hot and red behind his eyes, the resulting menace so powerful that all of the guards began to grip their clubs nervously and they edged and stepped aside to give him a wide berth. Eventually there was only one left for him to broach.

  “We need a room. The finest here,” Julian demanded.

  “Not him.” Asia all but growled out the warning and Julian’s tension ratcheted up until his whole body vibrated like an overtaut bowstring. “He’s the one who pushed me into the general population to begin with. I don’t trust him.”

  The guard seemed to quail a little under her accusation, especially with Julian looming angrily beside her.

  “I…was just following my orders, Gatherer,” he stammered uneasily, his grip on his baton going white-knuckled. “I didn’t hurt her. I didn’t even touch her!”

  “Oh, but you would have by proxy. You would have stood here and watched her be forced to trade her body for a night of survival,” Julian ground out between tightly clenched teeth.

  “I-I didn’t—”

  “Don’t you dare say you didn’t know,” Asia hissed at him. “You knew. You reveled in the knowing of it.”

  “I had no choice,” the guard spluttered. “The Ampliphi ordered you moved into the general population. I cannot countermand an Ampliphi! No one can!”

  “True,” Julian said. “But you didn’t have to enjoy it so much. Take care, man,” he warned darkly. “You’ll find yourself answering to your choices.” Then he turned to a second guard. “Find us a room so we may have some privacy for the night. And if you value your position, you will not share the location and you will not disturb us until dawn.”

  “Y-yes, Gatherer,” the new guard said, hurrying to unlock the door.

  “A room?” Asia finally thought to ask.

  “Did you think these couples simply fall down into an orgy?” he asked with a small touch of amusement as they followed the guard onto the walkways. Julian still held her tight to his side, as if he couldn’t be convinced to put so much as an inch of distance between them. Given how nervous she was to not have nets at the bottom of the penal colony, she gladly depended on his strength and unerring balance. “Outside of the pavilion there are many different rooms in many of the other buildings. Part of the fee we pay is for the privacy of these rooms, as well as the right to feather the nest as we will. Each woman here has rooms as luxurious as her lover can afford. If you were truly staying here, I would be responsible for finding you the best accommodations I could manage, and I will do no different tonight. I won’t leave you alone and at the whim of what the Ampliphi might have planned for you.”

  “I see you’ve been disarmed. So you don’t kill me?”

  Julian had to chuckle at that. “I’m sure they had something different in mind, because they couldn’t possibly have known of the level of frustration you bring me to.”

  “Ha. Ha,” she said dryly. “I only meant to say whatever safety we go to in this place is only relative to just how far Kloe wants to go to see me put down. When that guard reports back to her, and he will, she is going to be furious to know her plan has failed.”

  “Come morning it won’t matter. And there are other recourses still available to us. You must trust me to protect you. I won’t let anything happen to you. Have I failed you to date?”

  “You mean besides bringing me here in the first place, I take it.”

  “Yeah, besides that.”

  “No. Honestly, you haven’t. If anything, I’m the one constantly failing you. You expect me to be this miracle, and I am well aware as far as miracles go, I’m nothing but a huge pain in the ass.”

  “As far as miracles go, I couldn’t have asked for better,” he retorted.

  “And just how do you figure that?” she wanted to know.

  “Asia, you’re a strong, determined woman who’ll fight to do what’s right and kick ass to stay alive at all costs. This is a world that needs survivors. I don’t want something delicate and precious, I want a fighter. A battler. You think your fight aggravates me when, in truth, I relish it.”

  “Here is one of the best rooms we have, Gatherer,” the guard said suddenly, reaching to spin the door handle and opening it for them.

  Asia stepped in first and then waited with a tapping foot for Julian to seal the door shut behind them. The room was actually a suite, she noted. The space she was standing in was a living room of sorts, or a parlor with comfortable furniture in rich velveteen grays. There were two other doorways, but each was hung with a sparkling curtain of beads or stones, blocking her view of their interiors.

  “Now what? I have to spend the entire night wondering what the Ampliphi have in store for me come the morning?” she muttered aloud as she turned back toward Julian.

  Julian had a silent but powerful reply. He closed the distance between them in a single, commanding stride, his hands reaching out to her neck, his thumbs stroking along her jaw until her head tilted back. Then his mouth was on hers, burning like a sweet acid as the rest of his body crowded up against her. This time, there was something truly desperate in his kisses, something she didn’t have a prayer of calming or counteracting. Her hands came up to circle his wrists, but she didn’t attempt to free herself from his grasp or his kiss. Frankly, she was so happy he was there, the new familiarity of his kisses was like a powerful balm. It soothed her frayed nerves like nothing else possibly could.

  Asia almost laughed at the thought. How could a force as vital and disturbing as Julian’s kiss possibly have a soothing effect on her? On the one hand it did, calming her mind away from thoughts of her narrow escape just now from tasting the fate of a nightfly; on the other hand, Julian was a force to be reckoned with, pure heat and dynamic sensuality packed like a powder keg. All it would take was the slightest flame and everything would simply explode.

  “Ju
lian,” she gasped the moment she could seize the opportunity. “I can’t think!”

  “I don’t want you to think. Not now. Not any more today. We, both of us, need to stop thinking and, for a change, just feel. Are you willing to do that, zini? Are you willing to feel with me?”

  To punctuate his invitation, Julian drifted seeking fingertips down the front of her throat and breastbone. His hands brushed between her breasts without stopping, his caress continuing on until it was coasting over her stomach, making her tense in anticipation of where he was going to end up next. She thought for a moment that she should really stop him. She should step away and take charge of herself. There was danger and uncertainty all around them and they didn’t have the luxury of losing themselves in the powerful passion that seemed to burn so easily between them. Any minute the next turn or twist could come to tear them apart.

  And perhaps that was what made her suddenly wrap her arms tightly around his neck and pull her body closer to his. In a world gone mad, Julian was her only true stability. He was the one constant. The only constant. She was lost and he was true north.

  Asia opened her mouth under his, using the flick of her tongue to invite him to do the same. He didn’t even hesitate. The very next instant he was plunging into her mouth and devouring her as deeply as he could. With a throaty moan, Asia accepted him. Her fingers plunged into the crisp ends of his hair, then immediately curled to get a good grip of it. Fingers fisted, she used his hair like reins, turning his head to suit so she could work his mouth with the sudden and savage appetite he inspired. His light touches disappeared, replaced abruptly by the powerful clamp of his hands around her lean waist. She felt his strength wrapping around her like a too-tight belt, making her breath gasp out of her in a cross between pressure and pleasure.

  Feeling her react to the command of his hold, Julian quickly adapted, jerking her nearly clean off her feet and into his body. She wasn’t delicate in anything she did, and that included the way she made love. Oh, that didn’t mean she didn’t have or appreciate finesse, it just meant she knew what she liked and knew how to get it. Once she made up her mind to take him on, she did it with everything she had, every weapon in her arsenal. That included the curved fingers dragging down his back, her nails raking through the fabric of his shirt. If Julian wasn’t hard before that, he most certainly was by the time she reached his waist. And he would be damned if she didn’t know it. The little brat had the gall to laugh at him for it, her tongue lashing out impudently to lick the tip of his nose.

  “Oh really?” he demanded to know. “Now, all of a sudden, you’re going to be a tease?”

  “I’ve always been a tease,” she pointed out, reminding him that she’d been tormenting his senses in one way or another right from the beginning.

  “Then I feel I should warn you,” he said on a hot, growling breath, “that this dynamic will work both ways.”

  With that, Julian planted his hands on her hips and sent her spinning around in his hold, forcing her into an about-face. She barely had time to catch her balance before he was gathering up the skirt of her gown in large grabs of his fingers, baring her legs all the way up to her backside. Then his hands dove under the remaining fabric to wrap around her hips and feel the bare skin there. His mouth burrowed beneath her hair, finding the back of her neck, even as his fingers stroked forward down along the V of her pelvis.

  “Hmm,” he observed, “no panties. One might consider you were thinking of giving yourself to a man tonight.” The accusation was clear, just as it was clear from the sudden power of his grip that his temper was roused at the very idea.

  “I’m not in the habit of wearing underwear,” she countered, turning her head so she could whisper the information into his ear. “Unless my skirt is so short I have no choice. So you can relax, Julian, and remember you don’t know me yet nearly as well as you wish you did.”

  “This is true,” he said darkly. “But I’m about to learn a great deal more.” He punctuated the remark with the forward press of his hips against the swell of her bottom, making sure she felt him rubbing hotly into her. Asia went suddenly breathless at the aggressive feel of him, her heart racing to keep up with all the feedback she was feeling.

  Julian had seen dozens of women in a state of arousal, had seen them writhe in the ultimate state of pleasure, but none of it could compare to the way Asia looked just then. Her body was an incredible work of art, but flushed with need, and braced with her aggressive style of lovemaking, it was an extraordinary sight to behold. Then she reached down to grasp hold of the gathered hem of her dress and whipped it off over her head. Suddenly Julian found himself holding on to a fully naked woman who had filled his every waking thought since the moment he’d first set eyes on her. He looked at her over her shoulder, taking in everything from perfect teardrop breasts tipped with pretty pale nipples to those damn long legs of hers. The idea of having those legs wrapped around him was too much to bear.

  Asia felt him spin her back around, her hair flying and a laugh bursting out of her when she could feel the brutish desperation in the grip of his hands. If Julian was a slickly skilled lover, he wasn’t showing any sign of his finesse. Why that thrilled her so much she wasn’t about to fathom. He turned her in a hard swing until she hit her back against a wall, then he moved in tight to pin her up into it. His hands covered both of her breasts, their heat burning her just as much as the abrupt fierceness of his kiss did.

  “You can’t know,” he rumbled against her mouth, his teeth flashing out to catch her bottom lip, pulling slowly on it until he let her go. “I know you don’t know what this feels like for me. You aren’t there yet. But you will be. I swear you will be.”

  She wasn’t quite certain if she wasn’t already there. The way he was acting, the way he moved and touched her, she felt so incredibly restless, so overpowered with craving for him. Was this what it meant to be kind? Was it always going to be this uncontrollable? This overwhelming? The idea injected a healthy dose of fear into the mix of emotions and adrenaline she was bathing in, but it wasn’t enough to make her call a stop. She suddenly felt as though she’d been craving this man for weeks. She knew he wanted something from her, something special she wasn’t sure she could give, but this she could give all too easily.

  “Yes. Touch me,” she commanded him, grabbing hold of one of his hands and rubbing it down the full length of her bare body.

  He withdrew his hand, reaching to catch her chin in his hand and pulling back to meet her hot eyes. “I’m perfectly capable of touching you.” He paused to kiss her until she was certain her toes were curling. “Must everything be a battle of wills and the power of a moment for you? Can’t you simply let me make love to you?”

  “No. I can’t. This is who and what I am. You’ll make love with me or not at all.”

  Julian understood the distinction and yet another piece of the puzzle that was Asia fell into place. He had thought she simply didn’t know how to allow herself to relax, but he’d been wrong. It wasn’t that she was afraid to give herself to the moment, it was simply that she was always going to take control of her life and refused to leave it up to someone else. And she was right. If he was going to have her, he had to accept that.

  No problem. He’d made worse trade-offs, and this hardly compared.

  “Very well,” he said, reaching to yank his shirt free of his jeans. “I accept.”

  “Good,” she breathed, helping him drag the thing off. She was eager, knowing what his clothing hid. Now that she was no longer put off by the idea that he was a serial killer, she allowed herself to hunger for the spectacular body he had. He was more than just a pretty boy, she had learned. He was a man who had been birthed from the harsh conditions of this dangerous world. And there was something undeniably sexy about that. It didn’t surprise her to feel how hot his flesh was under the touch of her hands. She knew it was only a fraction of a reflection of what he was feeling. The savage speed of his hands over her skin told her as much. “
Yes,” she hissed as she writhed between him and the woven wall.

  Julian reached for his belt, unable to bear being clothed while she moved like a sensual python against him. Like those deadly serpents, she was taking his breath away. When he thought of having her wrapped around him, contracting and constricting him, it blinded his mind to everything else. He didn’t even realize that the passion they were sharing was sending heavy waves of fervent energy out into the holding colony all around them. He should have remembered that, he should have controlled it…but he couldn’t. His mindheart was completely overrun with other information and an entirely different focus. Unzipping his jeans, Julian kicked off his shoes. But if he thought she was going to give him time to strip, he was in for a huge surprise. She grabbed hold of his shoulders and raised a thigh to his hip. Before he knew it, she had wrapped both of her legs around his waist and was reaching down the front of his pants to fish for a handhold around the thick erection she’d inspired.

  Julian groaned as she wrapped her palm around him, the sensitive nerves of his cock screaming to life as she stroked him. Even as she did so she closed the vise of her legs until he was pulled up tight and snug against her. In the next instant she was holding him against her, bathing the entire length of him in her wet pussy as she squirmed to bring him to the brink of her waiting body.

  He wasn’t used to so much aggression from a woman. He could barely keep an anchor on the world around him, barely keep his knees locked to hold both of their weight up against the wall. She was like a wildfire ravaging him, licking and eating him up as if he were raw fuel. And Julian didn’t fight a single second of it. He’d taken so much from her, it was high time she took from him. And he could think of no better way.

  She brought him up tight against her, toying with him now by rubbing the sensitive head of his cock around the rim of her entrance. He toyed right back, leaving her bruised mouth to find one of her pointed nipples with his teeth. He sucked hard at her, the action nearly savage, but clearly what she liked as a fresh wash of liquid fire bathed his waiting cock. And while she continued to torment him, he decided to do likewise by thrusting a hand between their bodies. She was denuded of all her hair, leaving him with nothing but smooth wet skin to lead him to the clit hiding between folds of slick flesh. As soon as he found it, he began to toy with her exactly as she was toying with him.