How had he guessed she wanted to suck the cocks of two guys at once? She searched Paul’s face for a clue. He remained as amiable as always. She might as well ask. It wasn’t as if she’d have secrets by the end of the night. “How do you know?”
Roberts tugged the skirt down her hips.
“He has a way with women,” he said, his voice husky. His lips curled in a warm smile. “He knows a lot of things about women.”
“Oh,” Mel said. The fabric slid past her pubic mound, down her thighs and her ankles. Roberts threw it on the floor without a second glance. Cool air blew across her hips and across the fine hairs of her mons.
“So Melissa,” Paul interrupted her thoughts. “What would please you most? A dip in the ocean? A shower with me rubbing your naked body?” His fingers trailed down his rigid erection, erotic and inviting. “Or would you rather have Roberts suck your clit like a hard candy?”
Mel squirmed with all that attention and the naughty suggestions. Her gaze lingered on Paul’s crotch.
“Or would you rather have the class watch as we give you that gyno exam?”
“No, I’m not into people watching me while I have sex,” Mel managed even as Roberts slipped a warm hand between her thighs and searched for the hard nub of her clit. He hardly touched her hot spot, and she shot off the bed and into Paul’s instantly waiting arms, an orgasm ripping through her body, leaving her nerve endings scorched.
She hung onto Paul’s arms until the waves of delight subsided.
“That was good, my little Mel? No?” Paul murmured against her ear.
Mel nodded, his hot breath fanning her face as he looked down at her.
“Nice ass,” Roberts commented.
Mel didn’t have time to react as he seized her by the waist, raised her up, flipped her over on her stomach on the edge of the bed and thrust his cock into her pussy from behind. She was too hazy from the orgasm that had blown her mind away.
Paul scrambled onto the bed, seated himself with Mel half-hanging over him and said, “Wanna suck my big one?”
Mel stared and stared at the man’s huge cock throbbing and pulsing so close to her face. She shook her head as Roberts pounded into her again and again. “No, I want to do you both.”
That made Paul laugh out loud. “Both of us, kitty? How are going to manage that?”
She grunted as Roberts’ balls slapped her upper thighs. “First your turn, then his, until you both come.”
“Sounds good to me. You can lick my cock until I come.”
Paul tucked a stray strand of her hair behind her left ear and tilted up her chin. “Seems to me like we got us a fantasy girl, Roberts,” he said lightly.
Mel couldn’t make out whether he was joking or serious. She truly hoped he was simply joking.
Chapter Seven
Daniel didn’t think he was getting through to Lia. He stomped off to the window. She was in serious trouble and didn’t realise it. He didn’t want to admit—to her or to himself—that he’d made the biggest mistake of his life, one from which there was no walking away. Not that he knew of.
He faced her, struggling to find the right words, hoping somehow he could get through to her, to warn her of the danger she was in.
Lia lay on the bed on her back, pouting, seemingly disconsolate. Her head hung over the side of the four-poster bed. Her hair cascaded almost to the floor in a wicked blaze of feminine glory. She waved her right knee back and forth irritably and plucked at each finger as if counting but Harmon knew she was doing nothing of the sort.
She turned her head to look at him with a coy expression. Man, he wanted her again, but bad.
“Come off it, Daniel. You’re pulling my leg about all this sex slave trader stuff.” She gave him a blatantly sexual wink. “Aren’t you?”
He cleared his throat, wondering how much of his heartfelt speech she’d actually heard. Not much by the sounds of it. But then she was hot to go and probably ached even more fiercely than he did for their bodies clinging together in a mad frenzy. “Actually, I wasn’t.”
How would he explain she was in serious trouble? And he along with her, because if something nefarious happened to her, he couldn’t live without her. He knew that was clichéd but it was the truth. He’d spent the better part of a year chasing after her after they met, trying to seduce her, and she’d brushed him off every time with one flimsy excuse after another. Finally, he did the only thing he could. He caught her and forced her to pay attention to him. Not very heroic or chivalrous, he admitted but he’d won the fair prize. She’d agreed to marry him, and that was enough for him. And that’s exactly where his big mistake had crept in. If he hadn’t married her, made love to her countless times, she wouldn’t be the sex kitten she was, always begging for more, even when she knew he didn’t have enough energy for more.
“Oh.” She sat up on her elbow. “Is this another game where you create a bevy of men to have a go at me but they’re all you?” Still pouting, still as erotic as hell. “How tantalising,” she exclaimed. “Being a sex slave.”
Daniel growled and couldn’t help himself from unleashing the simmering anger. “This isn’t a game, Lia!” How dare she think he was playing with her?
Lia’s brow creased in a deep frown. Idly, she plucked at the rumpled bed sheets. “You’ve never said that before.”
He hurried to the bed, took Lia in his arms and sat up. “Babe, I’m serious. I got a warning the other day, but I didn’t pay much attention to it.”
She moistened her lower lip, a worried gaze remaining full on her face.
He might as well tell the truth. “Then this morning, before the class started, I got another one. This time the writer didn’t mince any words. They said if you kept up your performances, then they’d have no choice but to steal you from me and sell you.”
But he’d thought that he could protect her no matter what situation arose. Surely his word as a noble carried weight. And there was the possibility that if the danger loomed over them, he could shift them both to a safer place.
Lia stroked his cheek with the back of her gentle knuckles. “You poor thing. Maybe someone was playing a game on you.” She chuckled softly. “I mean, we do it all the time. Play with each other and shift. What’s stopping others from doing the same thing?”
Daniel’s chest tightened and squeezed against his heart. “This is the real thing. I’m crazy about you. I couldn’t stand it if someone took you away from me.” He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “A few months ago, I remember hearing a story about a couple who couldn’t keep their hands off each other. The slave traders kidnapped the wife, but she fought back. They hacked her to pieces and sent her back to her husband that way.” He shook his head, disturbed at the unwanted but intrusive memory. “I couldn’t imagine getting you back like that, Lia. I just couldn’t. I’d kill those bastards.”
There must have been something else behind the murder. Slave traders rarely killed. Dead women didn’t make much of a profit for them. They were of use only when they were alive and well.
The cheerfulness vanished from her eyes. “You’re serious, aren’t you?” Her fingertips strayed near the corner of his lips while her free hand edged along his inner thigh towards his half-flaccid cock.
He nodded, stifling a sigh of disbelief. She still wasn’t understanding the extent of the trouble she was in. The traders were old news, had been around for a century or more, and they operated in great numbers so it wasn’t like ordering a posse after one or two troublemakers. Daniel couldn’t hunt them all down to keep his wife safe. Yet, he could send them a none too subtle message that she was off bounds to them as long as he was alive. Even though he was no longer a part of their vast organization, he could protect his own with a simple word. But then was there honour among thieves? Was Lia valuable enough to any slaver if the trader’s life was forfeit from the moment he stepped over the line?
Lia’s small hand curled around his cock, instantly bringing it to life. “Are you t
hinking of going after them?”
Daniel nodded. He didn’t want to but as soon as she caught him, his mind began to detour to more satisfying and less dangerous pursuits than bashing slave traders’ heads in. And he had to focus on the task of persuading Lia she wasn’t safe and preventing what almost seemed inevitable. Women constantly in heat were the hottest commodity on the market now.
Lia pursed her lips, and her eyes got that far away look that Harmon was familiar with. That she was thinking about something other than sex, sex, sex. “How do you know about these traders?”
The woman wasn’t stupid. When she wasn’t thinking sex, sex and more sex, she was brilliant. Daniel loved her for so many things, like that she had a degree in cybernetics engineering—a field women rarely succeeded in. She was warm-hearted and always eager to give a helping hand where needed. Lately though, she’d been too preoccupied with the unquenchable demands of her body.
“I love you, Lia,” he cajoled, attempting to steer her away from a topic that disturbed him.
“You’re sidestepping me. I want to know.” Lia clenched her fists and shoved them against his shoulders. “I demand an answer.”
Daniel wasn’t willing to talk to her or anyone else about his recent past before he’d married her. Shame and guilt burrowed through him. “Don’t, Lia.”
She gave him a look filled with searing heat and sudden mistrust. “Are you one of these slave traders, and now you have misgivings because I might be their next victim?”
“Lia—”
She unfolded her legs in one elegant movement, got to her feet and headed to the door.
“I swear I’m not.” He swirled his tongue inside his suddenly dry mouth. Once, long ago, before he knew better, he’d been for a very short while, but he’d never admit that. Not to anyone, especially not to Lia. He knew how much she hated anyone who inhibited another’s freedom. Now, he combated the problem by sending his men covertly to save as many women as they could and returning them to their loved ones. It was a drop in the bucket, Daniel knew, but it was atonement for his sins of being careless in his youth.
She gazed at him over her shoulder, her hand on the doorknob. “I swear, Daniel Harmon, that if you’re lying, I will catch you and burn you and your cohorts in the pits of hell.”
She slammed the door behind her with such force the windows danced in their frames.
Daniel cradled his head against his palms and moaned.
* * * *
Back in her room on the outpost, Lia threw some clothes into a new suitcase. She slammed her fist onto the walnut dresser. The cheval mirror rattled. What had possessed Daniel to tell her that she was potential meat for a slave trader because she couldn’t keep her hands off him? She sucked in a whistling breath. She’d heard stories of the Maestro, but who could say whether they were true or not?
Her stomach clenched into a tight knot. Daniel couldn’t be one of them. Sure, Celadian nobles were known to satisfy themselves using ignoble means, but she couldn’t picture Daniel as one of them.
She frowned and gazed into the mirror at her reflection. Her cheeks were flushed and her lips kiss-swollen despite the repressed anger flaring in her eyes. For as long as she and Daniel had been married, she’d never guessed he was training her with the malicious intent of selling her to the traders. No, she couldn’t, wouldn’t, let herself believe that of him. He had never once treated her unkindly. A sigh escaped her lips. How she wanted him again, stroking, caressing her yearning body with his strong, warm hands then taking her to ever-increasing heights of ecstasy. She loved him. There was no doubt about that, but she had to find out the truth. Was he a Maestro? Had he used her?
Buried memories stirred within her, whispered stories of some wives of Celadian aristocracy disappearing without a trace—and never being found. Had they been given to the traders by unscrupulous husbands who wanted more money to surround themselves in their accustomed finery?
Suddenly, Lia knew where to find her answers. And she wouldn’t need a suitcase for that.
* * * *
Paul and Roberts weren’t joking. Mel enjoyed being their fantasy girl. Paul had shifted the scenery to a smoke-filled bar, where smooth jazz played unobtrusively in the background. Mel lay on her back, her knees bent, her hair splayed at the sides of her head with Paul kneeling over her, his balls gently swinging near her chin with the strenuous flicking of her tongue on his throbbing cock. She’d done Roberts first and now he sat with his legs at the top of her head with his thighs spread out on either side of her. Testosterone practically heated the room.
“You like this, babe?” Paul asked, stroking wild strands of hair from her perspiring forehead.
She grunted agreement, tasting and savouring his woodsy scent, so different from Roberts who’d been more sweet and salty, like tasting the edge of salt-rimmed glass filled with a Margarita. The two men had turned her on so badly, she’d forgotten about her distaste and enjoyed herself. Paul’s thighs were rigid. He was about to shoot off his load, and she’d enjoy every moment of lapping him up.
She thought of Lia and how she was going to get what was coming to her, that she was married to nobility and as open about her sexual escapades as a bitch in heat. Mel bet Lia had never had it quite so good as this. Two irresistible men with long cocks and egos to match.
When Paul burst his hot cum into her waiting mouth, Mel formulated a plan. Why let the Celadian authorities take care of Lia when she could take care of that little task herself? A task that would not only give her pleasure but sate her deep longing for revenge? Why was it that women like Lia got the men like Daniel and received the wealth, the glittering diamonds, the lasting affection of debonair men?
Paul panted from exertion. Mel felt it in his pulse at his wrist because she’d hung on for dear life as he climbed higher and higher.
“I’ve got a little favour to ask,” she blurted out, her own heartbeat picking up. Dare she ask these two strangers? Why not? They were hot and horny and probably wouldn’t mind more sex with the woman who’d slipped out from under their cocks.
Both men looked at her attentively. Paul’s body was limp as he sat over her. Roberts drummed his thighs and toyed with his shaft.
“Wanna have some more fun?” Mel asked, with a glint in her eyes. Ah yes, but this was going to be fun. No way would she let Lia get away without getting her own medicine back. No way.
* * * *
Lia found her way to the turret of the ancient stone castle in which Daniel and she made their home, in search of Harmon’s chamberlain’s records. She went up a long, winding staircase and into a small circular room with tiny holes at the top of the wall that served for windows. Puffy grey clouds traipsed by, giving a sense of freedom from the room’s close, dark confines. She flipped on a light switch that did little to alleviate the dimness. Someone, bless them, had left several candles and matches lying side-by-side near the musty, aged ledgers in the middle of the chamber.
Lia found one with the correct year marked in heavy black marker and thumbed through the pages of castle expenditures. Daniel had made several trips off planet to undisclosed destinations, but that wasn’t out of the ordinary. She had made trips to Zandra, the galaxy’s Mecca for shoppers to buy gowns and shoes that fit her small feet well. Other than that, there were no signs that he’d received more money than he’d spent. Castle upkeep was expensive as were the employee wages, but all seemed to be in order.
Closing the book stirred up the dust and made her sneeze. Why should she find it so strange that Daniel acted on the straight and narrow? He had never lied to her that she knew of. She decided to look into earlier books.
Several hours later, yearning to breathe clean air and feel the sun’s warmth on her skin, Lia trudged down the stairs. She’d found what she’d been looking for. Daniel had received more money fifteen years ago for three consecutive months than seemed right. The accounts receivable hadn’t been noted as to where the money had come from but the sums had been large enough t
o immediately draw her attention. More than the estate had earned in two consecutive years afterwards, she pondered.
Lia didn’t notice the soft footfalls as she drew open the door to step out into the blinding sunshine. All she saw was a leathery hand and a white cloth clamp over her mouth and nostrils. Then she couldn’t breathe.
Chapter Eight
Harmon fretted when Lia didn’t return to the bedroom. He plucked listlessly at the sex-scented sheets. He’d either underestimated her need to find the dirt on him or overestimated her penchant for sex. He couldn’t decide which. An emptiness burrowed within his heart. He couldn’t face losing Lia.
He thrust off the sheets, jumped to his feet and wondered where in the hell he was going to start searching for her. The uneasiness that corkscrewed through his chest increased. Lia could take care of herself. He knew that. He’d often been at the receiving end of her well-timed kicks or punches. Yet what if the slave traders had gotten their evil hands on her?
Deep in thought and naked, he made his way to the bathroom, showered quickly, and stepped out of the glass enclosure. The sign that greeted him immediately made him sick to his stomach. In dark red lipstick, the words We’ve Got Her were luridly etched onto the mirror.
Daniel sank to his knees, helpless and infuriated. He shouldn’t have let Lia go. She was his wife, his partner, the woman he’d sworn he’d spend the rest of his life with. And now they had her.
Black anger snaked through his gut. He smashed the mirror several times with his bare fists. The glass shattered into hundreds of shards. Several lodged in his palm and cut into his wrist, but he hardly noticed. He had to do something. Now. He knew that once she was aboard one of the slaver’s ships, there were few ways to get her out. The traders were scrupulous about the beefy guards they hired, and they didn’t hesitate to shoot first and ask questions later.
Silent Witness Page 6
