His friend had known about Celeste, of course. Whenever Jarred’s consciousness was snatched into limbo, his body fell into a coma, something that was pretty damn hard to miss.
In fact, it had been Garr who’d helped him figure out what was happening, though they’d both found the whole thing pretty hard to believe. His friend had been a powerful telepath—brain to Varrain’s considerable brawn—but even Garr had never heard of anyone with the raw psychic strength to influence events in another universe.
But every time Jarred had returned from his involuntary dimensional jaunts raging that one day he’d make Celeste pay, Garr gave him a maddening grin. “You won’t be able to touch a hair on her little blond head, my ’borg friend. You’ve always had a soft spot for women, and you know it. You spent too many years trying to win the approval of your bitch of a mother.”
Garr had known him far too well.
Jarred was considering going into the head after Celeste when she staggered out, faintly green, a sheen of sweat on her face. A quick sensor scan told him she was still suffering from a vicious headache. “I’ll get you something for that,” he told her grudgingly, and stalked out.
A moment later he was back to press a small drug patch onto her forehead. The lines of pain between her eyes relaxed almost instantly as the patch did its job. “Thanks. Damn, that’s better than Tylenol,” she said with a sigh, collapsing on the bed.
Having no idea what Tylenol was—and frankly not caring—he gruffly told her to get some sleep.
Celeste’s eyes widened as she realized he wasn’t going to paralyze her again. Jarred turned and walked out before she had a chance to comment. If she was inclined to gloat about his weakness, he didn’t want to know about it. He really didn’t want his temper to push him into doing something he’d regret.
Like kissing her.
Celeste stared at Jarred’s retreating back in wonder. Mercy was not a word she generally associated with him, yet somehow he’d sensed she couldn’t take another second of paralysis. On the other hand, he hadn’t removed the control band, either. That was troubling, given the thing’s powers.
Well, she wasn’t going to worry about it any more tonight. She needed some sleep. Her little psychic experiment had drained the energy right out of her.
With a weary sigh, she crawled onto the fluidmat bed, curled up on her side, and closed her eyes.
A moment later Celeste opened them again to stare at the sexsub statue. It lifted a few inches off the shelf, then settled gently back down.
With a satisfied smile, she let her lids close again. In seconds, she was asleep.
FIVE
Celeste jerked awake to the sounds of an exotic, high-pitched screech. And froze.
She wasn’t in Garr’s bedroom anymore. Actually, she had no idea where the hell she was. It definitely wasn’t the ship.
The fluidmat bed she had gone to sleep on had been replaced by a nest of curling, feathery—things. Leaves? Flowers? She couldn’t tell which, but they felt soft and sensuous against her skin, and their scent was sweetly exotic.
She was, of course, naked. Jarred seemed to prefer her that way.
Cautiously Celeste lifted her head and glanced around. She lay in a clearing ringed with tall, alien vegetation in unearthly pastel shades. The light had a bluish tinge, as though dusk was falling. Two moons hung overhead, one white, the other faintly pink.
What had happened? How had she gotten here? She didn’t remember leaving the Vengeance . . .
The control band. Of course. He’d never taken it off her. Jarred could easily create an illusion like this with his computer, then use the band to feed it into her mind. If that were the case, she was still on the ship, probably lying in Garr’s cabin while her captor spun this virtual planet around her.
But why?
Stupid question, she thought dryly. Knowing him, it probably had something to do with sex—and some plot to both dominate her and drive her nuts.
So where was he?
Celeste rolled out of her nest and rose to her feet. She took a wary look around, but if a hulking cyborg stud lurked in the fluffy bushes, she didn’t see him.
Well, she could sit tight or go looking for him. And since this was the first time in hours she’d been free to move around—even if it was only in virtual reality—she wasn’t inclined to stay put.
Celeste set off, moving toward the nearest stand of the alien tree-things. She thought she could hear a musical patter coming from that direction, like a stream chuckling over rocks. She decided to investigate.
Besides, she figured she should take advantage of the opportunity to stretch her legs before Jarred got around to tying her up again.
The air was full of strange sounds she suspected were animals or birds, or at least the alien equivalent thereof. Chirps and squeaks and cries, like the soundtrack for a Tarzan movie. She wondered what kind of critter produced those noises, and hoped that whatever it was didn’t have a taste for science fiction novelists. Glancing around curiously as she stepped between the “trees,” she tried to spot the source of the racket.
It was much darker in here than it had been out in the clearing. Celeste felt the hair rise on the back of her neck. Just exactly what did Jarred have in mind for this little simulation of his? Here’s hoping he never saw Friday the 13th . . .
For a moment she considered retreating back into the clearing where the light was better, but she discarded that idea. It would soon be just as dark out there, and besides, she had no intention of letting the big jerk know he’d spooked her.
The sound of the stream got louder, and she peered through the vegetation ahead. Something shimmered like moonlight shining on something reflective. She lengthened her stride as the alien forest around her grew darker.
Where the hell was Jarred? If he was about to jump out from behind a tree at her, she swore to God she’d deck him.
A dense screen of feathery bushes rose in front of her, blocking her way. She pushed through them, shivering a little as the long, fernlike branches brushed her thighs and belly. She thought for a moment of her bare feet, which back home would have been stabbed by a dozen rocks and sticks by now. She was definitely not in Kansas anymore.
Not that she’d ever been to Kansas in the first place.
Finally Celeste forced her way clear of the oddly amorous plants into another clearing. Night had fallen with unnatural speed. Luckily the twin moons cast enough light to see by, despite the distracting double shadows they threw.
For a moment, she simply stood there, letting her eyes adjust. She stood on the edge of a small oblong pool at the base of a rocky cliff; the chuckling sound she’d heard was the sound of a pretty waterfall tumbling down the rocks like a fall of silver coins. Celeste looked up, her eyes automatically tracking up the rock face, following the path of the water as it bounced from stone to stone . . .
At the top, the figure of a man stood on the cliff’s edge, silhouetted against the star-flecked sky. She couldn’t make out the details—just the outline of broad shoulders and narrow hips and long, long legs. For just an instant, she thought she saw a flash of red light, as though his eyes glowed.
“There you are,” Celeste whispered. Every last drop of spit dried from her mouth.
Teeth flashed white in the moonlight in what might have been a grin—were those fangs?—just before the figure flung himself off the edge of the cliff. Her heart jammed into her throat as she watched the leanly muscled body plummet toward the pool below. Damn, she thought, forgetting for an instant that the whole thing was an illusion. I hope that’s deep enough.
He hit the water with barely a splash and disappeared. She licked her lips and stared at the spot, waiting for him to surface. Everything had gone quiet, as if even the alien beasties sensed there was a predator among them.
Nothing.
Where the hell has he gone . . . ?
A dark head suddenly appeared from under the water, shattering the pattern of bright reflection on the
pool’s surface. Twin red lights that were definitely eyes glittered from the shadowed face.
“Run,” Jarred said in a growling rumble.
Celeste whirled on her heel and obeyed, completely spooked. And, much as she hated to admit it, aroused.
She barely felt the slap of alien ferns against her breasts and thighs as she catapulted through the bushes like a hare one bounce ahead of a wolf. Back on Earth, she would have been lucky not to run face-first into a tree, but Celeste wasn’t worried about that here. In this virtual world of Jarred’s, she wouldn’t do any slapstick pratfalls. That wasn’t the point.
The point was running. And getting caught.
It was the thought of what would come after the “getting caught” part that made her nipples harden to stiff points as she ran. She had a humiliating suspicion that she was going wet between her thighs again.
Had she really seen fangs? What the hell was he planning?
Celeste threw a quick glance over her shoulder—and almost swallowed her tongue as she saw him bearing down on her, all hungry masculinity barely a leap behind. She squeaked and darted around a tree. His snarl of frustration lifted the hair on the back of her neck as his reaching hand missed. He spun like a puma to shoot after her. Celeste scrambled around a clump of brush, feeling like something small and edible.
Which was no doubt exactly how he saw her.
She zigged left, zagged right, and jumped a half-seen stump—just as something slammed into the back of her knees. She yelped as bushes and sky and alien trees cart-wheeled around her. Then an impact jarred the breath out of her—hard, but not as hard as it could have been. Jarred had wrapped himself around her to absorb most of the force as they struck the ground.
Before Celeste could do more than realize she’d damn well better escape, he rolled her beneath him. And suddenly she was once again covered by a blanket of muscled masculinity in a very dangerous mood.
Panicking, she flailed at him. She could have saved herself the effort. An instant later, both her wrists were encircled in a huge hand as Jarred’s hips settled neatly between her thighs. She bucked under him, but only succeeded in grinding her crotch against his impressive hard-on. “Get off!”
He laughed, white teeth flashing. They looked perfectly human, but Celeste peered at them, unnerved. “I don’t think so,” he told her in a low wolf rumble. “I caught you, and now . . .”
“You’ll what?” she challenged. “Eat me?”
He lifted off her just slightly and deliberately scanned her body. Glancing down, she saw her own breasts, gleaming white in the moonlight and quivering with her panting breaths. “Now that you mention it, you do look . . . appetizing.”
Jarred lowered his head to capture one stiff nipple in his mouth. Celeste quivered helplessly, hoping those fangs she’d seen were just an effect he’d thrown in to spook her and not something he was planning to use in this little VR simulation of his.
But all he subjected her to was several searing moments of hot pleasure as he suckled her sensitive flesh. When he finally lifted his head again, the tight pink point felt wet and aching in the cool evening air.
Jarred propped his chin on her chest and smiled. “My sensors tell me you’re a little spooked, goddess. That writer’s imagination must be working overtime.” Reaching down with his free hand, he stroked a finger into her wet core. She caught her breath.
“Wondering what wicked things I’ve got in mind?” He flicked his tongue over her nipple again, rolling his hips suggestively against hers. “With you wearing that control band, I can make you see anything, experience anything.”
She swallowed. “Jarred . . .”
“Mmmmm.” He shifted until his thick shaft nestled between the soft, damp lips of her vulva. “Definitely nervous. I wonder, goddess—have you ever wondered what it would be like to do it with someone who isn’t quite”—his voice dropped and roughened into a low, animal growl—“human?”
Celeste’s heart leaped into her throat.
Suddenly the moonlight blazed full into Jarred’s face as if someone had switched on a spotlight. The hair on his head began to lengthen with impossible speed, like one of those stop-motion nature films of grass growing. At the same time, his goatee spread across his face and down his throat to meet the ruff on his chest. It, too, expanded as she watched, rolling along his body in a wave of velvet fur.
Until every inch of Jarred was covered in a rich pelt of inky silk that was as short and soft as a cat’s.
Gaping in shock, Celeste looked up to meet eyes that glowed like the Terminator’s. His grin displayed a set of inch-long fangs curving from upper and lower jaws. With a squawk of absolute terror, she went wild, flailing and writhing as she fought to free herself from the two-hundred-pound werewolf who held her. Grinning, he let her go.
Without taking time to question what he was up to, Celeste twisted in his arms, clawed for purchase in the dirt, and shot out from under him. She hadn’t even made it all the way to her feet when he pounced, flattening her like a mouse under a cat’s paw.
“Mmmm. Dinner,” that rumbling almost-Jarred voice said in her ear.
“This isn’t funny, you bastard!” she yelled, squirming desperately.
“No, but I’m enjoying it anyway.” He grabbed her wrists, gathered them in one hand, and pinned them to the ground over her head. His muscled body covered in all that silken fur felt both sensuous and menacing against her naked back.
Acutely aware of her helplessness in the face of his superhuman strength, Celeste bit her lip. “What are you going to do?”
“What do you think?” he purred, rolling his hips against her bare ass. The only part of him that wasn’t covered in fur nudged her butt with rapacious heat.
“Raping me won’t prove I’m a sexsub.”
“I’m not going to rape you.” He reached under her body with his free hand to discover a tight, pebbled nipple. “I don’t have to.” Wickedly, he brushed the hard little peak with his thumb, back and forth, sending a sweet bloom of desire through her body. That fur-covered palm squeezed and stroked as his big body rubbed seductively across hers—her back, her rump, the length of her legs. The sensation of his short, silky pelt caressing her bare skin was impossibly decadent, impossibly erotic. She heard a low pleasure moan and realized it was her own.
“That’s it,” he murmured. His long hair brushed the side of her face as he leaned close. “Relax. You know I’m not going to hurt you.” He laughed, low and suggestive. “Not unless you want me to, anyway.”
He shifted, lifting his weight off her so he could pull her up onto her knees. She bit her lip and whimpered as she felt his long shaft angle against her bottom.
One velvet hand reached between her thighs. A strong finger stroked her tender lips, slid between them, burrowed deep enough to make her back arch. “My, you are creamy,” he purred.
She actually heard a soft, liquid sound as he thrust that finger in and out. He added a second, stretching her a little more, forcing her to imagine the deep strokes of the broad cock she could feel pressing against her backside.
A pointed tongue flicked across the sensitive lobe of her ear, startling another moan out of her. “You do realize you’re mine now?” he said. “Completely at my mercy. And I think”—he licked the straining cord of her throat—“you like it that way.” She closed her eyes and whimpered.
Which was when she felt the press of four sharp points against her jugular as he closed his fangs in an almost-bite. She gasped in arousal, knowing at some gut level that he wouldn’t hurt her. Threaten, yes. Dominate, yes. And God knew he was perfectly willing to scare the hell out of her. Yet despite it all, she sensed she could trust him.
Whether he wanted to be trustworthy or not.
Abruptly he released her captive wrists. “Get on your hands and knees,” he ordered hoarsely. “I want to fuck you from behind.”
“Oh,” she whispered. An erotic shiver stole over her skin. “All right.” Swallowing, she leaned forw
ard to brace her palms on the soft, rich soil as she pulled her knees under her.
“Lower,” Jarred ordered. “On your elbows, ass in the air. I’m going to take you deep.”
At his words, it seemed a liquid fist clenched inside her. Celeste bent her forearms until her hard nipples brushed the feathery fern bed beneath her. Without being told, she spread her knees even farther apart to open herself completely for his cock.
God, she was hot. Maybe hotter than she’d ever been in her life.
He moved to cover her. Something thick and round and silken brushed the passion-swollen lips of her vulva. Bracing a brawny furred arm beside her head, he set his shaft against her opening. And began to slide inside. Slowly.
The position made him feel even bigger than he had before. It seemed to take him forever to impale her on that endless cock, a delicious eternity of gliding slick flesh that opened and stretched. All the while, he made a rough, crooning sound in her ear as he relentlessly stuffed her full.
“I’ll never get tired of fucking you,” he whispered, his voice hot and hoarse. “There’s just something about being inside you, feeling you all tight and liquid . . .” He drove in a shallow thrust that made her gasp. “And helpless. God, I love it when you’re helpless.”
With a low growl, he began to rut in a series of hard, ruthless digs that tore a gasp of pleasure-pain from her lips. Instinctively, she tried to jerk out from under him, but his massive hands slapped down and pinned her wrists beside her head, keeping her there while he rode her.
Her knees slid out from under her. Jarred followed her down, covering her completely, not even missing a stroke as he forced her legs farther apart. With an animal snarl, he settled down to ream her without mercy.
Celeste moaned, overwhelmed by the sensation of being covered in silky fur and male muscle as his rock-hard cock plunged in and out of her wet sex.
God, it felt so good.
She lifted her hips. He took the hint and released one wrist so he could reach around and finger her clit with every demanding stroke. Heat gathered in a burning ball deep in her belly, a building climax jolting closer to detonation each time he rammed himself home.
Captive Dreams Page 24
