Shivering, she shifted her gaze from his hot stare to De’Lar’s. Lazily sampling one nipple with slow strokes of his tongue, he brushed his thumb repeatedly across the other, each flick vibrating something deep inside her.
Suspended, dizzy, Celeste looked into the Kyristari king’s handsome face. He’s going to be my lover, she thought. And he’ll be good at it. But I won’t fall in love with him. The thought made her feel oddly empty.
Suddenly a big, dark hand came up and brushed De’Lar’s aside. Jarred’s strong fingers began plucking the nipple the king had been fondling. The little peak hardened deliciously between his wicked fingertips as he squeezed and rotated it. Whimpering in pleasure, Celeste barely noticed the assessing stare De’Lar shot him.
“She’s creaming well,” the Kyristari king commented. “I think she’s ready to fuck. Up for a little double penetration, Jarred?”
Her eyes widened as she remembered what they’d done to Ayla. Suddenly an idea which had seemed so erotic in fantasy became highly intimidating in reality. Particularly when the reality in question would have shamed a Clydesdale. “I’ve . . . uh . . . never done”—her voice spiraled into a squeak—“that.”
“What?” De’Lar lifted a brow at her and gave Jarred an incredulous smirk. “You’ve had her two weeks and haven’t gotten around to sodomizing her?”
A high flush started to mount Jarred’s cheekbones only to fade an instant later, probably because he’d had his computer put a stop to it. “I was occupied with other pleasures.” He sounded amazingly stiff for a man whose lips shone with a woman’s sexual cream.
De’Lar’s grin broadened nastily. “In that case, I’ll let you do the honors.”
Oh boy. Feeling her eyes widen, Celeste knew her panic showed. As big as he was, it would hurt. A lot. What was it he’d said about doing the same thing to Ayla? “My sensors told me being impaled on my cock was painful for her, but I also knew she was so hot, she burned. Besides, after everything she’d done to me, I really didn’t mind making her suffer.”
Ohboy.
Celeste stared at him like a rabbit fascinated by a snake.
A snake that was getting bigger by the moment. There’d been a time he’d fantasized about doing just what De’Lar had suggested. In fact, he’d originally planned to impale Celeste’s tight little ass as one of his first acts of revenge.
But somehow he’d never gotten around to it.
This would be his last chance. He let himself imagine the moment and felt his cock jerk in lust. Her snug anus would grip him deliciously as he forced himself inside her with slow, deep thrusts. He could almost hear her soft, helpless moans . . .
Jarred frowned. He didn’t want her final memory of him tainted with pain. True, he knew he could probably coax her into enjoying it before he was finished—he’d done it before, not least with Ayla.
But Celeste wasn’t Ayla. She wasn’t like any of the women he’d dominated in the past.
Jarred looked away from her pleading gaze, only to find himself unable to meet De’Lar’s too-knowing eyes, either. “I find I’m not in the mood to initiate a virgin tonight. I’ll leave that pleasure for you.”
The Kyristari king looked down at her. Celeste licked her lips nervously. Something hot and predatory swam through De’Lar’s golden eyes.
Jarred felt jealousy flare up in his soul, burning through him until he had to fight the urge to plant his fist in his friend’s face. The king glanced up at that moment, and Jarred knew his own expression had given away his rage. De’Lar’s mouth took on a rueful twist. “Some other time. I think I’d rather test her talent at cocksucking.”
He threw himself down on the mound of pillows at the head of the bed, then grabbed Celeste by one shoulder and flipped her onto her belly across his lap. Wrapping a big hand in her long blond hair, he dragged her head down over his cock. She immediately began to suck, submissive as any sexsub ever born.
Jarred watched her full lips close around De’Lar’s thick shaft. Her long lashes drifted down to veil her green eyes, and her cheeks hollowed as she began servicing the king. He remembered how that sweet mouth had felt on his own dick. Heat spun into his balls and he gritted his teeth in rage.
The way they had her bound ankles to thighs forced her to kneel with her legs under her and her rounded backside thrust high. He could see her lusciously spread lips and tightly puckered anus, and he thought about giving her a buggering she would never forget. He moved up behind her, taking his big cock in hand . . .
De’Lar threw his blond head back and moaned. “God, the little bitch knows how to suck . . .”
Jarred snarled and set the ruddy rounded head of his erection against her tiny rosette. She flinched and made a smothered sound.
“Goddammit.” Dropping his aim, he drove into her wet pussy in one long, ruthless stroke. Celeste moaned helplessly around De’Lar’s shaft, a sound of pleasure and desperate welcome. He worked deeper until he covered her completely as she lay with her head in the king’s lap. Bracing one hand on the mattress, he used the other to pull her long hair aside to expose one delicate white ear. Slowly, he began to shaft her, sinking in and out in her tight, creamy heat as he bent close. “No matter how many times he fucks you,” he whispered hoarsely, “you’re never going to forget me.”
Celeste had never felt so utterly stuffed, helpless, and conquered. De’Lar ground his hips upward so his shaft shuttled in and out of her mouth while Jarred rammed her cunt, merciless as a bull in rut. Being the focus of all that virile male lust was both ferociously uncomfortable and the most arousing experience she’d ever had.
Jarred released her hair to reach under her body and between her thighs until he found the engorged bead of her clit. Skillfully, he began to stroke and circle. The pleasure of his demanding touch combined with the strong digs of his cock sent fireworks bursting behind her eyes. She whimpered in pleasure.
“By the gods!” De’Lar arched his hips, driving his cock halfway down her throat. His come exploded into her mouth in a bitter, salty flood. She swallowed it down and felt her own climax gathering under Jarred’s seductive fingers and pumping cock. He tightened his grip, dragging her a fraction closer so he could reach just a little deeper. His hips circled against her ass . . .
And she screamed around her mouthful of cock as an orgasm hit her like a ball of flame. “God!” Jarred roared in her ear, and convulsed against her, coming in long, hot jets deep in her sex.
Celeste lay on the bed, bound and helpless, the taste of come in the back of her throat, her bottom sticky with it, savoring the feel of Jarred’s deliciously sweaty weight draped over her back.
Then De’Lar stirred. “Well,” he said, in a voice that was chill and dismissive, “I must confess I’m disappointed.”
She gaped up at him as he pulled free of her mouth, kicked one leg over her head, and rose to his feet.
“What?” Jarred demanded in her ear, lifting off her body. She blinked, feeling suddenly cold, and craned her head around as he rose from her.
The king had bent to rummage in a chest that stood beside the bed. He lifted out something slim and black that swung and clicked.
It was a cat o’nine tails. Each of the whips’ nine braided lashes was tipped with a small black weight.
“What are you doing with that?” Jarred demanded.
“She let me come too soon,” De’Lar said coldly, straightening to step toward the bed. “If she’s going to join my cloister, she needs to learn that I will not tolerate a lack of discipline in my sexsubs.”
Oh, hell! Celeste thought, staring at the big man in shock as he moved to stand over her. I knew he was kinky, but nobody said anything about vicious . . .
EIGHT
Jarred stared at De’Lar in shock. If he had a best friend since Garr’s death, it was the Kyristari king. Yet now the big man stalked Celeste with an expression of cold, brutal pleasure—a sadist’s anticipation of inflicting pain on a bound and helpless woman.
Jarred�
�s bound and helpless woman.
He was so stunned, he could only stare. He’d seen De’Lar spank his sexsubs as part of love play, but only if he knew they enjoyed it. Certainly never to inflict the kind of pain that whip promised. This has to be some kind of joke.
“I have high standards for my women,” the king growled at Celeste as her lovely eyes rounded in panic. “And you’re going to learn to meet them.”
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Jarred demanded, incredulous.
De’Lar gave him a cold smile. “She needs to learn her place—and I’m going to thoroughly enjoy putting her in it.”
“But I didn’t do anything!” Celeste wailed, squirming in her bonds in a way that drew the king’s attention like a hungry cat spotting a trapped mouse.
“That, my dear, is not the point,” he said, his eyes gleaming with cruel anticipation. “The point is my pleasure. And it would give me a great deal of pleasure to put a dozen stripes on that lovely white ass.”
Friend or not, king or not, Jarred knew he was going to pound De’Lar’s head in if he touched Celeste. Instinctively, he coiled into a fighting crouch. By God, he’d take on the king and every guard in this palace if he had to. “Your pleasure is about to have a higher price than you’re prepared to pay,” he snarled.
Dammit, how could he have misread the man so completely?
De’Lar gave him an astonished look, shaking out the cat with a flick of his wrist. “May I remind you that you handed her over to me to do with as I please? Anyway, I’d think you’d be eager to see her striped. She’s the bane of your existence, remember?” He drew back the whip and started to bring it down on Celeste’s flinching, helplessly proffered backside. “This is your chance to see her properly punished.”
Jarred’s hand flashed out and locked around the king’s wrist. The weighted lashes snapped around and slashed across his face, but he scarcely noticed the hot pain. “I haven’t given her to you,” he snarled, snatching the whip from De’Lar’s hand. “Which means she’s not yours.” He bared his teeth and gritted out every word: “She’s mine, I love her, and I will rip out your fucking throat before I let you touch her.”
De’Lar drew himself to his considerable height and glared. “Well, hell,” he said. “I’ve been telling you that for two weeks.”
Poised to attack the king, it took Jarred several seconds to process what he’d said. His muscles loosened in sheer relief that his friend wasn’t the sadist he’d pretended.
Followed almost immediately by anger. “You tricked me! You never intended to whip her.”
He sniffed. “Do I usually whip my subs for making me come? Frankly, I’m offended you were fooled.”
“Dammit, De’Lar, I was about to beat in your face! I was ready to take on you and the entire palace guard. Do you know what I’m capable of doing to an ordinary human? I could have hurt someone over that stupid stunt!”
“And what does that tell you?”
Jarred stopped in mid-rant, his eyes falling on Celeste. She still lay tied up in that ridiculously arousing bundle, but there was an expression of incredulous joy on her face.
Oh God, he realized, I just admitted I love her.
Jarred’s first instinct was to take it all back. Yes, she made him hotter than any woman he’d ever known. Yes, he got hard just looking at those amazing breasts and long, muscled legs. He’d have to be an idiot not to admire the courage she’d displayed in facing him down, even when she’d thought he was going to kill her. And it was no surprise that he loved sparring with her—her wicked intelligence and sharp wit made her a delight to argue with, or even just to talk to. But that didn’t mean . . .
Damn, he thought, dazed. I really have fallen in love with her.
“. . . obvious, not that I could have taken her into my cloister anyway,” De’Lar was saying. “That girl is no more a sexsub than I am. If you’d bothered to use your sensors instead of probing her cunt for her tonsils, you’d have realized she was only responding to you. Computer, replay 2030.23 to 2110 . . .” A three-dimensional holographic display popped into being over the bed, its screen splitting to show an amazingly lewd image of Jarred and De’Lar tying Celeste up. Beside the image, a colored line bounced. “She finds me mildly attractive, but when you touch her . . .”
The recorded Jarred caressed her nipple and the readout leaped like a scalded starhopper. The king looked down at Celeste, who was still staring at Jarred with a stunned look on her face. “Frankly, darling, I’m wounded. What does that big psychopath have that I don’t?”
“Severe trust issues,” she muttered. “Which have something to do with his mother.”
“They usually do. You’d be better off staying with me.”
“Probably.” Visibly gathering her courage, she choked out, “But I’m not in love with you.”
Jarred stared at her, his mind spinning images of taking her back to the ship, burying himself in her tight, creamy body whenever he wanted, arguing and laughing with her. Letting her heal the wounds in his soul he’d pretended to ignore.
Wounds . . .
An image flashed though his mind—Garr, lying in a bloody, broken heap, his blue eyes empty, his face so swollen from the beating that Jarred had been able to identify him only by sensor readings.
Oh, hell. He felt the hope leach from him, leaving him cold and empty. Indulging his need for her could cost her life, and that was one price he damn well had no intention of paying.
“No.” He said the word through gritted teeth. “You’re not manipulating me into this.”
All the life drained from Celeste’s eyes as her face went white with pain.
Jarred looked away from her wounded gaze, ignoring the stab of guilt easily in the face of his panic. “She’s not staying with me. I’ll take her to Christ Colony if you won’t accept her here.”
“By all the Galactic Gods, Jarred, don’t be more of an idiot than you already are!” De’Lar glared at him in disgust. “You may have saved my life from assassins twice now, but you are trying my patience! Do you seriously believe you’ll be anything but miserable without this girl?”
“That’s not the fucking point!” he snarled. “Do you know what I do for a living?”
De’Lar drew himself to his considerable height. “Watch your tongue, Varrain.”
“Dammit, Your Majesty, I’m an agent of the Stellar Compact!” Jarred spat, clenching his fist around the whip he still held until his knuckles went white. “And that means I am regularly used for target practice by every criminal, assassin, and enemy agent who gets the urge. If she goes with me, she ends up in the crosshairs, too!”
“Yes,” Celeste said, “but I’m not exactly helpless.”
He whirled on her. “Neither was Garr.”
She blinked in shock. “Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh.” He looked away, trying to force down the image of her lying broken and dead, just the way Garr had been.
De’Lar broke the thrumming silence. “To love,” he said quietly, “is always to risk. She could also be killed in a aircab accident or contract Zavarian fever.”
“Either of which would be better than being battered to shards of bone by a two-meter-tall reptilian sadist.” Jarred closed his eyes. “Hell yes, De’Lar, I want to keep her with me. She fills something in me that’s been empty for so damn long I’d never even noticed it until I kidnapped her. But I don’t dare. It would be like sending her naked into a minefield.” He opened his eyes and shot the king a savage look. “And damn you anyway for forcing me to realize how much I love her.”
There was a hiss of flame and the stench of burning. He looked down just in time to see the charred ropes drop away from Celeste as she rolled off the bed.
“I repeat, I am not helpless,” she said. “And I’m picking up new abilities all the time. I didn’t even know I could do pyrokinesis until just now.”
He glowered. “You’re lucky you didn’t burn yourself, you little idiot.”
“Pyrokin
esis?” Startled, the king stared at the burned ropes until his gaze turned speculative. He lifted a brow at Jarred. “Been holding out on me, my friend? What else can she do?”
“Not enough to keep her alive,” Jarred growled.
“How do you know that?” Celeste demanded. “If my powers continue to develop—”
“You’ll still be a liability! What happens when one of my enemies kidnaps you?” Lifting the cat o’nine tails, he shook it at her. “If one of them decides to use something like this, you can bet your sweet ass it won’t be an empty threat . . .”
Before she could retort, a deafening boom hammered through the room. Automatically, Jarred spun toward the sound, dropping into a combat crouch as the floor shook under their feet, as breakables rattled and something smashed.
“Shit! What the hell was that?” De’Lar swore.
For a horrified instant, Jarred locked eyes with Celeste as the realization struck them both.
The assassin!
Before any of them could make a move, a round, glowing hole swirling with rainbow light popped into midair. Celeste blinked at it. It looked like the doorway she and Jarred had leaped through, but it was much, much bigger.
She knew in her gut that things were about to get nasty. Heart hammering, she reached inside herself for the psychic energy she would need to defend Jarred.
Something massive and scaly thrust its way through the opening. The shape was so alien it took her a moment to realize it was a long, fanged head. An instant later, an immense reptilian body followed, surging into the room in a mass of muscle and wings and long, whipping tail. Something fell over and smashed.
Gaping up at the massive creature, Celeste realized Mykhayl and Corinne sat astride its powerful back.
Good God, Celeste realized, stunned. It’s Khyber, the imperial dragon!
Captive Dreams Page 28
