She gaped at them, watching both lift in erection.
The ‘salute’ redirected her attention to his face since both members seemed to be looking up. She didn’t especially like the glitter in his eyes, particularly since the discovery of two cocks had brought home the fact that she wasn’t dealing with a human male. “I … uh … didn’t know you had two.”
“And you only have one womb—unlike our women.” He shrugged. “But I’ll figure it out.”
Noelle gaped at him, struggling not to think about the other hole he was clearly referring to.
He stunned her by striding past the bed as soon as he’d discarded all of his clothing and heading into the bathroom.
She head the water rush from the showerhead.
All the moisture in her nether regions dried up from overexposure.
But chill tendrils of air wafted around her like ghostly fingers, teasing her most sensitive areas. Her heart rate steadied, but at an elevated rate that pumped the blood into her nipples and her clit. They began to throb while she lay listening to the water running, waiting, knowing he had every intention of taking full advantage of her helplessness.
Almost hoping he would.
Because she wanted to get it over with, she assured herself.
And her imagination took over and began to tease her with the things he might do and her nipples throbbed harder and the throat of her sex clenched and unclenched, secreting moisture to replace what she’d lost. And her clit seemed to swell.
Far from having relaxed from sheer boredom or weariness while he lingered interminably in the shower, Noelle was so worked up by the time he emerged, bringing with him a cloud of steam, that she could hardly focus on anything beyond her throbbing nipples and clit.
She shivered, but it was in anticipation. “I’m cold,” she complained, to save face, because she didn’t want him to know she wanted him to do … something.”
He lifted his brows. “You won’t be long.”
Noelle swallowed audibly.
Drak dropped the towel and moved to the bed. Settling on his knees between her parted thighs, he stroked her legs and touched the chains. “I can see you’re wondering about these,” he murmured. “No doubt you’ll think it a curious thing but when we kiss one of our women they fall into a trance-like state. Rather like a dead thing … except still warm.”
Noelle couldn’t help it, her eyes widened in shock.
He snorted. “Oh they’re aware—very much—they just go limp. The supports make it easier to service them.” He stroked his hand down and plucked at her throbbing clit with this fingers. “In your case—well, very different.”
He shifted. Settling on his belly between her legs, he lowered his head and covered the tip of one breast with his mouth, pinching the throbbing nipple with the edge of his teeth. The jolt that went through Noelle made her jerk all over in spite of her efforts to ignore his teasing. Her belly clenched—hard—when he ceased raking with his teeth and began to suck the abused flesh.
He teased that nipple so long she realized what was in store for her.
He had no intention of making this easy or quick. He meant to torment her to teach her a lesson.
He wanted to her know he could do anything he wanted to her.
Unfortunately, she didn’t realize just how patient he was. He focused on that one sensitive point until every nerve ending in her body was screaming for attention, until it felt like her other nipple and her clit would explode with the pulse of blood. He alternated between pulling at the nipple with mouth and tongue and raking it with his teeth until she was nearly mindless.
And just when she thought she was going to lose her mind, he shifted and caught hold of the throbbing twin.
She yelped, nearly passed out at the sensation that shot through her.
He ignored her distress.
For hours, it seemed to her, he teased one nipple and then the other until her throat was bone dry from panting and her sex was awash with the moisture seeping from the walls of her sex.
She was just relieved, she thought, when he pulled away at last, thinking he meant to give her some respite, hopeful he might finish it.
Instead, he scooted back and caught her clit as he had her nipples. She nearly passed out that time.
She nearly came, but he made it clear he wasn’t going to allow that. After sucking at the sensitive bud until she began to groan and shake, he stopped as abruptly as he’d started. Shifting to the bed beside her, he contented himself with stroking her trembling flesh for a while, allowing her to cool just enough that it was sheer torture when he started again.
After a while she lost track of time. It seemed to go on forever, for hours, until her body was so wracked with a combination of pleasure and pain that she almost felt feverish, delirious.
She’d lost all hope that he would do anything beyond torturing her sensitive areas with pleasure when he moved between her thighs and she felt the probe of his cock against the mouth of her sex. He caught her hips, holding her in place while he forced the thick head of his cock into the mouth of her sex.
She panted for breath, her heart hammering in her chest in anticipation—because she could do nothing but wait and hope he meant to end her torment.
Then she felt the probe of his other cock against her rectum.
Fortunately, she didn’t have the chance to tense and cause herself pain at the penetration. He entered in a swift motion, driving deeply along both channels at once and filling her until she feared for a handful of moments that he was going to rip her in half. She was so wet, however, that her body merely engulfed him, adjusting with an effort, but it did adjust rather than tear despite the burning sensation she felt.
And then he withdrew and she thought he meant to tease her more.
She was wrong.
Evidently he’d reached his limit. With barely a pause, he began to pound into her almost frenziedly. Her heart leapt. Her body climbed swiftly toward completion.
And then missed it entirely when he came—and then left.
Noelle was near to weeping when he started all over again. She struggled to ignore his efforts to arouse her, but it was a losing battle. For hours, days, weeks, a lifetime he brought her to the brink of completion and then left her hanging.
She hated him a while and loved him madly, desperately for a while. She begged. She cursed him. And then she begged some more.
Toward dawn, when she’d reached a point of exhaustion where she could barely respond anymore, he asked her if she thought she would be tempted to betray his trust again.
She lied and told him she’d learned her lesson.
That time when he drove into her, he kept thrusting until she reached her peak and came screamingly. And then passed out.
He was gone when she woke.
She was free of the restraints and so sore she couldn’t move without crying out.
Everything on her hurt.
She lay staring at the ceiling for a while, trying to decide if she hated him more and wanted to kill the bastard or loved him.
The frightening thing was that she was afraid she did love him and she’d enjoyed every minute of the torture even while she’d wavered between wanting to come and wanting to kill him for keeping her from her goal.
After sitting in the hot shower for an hour, Noelle thought she was going to have to crawl back to the bed. Much of the soreness was gone, but the heat of the shower had also drawn every ounce of strength from her muscles. Sighing, she dried off and hobbled back to the bed.
Drak brought her breakfast.
She ignored it and she ignored him.
“Eat. You need to keep your strength up.”
Noelle jerked upright at that, staring at him in horror.
He missed the look. As soon as he’d spoken, he turned and left, closing the door firmly behind him.
She’d managed to dress herself and begun to pick at the food when there was a timid knock at the door and then Jules opened it and poked his
head in, studying her worriedly.
“You alright?”
Noelle shuddered. She still didn’t know exactly how she felt about what had happened, but she didn’t really want to think about it. “Sure.”
Jules frowned, glanced up and down the corridor and then entered the room and bolted the door. “He said I’d get a beatin’ if I tried to help you again,” he muttered.
Anger flickered through Noelle. “For trying to help me?”
Jules looked self-conscious. “He said he was proud of me but I coulda been hurt if it was anybody else and he was my sovereign besides.”
Noelle relaxed fractionally. “Well, he’s right. You shouldn’t have gotten into the middle of it. You could’ve been hurt.”
“I was afraid he’d hurt you.”
Noelle opened her arms to him. To her surprise, he rushed toward her and threw his arms around her. “All the more reason you shouldn’t have,” she murmured. “Because if he was a bad man and willing to hurt me he would’ve hurt you, too.”
Jules burst into tears. “I want to go home! I want my mother! Kadin said I’d never see my mother again. He hasn’t seen his mother since Father brought him here and neither has Terl!”
Anger flickered through Noelle that Kadin had told the child that, whether it was true or not. She soothed him the best she could. “Poor baby! I’m so sorry. I wish I could help. You shouldn’t listen to Kadin. He’s … homesick and angry and it apparently makes him feel better to be mean to other people.”
“I’m not a baby!” he growled, pushing away.
Noelle bit her lip. “No. You’re right. Sorry.”
He studied her suspiciously for a moment, then glanced toward the door and moved closer to speak in a low voice. “We could go. I know how to get to the ship. I found a secret way.”
Noelle felt like her heart would leap into her throat and choke her. Homesickness washed over her in an almost physical wave. She knew she shouldn’t even consider what the child was saying, but she’d wanted to go home so bad before she’d pissed Drak off that it was hard to try to be reasonable. “Bab … Honey! We’ll just end up getting in more trouble and then who knows what he’ll do to punish us!”
Jules tilted his head. “He punished you? What did he do? Beat you? Is that why you’re moving so funny?”
Noelle felt her face turn beet red. The blood pulsed in her cheeks like a neon sign. “Uh … no, not really. I mean … of course he didn’t beat me!”
“What did he do then?”
It was impossible to turn any redder. “Well .. . uh … he just wasn’t nice and then he said he’d make me regret it if I betrayed his trust again, and I don’t really want to find out what he might do … if you know what I mean.”
Jules nodded. “He said I’d get ten lashes on my buttocks—publicly—and I want to go home! He’s bound to get mad again and I don’t want nobody looking at my buttocks!”
Noelle was outraged, even though it was a threat/promise and not something Drak had actually done.
Not that her own grandmother had been against corporal punishment. She’d said people remembered pain a lot better than they remembered lectures—or even good things. And she’d been right. One painful, humiliating spanking was all it had taken to convince her not to take unnecessary risks.
But was this unnecessary?
Jules had a point. The chances were probably way better than even that both of them were going to get on his wrong side again.
Besides, she wanted to go home, too, and it was like an ache now that Jules had planted the seed suggesting she might could.
And then there was the pregnancy issue! She still wasn’t convinced he could get her pregnant. Especially now that she knew the plumbing didn’t match! But she wasn’t about to risk having any child of hers raised by aliens with such archaic customs!
“I tell you what—show me and I’ll consider it.”
Jules grinned and threw himself into her arms, hugging her tightly enough to set her sore muscles to throbbing again.
Instead of leading her to the door, however, when he pulled away he headed to the far wall and began to feel along the molding. Abruptly, a door appeared, showing a dark, cavernous maw. Stale, frigid air wafted into the room.
Noelle’s jaw dropped. “OMG! That’s where the damned drafts were coming from! How did you find it?”
Jules put a finger to his lips to silence her. “I got lost,” he whispered. “And I thought I’d found the way to the great hall, but instead I discovered I was outside this room.”
Noelle stared at him, feeling hot embarrassment creep into her cheeks again. She cleared her throat. “When was that?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Not long after I came.”
Relieved, Noelle turned her attention to the door. Generally, she could count on Drak not coming back after he’d left in the morning. She usually left the room and went downstairs and met up with him again in the great hall for the evening meal.
But he had made that threat? promise? Suggestive comment? About her needing to keep her strength up.
She decided to bolt the door—just in case. And then she dragged a few pieces of furniture in front of it—just in case.
When she’d thrown on her warmest clothing, she bundled up the remains of her breakfast and shoved it into a pouch and tied it at her waist. “What about light?”
“I didn’t have one when I found it. If you wait a few minutes, you can see well enough to find the stairs. And then we won’t have to worry about anybody seeing us.”
“Good thought.” She considered it. “Unless your eyes are better than mine and then I might end up breaking my neck. Well, we can try it. If it’s too dark we can come back and find a light of some kind.”
She discovered there was no going back once they stepped inside and closed the hidden door. Either there was no latch on that side or they couldn’t find it.
“Shit!” Noelle muttered.
Jules giggled.
Noelle felt a little hysterical herself. It was as black as pitch. She knew she was standing on a narrow landing and she could end up at the bottom really fast if she wasn’t careful. And now she’d begun to think her decision might not have been one of the smartest impulses she’d ever had.
What if they couldn’t get away?
And Drak discovered they’d tried?
Jules was going to get his fanny beat publicly and she was going to have another session of BDSM so Drak could he was master of her destiny and she didn’t know if she could handle it or not!
Not that she hadn’t thoroughly enjoyed it in some respects, but there was no getting around the fact that it had seemed nearly unbearable at times and went on far longer than she’d wanted.
And if he caught her he might think she was begging for more of the same or worse!
Shaking that thought off—galvanized to act by it—she began to search for the next step with her foot. Jules was already half way down the damn stairs from the sound of it!
He was right about the light, though. There was just enough filtering into the shaft from somewhere to make it possible to detect outlines.
It was still frighteningly nerve-wracking. Her knees were wobbly by the time she reached the bottom.
Jules was impatient and pushing her to hurry. “Are there anymore things I could fall down or over?”
“It’s just the tunnel now.”
Lava tube, Noelle wondered? Or man made? Because it seemed likely to have side shafts if it was an artificial tunnel—like a mining shaft. “You’re sure there aren’t any side tunnels where we could get lost down here forever?”
“I didn’t find any. You need to be very quiet because I don’t know how close anybody is and there’s usually a guard at the cave where they keep the ship.”
Well, thank god she had the little man helping her! She would’ve gotten herself caught ten times already!
Chastened, she let the young boy lead her and they moved as quickly as possible. It seemed to
take a very long time and Noelle was doing a lot of mental calculations. Using her PMAI to recall her arrival, she calculated that it had taken them around thirty minutes to reach the castle, but that had been on the back of an animal and through snow and along a pass. They were clearly traveling through the mountain rather than around it even if they were on foot. The distance should be shorter. But would it be faster since they were on foot?
Just about the time she reached the point of hysterical certainty that they’d gotten lost and were going to die in the damned tunnels, she discovered the tunnel was growing lighter.
And colder.
She wanted to ask Jules how much further he thought it was, but she thought they must be close and he’d said there was a guard.
Almost on the thought the child paused and turned to her, placing a finger on his lips in a gesture of silence. She nodded and moved closer when he moved up to a short rock wall and peered over the top. She mimicked him and after a few minutes spotted a man on the far side of the cavern—near the mouth.
Did that mean they didn’t know about the secret door or the tunnel?
She hoped so.
On the other hand, she’d barricaded the door. If they discovered that, they were going to be taking the room apart to figure out how she’d escaped it with the door barred and they’d probably discover the entrance.
She didn’t want to wait around and find out!
Jules pointed and she followed the direction, frowning when she didn’t see what he was pointing at. After a moment, when the guard got up and walked to the cave entrance to piss, Jules grabbed her hand and led her quickly in the direction he’d indicated. The gangplank, she discovered, was still extended.
Unfortunately, the hatch door was closed. They raced up the gangplank on tiptoes and then turned to look at one another.
She was supposed to know how to get in?
Thankfully, after staring at her a split second, the child moved to a small box, which had a keypad and keyed in the code. The door slid open silently.
Thank god!
As soon as they were inside, Jules used the keypad to close the door again and led her to the control room. “I don’t think the guard knows how to get in.”
Barbarian Prince Page 17
