“Fornicate?” she asked playfully.
“Closer. Try”—he came very close and whispered to her lips—“fuck.”
She laughed. “Fuck.” As she said the word, she blushed. “You’ll make me a bad girl yet.”
“It’s going to be a difficult challenge, but one I am uniquely suited for.” Again, he drew near to her mouth and said, “Fuck just sounds hard and nasty, doesn’t it?” He knew how to swear in a hundred languages, but that particular word always excited him. Just hearing her say it caused his erection to return.
Nodding, she trailed her fingertips over his face, then down his chest. “Cock,” she said, grabbing a handful.
This time he laughed. “Another hard and nasty word.” He placed his hand upon her mound and said, “Cunt.”
She winced. “That word is so vulgar.”
“Is it?” he asked, teasing his finger between slick folds. “What word would you prefer?”
Playfully, she squeezed his shaft, and said, “Give me some choices.”
He gave her several, and each time he named another word to describe the enchanted place between her lovely legs, he plunged his finger deep inside her beautiful cunt. He was just getting to the Cuearcian terms when she clutched his shaft a little too hard. He cautioned her, but knew he would never be able to concentrate with her fondling him, so he had her lift her hands above her head, letting him continue his recitation of terms while finger-fucking her into a frenzy.
“That’s it, lovely Ariss. Lie back and let me tell you more luscious words to describe this glorious place.” Now he slipped another finger inside her, which she acknowledged with a deep moan and the rolling of her hips. The closer he pushed her to the edge, the more she moved, wild and wanton and desperately craving the culmination. Just as she came close, he pulled her back.
“Kerrick, please, this tension, this tightening, I can’t bear it.” Her breath was harsh, gasping, her body covered in a sheen of sweat, but she was not where he wanted her, not yet.
“But you will bear it. You’ll lie there and take everything I have to give.” His words were harsh, but his voice was softly threatening, whispered right to her ear. “Now, repeat after me.”
Each time he said a vulgar word, she repeated it, then he would thrust his fingers deep and rub his thumb across her now hard and greedy little clit.
“That’s it, Ariss, what an excellent bad girl you are.”
Her whimper surged desire straight to his cock. He’d wanted to watch her climax, but he couldn’t hold back his own burning needs. All this talk of naming her sex had him dying to feel her slick cunt wrapped around his cock.
When he pulled his hand away, she grabbed for his wrist, begging him not to stop, not now when she was so close. And there, just briefly, was a flicker of anger in her gaze. Perhaps some day, when she was more secure, she wouldn’t beg but demand he finish. That day was not today, but it wasn’t far off, either. Still, he should take advantage of his power position while he could.
“I’m not going to stop.” He lifted her up, placing her on her knees. “I’m just going to do more.”
Balanced on her hands and knees, Ariss turned her head to look back at him. Her cool gray eyes were smoldering like coals ready to spring to life. Her mouth was parted prettily, almost begging him to again thrust his prick between those sultry lips. As much as he wanted to, there was something more profoundly erotic he wanted to show her.
With a wicked smirk, he parted her cheeks.
Her eyes went wide and her lips drew apart in denial as she tried to move forward. However, his hands were strong and gripped her buttocks firmly. Without a word, he lowered his face and placed his tongue against the puckered skin between her cheeks.
Her reaction was a surprised sound followed by a long drawn-out moan of pleasure. Carefully, he teased his tongue around the delicate skin, reveling in the way she now tilted her hips, lifting her bottom, encouraging him to continue. Gods, she had a beautiful ass. High molded cheeks, smooth skin over taut muscles, and tiny, almost imperceptible dimples on either side.
“Do you like this?” he asked, making sure to ask the question so that his breath moved across her now fully awakened flesh.
“Yes.” Wonder made her voice soft.
Kerrick had never known of this particular activity until a woman on Tapring had done it to him. His shock and disgust had fallen away when he realized how sensitive the skin there was, and how astonishingly good teasing that responsive flesh felt. The woman had opened his mind to a whole new range of sensual bliss that he now wanted to share with Ariss.
He knew she was ready for more when her whimpers deepened, and she clutched the silken bedclothes in her fists. Ker-rick kissed his way up her back until his cock pressed against her now-dripping cunt. So excited had he become he knew it wouldn’t take long for him to climax. He didn’t want to go too fast, so he didn’t enter her, he just held steady at her passage while he teased his finger to her bottom.
“Do you want me to put it in you?” he asked playfully, knowing she wouldn’t know if he was talking about his cock or his finger.
After a brief hesitation, she whispered, “Yes, put it in me.”
Slowly, he slid his finger inside that tight channel, causing her to arch back in welcome. Her fearless response, her stunned willingness to try, amazed him. He longed to give her even more. Holding steady with his cock to her passage, he slipped his other hand around her hip to smooth his fingers over her clit. Ariss bucked her hips up and down, riding the alternate motions of his fingers.
Kerrick watched her hands grasping and releasing fistfuls of the bedclothes, signaling her pleasure and a clear desire for more.
“Are you a good student, Ariss?”
She nodded her head in time with the movements of her body, never missing a beat of the erotic dance she performed with his hands. At that moment, he wanted a mirror on the wall so that he could see her movements from the side. She must look spectacular with her body making sinuous waves, and her black tresses obscuring, then revealing her face. He could just picture her expression: her lips pursed, her eyes closed, and then her lips parting to emit tremulous moans of hunger.
“Tell me the dirty words you learned today.”
Softly at first, she named them in whispers, but as he continued to torment her, her voice grew in volume until she chanted them proudly and almost musically. Then her tone took a darker edge as she hissed the words between clenched teeth. The words enveloped him, compelling him to the point he couldn’t stand anymore. Without warning, he plunged his cock deep into her. He’d never heard a sweeter sound than Ariss’ bellow of acceptance. The walls of her passage clutched him, the temperature blazing around his shaft. So snuggly did she grip, he wasn’t able to thrust for a moment. She captured him and held him, possessing him and showing him that, yet again, he did not have total mastery over her. Pleased by her swift progress, he altered the stroke of his fingers, forcing her to shift her rhythm, which allowed him to thrust deeply in time to her uplifting bottom.
Together, they created a new pace. Each time she rose up, presenting her bottom to him, she would groan a sultry chant of encouragement. Each time he plunged deep, ramming his cock fully into her, he would growl an animalistic snarl of possession. Moving as one, they reached closer to the edge. When he fell over, climaxing and thrusting out of sync, she too succumbed, tumbling down into bliss as she lost her strength and collapsed on the bed.
Before they could even recover, four guards entered, yanked Kerrick to his feet, tossed his robe over him, and hauled him away. The last he saw of Ariss was her reaching out to him. And damn it to the nothingness, but he forgot to ask her what a ker-rick was.
8
The two palace guards didn’t touch her, but they ensured Ariss returned to her rooms without any detours. Once there, she shrugged off her robe and headed for the tub her paratanist had thoughtfully filled. Within moments, warm water frothy with bubbles came up to her chin. Angling the p
illow behind her head, she closed her eyes and replayed her time with Ker-rick.
Even though the water was wonderfully hot, she shivered at how he made her feel. Kerrick evoked such strong feelings, and not just physical sensations; he said things that made her crazy with desire. She tried to understand exactly what it was about him, but she couldn’t put her finger on anything in particular. He was terribly good-looking, with a physique any man would be proud of and any woman would want to explore, but he was also intelligent, emotionally sensitive, wickedly clever, and possessed a wild sense of humor. He also had a smile that could charm anyone. In the end, she decided the sum of him aroused her.
Even when she thought she couldn’t do as he wished, that his desire was too far removed from what she could comfortably endure, he proved her wrong. All the dirty words she spoke went through her mind, each causing its own little ripple of excitement first in her brain, then in her body. She laughed a little at how in one night he’d changed her vocabulary forever.
A deeper tremor caused the bathwater to splash beyond the edge of the tub when she thought of his tongue … there. Never would she have even thought of such a thing, and when she realized his intent, she’d automatically pulled away, but then when the contact came … bliss. How could something so sinful be so pleasurable?
Her eyes blinked open at the thought, for who was the one deciding what was immoral? If anything that felt good was evil, then all of sex had her destined to spend eternity in the nothingness, right along with everyone else. So far, everything she’d done with Kerrick was pleasurable beyond words. Did that make it wrong?
Confused between what her parents preached and what she had now discovered on her own, Ariss decided she simply couldn’t trust her parents, not in this matter or any other. Once again, they proved to her that they did not have her best interests at heart. Behind her on the table lay the proof of their selfishness, not to mention the shocking depth of their greed. Placing their own daughter in bondage bothered them not at all, for in their minds, she was their possession, and they could do as they pleased with her.
Ariss had hoped her paratanist would have removed the shameful thing, but he’d probably not known what to do with the dress, so there it stayed, spilled across the table in glaring silver condemnation.
Another series of shivers caused the bathwater to splash, but this was not a tremor of lust, this was a quiver borne of dread. How could her parents have done this to her? When she’d first seen the dress, Ariss had been delighted by its beauty but puzzled by its color. Her family color was yellow, her color as Harvester was black, so who would send her a silver dress when only the palace magistrate wore silver?
And that’s when her heart sank. The small card announcing the gift only confirmed what she already knew. Ambo’s skit-tery script praising her as his soon-to-be bondmate caused her stomach to clench and her eyes to water. Tears tumbled as she tore the note to shreds and tossed it away. Now she understood everything her parents had done in the last few cycles.
Coming to the palace wasn’t about securing their place among the elite; taking residence here was the first step to getting Ariss into the Harvester competition. Ambo helped, because once she was the Harvester, her parents would force her to select him as her bondmate. He could have taken her as a mate without all of this subterfuge, but a magistrate needed a bondmate with prestige, and the only position with greater prestige than the Harvester was that of empress.
Once she bonded to Ambo, he would, in turn, reward her parents with access to those who could buy their products for use at the palace. Already they provided estal oil and the herb used to make umer, but her father often complained that the palace should buy his raw material to make astle. Out of everything the palace used, astle was the most profitable item, and the palace used the fabric in great quantities. Her father swore his thread was superior to all others, and finally he’d found a way to get the palace to buy from him.
All it cost him was his eldest daughter.
Ariss stepped from the tub and dried herself mechanically. Ambo was seventy seasons. All he could offer her was money and position; two things she cared nothing about. He couldn’t love her, for he didn’t know her, and gods only knew what he would do to her in his bed. Rumors of his disgusting practices of combining food and multiple partners had reached all the way to Felton. Once she’d seen him, in the flesh, she’d been immediately repulsed by his weight, but he only made matters worse when he picked his nose, wiping the mess on the side of his silver uniform. His sparse hair had been a tangled mess atop his head, and his furtive eyes had crawled over her, undressing her, molesting her, before finally settling on her breasts. All through the brief encounter, where he ostensibly conversed with her parents, he’d kept his eyes riveted to her chest. Ariss had then understood why her mother insisted she wear the low-cut yellow gown. During the brief chat, she stood there feeling like meat on display in the butcher’s window. Several times, Ambo licked his lips, as if slurping back the drool that would surely fall if he did not mop up.
Ariss tried to imagine the bonding ceremony; her resplendent in the silver dress, its color matching her cool gray eyes, and then Ambo, his uniform wrinkled, covered in dried snot swipes, his florid face wet with sweat. She covered her mouth with her hand to hold back a sob. Almost of its own accord, her hand trailed down to the necklace. Against her palm, the stone felt warm and heavy, reminding her that her fate was not sealed. If she dared, she could change the world and avoid the trap her parents set for her.
Across the room, her ghostly reflection mirrored her stance, shocking her with the dejected shape of her pose. Automatically, she straightened her shoulders. She wasn’t beaten yet. Standing around crying wasn’t going to help matters one bit. Determined, Ariss tossed her towel by the tub, slipped on her robe, then settled herself at the table. Again, her paratanist had thoughtfully left a small snack for her under covered platters. He said he had served the last ten Harvesters, and she believed him, because he anticipated even the smallest of her needs.
She selected a bowl of creamed nicla, a large portion of seared aket, and several slices of dark bread. To persevere through this challenge, she would need her strength. What she had to do was not something she ever would have deliberately chosen for herself, but she selected the path that was the lesser of two evils.
No matter what, she couldn’t bond to Ambo. Now that Kerrick had shown her the unimaginable pleasures of the flesh, she couldn’t bear to even think of trying such things with Ambo. She’d rather toss herself from the balcony than suffer one night in his bed.
However, her other option would be the downfall of an innocent. One who didn’t even understand what her true duty was. Kerrick’s ignorance certainly would hurt him. Ariss felt awful about taking advantage of him, but what else could she do? She had two choices, neither one honorable, but this choice at least gave her the possibility of having a successful bonding. Kerrick would be furious when he found out, but she hoped that with time, she could prove to him that they could work together. She hoped and prayed that maybe he would understand.
Ariss knew her parents would not relent, and if she defied them by choosing a man other than Ambo, they would likely reveal the subterfuge in getting her selected as the Harvester, which would end in her execution. Despite her protests, none would believe she had entered the contest without prior knowledge of her assured success. Ambo would likely walk away unscathed, as he had in several other scandals. Ambo had a knack for escaping punishment for his misdeeds, probably because he had been the magistrate for so long that he knew secrets about everyone. This, in turn, made the voting body of the elite reluctant to cast their ballot for his inquisition, for what if those secrets should inadvertently tumble out during the harsh questioning? In that defiant scenario, only Ariss herself would suffer. She shook her head, knowing that was not the path for her.
However, if she followed the other path, her parents would have no choice but to accept the inevitable outco
me. How could they protest if she fulfilled the extent of her true duty? For surely, they didn’t know the Harvester obligations had changed so drastically, or they never would have forced her into this position in the first place. No matter what they said, the populace would not listen to them, for Ariss would have given the people the ultimate goal of the Harvest prophecy: a true paratanist.
Chur Zenge had turned the prophecy back to its most ancient obligation: a child born of the male and female Harvesters, and carried directly by the female Harvester. Her and Kerrick’s child, once grown, would rule beside the empress and have as much power as she. Out of all the rules, rites, and rituals, this was the definitive purpose. The ancients had believed this child would be strong, beautiful, and possess godlike powers.
Ariss took a deep breath, worried to have so much heaped upon the child she hadn’t even created yet, but who knew what truth there was to the prophecy? Perhaps there was some magical aspect that she did not understand. Her and Kerrick combined might be bigger than each apart. Somehow, she doubted that, but she refused to let that stop her, for her only other alternative was to bond to Ambo.
Curious as to where the paratanists had come from prior to this return to the most ancient way, Ariss had spent several evenings pouring over the Harvester tome she’d been given during her inauguration. There, in a rather nondescript passage about the benefits of daily bathing, she had discovered the awful truth. Prior to this Harvest, the male and female Harvesters had their sperm and eggs combined, then placed in a tanist. Such sounded innocuous enough, but then, they ritualis-tically killed the poor woman to retrieve the issue, which were isolated from society and became paratanists. Ariss’ very own servant would have come from such a terrible scenario. She wondered if he knew the truth of his birth, then decided not to tell him if he didn’t. Telling him served no purpose other than hurting him. In this instance, ignorance was truly bliss.
[The Onic Empire 03] - Sinful Harvest Page 10
