Saerileth looked back over her shoulder and licked her lips. She rested her head in the crook of her right arm as her left hand grasped the end of the divan. Darien positioned her right leg into a L-shape on the divan while letting the left lie straight. Her naked and bare sex lay exposed to him. Her pussy was beautiful, perfect pink lips, hairless as Zenji were wont to have them, with just enough of an opening to make a man want to part them all the way. Darien licked his fingers and ran them over the head of his cock, wetting it with saliva to make his entrance easier. He did not boast about the massive size of his dick; he just considered it courteous to take it easy on women until they were used to him.
He pressed himself against Saerileth’s pussy until the head of his cock slipped through. She was soaked, and her excitement helped ease him in. She let out a long, slow moan as her whole body tensed. Her toes curled. She gripped the cushions of the divan even harder, and she buried her face in the velvet pillows. Darien held himself perfectly still, his cock only halfway in her. He was oversized, and though many of his crew envied him his cock, Darien would actually have liked one a bit smaller. All his concubines had had this reaction when he had first taken them. It was damned inconvenient, not being able to slam into his women with all his might. Sometimes he wanted to cut loose, but he knew he could not. Even in slow, easy sex, there was always a touch of pain.
Saerileth recovered and looked back, her blue eyes full of passion for him. She gave a slight nod, and Darien pressed forward. This time Saerileth did not look away. She raised her ass, angling her pussy for deeper penetration, and Darien slid home. With his balls pressed against her clit, he felt his cum build inside his shaft. He paused again, waiting for Saerileth to grow accustomed to him, but she whispered back, “Show me what your cock can do.”
Darien groaned and pulled halfway out, then buried himself again. The walls of her pussy clenched his cock, and with each thrust, it was like he was breaking new ground again. Saerileth had perfect control over her body, especially her vagina, and she knew how to use it to best effect. Darien fucked her with long, gentle, but deep strokes, each time ending the thrust with his balls against her clit. He reached under and massaged her button, and that served to open her legs wider, to raise her ass just a little more, giving Darien just a bit deeper access. Saerileth winced on his next time in, and Darien felt his cock completely harden. It was stone, its maximum length, so he knew he had to be careful. His cock was striking her cervix, but as she was lying on her belly, he could fuck her without injuring her. Saerileth moved in just the right way, too, increasing Darien’s pleasure, bringing him closer to climax with each thrust.
Saerileth leaned her head back as if searching for a kiss. Darien leaned forward and gave her one. She reached back and caressed his face as they kissed, and when Darien pulled away, ready to resume his pussy ministrations, he saw her tattoo.
“Abrexa’s cunt!” Darien caught her arm and turned it so that he could better see her left inner forearm. Just as he thought he had seen: a Red Lotus tattoo, fully bloomed and inked. He pulled out of her and stood. “You’re a Lotus? A full-blown Lotus?”
Saerileth turned over. “That is true.” She reached out and took his hand, drawing him back to the divan. “But I am your concubine now, by Sunjaa law and contract.” She gestured in Kamen’s direction. Darien glanced back to see his first mate standing near the door. Kamen fumed, but Darien could not think about his friend’s inexplicable bad humor at that moment.
Saerileth sat Darien down on the divan and climbed on top. She lowered herself onto his cock, taking it slow but steadily until his entire length disappeared inside her. So much smaller than he was she that she was able to lock her ankles around his knees and bounce up and down on his cock, using his muscular thighs as a springboard. She planted her hands flat against his pectorals for support as she rode him, and as she fucked him with more vigor than he had ever seen in any of his concubines, she traced the water-serpent tattoo that started on the left side of his chest, went over the shoulder, across his shoulder blade, and down along his left side, its tail ending down near his lower abdomen. It was a magnificent tattoo, but it was not the one Darien was thinking about. Saerileth fucked him, and it was like heaven to him, but still Darien could not take his eyes from that Red Lotus tattoo.
He was fucking a Red Lotus.
He had found a Red Lotus on the open sea.
He had taken a Red Lotus as his concubine.
Saving her from gang-rape, he had claimed her by salvage rights, so no one could take her away from him. Someone had purchased her, surely. That had to have been the reason she was on her way to Arinport. What had happened? How could the captain that was transporting her have so easily lost her? Had her ship been attacked? How could a Red Lotus possibly have ever found herself friendless and unprotected in the world? Now she was his. All these questions raced through Darien’s mind in an instant, for Saerileth still vigorously fucked him, and the only thing he could really attend to was her tits bouncing before him and the cum that shot up his shaft.
Darien leaned forward and took one of her pink nipples in his mouth. He sucked and nibbled at it until it pebbled, and the skill with which he tended to her caused her to cease her bouncing and switch to rocking back and forward, bringing deeper sensations from her pussy down on his cock. When he sucked one nipple, he pinched the other, and then he switched. He increased the pressure of his tweaking until she shuddered and locked her hips against his, her high whine betraying her orgasm.
He had made a Red Lotus come.
After she recovered, she opened her blue eyes and seized Darien with the beauty of her fresh, revived countenance. Her orgasm had made her lovelier; her eyes glowed. She began to rock again, and she ran her thumbs across Darien’s nipples. His cock hardened more. She leaned down and kissed him, though she kept her back arched to maintain that sweet angle of her pussy as it sheathed him over and over again. Her kisses and caresses took him over the edge, and when Darien came, he grabbed Saerileth by the waist and held her in place until he had emptied all his seed into her.
Saerileth did not even try to escape; she seemed happy to take everything he offered her. And with a final lingering kiss, she slipped off him and collapsed in sweaty fatigue next to him on the divan.
Darien saw Kamen as if it were for the first time. Though he basked in the sunshine glow of Saerileth’s sex, Kamen stood in some self-imposed gloom. But at that moment Darien did not care.
“I think I will retire now, after all,” Darien said. He had his riches; he had his Lotus. What more did he need?
Chapter Three
Saerileth tried to calm herself, to catch her breath, but her Lotus training utterly failed her. She lay, panting and sweating, and she could not tear her eyes from Darien.
Darien, her new master. Darien, the glorious beauty of the noonday sun. He was just the same as in her dreams. It had been thirteen years ago, and she had grown from a five-year-old child, small for her age, into a woman of full breasts and round hips – but Darien, he had been a grown man then. As a child she had not noticed his extraordinary beauty. Then he had been to her a savior only, one of Alaxton Battlebringer’s own soldiers come to pull her from that pit of death. It had only been as she grew older that she realized that that face and form in her dreams were those of a perfect specimen of Sunjaa manhood.
Darien. His name had the traditional -en suffix for Sunjaa male names, and the sound of it was pleasant in her ears. Only an hour ago she had been lying in her lifeboat on the open sea, waiting for death, and now she was here, lying in the sweat-soaked arms of the man whose kindness had turned the nightmare of her childhood into the pleasantness of waking in safety. She had faced death on the deck of his ship, an ugly, humiliating death by gang-rape, and he had saved her again.
Darien’s breathing was still fast, but she could tell by his deep inhalations that he was a strong, vigorous man, one who would doubtless be able to leap from this couch to wield a sword without
a moment more to recover.
Saerileth closed her eyes and listened. The breath of the first mate – Kamen, Darien had called him – was still uneven. She raised her eyelids slightly, the direction of her glance effectively screened by the thickness of her lashes. Kamen stared at Darien, whose eyes were still closed, with a look of frustrated lust such as Saerileth had rarely seen not directed toward herself. Kamen stood easily, the rocking of the ship no difficulty for him, but still he kept one hand stretched before him to hold onto the table. Saerileth knew at once that he must be hiding his erection. So the sight of a naked woman was not distasteful to him, then. But Kamen wanted his captain; Saerileth knew it as certainly as if Kamen had confessed it himself.
Darien rolled over slightly, pulling Saerileth toward him. She willingly succumbed, and she slipped her arms around him. Her hands played over his massive shoulders, sliding down his back. It was just as she felt broad scars beneath her fingers that Kamen spoke.
“Captain, you can’t mean you’re going to retire.”
Darien did not look at Kamen, instead fixing his eyes on Saerileth’s face as he replied. “Oh yes, I am. We are due in Arinport tomorrow anyway, and I won’t go back out again.”
Saerileth opened her eyes wide and fixed them on Darien’s face. He smiled at her, and the whiteness of his teeth in his dark face sent dampness to her aching pussy. “You live in Arinport, Master?” she asked.
“You don’t need to call me that,” he said. “My name is Darien.”
“But you are my master.” Saerileth glanced at Kamen, and that Darien apparently understood her meaning pleased her.
“Kamen—”
“You’re not really retiring?” Kamen said it again. “Captain, this girl is just a concubine—”
Darien sat up, and the tension in his muscles brought the scars across his back into sharp relief. The scars were, Saerileth realized, quite severe. “Kamen, step outside. We will speak there.” Darien rose from the divan then and slid on the loose breeches that he had so recently removed. She watched him go, and the moment the door closed behind him, she brought her breathing under control.
She did not scold herself too severely for the loss of control, however. It had been nearly two years since she had last climaxed. To bring oneself to climax was a weakness in any Lotus, but having been trained in sex by the most skillful men in the Dimadan, Lotuses were spoilt for other lovers. But Darien, he had made her come. She shifted on the divan, pulling down her skirt. Her undergarments were lost, and her shirt was ripped. Saerileth picked up her pallav and began to wind it back around herself, covering her bare breasts with it. And she listened. Though the conversation was being held in low tones and a thick oaken door separated her from the speakers, still she could make out the words Darien and Kamen exchanged.
“Captain, you can’t be serious.” Kamen’s words held a desperation Saerileth perfectly understood. “You just said yourself that you had no intention of retiring!”
“That was before I found a Red Lotus. Saerileth is reason enough to stay in Arinport.” Darien’s deep voice carried easily to Saerileth’s ears.
“Well, of course, you’d want some shore leave, but after a fortnight or so, surely you’d come back to sea. You’re only thirty-six, Captain. You’re strong, in your prime.”
Saerileth smiled. Darien was indeed strong. Though Kamen had the lithe grace of a hunting cat and, she suspected, something of a jaguar’s strength, Darien was different. He was raw power in a massive frame, larger and greater than any other man she had ever seen. Sometimes she had wondered if, in her dreams, he had seemed so large only because she had herself been a child, but now that she saw him again, she knew better. He was as large as she remembered. A twinge of pain in her pussy reminded her that he was larger than she had realized, and pleasure filled her again.
“I have served the Sunjaa nation for twenty years,” said Darien. “I was sixteen when I came aboard my first ship, twenty-eight when I got a command of my own. I would say that the King has had enough of my life. I want the rest for myself.”
Kamen’s reply was strained. “Well, hunting pirates won’t be the same without you, Captain.”
“You’ll have this ship, though.” Saerileth heard the sound of Darien’s hand clapping against Kamen’s shoulder. “I’ll see to it that you take command after me.”
“No, Captain, there’s no need. As I said, the sport’s not the same without you. I might as well leave, too.”
Darien laughed, a sound large and free as the man himself, and Saerileth smiled again, for no reason she could determine. “And you were so anxious to avoid settling? It looks like you just didn’t see the way clear to catching a good mate! Well, don’t worry. Red Lotuses know how to do everything. I’m sure that, with her help, I will be able to hold parties even you could attend – and we’ll find you a nice little noblewoman to marry.”
“I’d be glad to come to your house, Captain.”
“Then it’s settled. I’ll have a retirement party three days after we get back.” Darien’s voice altered slightly, as though he were walking around. “Retirement? I’d never thought I would, but after seeing that sweet little Lotus, I don’t want to go back to sea again.”
“Should I tell the men that you’re leaving?” Saerileth heard the pain in Kamen’s voice, pain to which Darien seemed oblivious.
“No, I’ll tell them myself when we go ashore. No need to make this last day’s sailing depressing. I suspect the men are still at common quarters, so you go on.”
“Won’t you come, too, Captain? It’ll be your last time.” Kamen’s voice held more hope in it than Saerileth had expected, and she resolved to ask about “common quarters” as soon as Darien came back to her.
“No, Kamen!” Darien laughed again. “I have a Red Lotus waiting in my cabin. I have a Red Lotus for a concubine!”
Saerileth felt some of Darien’s obvious wonder as she thought on her situation. Red Lotuses, though always property, whether of the guild or of a fortunate private purchaser, were never mere concubines. They were considered far too valuable for that, and even a private purchaser had to woo her to his bed. A concubine, however, served at her master’s pleasure. It was not a circumstance Saerileth had ever thought would befall her.
The door opened, and Darien stepped in again, closing it behind him. He smiled at the sight of her, and she felt her lips curve in response. She certainly had intended to smile at him, to begin her seduction of him, the establishment of her power over him, but she had not smiled in that way. She had not done as she had intended. Rather, the sight of his pleasure had naturally brought out pleasure in her.
“Master—”
“No.” Darien seemed to fill the cabin, which had seemed spacious while she was listening to him speak with Kamen outside, and he was at her side more quickly than she had expected. “I’m Darien to you, Saerileth.”
“I’m your concubine,” she said. “I am your property. It’s not right that I should use your name.”
Darien cradled her cheek in his hand. “I didn’t save you to be my property.”
Saerileth’s eyes widened. Darien had not known she was a Lotus, of course, but she had expected that he was saving her in order to have her, to keep her. “Are you dismissing me then?” She could not have explained why that thought stung so much.
“Of course not.” Darien’s hand wandered up to caress her hair. “It’s just that’s not why I saved you. I saved you because you were worth saving.”
Saerileth had to call upon all her training to keep her breath even. She wanted to melt beneath his hand. “But it is not right that others should hear me call you by your name.”
“I’m not a nobleman,” said Darien. “I don’t know much protocol. I’ll take your word for it on that, and if you ought to call me ‘Master’ around other people, then do that. But for Abrexa’s sake call me ‘Darien’ when we’re alone!”
“Yes, Darien.” She paused. “What is ‘common quarters’?”
>
Darien shook his head. “Why do you ask?”
“Because you sent the men to common quarters when you brought me here.” Saerileth leaned her head against his hand as he continued to play with her hair.
“I don’t suppose you know anything about the way the Sunjaa run their navy, but we don’t like to let the sailors get too wild.”
Saerileth furrowed her brow. Darien was not making sense.
“When a man’s been too long at sea, he needs to fuck someone.” Darien’s mouth curved upward. “There aren’t any women aboard, so in common quarters the men fuck one another. Besides, it builds camaraderie. A man will fight for a lover even harder than for a companion-in-arms.”
Saerileth glanced over Darien’s body. His cock was the largest she had ever seen, and she doubted that anyone could take it entirely in his ass, at least not without two or three weeks’ preparation. “And you enjoy common quarters?” She did not think that, as Kamen clearly did, Darien liked both sexes equally.
“It’s what sailors do. It keeps them from being too interested in rape.”
Saerileth raised her eyebrows. “Really?”
Darien shrugged. “I hadn’t called common quarters in a while.”
She understood then. Darien liked women, and fucking his fellow sailors did not satisfy him. Doubtless he did it well – he had made her come – but it was not what he wanted. And he was a man of sufficient control not to let his desire for sex interfere with his work. “In a very long while, I suspect.”
“Perhaps too long,” said Darien.
Saerileth looked up into his eyes. They were a brown so dark as to be nearly black, a brown even darker than his skin, and their lashes were ridiculously long. Darien’s hair was close-cropped, and his chest was bare of hair. Why should his eyelashes be so long?
“How long is your hair?” asked Darien.
Saerileth blinked. His thoughts had closely mirrored her own. “When I let it all the way loose, it falls almost to my knees.”
The Soldier's Lotus Page 3
