“There is no balloon in my pants.” He clapped his inner thighs and gazed down. Samantha’s eyes followed. “Every bit of swell you see is my own cock. As for fitting, Abigail Henley had me measured for a suit of clothing during my time with her.”
His time with Abigail. The woman looked like she was somewhere between seventy and a hundred in that old photo. Samantha wondered if Lugal and the old lady had slept together. The idea made her cringe a little. But if Abigail was having him measured for clothes, they were probably close enough to be doing the horizontal mambo.
The microwave dinged again, snapping Samantha’s attention to the present. She noted that Lugal tried to take the mechanical bell-like noise in stride, although he obviously couldn’t help the involuntary tensing of his muscles at the sound.
Pushing her rather unsavory thoughts of Abigail and Lugal aside, she asked him, “How can you survive in that bottle all those years without eating?”
“It is similar to what you would call hibernation. During my time of bottled imprisonment, I exist in a dreamlike state, half alive and half in Kurnugi, the land of no return.”
Samantha dressed the salads she’d prepared with balsamic vinegar, olive oil, oregano and a bit of fresh, minced garlic. “How did you end up in the bottle?”
Lugal’s expression darkened. “It is not something I wish to speak of. Do I have your permission not to answer?”
Samantha’s heart broke just a little bit as she watched this strong man struggle, believing he needed her consent to maintain his privacy. “Oh, Lugal, you don’t need my permission. Of course you can refuse to answer.”
“I am bound to obey my possessor and answer her questions.” He bowed his head quickly. “You are benevolent to allow me this privilege of privacy, Samantha.”
Once again, Samantha felt her heart twist. She was overcome with curiosity about this man and his strange past. Not quite sure what to say in response, she posed what she hoped was a less intrusive question, instead.
“Do you recall the last meal you ate, Lugal?”
Lugal’s eyes softened. “Quite well. It was in the summer of 1859,” he said, his deep, accented voice capturing her attention as he reminisced. “Abigail had prepared a picnic lunch for us to eat on the porch. We ate crackers, cold boiled ham, fried potatoes and tea out of tin plates and cups. My favorite part of the meal was blackberry cobbler, made with berries harvested from the bushes that grew wild and abundant behind the house.”
“I have blackberry bushes here too,” Samantha offered, setting the salads on the placemats and taking a seat opposite Lugal. “They grow wild all over the place here in Portland, even on the side of the road. Bet you’d love that cobbler à la mode, with a nice fat scoop of Häagen-Dazs vanilla bean ice cream plopped on top.” Her eyes fluttered closed. “Mmmm.”
“I do not know what this big fat scoop you speak of is, Samantha,” Lugal said, stabbing a forkful of salad greens, “but I am familiar with the look of extreme pleasure on your face. After we eat, I will spend the entire night eliciting that dreamy expression from you if you will let me.” He shoved the lettuce into his mouth and chewed with a satisfied murmur. “Good taste.”
At the same moment her brain was registering the fact that this poor, deprived man had never tasted ice cream, the juncture between her thighs quivered.
“I can do amazing things with my tongue, Samantha,” he promised with a cocky smile as he munched on romaine.
Oh…she just bet he could.
Her fork poised in midair, Samantha couldn’t help wonder what that expressive mouth of his would feel like paying homage to her pussy. The thought surprised the hell out of her, because no man had ever bothered exploring her nether regions with his mouth. She didn’t really have any idea what it would feel like, or if she’d even like it or not.
Until she’d focused on Lugal’s sensuous lips, that is. She had a suspicion she’d like the sensation fine. Just fine.
“This isn’t appropriate dinner conversation, Lugal,” she informed him in a voice that came out sounding far too breathy, when she’d intended it to be more like a teacher’s reprimand.
“My apologies. I hunger for more than just food, Samantha.” He looked at her like she was a warm, inviting bowl of blackberry cobbler as he spoke. “It has been a very long time.”
Getting all hot and bothered while she ate salad was a new experience for Samantha. As she crunched and chewed, she found her wanton thoughts drifting to her mouth, and what it might be like to use it on the impressive bulge in her genie’s balloon pants.
She’d never thought much of the idea of sucking a cock and had only done it for one man, Tommy, her last boyfriend. It was an eh kind of experience for her, but since it made him howl and shudder with pleasure, she did it when he pressured her. After all, this was the guy she thought she’d end up marrying—until he decided to stick that pesky pecker of his into the bouncy little waitress at their favorite pizza joint.
It was in the restaurant’s bathroom, while Samantha and Tommy were waiting for their deep-dish sausage, pepper, onion and mushroom pizza to bake.
As soon as she’d reached the restrooms, and before she even had a chance to knock on the locked door to the ladies facility, Samantha knew. She knew it was Tommy in there boffing the waitress when she heard his familiar ooh, yeah, baby, yeah, and the waitress’ Betty Boop voice moaning, oh, oh, Tommy in response.
Samantha’s gaze drifted over Lugal’s torso. Even at six-feet, Tommy seemed like a puny adolescent compared with him. Lugal was all man, big, hard, solid and virtually oozing with testosterone.
And he wanted to pleasure her until she was boneless.
Once, just once in her life, she’d love to do something downright wild and risky with a man who could pass as a Greek god.
“The garden food was good,” Lugal said, polishing off the last speck of onion from his plate. “I am eager to try the meal from the microwave machine that you have prepared.”
“Oh!” She’d been so busy contemplating hot genie sex she’d completely forgotten her hostess duties. “Sorry, I forgot.” Samantha popped over to the counter, plated the portions of lasagna and served them.
Lugal took his first forkful of lasagna, clearly forming a favorable verdict about its flavor. “This food you call lasagna is interesting.” He shoveled in a few more forkfuls, practically inhaling the food. The man wasn’t kidding when he said he was hungry.
“I’d give you some garlic bread to go with that, but I can’t keep bread in the house anymore.”
“Bread…ninda…” Lugal nodded. “The staff of life, Abigail called it. You do not like it?”
“Hah!” Samantha blurted in a fashion that was highly unattractive for a woman who was contemplating the possibility of hot genie sex with the man sitting across the table. “I love it. I’m a carb addict. One bite leads to another until I blow up like a beached whale.” She puffed out her cheeks.
“Yes…” Lugal nodded. “I am familiar with addicts. These carbs you speak of, are they like opium?”
“Good analogy.” Samantha rolled her eyes and laughed. “For me, yes.”
“Can you not make your own bread the way Abigail did, so you can enjoy it without the addition of these addictive carbs? I remember the taste and smell of fresh bread from the oven. It is not something anyone should have to do without if they enjoy it.”
“Tell me about it. All bread has carbs—carbohydrates,” Samantha explained. “Unfortunately, it makes some of us fat because we can’t stop eating it.”
“Fat?” Lugal’s eyebrow arched. “But you are close to scrawny, Samantha. I think perhaps you have made a mistake to stay away from bread. You need to fatten yourself up so that you do not lose your alluring womanly form.”
Samantha was stunned. Gobsmacked. This God’s-gift-to-women, this hot, sexy, magnificent specimen of manhood, thought she was just this side of scrawny?
She wanted to bookmark this moment. Record it on a CD so she could play it
back over and over. Engrave it on her brain so she’d never forget it. Tattoo his words on her breast for all the world to see.
On the verge of pouncing on Lugal, smothering him with sloppy kisses and declaring her undying love, she had to bite her tongue and dig her fingers into the edge of the tabletop.
“That’s very nice of you to say,” she said demurely, instead. “But the time we live in doesn’t appreciate full-figured women. Men prefer skinny women with prominent clavicles,” she fingered her collarbone, “sharp hip bones and gaunt, sunken faces.”
Lugal made a scoffing sound. “Then the men of your time are idiots,” he stated flatly. “Fools. You have described what sounds like a starving street urchin.”
“You won’t get much of an argument from me on that subject.” Samantha chuckled. “But even my boss told me I need to lose thirty pounds. I’m afraid full-figured just doesn’t cut it in the twenty-first century, Lugal.”
“Then your boss is an idiot too. Besides, the size of your body should be of no concern to your employer. It is improper for him to be focused on your womanly curves. Perhaps he harbors lewd thoughts about you.”
“I sincerely doubt that. My boss is a she.”
Lugal studied Samantha. “You are a governess? Or is it a maid or laundress?”
“I’m a weight-loss counselor. My job is to help keep people on their diet and exercise programs so they reach their weight goals and maintain them.”
“This is difficult to fathom.” Lugal’s eyebrows drew together in a frown. “In every society I have known, and in every time period I have existed over the centuries, emphasis was placed on preventing people from becoming emaciated, not causing them to become so. This does not sound healthy. It makes no sense.”
“Centuries?” Digesting the surreal information that Lugal had been in existence for far more than a lifetime, Samantha cleared the table and put the dishes in the sink. “How long have you been alive, Lugal?”
“Alive?” His gaze went cold as he made a harsh sound of disdain. “I was but in my third decade of life when I was placed in servitude. I would not call my existence since then living.” Lugal’s broad chest expanded as he drew in a deep breath. “I have lost count of the passage of time, Samantha. My incarceration in that bottle,” he gestured toward the spun glass artifact with a jab of his jaw, “has spanned hundreds of centuries. I have walked the earth for brief periods more times than I can count during that time.”
As Samantha sliced the pineapple for dessert, she wondered what in the world this man could have done to deserve such a cruel and unforgiving punishment. And who or what would have the power to imprison a man in a tiny bottle for centuries? She thought this kind of magical stuff was only in fantastical, fictional tales like Aladdin and his Magic Lamp.
Eyeing Lugal surreptitiously as she hacked off the pineapple’s leafy crown, she decided he definitely looked strong and fierce enough to battle hoards of warriors. But he didn’t strike her as the kind of man who was inherently criminal or evil.
Of course, she was no expert on criminology or murderous psychotics. There were always those cases on the news where some crazed psycho commits a heinous crime and, while the magnitude of the monstrous deed makes him sound like an ugly, evil-eyed, ogre of a brute, the photo shows someone who looks as handsome and charming as Ted Bundy.
For all Samantha knew, Lugal could casually lop off her head in the middle of their dessert course without so much of a blink of an eye.
But still…
“I’m sorry, Lugal. It sounds like you have some very painful memories. If you decide you want to talk about them I’d be happy to listen.” She opened the refrigerator and grabbed the can of low fat whipped cream. “All that talk about forgetting diets and losing weight makes me wish this was regular, full-fat whipped cream.” She was about to spurt a few fluffy circles of white onto the fruit, but stopped.
After setting the dessert plates on the table, Samantha flashed a smile at Lugal. “Open your mouth,” she said, holding the aerosol can a few inches from his face.
One of his eyebrows dipped low. “Why?” he asked, his gaze dubious.
“Just do it,” Samantha told him. “Trust me, you’ll like it.”
“I think I will not do this. Trusting women has only gotten me into trouble,” Lugal said, folding his arms across his chest and clamping his lips tight.
“Oh, sorry…I didn’t think the men of your time were such wimps,” Samantha said, doing her best to look innocent.
“Wimps?”
“Babies. Sissies. Cowards,” she elucidated. “Gutless, spineless—”
Lugal’s mouth popped open and Samantha fought to swallow her rising laughter. Men were so damn easy, no matter how long they’ve been around.
She watched his eyes widen as she pressed the nozzle and squirted a huge tuft of whipped cream into his mouth. Then she turned the nozzle on herself and repeated the process, coating her own tongue with a ruffle of cream.
It was clear Lugal enjoyed the surprise treat.
“See? I told you. Delicious, hmm? And, look, you haven’t turned into a horned toad or anything.”
“How many cans of this do you have?” Lugal asked, taking it from her and experimenting with the nozzle.
“I have one more in the fridge.”
“Good,” he said, glancing up at her with glittering eyes and a wolfish grin. “I will use it later when I bed you, to decorate your tits and the soft, wet channel between your thighs before I feast on you.”
Samantha’s jaw dropped.
Chapter Four
Samantha tried to think of another course of action, as opposed to standing there opening and closing her mouth like a fish out of water, while she processed Lugal’s lusty proposal. It wasn’t all that easy, considering her trickling pussy, tight, swollen nipples and her raging hormones.
“You can just get that whole bedding me idea out of your mind, Lugal, because it’s not going to happen.”
“Yes it is.”
“No,” she insisted. “It isn’t.”
“You do not speak the truth.” He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply through his nose. “I can smell your passion. Your desire for me.” His eyes opened, narrowing between thick, dark lashes. Intense and determined, they raked over her.
Oh God. That was the most erotic thing anyone had ever said to her. No man had ever looked at her like that before. She wanted to drop to her knees and worship his cock. Tear off her clothes and lay spread eagle for him on the spot.
“I mean it,” she warned, instead.” Damn. It wasn’t easy being stern when your clit was clenching. “Don’t make me have to pull rank on you, mister.”
Still sprawled in the kitchen chair, looking confident and comfortable, Lugal spread his legs, smiling at her suggestively. “You can pull me, little one. I will not mind.”
Her eyes flew to his crotch and the deliciously large bulge beneath the shimmery fabric. She swallowed hard as Lugal’s hand skimmed his erection. “By pull rank, I meant me, owner who makes the rules—you, subordinate who follows my rules.”
His smile deepened, highlighting straight white teeth and creases that fanned out from the corners of his mesmerizing eyes.
“I know what you meant,” he confirmed with a husky chuckle. “Mark my words, Samantha, before the night is over, you will be begging me to drive my hard cock into your depths.”
“I don’t think so,” she said with a nonchalant tone that belied her quivering insides. “I don’t make a habit of sleeping with men I barely know, or genies who pop out of bottles in vaporous streams.” She made a swirling-smoke gesture with her hand.
For chrissakes, being around as long as he claimed, Lugal had probably had sex with dozens of women. Beautiful women. Slender, lithe, willowy women. Maybe even princesses and queens. Even if Samantha wanted to have sex with him—and, oh boy, did she ever—she and her chunky body could never in a million years live up to his untold centuries of carnal memories.
Lugal rose to his feet and Samantha had to look up—way up—to meet the gaze of the finely honed mass of muscularity.
“Ah, but you do know me, Samantha. I am Lugal Damu-zid of Sumer.” He made a swift bow before taking her hand in his and brushing her knuckles with a kiss. The deep timbre of his voice alone was enough to send shivers up her spine.
“I am here for no other reason than to protect and pleasure you,” he told her. “I am your slave. All you need do is ask and I shall obey. Give me your permission to please you and, I swear to you, Samantha, you will not regret it. Let me prove it to you, little one.” This time he kissed the inside of her elbow and her knees went weak.
It was a damn good thing Samantha was wearing slacks, otherwise there’d be clear and embarrassing evidence of her amorous need trickling down her legs. She shifted in place, acutely aware of the tingling sensation at the sensitive flesh between her thighs.
So what if it was just his duty? What did it really matter if he wasn’t interested in her for herself? Why couldn’t she simply think of him as a delicious male prostitute, there to do her erotic bidding? She looked into his deep brown eyes and swallowed a sigh.
Why not? None of this was really happening, anyway. It couldn’t be. Samantha had to be hallucinating. Or dreaming. Or maybe she’d had a heart attack and was dead and this was heaven. But if it were heaven there’d be chocolate. And real whipped cream. And she wouldn’t be eating Lean Cuisines and salads.
She breathed in, filling her nostrils with his intoxicating male scent. What the hell, if she was in heaven, she could use one of her three wishes for chocolate, the second for being able to eat whatever she wanted without ever gaining an ounce and the third, to make Lugal fall madly in love with her and stay with her for eternity.
Samantha and Her Genie Page 6
