by Meg Harris
He hated to admit it, but he liked kneeling at her feet too. He was mere inches from her soft thatch of downy golden curls, and the spicy smell of her arousal, along with the clean scent of her body, surrounded him, filling his head with vivid sexual images.
He was too utterly exhausted to be genuinely aroused so soon, yet he felt an overwhelming urge to bury his face between her thighs, to lash her clit with his tongue until she cried out and climaxed precisely as he had.
In his exhausted, satiated state, he was unable to think clearly, and he wasn’t sure what motivated him. Perhaps he wanted to turn the tables on her, to demonstrate that he could wield sexual power over her. Or perhaps he simply wanted to return the favor, to give her the same pleasure she’d given him. Either way, he couldn’t resist the idea of making love to her with his mouth.
Unable to help himself, he leaned forward and pressed his lips against the heated flesh beneath her curls.
She jumped, as if he’d startled her. “I did not give you permission to do that, Barrak,” she scolded.
He didn’t give a damn about her permission. He was lost in memories of the day before, when he’d licked her cunt endlessly, until at last he brought her to a shrieking climax with his tongue. The memory of her honest, open responses burned in his mind. He’d never wanted to satiate a woman so badly in his life.
He let his tongue flick out and stroked her lightly. She tasted like spiced honey, like the finest sweet wine, like a hot summer day on Terra when the wind blew in from the ocean. She was salty and spicy and exotic, more exciting than any woman he’d ever known.
He had to taste more.
Chapter Six
Tiryl stood frozen as Barrak’s tongue sought her most sensitive flesh. She hadn’t yet expected him to attempt to please her of his own volition, and for a moment she wondered if this was another one of his efforts to shift the balance of power between them.
But his soft, questing tongue felt too good for her to maintain any rational thoughts for long. The truth was that she was shamefully aroused. The memory of how his cock had felt in her hand, like satin over marble, a strong, rigid column of heat against her palm, was enough to turn her to liquid.
And Barrak’s tongue was lapping her up as she dissolved into a puddle.
His tongue moved back and forth, in slow, sensuous sweeps that brought her perilously close to the jagged edge of orgasm. She parted her legs, braced them, and stood quivering as he tasted her most intimate secrets. Molten pleasure filled her veins, flowed through her womb, and pooled between her thighs.
And then his lips closed on her clitoris, and he sucked at the small, erect bud of flesh.
Instantly, a wild, chaotic climax exploded through her, so forceful her entire body shook with the power of her release. She was vaguely aware of her voice sobbing with the pleasure, her hands digging into his thick ebony mane as if afraid he’d pull away, but he didn’t let up, didn’t relent, simply kept suckling her until she had come again and again.
At last, when she was beyond satiated, he pulled away from her.
She collapsed to her knees and looked into his eyes.
“And now,” he said softly, “we’re on the same level.”
She opened her lips to haughtily snap at him that a man could never be on her level, but instead all that emerged from her mouth was a question.
“Why?”
He seemed to understand the inarticulate question. “Among my people, sex is about sharing. About making certain that both partners are satisfied. We call it making love.”
“There is no such thing as love,” she informed him in a shaky voice. “Isn’t there?”
His dark, penetrating eyes seemed to look into her very soul, and she didn’t like it, didn’t like the way he seemed to see her innermost thoughts with such alarming ease. “Of course not,” she snapped. “There is only the bond a man feels for the woman who has tamed him.”
“And what of the woman? Does she feel no bond whatsoever to the man?”
Totally rattled by his probing questions, Tiryl answered with the rote response that had been drilled into her since adolescence. “A woman may feel a mild affection for the men of her harem, as one feels affection for a pet. Anything more is utterly unthinkable.”
Barrak looked at her for a long moment. “Is it?” he said at last.
Tiryl growled with annoyance and came to her feet. Barrak stood as well, and she noticed, not for the first time, how much taller he was. It was odd, but in his presence she felt almost…intimidated.
“I have allowed this situation to go on too long,” she said in her coldest voice. “It is time for me to tame you once and for all.”
“You don’t really want to do that.”
She was afraid he was right. And that was the most terrifying thing of all, that she might forget herself, forget everything her culture held to be important, and allow this man to remain arrogantly untamed. Allow him to continue to believe that he was the equal of a woman. It could not be permitted, no matter how much the idea of a tame Barrak tore at her soul. No matter how exciting she found this arrogant, brash, savage man, he had to be tamed. For the good of society, and for his own good.
“Lie down,” she ordered, and pushed him toward the bed.
* * * * *
Barrak sat on the edge of the bed, awkwardly because of his manacled hands, and stretched out. He’d tried everything he could think of to change her mind, and he was certain by the flicker of vulnerability in her eyes that he had succeeded in forcing her to question her beliefs, yet he was fairly certain his words and actions hadn’t been enough to sway her from her determined path.
A quiver of fear was making itself felt. She had announced her intention of “taming” him. That meant she was going to mark him, and then…and then he would be hers.
Not her lover, or her life-mate, or an equal partner.
But her property.
He pushed away the shameful longing he felt, the dark, aching desire to know what it would feel like to be marked by her. He couldn’t allow himself to succumb—he had to continue fighting. A last desperate idea occurred to him. “I came to this sector in order to talk to Tiryl, the Leader of Zytellia,” he said. “She agreed to negotiate with me. I demand that I be permitted to speak with her.”
The bitch looked down on him with equal parts contempt and amusement. “Men may demand nothing. And men certainly may not negotiate. Surely that has been made clear enough to you by now, even if you are but a simple-minded male.”
He ground his teeth together and ignored the casual insult. “Nevertheless, I wish to speak with her.”
She paused for a long moment. At last she said, softly, “Foolish man, have you not realized who I am?”
Shock hit him like a missile, and he stared at her. At that moment disembodied voice spoke. “Leader.”
She lifted her head and spoke in an impatient tone. “What is it, Jaya?”
“The Starburst is nearing us. It will reach our present location in five ghon.”
The bitch frowned. “They were not supposed to reach us until midmorning. Why did they increase their speed?”
“I am not certain, Leader. I have queried the captain of the vessel, but she says she will speak only to you.”
She sighed. “Very well. Tell her I will be with her shortly.”
“I take it you are too busy to speak with her now, Leader?”
The contempt in the other woman’s voice was unmistakable, and the bitch’s face grew rigid. “Do not dare to question me in that tone, Jaya. I said I will be with her shortly.”
The other woman’s voice sounded sullen, but obedient. “Yes, Leader.”
The disembodied voice fell silent, and Barrak stared at her, finally understanding the reason for her incredibly lavish quarters. “You are Tiryl,” he said softly.
“Yes.”
Barrak frowned. “But you have spent so much time with me. I assumed—”
“I chose to take you,” she sa
id, “because you are a worthy prize for the Leader. A man of physical perfection and great stamina. I claimed you for my harem. There were others who clamored for you, but as Leader I take my pick of war prizes.”
A prize. That was all he was to her, a handsome face and body to be trained into obedience, then played with at her leisure. Nausea rolled over him in a sickening wave. He was a prince, a leader in his own right, among his own people, yet all she saw when she looked at him was…a pet.
And if he succumbed to her now, that was all he would ever be again. All that he had been up ‘til now would be lost.
“And now,” she said, looking at him with hot eyes, “I will tame you.”
He attempted to roll off the bed, suddenly frantic to get away from her, but she was too quick for him. She caught him by the shoulders, rolled him onto his back, and straddled him.
He was enraged to feel his cock twitching in response, infuriated by the betrayal of his own body. Despite the two incredible orgasms he’d had this morning, he still wanted her. Fear filled his veins, the fear that once she had marked him he’d always want her, always be this hungry for her, never be rid of this unreasonable craving. He bucked beneath her, trying to get her off, trying to knock her to the floor, desperate to free himself, but she was a strong woman, and she had him pinned in a very awkward position.
“Easy,” she crooned, stroking his taut biceps as if he were an animal to be gentled. “Easy. It will not hurt. I promise.”
“It is not pain that I fear,” Barrak snapped.
“There is nothing to fear, my pet. You will enjoy the sensation beyond anything you have ever imagined.”
The casual endearment infuriated him further. He bucked against her, hard, but since she was straddling him, that only forced his erection against her soft moisture. She gasped, and he recognized he was inadvertently pleasuring her.
In fact, he realized, he was deriving pleasure from the experience as well.
She was still dripping wet from the series of climaxes he’d given her moments ago, still heated and soft, and he imagined how good it would feel to drive into her liquid warmth, to sheathe himself deep within her, to satiate his desperate need once and for all. She began to move back and forth against him, letting him feel how wet she was, how ready for him. His erection strained against her despite his fear, and he groaned.
“Yes,” she said softly. “That’s better.” Her hands moved away from his shoulders and began to stroke his nipples again, and he bucked and twisted against her again. Not with fear, but because it felt so good. “You have so many erogenous zones,” she murmured. “I’ve never met a man who was so sensitive in so many places.”
If his hands hadn’t been chained, he would have reached up and responded by stroking her taut nipples, touching her as she was touching him. But she didn’t seem to need additional arousal. Neither did he. Her scent eddied around him, and her hands drove him nearly frantic. Moisture trickled between her legs, drenching him, and his cock throbbed relentlessly against her, making its desires known in a demanding staccato rhythm.
“I promised you I’d fuck you,” she whispered in a thick, throaty voice.
His erection jerked sharply, and he groaned.
“Do you want me to fuck you?”
He wanted to resist her, but the demands of his body were impossible to ignore. He had ached for complete fulfillment, had yearned for the sensation of driving deeply into her hot flesh, for two long days now. He wanted to be part of her. He had to be part of her. Even if it meant losing himself in the process.
“Yes,” he hissed between his teeth.
“Do you completely understand what I’m going to do to you?”
“Yes,” he moaned. He knew full well what was going to happen to him, but he just didn’t care anymore. In fact, part of him craved it, craved the ecstasy she could give him, craved the release.
“Then look at me.”
He opened his eyes, heavy-lidded though they were, and watched as she raised herself on her knees, took his heavy, thick erection in her hand, and stroked the tip through the moisture that soaked the entrance to her vagina, then brushed it over her clitoris. She moaned with delight, and he almost came then and there. A long shudder of intense bliss racked him as she continued to use him to pleasure herself, stroking her clit in slow, deliberate circles.
“Please,” he whispered. In the distant corner of his mind that remembered he was Prince Barrak, the proud son of a royal family, he hated begging for her favors, but it didn’t seem to matter much anymore. He couldn’t think, couldn’t reason, through the thick miasma of desire that clouded his brain. All he knew was that he wanted to be inside her. He had to be inside her.
“Soon,” she whispered, her voice rough with pleasure. “You must learn patience, my pet.”
She continued to stroke the sensitive head of his cock over her clit, slightly faster now. Her lips parted, her back arched, and she began to pant. Through his heavy eyes, he saw the rose-colored flush across the ivory skin of her breasts and knew she was about to come.
The Gods help him, he was on the verge again himself. He gritted his teeth and tried to control himself. He didn’t want to climax again until he was deep inside her, until he was fused with her. But her hand was tightly wrapped around him as she used him to pleasure herself, and her warm dew streamed down his cock, bathing him in her moisture. He wasn’t at all sure he could stop himself from coming.
“Yes,” she ground out between clenched teeth, rubbing herself in a hard, relentless rhythm, her hand squeezing him. “Yes.”
And then her head dropped back, and a long, wild cry burst from her throat as her body strained frantically in the throes of orgasm. She didn’t let go of him, only stroked his slick flesh against her harder and faster, and pleasure overwhelmed him in a fiery burst. His cock exploded in her hand, and cum jetted from him in sharp, violent spurts.
Afterward he lay in an exhausted, crumpled heap, totally uncaring that his manacled hands, pinned beneath his not inconsiderable weight, were growing numb. He couldn’t have moved if he’d wanted to. She sprawled out on the wide bed next to him, looking satiated and self-satisfied in a way that would have annoyed him, had he not been too utterly worn out to be annoyed.
“I didn’t mean for that to happen,” she said at last, softly.
He rolled his head on the mattress and blinked at her. “What?”
“I intended to mark you. I still intend to mark you. I simply got…carried away.”
He was shocked that she was confessing she’d been carried away by passion for a mere male. “Perhaps,” he ventured at last, “you realized you don’t really want to mark me.”
She swallowed, looking unhappy. “I must mark you, my pet. I have no choice.”
“You have many choices, Tiryl. You are the Leader of Zytellia. Surely you can break the rules, if you so choose.”
She was silent for a long moment, considering that. “No,” she said at last. “Letting a man like yourself go untamed would be too scandalous, too shocking. It would provide my enemies with too much ammunition.”
“You have enemies?”
“Leaders always have enemies.”
He nodded, thoughtfully. “I suppose that’s true. There are those on my world who would like to displace my family, to grasp power for themselves. We must constantly be on guard against them and their schemes.”
“You understand more about being a ruler than I would have dreamed possible,” she said with grudging respect.
He would be willing to gamble that was the first time she’d ever spoken to a male with respect in her tone. “I grew up as a member of the Terran ruling family,” he said. “I have spent my life preparing for service to my people.”
“That is not the way it works on Zytellia,” she said. “I had to seize power. To fight and struggle until my faction won over the others.”
“It sounds like a violent way to run an Empire.”
“It is the only way to make ce
rtain a Leader is worthy,” she said. “She must be vigilant at all times, or someone will wrest power from her.”
“An unpleasant existence.”
“It has its compensations,” she said dryly. “I am the Leader of the most vast Empire ever known in the galaxy.”
“And yet you could lose power at any time.”
“That is why I must obey the conventions of my people, my pet. A failure on my part to tame you would be seen as a betrayal of the most basic tenets of society. There are some who would not hesitate to use this against me.”
“But you do not wish to tame me. Do you?”
She hesitated for a long moment, staring at the ceiling. “You are…unique, Barrak. I have never known a man like you. It seems a pity to destroy your uniqueness.”
“I am no more or less unique than any other man, Tiryl. You have simply never truly talked with a free man before.”
She sighed. “It matters not. I cannot leave you wild, Barrak, no matter how much I might like to. For the sake of society, and for the sake of my regime, you must be tamed.” She sat up, traced a finger along the heavy overlay of muscles along his rib cage.
A slow sensation of melting pleasure grew in his stomach as he lay quietly, allowing her to caress him. She wasn’t stroking him like a pet, an animal, but with the warm tenderness of a woman stroking her lover. Her equal.
He had no fight left in him, and even if he had, he wasn’t sure he could fight against her gentle caresses. They were far more seductive than her blunt sexuality had ever been.
Her hand traced his biceps, his shoulders, his thighs. He gave a long, shuddering sigh of pleasure and closed his eyes.
“Roll over,” she whispered.
He opened his eyes and looked at her.
“Please,” she added softly.
He was fairly certain she’d never said that word to a man before in her life. He rolled over, a bit awkwardly because of the manacled hands, wondering if she’d release him. Wondering what he’d do if she did.
Instead she began to trace the contours of his ass. “You are incredible,” she said, in a hoarse, thick tone. “So beautiful. I’ve never seen such a beautiful man.”
