by Regine Abel
Moaning against his lips, I buried my hands in his hair, reveling in the silky softness I had missed for too long. His hands slipped under the hem of my short dress. The calloused tips of his fingers caressed the backs of my thighs, sending shivers down my spine. Cupping my bum with his palms, he lifted me up, pinning me against the door. His stiffening length pressed against my core, stirring another surge of desire deep within. I wrapped my legs around him, wanting us even closer. Gruuk rubbed himself against me, sending sparks of pleasure through my nether region. Abandoning my mouth, his lips trailed along my jawline before tracing the markings along my neck and shoulders. Inch by inch, he stirred the fire consuming me. I shuddered, and a guttural sigh escaped me. He backtracked that same path with his hot and wet tongue, making me cry out. My inner walls contracted, aching to be filled.
Gruuk lifted his head, staring me in the eyes, our breathing labored. Turning around, he carried me to the bed and lay me down gently, never breaking eye-contact. He removed his shirt and tossed it to the ground. The dark tribal tattoos on the left side of his broad chest and thick left arm contrasted sharply with his lightly tanned skin—hazelnut cream as I liked to call it—a couple of shades lighter than my own coppery coloring.
I wanted to trace them with my tongue.
His body was as muscular as I remembered. Gruuk participated in regular combat training sessions. It was essential in his world. Although he remained the sole commander on board his ship, the minute his crew suspected he was becoming weak, they would turn on him, as per the Guldan way.
Gruuk towered above me as I feasted my eyes on his massive frame, rippling with muscles I itched to touch. He was giving me the opportunity to decide if I wanted to run. I grabbed the hem of my skirt and lifted it over my head before tossing it in the same direction as his shirt. Gruuk’s face softened while the fire in his eyes heightened. Hands reaching for his waist, he unfastened his pants while I discarded my underwear, our gazes still connected.
I crawled backward on the bed, and he prowled forward, his big, beautifully carved body carefully covering mine. Gruuk settled between my legs, our sexes aligned, but with his legendary control, he didn’t take me yet. Instead, he spent the next eternity rediscovering every inch of me with his hands, his tongue, his mouth, reminding me why, in spite of everything, he remained the master of my body. He made me scream twice before he finally made us one. Slow, gentle, yet commanding, Gruuk steadily picked up the pace, driving into me with powerful strokes, reclaiming me with controlled fury.
When he began whispering in his foreign tongue, I knew his own climax loomed near. He wrapped my name in a string of words forbidden in his race, especially for a master. Words of love and devotion he didn’t know I understood. To Guldans, love was a weakness. Compassion was a fool’s excuse to justify his incapacity to get the work done. Yet, in his twisted way, Gruuk loved me, and I, in my own fucked up way, loved him too. He shouted my name, holding me in a bruising embrace as his seed poured into me. My own voice joined his as another wave of rapture overcame me.
Rolling to his back, he cradled me in his arms, hanging on tight as if he feared I would disappear. His lips rested on my forehead. Thus we remained without speaking. Words were unnecessary between us, and often unwelcome; they usually brought pain.
I woke up in the middle of the night, cocooned in the warmth of my master’s strong body. Despite my desire to stay in the shelter of his arms, I needed to return to my quarters. If the girls woke up and came looking for me, I didn’t want to explain where I had spent the night. Gruuk’s arms tightened around me as soon as I tried to sneak out.
“Stay,” he whispered, his breath tickling my neck.
“I can’t. The girls…”
“Are sleeping and locked in their room for another four hours. Stay.”
“But when they wake…”
“You can go back half an hour before lights. Stay,” he urged.
My hesitation lasted another couple of seconds before I caved in. His chest vibrated against my back as he rumbled his pleasure. Turning me on my back, Gruuk climbed on top of me, his eyes boring into mine with a vulnerability I had never seen before.
“Maheva…” he whispered. “I missed you.”
I didn’t have a chance to answer. It was probably a good thing too as I might have confessed my love for him. A weakness best left unspoken. He captured my mouth in a blistering kiss and made me his again, twice more before sleep reclaimed us. He woke me forty-five minutes before lights so I could sneak back unseen to my room, demanding I promise to return to him that night and every other night.
And so began my fifth and happiest relationship with Gruuk. Seven blissful years of near normalcy before our slow descent into the darkest pit of Gharah’s lair.
* * *
I was six years old when Gruuk abducted me in the last days of Veredia. My mother, a Warrior, fought to protect me and the other non-combatant Sisters who had taken refuge in our home. Three Guldans invaded the house. Despite her valiant efforts, one of them cut my mother down before my very eyes. I felt her pain as she died as if it was my own. Enraged, I launched myself at him, in a vain attempt to save her, even though I knew it was too late. He backhanded me and probably would have killed me when Gruuk barged in.
He killed my aggressor then turned to the other two males, barking at them in Guldanese. I didn’t understand his words but they seemed to impress them. The Guldans submitted to him and no further harm came to us. Heartbroken by the loss of my mother, terrified by the destruction and chaos of war, I thought Gruuk the greatest hero for saving me from certain death when he whisked me away on his ship. He subjected us to a series of tests, saying he needed to make sure we were well so he could best care for us. Afterwards, he swiftly sent off all the other ‘rescued’ Veredians, but kept only me because I was ‘special.’
That made me worship him even more.
In the years that followed, a sullen Guldan female named Suriki—the only one on board—took care of me. She tried in vain to mold me into a ‘proper’ female; quiet, calm, obedient, and submissive. My personality couldn’t accept it so Suriki eventually gave up. I didn’t see Gruuk often in my younger years, but whenever I did, he always showed me kindness and ensured I had everything I needed.
By the age of fourteen, at the peak of my rebellious phase, I pushed my caretaker a bit too far by talking back and eventually spilling everything I thought of her and the Guldan ways. She didn’t much appreciate me saying that I would never become her: a spineless, brainless hag with less personality than a sex bot, who also got passed around the crew like one. Suriki lost her legendary ‘proper female’ calmness and slapped me hard enough to bust my lip open. In her anger, she forbade me to heal myself.
That evening, when Gruuk saw my lip, he asked her who did it. She answered that I had forced her to discipline me. Gruuk said nothing, though his eyes said everything. The next day, Suriki disappeared, never to be seen again. While relieved to no longer have to deal with the sour female, guilt gnawed at me for the cruelty of my words. Suriki didn’t have an easy life and coped the only way she knew how. Not wanting to emulate her didn’t give me the right to judge her. After all, she had raised me.
That day, Gruuk declared me old enough to care for myself. I didn’t tell him that I was also old enough to be fiercely attracted to him. At twenty-nine, Gruuk embodied everything I considered masculine perfection. Not to mention I seemed to have a thing for older males.
From a first few not so subtle attempts at flirting with him, I went on the full offensive, relentlessly pursuing him when he gave me a gentle but firm rejection. The crew began noticing me, but I had no use for them. While a few had been pleasing to the eye, their gratuitous cruelty, crudeness, and obvious contempt for females had made them unappealing. In sharp contrast, Gruuk had always shown me respect, even on the few times I had caught his appreciative stares lingering on my body. When Gruuk warned the crew off me as well, I took it as a sign he wanted me for
himself. Yet, he continued to play hard to get.
Five months after my eighteenth birthday, I finally decided to break down his wall of resistance once and for all.
By then, I could no longer claim childish naïveté. I knew what kind of business Gruuk ran. During my endless pursuit, in his efforts to discourage me, he told me repeatedly there could never be a happy ending for us, not with him being Guldan and me a slave. Suriki had tried hard enough to indoctrinate me with Guldan customs and beliefs. In spite of all that, I didn’t relent. Deep down, a good male lay dormant within Gruuk, blinded by the skewed values of his society. With the foolish arrogance of youth, I thought once he fell in love with me, I could change him.
Stupid girl.
I’d waited for him to return to his quarters for the evening. At the time, there was no curfew lockdown for us. Those had been instated after my children developed a taste for roaming the hallways at night. It was both for their safety and the protection of the crew, considering the risk we posed with our ungloved hands. When Gruuk opened the door that night and saw my agitation, he assumed the crew had somehow upset me.
“What happened?” Gruuk asked, shoulders tense, anger brewing on his handsome face. “Did someone hurt you?”
His gaze roamed over me, as if looking for any sign of bruising or injury.
“Yes, but not the way you think,” I whispered.
Heart pounding in my throat, uncertainty reared its ugly head, making me question the boldness that had led me to this course of action. My stomach clenched in apprehension.
He frowned in confusion, his dark eyes snapping back up to mine.
“What do you mean? Who hurt you? And how?” he demanded.
My throat worked, swallowing past the heavy lump clogging it. I hadn’t come this far only to backpedal now. Pushing my shoulders back, I lifted my chin and took a step closer to him.
“You did.”
He stilled, eyes widening. The puzzled expression on his face gave way to suspicion, and he squinted at me.
“You hurt me every time you reject me,” I said, taking another step forward.
His face stripped of any emotion, but that didn’t fool me. I hadn’t missed how his gaze dipped down, giving me a once over of a completely different nature than his concerned one earlier.
“No, Maheva. I’ve already told you that you’re too young and—”
“I’m not too young,” I interrupted, moving into his personal space. “I’m three years over the standard minimum age of consent.”
“Two and a half,” he corrected.
I shrugged. “Same thing. But I see you’ve been keeping count. Why is that, I wonder?”
He pressed his generous lips into a thin line and a nerve ticked at his temple. Turning on his heels, he walked to the center of the room, his broad shoulders stiff with tension.
“You need to leave, Maheva. This will never be a good idea,” Gruuk said over his shoulder.
Such resistance made no sense. Gruuk wanted me. I could see it in his eyes, the way his fingers twitched in my presence as if he battled the urge to reach out and touch me. Electricity sparked between us, even the air crushed us from all sides it was so filled with sexual tension.
“Why?” I asked. When he didn’t answer, I stomped my foot and raised my voice. “Look at me, damn it, and tell me why!”
He faced me, snarling, a warning in his eyes. “You do not order me, Maheva. I am your master.”
I cast my eyes down, taking on a less aggressive stance. He was right. I needed to tread carefully and not skirt that line so much for fear he would shut me down. That said, the look on his face didn’t scare me as it should. Instead, it made me all kinds of hot and bothered.
Refusing to back down, I lifted my chin.
“Then why don’t you act like it and take what’s yours?”
“You expect me to force myself on you?”
I threw my hands up with an exasperated sigh.
“You can’t force yourself on something that’s freely given.” I ran my fingers through my hair, at a loss on how to get through to him. “I’m not a child anymore and I know you’re attracted to me, even if only half as much as I am to you. So what’s the problem? By the Goddess, Gruuk, I’ve all but thrown myself naked at your feet. What more must I do?”
He narrowed his eyes at me for calling him Gruuk instead of Master Gruuk. Yeah, I was stomping all over that line; a necessary evil. It was make or break time. If I didn’t get through to him now, I doubted he would ever give me another opportunity.
“Is that what you want?” I asked, dropping the pitch of my voice to what I hoped he would consider husky and seductive.
I didn’t wait for him to answer and grabbed the hem of my dress before pulling it up and over my head. He sucked in breath through his teeth as he took in my naked body. In a calculated move, I had chosen not to put on any underwear.
Despite my bravado, I feared for a moment that he would turn an indifferent eye on me. That would cut deeper than any of his previous rejections. I probably wouldn’t recover from the shame. Thankfully, his eyes smoldered and the front line of his dark pants stretched.
“Maheva…” Gruuk’s deep voice rumbled with frustration and desire.
My nipples pebbled and my stomach clenched with a surge of want. His reaction spurred me on, emboldening me to press further. Face strained with tension, he shook his head in denial as I stepped out of my slippers and approached him. His fingers twitched and I wished they would reach out and grab me.
I pressed my breasts against his chest covered in a skin-tight black t-shirt, and ached for contact with his bare skin instead.
“This is a bad idea,” he whispered, his lips inches from mine. “You have no idea what you’re asking for.”
I wrapped my hands around his waist and pushed my pelvis against his, making my meaning clear.
“Oh, but I do.” I lifted my head, leaning forward so our lips almost touched. “I want you to make me yours... to own me in every way… to truly be the master of my body.”
Lifting his hand, he fisted my hair in a brutal grip. I winced and hissed in pain, but didn’t resist.
“Are you sure you can handle it, Maheva?” His burning breath fanned my lips. “You won’t get sweet romance from me. This isn’t some fairy tale. There will be no happily ever after for us. I am as brutally honest in bed as I am in everyday life. It will be raw, rough, and uncompromising.”
My heart hammered against my ribs both in fear and excitement. Gruuk was still trying to discourage me. From his words, I suspected he would be deliberately rough with me to drive me away once and for all. But I had reached the point of no return. A fire was building in the pit of my stomach and the dull throbbing between my legs tormented me. He wouldn’t break me, I would break him.
“Yes, I can handle it.”
The back of my head stung where he still fisted my hair. His other hand grabbed one of my butt cheeks, fingers painfully digging into my flesh. He pressed me hard against his erection.
“Are you sure, little girl?” Each movement of his lips caressed mine. “Last chance to run.”
“I’m not running,” I said, my eyes flicking between his. “Go ahead. Show me your worst.”
“Silly girl.” The words, whispered low, barely reached my ears.
Gruuk crushed my lips with a brutal kiss, an animalistic growl rumbling through his chest. He twisted my hair and my mouth parted in pain. His tongue slipped inside and he loosened his grip while his fingers soothed the sting in my scalp. I moaned and followed his lead as we tasted each other. My breasts felt heavy and my nipples were so hard, they ached. Seeking relief, I pressed my chest harder against his.
He released me and gave me a hard stare before jerking his head towards the bed.
“Get in,” he said, his voice sharp enough to cut through steel.
Legs shaking with lust, apprehension, and anticipation, I climbed onto bed and sat with my legs folded to the side. My skin heated a
s I watched him discard his clothes with impatient, angry movements. I swallowed audibly at the sight of his cock springing free of his pants. Long and thick, it stood proudly—menacingly—at the ready.
“Lie down, and spread your legs for me,” Gruuk said as he approached the bed.
The sliver of fear that coursed through me must have shown, because he smirked with an almost cruel glint shining in his eyes.
“Having second thoughts, Maheva?” he asked, his tone mocking. “There’s still time to run.”
“No,” I breathed out, even though everything inside screamed for me to do just that.
“Silly girl.”
He kneeled between my legs, his hand going straight to my core. His fingers caressed my folds, sending a bolt of pleasure zipping through me. I shuddered. Lips parted, I breathed through my mouth while his hands explored the most intimate part of me. I should be embarrassed to lie so exposed before my master—or any male for that matter—but I reveled instead in the naked hunger on his face. It only aroused me further.
“Already wet for me,” he purred. “Good girl.”
Two of them slipped inside me. I hissed at the slight burn. Gruuk gave me another hard stare as he slipped them in and out of my opening. Making a display of it, he wrapped his other hand around his cock and gave it a couple of strokes.
“If my fingers hurt you, how are you going to take my cock? You should run.”
The taunt in his voice only increased my determination.
“No. I already told you. Do your worst. You won’t scare me. I will have you.”
He snorted and shook his head like I had lost my senses. Yet, I didn’t miss the glimmer of admiration in his gaze. Leaning forward, his lips sucked in one of my nipples while his thumb rubbed the little nub between my legs.
Fire exploded in my belly, spreading through every limb and nerve ending. My back arched and a guttural moan ripped out of my throat. Gruuk’s shoulders shook with a smug laughter. He inserted a third finger inside me but didn’t give me a chance to feel that discomfort. His teeth bit at my nipple with enough strength for it to sting before soothing the pain with his tongue. I trembled, confused by the pleasure and pain of his touch. Yet, I ached for more… so much more. My fingers slipped through the soft strands of his shoulder-length hair. They wrapped around his black horns where they perked back up, below their viciously sharp tips. Gruuk’s horns felt hard and smooth beneath my palms, despite their ornate ridges.
