Fueled by Lust: Drusus (Siren Publishing Classic)

by Celeste Prater

  “Goodness no, Avelina! The energy is freely given. We do not pull it from them. We only acquire what is conjured and dispersed when they are sexually aware of someone or something. Nor do we have to have sexual relations with them to acquire it. It is a pure energy form in addition to what constitutes their life energy. We just happen to place ourselves in an environment that is abundantly filled.”

  “I’m sorry, Drusus. I didn’t mean to make it sound like you were doing something wrong. I’m glad you found energy that allowed you to stay here on Earth.” She was happy to see his sexy smile return.

  “That is okay, sweetness. I am glad you felt comfortable enough to ask. Avelina, if you had any idea how wonderful your energy felt to me last night, you would be shocked. If I were truly an Incubus, you would be in serious trouble.”

  Lina grinned at his words, relieved he wasn’t upset with her. “Wow! That is amazing…you are fueled by lust. Sounds like a good name for a book.”

  Chuckling, Drusus squeezed her arm. “I love your mind, Avelina. You find humor in everything. I have not laughed this much since my arrival. Now eat!”

  Chapter 12

  “Wait, not yet. What happened to Daniel?”

  “Ah, I took care of my first Earth friend. He had big aspirations. He did not want to remain a stripper his whole life. He did work as a male model and did some light construction work, but he was saving as much as he could to open his own club. I invested the remainder and he is now helping other men realize their dreams when making pit stops through his club. He was a very good mentor. He is on the coast now and I see him from time to time.”

  Drusus would not let her ask any more questions until she showed at least a halfhearted try at eating. Once they finished, she jumped in with more questions. “Okay, I understand now how you get fueled. Now tell me more about you disappearing on me the other day. I know you said the original Nubis were pure energy, like a mist, but exactly where did you go when you did that? How did your clothes disappear? Are you even conscious?”

  “As usual, you ask very good questions, sweetness. Let me see if I can explain this. Everything in the universe is an energy form. We interact with energy in solid form like this table or that fantastic skirt you are wearing.” Waggling his eyebrows, he tugged her skirt up an inch.

  Grinning, she slapped at his hand. “Quit! Now go on.”

  “Fine. I would prefer to play with you, but with that look on your face, I’ll finish. I cannot really explain the how, we just do when we wish it so. We consciously will our bodies and our clothes to reform into a non-solid. We are fully aware of what is continuing to happen around us, you just simply cannot see us in the same manner that you cannot see a molecule without special equipment. We can move about if needed. Others can pass through our energy without disturbing our form. We are limited to transforming our bodies and anything small attached to us. I cannot grab a car and then turn it and myself to mist. It takes a lot of our core energy to mist so we limit ourselves to no more than three Earth days if needed. After that, we must acquire an abundance of energy if we plan to mist again.”

  “You could start a spy agency with that ability. Okay, this reminded me of my next question. Why the escort and dating service if you have the club as a battery?”

  Drusus chuckled before answering. “Avelina, have you ever gone dancing and watched people on the dance floor?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Well, did every person out there dance well?”

  Rolling her eyes, she grimaced. “No, some people should have stayed home or at their table. I was actually embarrassed for them.”

  “Okay, then picture this same thing happening but on the stage at Heat Seekers. Ah, yes. I see that you understand now. No matter how you try to train someone or their drive to learn something new, some are not meant to dance. I started the escort service to give them another avenue of energy infusion. Either they get the adequate amount from the one calling for service, or from others wishing they were being escorted by the warrior. Before you ask about the dating service, I need to explain one very important factor of my businesses, Avelina. Even though we need this constant energy influx, the main reason is to place my warriors in environments that will lead them to their true mate. Mate location is the foremost reason we have traveled here. Insedivertus lost all of its females. These men are lonely and need someone to share their lives with. They want to have children and rebuild our species. Some warriors are here to protect our new way of life, and some that join us are healers, artists, or engineers. No matter their calling, they all seek the same thing—someone to call their own.”

  Lina was quiet for a moment, allowing everything he had revealed to sink in. They ate in companionable silence for a while. Unable to contain her curiosity, she placed her fork down and turned back to him.

  “Drusus, how does an Insedi know when he has found the right person? There are a lot of women out there that will never understand or want to understand what has happened to your world. They will freak and call in the authorities. Hell, half the time people can’t keep a relationship with someone from Earth, much less an alien. There are so many divorces it is mind-boggling. You have to be careful who you mate with.”

  Putting his arm around her shoulders, he leaned in and kissed her temple. “Again, you have demonstrated your intelligence, love. You are absolutely correct that we must be careful in our choice. We do not take it lightly when finally revealing ourselves to our future mates, like I am doing with you now.”

  Brows lifting, Lina could only gawk back at him in surprise. “Are you saying that you’re choosing me as your mate?”

  “Ah, mellis, I am not choosing. I have already chosen. Remember when I licked your wrist, when we met that first night in the club?”

  “How would I ever forget, Drusus? It had to be the single most erotic thing a man has ever done to me. What did it mean?”

  “It meant that I was testing our energy compatibility. I was already inexplicably drawn to you, so much so that it frightened me. I had to see if what I was feeling was true.” Reaching into his shirt, he pulled out the necklace. “Here, feel the necklace.”

  Curious, she wrapped her fingers around the silver-colored tooth. “It’s very warm. What does the heat signify?”

  “That you are made for me. This mineral allows a male Insedi to determine if his potential mate’s energy force is conducive for a life mating. We must touch a pulse point on someone’s body for the mineral to activate.” She shivered when one long finger lightly traced along her neck. “It is excruciating at first, but well worth the knowledge. If you were not meant to merge with my energy, in essence to become one, then it would never have heated to such a degree as it did that night. I knew then that you were truly mine.”

  Lina stared at him, unable to comprehend the look of conviction on his face. Even though he told her that his knowledge was at a molecular level, she still could not fathom how he could be so sure having known her for less than two days. Surely, there was more to compatibility than physical attraction. Did that funky necklace assure common interests, goals, whether he put the toilet seat down, or wouldn’t find an even more alluring energy source? With her mind in a jumbled mess of every possibility of how two people could drift apart, Lina decided to leave that topic for a later day and just enjoy his company. This was just like any other date, right?

  “You are thinking too hard, Avelina. It is what it is.”

  Startled, she looked at his beautiful face with that glorious dimple emphasizing those very masculine, sculpted lips, and forgot why she was so worried. Pulling out the top of his shirt collar, she placed a kiss to the predator tooth and dropped it back inside. “That is the coolest thing I have ever heard. Can you imagine the drop in divorce rates or broken hearts if Earth had something equivalent? Too many people jump into bad relationships and stay way too long because they are afraid to be alone. Some jump into them just because the other partner is pleasing to the eye, even though
their core is ugly. This eliminates the near misses or wrong paths.” Looking up at him, eyes wet from an emotion she didn’t want to hide from him, she placed her palm against his face. “I’m glad I let Cassie drag me out that night, Drusus. I’m glad that I met you.”

  He put his palm over hers and gave her back the same look shining within her eyes. “I’m glad you did, too, but I know I would have found you eventually.”

  For a long moment, they just stared into each other’s eyes, amazed at the connection.

  “Drusus?”

  “Yes, sweetness?”

  “Tell me about your family.”

  She caught the look of sadness that passed across his face as he pulled back from her, his focus now firmly on a spoon he was expertly flipping with his fingers. “What do you want to know?”

  She knew that she was causing him pain but she needed to know more about him. She had opened to him and she wanted the same. “You said that all Insedi females had been killed. Did that include your mother?”

  He stopped flipping the spoon and grasped her hand before looking her in the eye. “Yes, sweetness, Basilius killed my mother. However, she did not die as the rest. My mother was killed a week before the sickness came. She was visiting relatives and my father was not with her. I…I was not with her. That was the catalyst for the war. My father was devastated and ill-prepared to anticipate Basilius’s next step.”

  She squeezed his hand, thanking him silently for sharing his pain with her. “And your father, are you close with him?”

  She watched as admiration, love, and a little sadness replaced the dullness in his eyes. “Yes, we are close. I am his only son. He taught me all that I know. Basilius broke him. He is not the same man that was quick to laugh and easy to love. He still mourns deeply, as if the wound refreshes daily. Yet I still see the underlying strength that is so much a part of him. He is beloved and respected by our nation. I fear for him constantly and worry he makes decisions in the war based on revenge instead of sound strategy. Basilius knew that my mother’s death would make him reckless. He was biding his time to strike.”

  Drusus’s eyes glittered with deep emotion as he placed his arm around her shoulders. “I now understand him so much better. I fully comprehend what drives him. I, too, would be devastated if someone I loved was no longer in my life. To never look upon her face again or hear her voice is unimaginable, akin to a gouge in the depths of your soul that could never be filled.”

  Lina felt tears begin to sting the back of her eyes, and averted them before he could see her sadness. She wanted to pull him from his grief, to bring him back to happier thoughts. She had heard enough. She fully understood his deep and abiding love for his parents, his ability to weather tragedy, and most importantly, to love with depth.

  Smiling, she leaned forward and brushed her nose against his. “Tell me, Drusus, were you a mischievous child as I believe you may have been? I bet you got in a lot of trouble, didn’t you?” She was relieved when she saw his shoulders relax and his eyes begin to twinkle as memories came to mind.

  “Ah, you have no idea, my sweet. It would take much longer than the time you have for lunch for me to describe all the trouble Severus and I could find. I had no idea how patient my parents were until I grew older and realized how many times my disappearances had brought them to their knees.”

  Lina’s brows rose. “Disappearances? You mean you would turn to mist and hide from them?” Giggling, she swatted at his shoulder. “You are a bad boy, Drusus!”

  Grabbing her hand, he kissed it and grinned back. “No, I mean I would escape the palace and take off on adventures. The royal family groomed Severus from a young age as my Legati, so he was always by my side. He said he was to protect me, so I would always take him along or he threatened to tell on me. We were in serious trouble when they found us floating on the Trancus river on our makeshift raft. I am still surprised it did not capsize and drown both our worthless hides. However, you are correct that I would mist and disappear on them at the most inopportune times. I was broken of that habit very quickly when trapped in my cousin’s cellar for two days. I hated that boy. He knew I was rummaging around in the cellar looking for toys after I disappeared from the dining table. He locked me in and no one heard me banging until two days later. I only mist now when it is important to do so.”

  Pulling back, Lina grinned and patted him on the arm. “Okay, confession time is over. Are you going to get a dessert or share one with me?”

  Laughing, he signaled the server and ordered a single chocolate mousse. “That decadent masterpiece is for you. I have a different dessert in mind.”

  Intrigued, she raised an eyebrow. “Oh really, and where exactly is this dessert, since I didn’t hear you order one?”

  Brushing a kiss across her temple, he leaned in to whisper in her ear. “My dessert is sitting right here in this booth, and I plan to indulge in it shortly.” Sliding from the booth, he pointed at her. “You, stay right there and do not move. I will be right back.”

  “Okay, staying put.” Grinning, she waggled her fingers in a wave and watched him walk around the corner, assuming he was off to the men’s room.

  Moments later, Lina jolted when she felt something brush along the outside of her legs. Pulling the tablecloth up, she peered under the table but didn’t see anything unusual. Letting it drop, she smiled when she saw the server placing the mousse on the table. Looking around, she decided to wait until Drusus returned so she could share it with him. Suddenly she felt the same pressure against her legs. This time, she could feel the sensation moving higher along the skin of her thighs. What in the hell! Something is pushing my skirt up and moving my legs apart!

  Lifting the tablecloth again, she gasped when she saw nothing under the table but watched her legs spreading wider, feeling a slight pressure as if two hands had latched on her knees and pushed outward. Thank goodness, the cloth draped to the floor or she would be flashing her nether regions to the couple across from her! Then it hit her. Oh my god! Drusus is playing with his dessert! Stifling a giggle, she lowered her voice to a whisper. “So, are you showing me another benefit of the mist, sir? So far, I am very intrigued.”

  Stifling a groan, she grabbed the edge of the table when she felt her panties began a gentle slide down her hips. Suddenly her legs snapped closed, her butt slightly lifted, and her panties slid all the way to her ankles. She felt one foot lift and then the other, the panties removed completely. Again, her legs moved open, her pussy lips spread, and a warm buzzing caress brushed across her clit. “Oh shit, that feels good!”

  Fingers digging into the table, she fought to keep her eyes open as the strokes across her swelling clit became stronger and what felt like two large fingers slid into her pussy, pressing against a sensitive bundle of nerves. Biting her lip to keep from squealing, her hips began a gentle roll against the exquisite pressure. She hoped like hell no one was looking at her while she squirmed like a mad women in the booth. When she was right on the edge and about to plunge over into a full-blown orgasm, the pressure left her. Mewling in discontent, she gasped when her hips moved closer to the edge of the booth. Her butt dangled slightly over the edge and a larger presence began pushing into her pussy. Shooting a furtive glance around, she lifted the tablecloth and looked down at the most erotic sight she had ever seen.

  Her pussy was glistening with copious amounts of fluid, the skin stretched tight around something she couldn’t see but definitely felt deep within her body. Her tightened flesh pushed in and out, gripping and releasing against the push and retreat motion of the presence. Panting for breath and trying to keep as still as possible around the oblivious diners, her inner muscles immediately seized, throbbing violently when out of nothing, appeared a beautiful, massive cock moving in and out of her, no body attached, just a silky rod of hard flesh slick with her cream. It continued to pound into her before disappearing fully as it pushed completely into her throbbing core. It was too much, too decadent, and too unbelievable as she was
blown into a thigh shaking release when that glorious cock hit the back of her channel and began to vibrate. Energy formed across her mouth, kissing her deeply and stifling her moans of release. Just as quickly as the energy had consumed her, it retreated.

  Sucking in air, Lina dropped the cloth back over her lap and discreetly pulled her skirt back into place. With relief, she saw that no one had paid her a bit of attention, enjoying their lunch as if it was just another day. Lolling her head back against the booth, she closed her eyes and willed her breathing to settle as the contractions in her pussy slowly ebbed. She determined she was too tired to attempt retrieving her wayward panties from the floor. She would figure that out later. Her eyes snapped open at the sound of a rich-as-sin voice caressing across her ears.

  “You look absolutely beautiful, mellis. Your cheeks are flushed and your eyes cannot hide the look of a woman fresh from her lover’s bed…or should I say, booth.”

  There he stood, the embodiment of all that could define a sexual warrior, eyes hooded and glittering deep emerald as he perused her body. Gracefully sliding his big body next to hers, he reached up and brushed strands of hair away from her eyes. From the waistband of his jeans, he pulled her errant panties out and brought them to his nose. Inhaling deeply, he grinned and stuffed them back in when she made a grab for them.

  “My prize, and you are not getting them back.” In an obvious attempt at distraction from her mock glare, he pointed to the chocolate mousse. “Sweetness, you have not touched your dessert, but I do see you took great joy while I played with mine.”

  Laying her head against his shoulder, she let out a big sigh. “Drusus sweetie, you can have this dessert any damn time you feel up to it. You have more than proven you’re not of this world, and I’m thoroughly and irrevocably addicted to you. You will now have to live with the monster you created. I never stood a chance.”