Tales of the Shareem, Volume 1

by Allyson James

  But Rio always took control because he knew what would happen if Rees did.

  In the garden, Rees had wanted Talan so intensely, he’d have hurt her to get it. She’d gotten excited and started begging him, but that was simply her biochemistry going crazy in reaction to his.

  If the sandstorm had not pulled him back to sanity, Rees would have taken her as hard as he could, then put her under his arm and dragged her off home with him and kept her there.

  His woman, to fuck when he wanted, kiss when he wanted, put his arms around when he wanted. R294E8S would have taken over and done to Talan anything he wanted.

  In the holo-block weeks ago, he’d wanted that too. He hadn’t been simply reacting to her pheromones.

  He had to be insane. Thank gods the sandstorm had hit.

  Now Rees was back in control. This was his room, his job, follow the rules, no matter how much Talan smiled at him.

  Rees locked the door, picked up Talan, and dumped her into the flowing stream.

  She squealed and scrambled up, lifting her dripping skirts. “My dress will get all wet.”

  Rees didn’t laugh. “It’s all sandy. What’s the difference?”

  “Don’t you want me to take it off?”

  “I want you to pull up your skirts and sit down.”

  She looked bewildered. “Why?”

  “I told you not to ask questions. Obey me and sit down.”

  Talan smiled a little and plopped into the stream, her skirts above her hips.

  Rees’s pulse sped. She sat square in the water, her sweet ass all wet and waiting for him.

  He pulled his sand-ruined tunic from his body and tossed it to the floor. Naked, Rees straddled the stream, one foot on either side of it, and looked down at her. “It’s too bad about the cream,” he said softly. “But we don’t really need it.”

  “I can send to the kitchens for more.”

  Gods, what a woman. “Shut up and spread your legs.”

  Talan held the skirt bunched on her stomach. The water flowed past her legs, and droplets glittered like jewels in her red hair.

  “You have a pretty pussy,” he said softly. “Show me your pussy.”

  She did not know what to do. She lifted her hips a little, touched her clit.

  “Show me,” he purred. “Spread it out.”

  Talan put her fingers on either side of her opening. Sweet and pink, her folds beckoned to Rees.

  “Do you want me to lick you?” he asked.

  Her eyes rounded, dark pools of blue in the shadows. “Yes. Please.”

  Much tamer, this. Rees put his feet in the water, enjoying the cool flow over them. He knelt in front of her and stroked one finger all the way down her opening.

  Talan made a noise of pleasure. Rees put his finger into his mouth and sucked. She tasted fine, like honey on a summer’s day.

  Poetry again. What was wrong with him?

  He put his face down to her, inhaling her good scent. Then he stroked his thumb across her clit and followed it with his tongue. She made a faint noise in her throat.

  His control wavered for a split second before he regained it again. Sheesh, he was only licking her pussy.

  Rees raised his head. “If you don’t want me to do this, Talan, you have to say.”

  Talan’s face was flushed, her eyes closed. “I want it.”

  I want it, too. I want all of you.

  And I can’t ever have you. I’ll take you as far as you need to go, and then I’ll leave and never see you again.

  It was enough to make a grown Shareem cry.

  Rees lowered to her again, circling her clit with his tongue, tasting the spice of her. Then he slid his tongue into her opening.

  Talan squirmed, making hot noises. Sweet cream touched his mouth. She was wet, oh, she was wet, and she was loving this.

  Rees licked and licked. His tongue grew sore, and still he licked her. He traced her opening, thrust inside again.

  Her hands tangled in his hair. She forgot to hold up the dress, and it fell into his face, sand trickling into his mouth.

  He turned aside, spat it out. Then he raised the dress himself and leaned down to her again.

  “Rees,” she whispered.

  Rees.

  Not a play name, not what he told her to say. Just her sweet voice calling his name.

  His cock pounded. He wanted more than anything to push her back and slide right into her.

  Not yet. Not yet. He was supposed to be slow and sensual, bringing her to complete readiness first. Then he’d take her slowly, teach her to want it, teach her how pleasurable it was to have a man inside her.

  Control.

  Talan leapt under his mouth. She was coming. His tongue was all wet with her, and she rocked around him.

  Now, now, now! Take her!

  You are Rees. You can have whatever you want, and you know what you want.

  Rees sank his fingers into her thighs to hold himself in place. Talan bucked and rocked and screamed her pleasure.

  Her pleasure. That’s why he was here.

  He sucked at her, driving her ever more wild. Rees drank her down, and then he sat back on his heels and licked her from his lips.

  Talan lay back, her dress all wet, the water running between her legs. Her cries had wound down into breathy sighs, and her eyes were half closed.

  She was beautiful.

  “You look sweet,” Rees said, grinning.

  “I do?”

  “You’re beautiful, Talan. Don’t let anyone tell you different.” He licked the last drop of her from his lips. “And you taste so good.”

  “I do?”

  “Better than anything I’ve ever tasted. Here.”

  Rees pulled her up into his arms and brought his mouth down on hers.

  Her lips were soft, curious. They slid against his, and then, whether she meant to or not, opened for him.

  He tangled her tongue, then slanted his mouth over hers. The kiss grew deep. Dangerous.

  Her tongue moved against his, unpracticed. Rees tasted her to the corners of her mouth, even as she tasted him, and he sank his hands into her hair.

  He wanted her so much. He wanted to slide into her and show her what it was like to be sexed. He wanted her to beg for him, not because he told her to, but because she truly wanted him.

  Women wanted Rees because he was Shareem. He wanted this woman to want Rees.

  Take her, R294E8S said. Let her scream. You’ll have gotten what you came for.

  R294E8S could really be a bastard.

  Rees eased the kiss to its end. Talan clung to him, her lips parted, her breath hot.

  “Did you like it?” he asked.

  Talan nodded as she twined her arms about his neck and brought him back down for another kiss.

  He kept this one shorter, though it was just as heady.

  “You have nice eyes,” she whispered.

  Rees, by the gods, felt himself blush. “Thank you.”

  “Can I suck you again? Like I did in the garden?” Her lashes swept down, and she looked coy. “Like a good girl?”

  “You’re learning, darling,” Rees said. His cock throbbed so much, he’d have to shove it somewhere before he died.

  Talan got to her knees, holding her soaking dress. “Sit down,” she said, a wicked glint in her eye. “And spread your legs.”

  He obeyed.

  Rees came two more times into her mouth, he was so desperate, until Metri piped in a message to say that the sandstorm had gone.

  *** *** ***

  Lady Petronella returned home safely, having waited out the sandstorm at the home of her friend. She summoned Talan to her as soon as she settled in her suite to repair her makeup.

  “Well?” she said to the mirror. She’d dismissed the maid so that she and Talan could speak alone.

  “Well, what?” Talan asked from the window.

  She knew exactly what, but she pretended to watch the street and the park in the middle of the square. Workwomen and hover
craft had emerged to repair the damage from the storm, at the same time Lady Pet inspected damage to her face.

  “Have you lost your fear of sex?”

  “I never feared it,” Talan answered. Below her, a woman in coveralls rose on a grav-free lift to trim a broken limb of a succulent tree. “I only said I did not wish sex in my marriage.”

  “Well, the Shareem will not marry you. And I asked you if you liked it.”

  “It’s not the same thing, is it?” Talan turned from the window. “He is trained to make me like it.”

  Lady Pet’s gaze was intense. “So you do like it.”

  “So far.” Talan’s face grew hot. “He’s not done much more than touch me.”

  That was true—in a technical sense. But what he’d said to her, what he’d made her feel, the wicked games they’d played, the phrases he wanted her to speak . . . A dark feeling coiled in her belly.

  Lady Pet looked surprised. “Metri told me you were with him all morning. He’s not even had intercourse with you?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Why on earth not?”

  Talan pressed her lips together. She didn’t want to discuss this with Lady Pet. Not only did it embarrass her, but she wanted to keep it private. Her time with Rees was special. Rees was hers.

  Hers. Now where had that foolish idea come from?

  “Talan,” Lady Pet said. She turned in her chair to watch her.

  “He said I wasn’t ready,” Talan said.

  “Hmph. He’s drawing it out so he can enjoy the luxury of my house.”

  “No, he’s right, and he’s being kind. I’m not ready yet.”

  She remembered herself in the garden, when she’d clung to him and begged him to take her any way he wished—in her backside, no less.

  He’d told her she didn’t mean that, that he’d cast his Shareem spell on her, but he was wrong. Talan wanted him, wanted him any way possible.

  “Yes, well, I’ll spare your delicate feelings for now,” Lady Pet said. “But if he doesn’t hurry, I can always hire another. The back streets are thick with Shareem if you know where to look.”

  “No.”

  Talan’s answer was so firm that Lady Pet’s perfect brows arched. “What?”

  “No,” Talan repeated. “I know Rees now. I don’t want anyone else.”

  Lady Pet looked at Talan for a long time, then she shook her head and turned back to her mirror. “All right, I understand your modesty. But he needs to finish this. I don’t like being taken advantage of.”

  Talan could bear no more. Usually gentle-tempered, at that moment, she was very, very angry.

  She walked stiffly to the door. “It has nothing to do with you,” she said in a hard voice.

  Lady Pet stared at her in the mirror, then turned around as if she had not heard right.

  “It is to do with me, and my life,” Talan said. “Not you.”

  Lady Pet continued to stare, and Talan closed her mouth. Breathing hard, she left the room.

  She would not have been happy to see what Lady Petronella did after she marched away. Her foster mother turned back to the mirror and grinned at her reflection.

  “About time that girl stood up to me,” she said.

  *** *** ***

  Rees chewed the last morsel of his apricot salad just as the door chime rang softly. Everything in this house was quiet and polite. Rees punched a button and door slid open.

  Talan stood framed in the doorway, her lovely red-gold hair covered with an opaque veil that hung down her back. Her gown, long sleeved and hanging to her ankles, covered her completely, but the silk of it clung to her curves.

  “Oh,” she said, looking at his empty plate. “I was going to take you out to lunch.”

  The bite of disappointment surprised him. “Metri sent it. He thought I’d be hungry, for some reason.” He grinned. “Besides, where would you take me that you could be seen with a Shareem?”

  “I hadn’t thought of that.” Talan looked agitated. “I just wanted to go out, to get away from here for a while.” She flicked a glance over the Spartan room. “Is this where Metri has put you? I apologize.”

  Rees looked at her in surprise. The room was plain, yes, but well-sealed, temperature controlled, and had every luxury. She should have seen the hold they’d made him sleep in at DNAmo.

  He shrugged. “So it doesn’t have pillows and piped music. Shareem don’t need much.”

  Talan didn’t answer, only stood there like she wanted to say something and didn’t know how. Rees didn’t mind as long as he could look at her.

  Talan had a plumpness that wasn’t fashionable, and she had curves. Who couldn’t love those curves? But upper-class ladies liked to make themselves rail thin for some ridiculous reason. Whatever Rees didn’t like about Lady Pet, she had at least let Talan be beautiful.

  Talan had been even more beautiful that morning, when she’d lay down in the water and come and come. With her hair raining down her back to swirl in the stream, her eyes half closed, her face soft with ecstasy. . . Rees got hard just thinking about it.

  Correction, he’d had a hard on as soon as she appeared in the doorway. He was perpetually hard around this woman. It was making walking difficult.

  “Rees,” Talan said abruptly. “Take me somewhere.”

  Rees got up and went to her, drew her inside, and let the door close. “We’re somewhere now.”

  “No, I mean out of the house—somewhere I can be seen with a Shareem.”

  Rees traced her cheek, and the scent of her danced in the air. She was agitated and a bit distressed. “What’s wrong, little Talan?”

  Talan stepped away from him. “I want to be with you, away from here. Take me . . . Take me to your world. To the back streets.”

  She said back streets as though that was a distant planet. Rees grinned. “Sure you want to? It’s not pretty and clean, like here.”

  Talan rubbed her arms, as though trying to scrape something off her sleeves. “I don’t care. I just want out.”

  Out of her gilded cage? “Poor little rich girl,” he teased. “All right. I’ll take you. But if you want to keep your reputation, you’ll have to go in disguise.”

  She looked intrigued. “I have a long cloak, and I can hide my face—”

  He laughed. “No, baby. The minute anyone spots you in a rich cloak and veil, they’ll peg you as highborn. You want to end up on a news digital?” He tugged off her veil, setting her hair free. “You need to hide in plain sight.”

  He gathered her hair in his hands, lifting it from her neck. “Pin that up in a knot. You have a short-sleeved tunic, maybe some pants to go under it? That would be perfect.”

  Talan smiled, getting into the spirit of it. “Lady Pet will kill me.”

  “Lady Pet probably put up her hair and went out on the town plenty. She looks the type.”

  “You might be right. I’ll tell Metri to send the litter round.”

  He shook his head. “No litter, no bodyguards. Just you and me. We’ll take the hovertrain.”

  Her eyes lit up. “I’ve always wanted to do that.”

  “Gods, you are a poor little rich girl. Go get ready. I’ll wait for you downstairs.”

  *** *** ***

  They had to ditch Metri. The enclosed courtyard held another cool fountain and a place for getting into and out of a litter, and for some reason, Metri watched it anxiously. Like two truant servants, Talan and Rees hid in the shadows of the hall, waiting, but Metri wouldn’t move.

  Then Talan got the idea to send him a bogus call from upstairs. When Metri, sighing, went to answer, Talan and Rees slipped through the courtyard and out into the road.

  Talan flushed and grinned as Rees took her arm and started down the street in the direction of the nearest station.

  “Oh, gods, what if the neighbors see me?” Talan whispered, turning her face from the blank-walled houses.

  “If they see us at all, they’ll think we’re two servants out to enjoy ourselves. And we are. O
ut to enjoy ourselves.”

  “I’m already enjoying it,” Talan said.

  “You have a bad life if you think running down the street in the heat is fun.”

  “It is with you.”

  Don’t look at me like that, sweet lady. You make me want to be very bad.

  They ran along, hand in hand, like a man and his girl off to catch a train.

  The streets grew crowded as they neared the station for this part of the hill. Shopping and restaurants for the rich were everywhere. The sudden sandstorm this morning had caught many by surprise. More than one restaurant was repairing broken awnings and fetching chairs smashed into neighboring restaurants.

  At the same time, litters letting off well-born women, bodies covered against the sun, flanked the restaurants, and slim men in servants’ garb bade the harried restaurant owners to let their ladies in for lunch.

  Talan kept her head turned to Rees’s shoulder as they hurried past and into the cool shade of the hover station. The station was an elegant edifice in carved stone and steel, fitting for the Serestine Quarter, very unlike the utilitarian stations of the lower city.

  Talan was ready to run across the platform and into the open doors of the nearest train. Rees pulled her back, laughing. “You have to buy a ticket.”

  “What?”

  Rees dragged her to a ticket dispenser. “A ticket. You can’t ride for free.”

  Talan looked puzzled. “Can’t I just fingerprint?”

  “Yes, if you have an account. Do you?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea.”

  “Then you buy a ticket.” Rees pulled a credit strip, the kind you bought in a corner store, out of the pocket of his air-cooled robe. He let the vending machine eat the strip for a minute, then it spit it back out along with two plastic tokens.

  Rees handed one token to Talan who studied it like a woman might a new diamond.

  He laughed, took her by the arm, and steered her to the two-tiered platform.

  Talan didn’t want to give up her ticket—she wanted to save it, like a souvenir. Rees took it out of her reluctant hand and dropped it into the slot so the force shield would open and they could get on the train.

  The trains were relatively empty in this part of town. They found a seat on the first commuter car where they could sit side-by-side. Rees slid his arm around Talan’s shoulders, and she snuggled up to him.