Armored Hearts (6 page)

“That’s right,” Rand said, low and rough. “Suck me hard. Take me deep.” He thrust, stopping just shy of gagging her, then began rolling his hips with ruthless control.

God, it was so delicious, so erotic feeling him mouth fucking her. Hands cuffed behind her, paddled ass burning, unable to resist even if she’d wanted to. And God, she didn’t.

What she wanted was to be fucked. To feel him everywhere. To savor all the promise of pleasure his hard body offered. His shaft slid back and forth between her lips, making her imagine how he’d feel in her pussy, driving ruthlessly deep. Velvet over iron, solid and primitive.

Primal male to her hungry female.

“That’s enough.” He arced his hips, pulling his cock free from her mouth.

“No…” Zara groaned, breathless and frustrated. She leaned forward, trying to recapture his cock, but he stepped clear.

Laughing, he caught her jaw in his fingers and pulled her head up to meet his gaze. “When I say no, that’s what I mean.”

Scooping her off the floor, he dropped her on the bunk hard enough to bounce. “I have something in mind for that erection.”

Then he pounced, pushing her backward onto her bound wrists as he lowered his head to capture a nipple in his hot, skilled mouth.

He began to suck, his tongue swirling over the pebbled point between gentle bites that let her feel the points of his fangs. Not penetrating -- quite. The wet sensations were overwhelming, sending her arousal spiking until she pumped her hips in helpless lust.

Rand braced his weight on his elbows as he rested his body diagonally across hers. Zara moaned as Rand cupped her left breast, thumb flicking over its nipple as he suckled and teased the right.

And there was nothing she could do about it, even if she’d wanted to. The restraints around her wrists held her arms paralyzed beneath her.

Rand started working his way down her body, pausing here and there to kiss, lick and bite. Each time she thought he was going to break the skin, but he held back. His restraint only stoked the anticipation.

He stopped to swirl his tongue over her bellybutton, making her squirm at the ticklish sensation. Then lower, nibbling gently all the way.

By the time he rose to slide between her legs, draping her knees over his shoulders, need coiled into a tight, fierce knot between her thighs.

She raised her head, watching down the length of her body as he parted her vaginal lips.

And licked. “Mmm,” he purred. “There’s nothing like the taste of wet pussy.” His tongue thrust deep into her cunt.

“Rand! Oh, God!” Rolling her head back, Zara gasped. Waves of pleasure surged through her in time to his thrusting tongue. Settling down, he reached one hand up her body and went after one tight nipple, squeezing, pinching, twisting, while he licked in and out of her sex.

Zara moaned as he lapped up and down each side of her vaginal lips, then swirled the tip of his tongue over and around her clit.

Her arousal intensified, until she writhed with it, suspended in the web of pleasure he wove with hands and mouth. “God, Rand, you feel so good!” she gasped. “Fuck me, please, fuck me…”

The burning fuse of her pleasure suddenly detonated in a deep, rolling orgasm. She screamed, head thrown back, hips grinding.

“And that sounds like my cue.” He pulled away, snatched her off the bunk as if she were weightless, and flipped her over. Spreading her vaginal lips with one hand, he aimed his cock with the other and thrust into her from behind.

She shrieked into the mattress, high, shrill and abandoned.

“Felt that, didn’t you?” he asked, a note of dark laughter in his voice.

“Yes, you bastard!”

“That’s no way to talk to your dom.” He drew the length of his cock out of her body, then thrust deep. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to punish you for that.”

Then he started driving, fucking her hard, his shaft so thick, so long, the muscle of his thighs pressing against hers, his long fingers gripping her hips as he ground in and out.

Those ferocious sensations built the pulses of her climax, driving them higher, faster. She convulsed helplessly, yowling under his pounding hips. “Rand! Oh, God, more!”

* * *

Rand watched Zara writhe, her slim back twisting, silken ass hunching against his groin, pussy gripping him, slick and snug. The pleasure was so intense he had to fight not to come. “God,” he groaned, “You feel so damned…”

He held on somehow, listening to her gasping whimpers of delight, his fangs aching, until finally he could stand no more. Shifting his hold from hips to shoulders, he pulled her upright, then wrapped a hand into her hair. Dragged her head to one side.

And bit.

The taste of her blood filled his mouth, pumping sweet and hot. His cock jerked as his lust skidded out of control. He drank as her pussy rippled around his length and his balls emptied in burning pulses. She screamed again, stiffening in his grip. “Raaaaand!”

He growled possessively back at her.

The pleasure faded slowly, leaving her limp and sated in his arms. Rand withdrew his fangs carefully and started licking the small wounds; his vampire saliva would make them heal much faster.

She only moaned. “God, that feels good.”

“Yes,” he agreed in her ear. “It certainly did.” He paused to caress her softening nipples as he pulled his cock from her sex. “Thank you for the gift of your submission.”

“Believe me,” Zara breathed, “the pleasure was mine.”

Rand smiled and eased back, ordering his computer implant to open the neurocuffs. The restraints released, and he stripped them off her wrists before bending to scoop her up. Zara draped her arms around his neck as he carried her around the bunk to put her down on the mattress.

“That was delicious,” she sighed.

Rand licked a drop of blood from his lips. “I thought so.”

He moved through a flap into the hygiene closet that held the shelter’s toilet. Picking up the sonic cleaner from the small vanity, he stuck the little device into his mouth. It hummed, killing any bacteria before spraying a mist that left his mouth tasting like mint.

He picked up a cloth and flicked it, activating the release of moisture from its fibers. Rand cleaned himself off with the wet cloth, then refolded it and dropped it back on the stack to disinfect itself. He grabbed another cleaning cloth and carried it out to Zara.

“Spread your legs,” he ordered. She obeyed, looking half asleep and he reached between her thighs to her lovely pussy.

He put the cloth away, then returned to slide into the bed, spooning the warm curve of her body with his and wrapped his arms around her. “Sleep, Zara,” he murmured.

She sighed, her breathing deepening, her slim body going lax.

He inhaled the scent of her hair, enjoying the warmth of her soft skin, savoring the memory of her body rolling against his as he drank from her. As she came in his arms.

He’d claimed her. She was his now. His submissive. His woman.

His captive.

Rand frowned a little, uncomfortable with the thought. It was one thing to play at holding a woman prisoner, to pretend to force her submission as part of a sexual game. It was another thing entirely to take a prisoner to bed. Yes, he felt reasonably sure she’d meant it when she gave her consent, especially given the scent of her arousal.

But could a prisoner truly give consent?

Unfortunately, there was no way to free her. If he even tried, Lordsvengeance would do everything in his power to kill both of them. And the bastard would make sure they died in the worst way he could manage, probably after torturing Zara for any intelligence she might possess.

Rand’s jaw clenched as he stroked her slender shoulder. He’d sworn to protect her, and he’d do it.

Lordsvengeance would have to go through him to get to his submissive. And if the fucker tried, he’d find out exactly what a vampire was capable of.

It wouldn’t be a lesson the colonel would enjoy.

* * *

Zara woke some hours later to the smell of meat and spices. She sat up on her elbows on the bunk to see Rand, fully dressed in light G.A.E. armor, arranging a pair of steaming trays, utensils, and drinks on the small table. “Something smells good.”

“I made a run to the mess tent,” he explained, as she took another appreciative sniff. “I figured being stared at by a tent full of horny, resentful assholes wouldn’t be particularly good for your digestion.”

“You figured right.” She rolled out of the bed, picked up her uni, and got dressed before taking a seat at the table. She removed the tray’s lid, releasing a wave of steam fragrant with the scent of roasted meat and spices. “Mmm.” Zara picked up a fork and dug in, quickly discovering that it was every bit as delicious as it smelled.

For a moment there was silence as they started making short work of the food. Rand ate every bit as heartily as she did. Godssonists superstition notwithstanding, vamps ate food and had no more problem with sunlight than ordinary humans.

Once her stomach was comfortably full, Zara headed for the curtained alcove and used one of the cleansing sheets to bathe the dried sweat of combat and passion from her skin.

Emerging, she bent over the duffle she’d packed with her clothes and gear. She could feel Rand watching her lazily from where he sprawled on the bunk, his armored ankles crossed.

As she dressed in a clean uniform -- one that actually fit -- Zara asked, “What are your plans for the day? I mean what do you want me to do?” Looking over at him, lounging there looking big and handsome in his black armor suddenly brought home to her what an uncomfortable position she was in.

He might be her lover, but he was also an enemy officer.

What the hell am I doing
?

As a lieutenant in the Falaran army, it was her duty to escape -- even to kill him.

And yet even if she did such a thing, what the hell would she do next? She was in the middle of a G.A.E. camp. Even if she succeeded in killing Rand, she was unlikely to make it to freedom.

But Rand, who’d protected her from his own murderous men, would still be dead -- a victim of his own generosity.

Assuming she succeeded. A V.S.S. might be strong, but Rand still had at least double her strength. Probably more. She didn’t have a prayer against him.

None of which changed the fact that he was the enemy, and Zara still had a duty to escape.

* * *

His table chimed. Zara looked around in time to see a familiar face form above the tabletop. “Good morning, darling.”

Zara had heard the voice in hundreds of newstreams: Adela Rand. She gaped.
Darling? Adela Rand is calling…
Oh. Rand.

“Hi, mom,” Rand said cheerfully. “Made any gossip streams lately?”

One of the galaxy’s richest women gave him an urchin grin. “Oh, you how it is. I can’t scratch my ass without winding up on the ‘stream.” She looked him over with what Zara thought was a trace of anxiety. “I see you’re still in one piece.”

“So far.” He rolled off the bunk, walked to the table and dropped into a chair so he could study his mother’s image.

Zara fidgeted, more than a little uncomfortable. “Do you want me to step outside, give you two a little privacy?”

“God, no. Somebody’d probably shoot you -- while ‘trying to escape.’” He gestured quotes in the air, then snorted sardonically. “Might even be true.”

Adela studied her so closely, Zara wondered if she had spinach clinging to her teeth. “Who’s this? And why is she wearing a Falaran Coalition uniform?”

“Mother, meet Lieutenant Zara Tahir. She’s my… guest. Zara, this is my mother, Adela Rand.”

Zara had to swallow before she could manage, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am.”

“I’m delighted to say the same. That’s a V.S.S. insignia on your uni, isn’t it, dear?” The woman’s eyes narrowed as she studied the stylized golden V pinned on Zara’s high collar.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, that’s one way to solve the hemosynther problem.”

Rand blinked. “How’d you find out about that?”

“I make it a point to be well informed about my only son. Especially since you won’t tell me a damned thing. I would have sent you the ‘synther, Rand.”

“It’s not your job to provide me with supplies. It’s my employer’s.” Frowning, he changed the subject. “So. Are you on Falara yet?”

“Oh, yes. I’m meeting with Godsson in an hour, in fact. We’re supposed to be discussing those ideas I have for his new Falaran territories. So far he seems to be very enthusiastic.”

A muscle worked in Rand’s jaw. “I trust your bodyguards are staying on their toes.”

“I can handle myself, Nick. I used to be a merc too, if you remember.”

“Which won’t keep you from getting blood all over that pretty suit.”

“It’s in Godsson’s best interest to make sure I stay safe, given his eagerness to cut a deal.”

Zara had held her temper about as long as she could. “You might want to keep in mind that Godsson doesn’t have this planet yet. He’s not in a position to make deals.”

Adela studied her in the fraught pause that followed. “It’s only a matter of time, I’m afraid. The Falaran Army is outnumbered and outgunned. The newsies say the capital is expected to fall in a week -- perhaps two at the outside. I’m afraid you find yourself in a rather uncomfortable position.”

The woman was so calm about discussing the virtual enslavement of a million people. As if Falara were some corporation she was buying. Zara opened her mouth for a hot retort.

But before she could spit out something ill advised, Rand covered her hand where it lay fisted on the table. “Enough, Zara.”

“But…”

“Zara.” Something about the look in his golden eyes made her close her mouth. It wasn’t anger, or even a dominant’s arrogant demand that his sub shut up. It was more like a plea for understanding, and a promise that he would explain. Just not now.

Adela’s lips pursed as she eyed him, then flicked a glance at Zara. “The lieutenant’s not just a solution to the hemosynther problem, is she?” She sat back in her chair with a satisfied smile. “It’s about time.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Mom, she’s a prisoner of war.”