Illicit Desire: Outlawed Realm, Book 2 (5 page)

He’d known she was sore as all slaves were after the rulers finished with their cunts and anuses. His kindness brought a flood of emotions to the surface, threatening to overwhelm her. She made a noise that betrayed her gratitude and sudden despair. The sound caught his attention, but he focused on her mouth, not her eyes. Rules forbade him from meeting her gaze.

She sensed he didn’t fear retaliation for himself, but for her.

Despite those surrounding them, Arez couldn’t help but stare at him as she’d done too often in the past. It wasn’t that he was more attractive than the other men. They were all physically perfect. He had an air of longing about him the others lacked, their reactions uncomplicated, reduced to how well they could please so they’d have enough to eat and a soft mattress on which to sleep.

Arez suspected Lukan needed more than food or comfort. It’s what drew her to him.

With one hand on her hip to keep her steady, he washed the curls between her legs, combing them with his fingers, running his thumb over her clit.

His caress was so brief and light, Arez wasn’t certain it happened except for the indescribable sensations surging through her. Thrilling. Reassuring. She wanted more—him to imprison her within his solid embrace, to speak again, their gazes to meet and linger, everything outlawed in the Palace.

She had to content herself with Lukan’s skilled touch as he washed her most intimate areas. He explored the length of her cleft, tracing the contours of her vulva, separating those soft lips to expose her erect nub, his movements tender. A sense of being treasured weakened her. And yet, she also felt oddly vulnerable. She didn’t want Lukan to change suddenly and simply use her as the other men had. From him, she already craved more.

He gave it, seeing to her pleasure, not his. He divided his attention between her clit and the tight ring of her anus, making certain to delight, not injure. It was too much and not enough. She imagined him asking if she liked what he was doing, caring about her response. She pictured his fingers replaced by his cock with it thrusting into each of her channels, working her until she took all of him inside because they both wanted it.

She saw herself kneeling before him, cradling his stiffened rod in her palms, tonguing the veins snaking up his thick column of flesh, licking the small depression in the head, tasting the first hint of his salty fluid so that she might give him what he craved.

A powerful orgasm shuddered through Arez, causing her to gasp. Lukan turned her to the side, their bodies making splashing noises to hide the sound. What they’d done.

Trembling, she clung to the enchanting release, fueled by danger, defiance and a bond she’d never known with another individual.

Unable to resist, she whispered, “Come to me again.” A foolish request, she knew, perhaps even impossible given that slaves had no voice in what they wanted or what occurred. The reality of their world hadn’t stopped Arez. “I know you want to.”

Her bold comment registered on Lukan’s face. Although he didn’t dare look at her directly, she saw a hint of a smile on his lips.

After that, he managed to bathe her each night. How, Arez didn’t know nor did she care. She lived for their snatches of conversation. He told her about the world outside the Palace, one Arez hadn’t realized existed.

“The sun’s brighter than a thousand candles,” he’d said. “It shines during the day and goes down at night.”

Day? Night? What was he talking about? “Where does it go?” she asked.

“Below the horizon, to another part of the planet.”

Arez had no idea what a horizon or planet was and wanted to ask but didn’t, deciding not to interrupt him. The deep rumbling of his voice delighted and soothed her far too much.

“There are places where people go about as they please,” he told her another time. “Not only the rulers, but everyone. They eat as much as they want, whenever they’re hungry. They don’t have to ask permission.”

“That can’t be,” she blurted, unable to conceive of having food so readily available. “How is such a thing possible?”

“They’re free.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I know, Arez.” He grazed her cheek with his knuckles.

It took all of her will not to turn her face into his hand to kiss his palm. The guards would surely notice and might punish him for her lack of restraint. “Arez?” She’d never heard the word before.

“It means freedom. To do as you please, go wherever you want, eat your fill. It’s from our language, the one used on E2 where Meelo and Damir created us. It’s the name you deserve. One I’m giving you.”

He prized her so much he’d offered her a name? An honor only the rulers had a right to? What was he thinking? “Don’t say such things,” she whispered. “It’s too dangerous for you to even consider it.”

“No one but you and I will know. Are you afraid, Arez?”

Not for herself. For him. The guards could whip her until she bled; the rulers could deny her food. None of it would hurt as much as having them harm Lukan.

A name she’d given him that day. Arez had no idea what it meant. She’d heard it as a little girl, her caretakers saying it belonged to their race’s first ruler. A man who deserved respect and deference to his every command.

Arez denied Lukan nothing, not out of obedience but affection, what he called love. She allowed him to do as he willed…as she desired…in the bathing place and when the rulers chose him to mount her while they watched, gauging both of their performances. The quality of her moans, the thickness and rigidity of his cock, how long he could withstand the intensifying friction between their bodies and his need for release.

Even with his shaft between her lips and her tongue stroking the silky head, he held off just as their rulers commanded. Sweat trickled down his torso, his toes splayed, his chest pumped with his tattered breaths, but he hadn’t given in to immediate pleasure. Although hours passed as they engaged in every carnal act imaginable, Lukan fought fatigue.

Arez knew how he suffered. She sensed it in his trembling muscles and increasingly sluggish moves. A dangerous combination in any slave that he needed to hide at all cost.

Where is he?

She snuck a peek around the room, so vast it dwarfed the occupants. Scores of naked males sported erections as required by the regulations. Their continuous arousal proved they could still perform on command and endure whatever the rulers demanded of them. Some wore expressions bordering on frustration, which they tried to hide. All tended to the females, who stood thigh-deep in the water, submitting to their baths.

Arez sucked her bottom lip. She continued to search for but didn’t see Lukan. So much time had passed since he’d last been with her, giving her hope, promising in whispers that he’d never leave her. He’d see to her safety. He’d gain their freedom somehow.

Had one of the other slaves overheard and told a guard everything in exchange for an extra morsel of meat or bread?

Her skin stung, then went clammy at another thought.

Had Lukan fallen ill again? Was he too weak to come to her? Had the guards withheld food from him as they had in the past? Or had they taken him from here, delivering him to one of the rulers who would now own him?

No.
Not that. She’d never see Lukan again.

Arez shifted her weight, revealing her distress, unable to stop even though she knew the trouble it might bring. She had to find him.

How? She couldn’t leave the line to search this room or any of the others. That kind of behavior was inconceivable. The guards would surely stop her. If they didn’t, then other slaves, indoctrinated to turn on one another, would see to her capture.

Her mind raced, searching for a way to do what she must.

From the side, wood cracked, then groaned. Several guards pushed open the doors, taller than them by several feet. Steam escaped into the candlelit hall, flickering those flames. The men’s damp skin glinted in the faint light. They were as naked as their charges and as similar to each other in appearance as the rulers were to those of their kind. Each guard had a bruising build with a thick neck, muscular shoulders and arms, light brown eyes, curly black hair and a complexion as dark as the cinnamon used to scent the room.

Most were empty-handed. One had the end of a leather strap wrapped around his palm.

Its ends swung provocatively with each of his steps, his feet making slapping noises as they hit numerous puddles. Up and down the line he went, surveying the female slaves.

Some watched him with interest and heightened lust. The redhead who’d been punished earlier stepped away from Arez and into his path. “Whip me,” she begged.

Grabbing her upper arm, he turned her around and studied the marks on her fair skin. Without a word, he pushed her aside and continued his search, choosing a blonde whose long hair dangled past her ass.

Two other guards came forward. One pulled the girl’s hair over her shoulder, revealing the length of her back and plush buttocks. The next grabbed her wrists, lifting them to one of the many shackles hanging from the ceiling.

Once fettered, she wore a look of surrender at what she couldn’t stop. Beneath it, Arez saw feral desire at what the young woman wanted.

The guard made her wait.

He circled her, his steps slow and deliberate, each accompanied by him hitting the end of the strap against his palm. The noise matched the tapping of his naked feet. Halting behind her, he ran his fingers down the furrow between her cheeks.

It was all the direction she needed. The girl parted her legs, allowing the guard what he willed.

He didn’t touch her mound or clit as expected. Instead, he moved to her side, running his fingertips up the inside of her arm. She lifted her chin to the ceiling, her lips parting on a shameless sigh. The guard bent down, swirling his tongue over the tip of her nipple. One of his companions claimed her mouth. The next pushed his fingers into her cunt.

She went to her toes, her moans muffled by the guard’s tongue.

They worked her relentlessly, kissing, suckling, stroking. Her legs wavered. Her body, already dewy from the mist, became slick with perspiration.

They wouldn’t allow her to come.

All three of the guards stepped back, regarding what they’d accomplished. The girl gulped air and begged for more. The first lick of the strap hit her ass full on, the crack echoing through the space. She cried out and dared tug on her chains, her hunger for more evident.

The guard marked her well, his punishment rough and prolonged. Her buttocks quivered with the blows, flushing red. Although she begged for it to continue, the guard finally stopped. He dipped his fingers between her legs as though to test her response. His hand glistened with her juices, her pussy moist with anticipation and need. Another of the guards also tested her, while his companion unlocked her shackles.

The girl’s arms fell to her sides. Together, she and the guard who’d whipped her sank to their knees. On all fours, she took his cock into her eager mouth, drawing in his full length, the tip of her noise touching the thick hair on his groin. In that position, she was accessible to the other guards.

The one who’d shackled her acted first, kneeling between her legs. With his hands on her whipped ass, he squeezed her tender flesh. She obeyed his wordless command, spreading her thighs still more, arching her back even as she continued to lick and suckle the other guard’s meaty rod.

His jaw tightened, making the tendons in his neck more prominent. A guttural moan poured from him.

Not to be ignored, the guard between her legs lifted his shaft and penetrated the blonde’s anus, his actions concerned with his pleasure, not hers.

The men’s plunder of her continued with the third guard tugging on her nipple while his free hand went between her legs. The sudden rapture on her face said the man was manipulating her clit.

In spite of her own arousal, she tended to the guard whose cock she suckled as was her duty, bringing him to a jarring climax, evident in his heaving chest and fists squeezed so tight his knuckles blanched. The other man drove into her anus one last time and trembled, his gritted teeth suppressing his shout.

With his companions sated, the third guard withdrew his hand. All of them moved away from the slave, leaving her unfulfilled. She struggled to stand and resume her place in line. Her face held no emotion, but Arez guessed the girl was recounting what had occurred, trying to determine where she’d failed. Had she licked the guard’s cock too slowly or too quick? Had she failed to swallow some of his ejaculate? Was her anus too tight for the other one’s enjoyment? What had she done for them to deny her relief?

The answer was never clear. The mystery generated both annoyance and hope that the next time would be different.

A hand grabbed Arez’s arm, the male slave directing her into the pool. In the candlelight, his eyes were nearly black, not the blue-green tint she loved. His skin was an olive shade rather than golden. Dark ringlets swayed above his shoulders, rather than wavy blond hair touching them as Lukan’s had.

Where are you?

With a gesture, the male slave directed Arez to drape her arms over her head so he could wash her pits and breasts. A thousand times she’d done the same without any emotion or thought. Tonight, she envisioned Lukan running his hands down her body, pausing on the flare of her hips, the soft curve of her belly.