Mastered By Love (4 page)

The Saturnian crouched down
near the fire and laid her on the ground. A stone poked her right
in the center of her spine. He loomed over her.

By the Goddess, he was
huge. He didn’t merely loom. He towered. She could hardly make out
his eyes in the flickering firelight, but they seemed to be some
dark color. The rest of his features hid behind thick facial
hair.

Those eyes. She’d seen them
before. A shiver of dread slithered down her spine. Where had she
seen him?

Concordian men rarely got this big.
And even when they did, their natural male arrogance was always
tempered by the chains they wore and the discipline meted out by
their female owners. This man clearly had no owner, and no sense of
his proper place in life. But then, no Saturnian male
did.

A full beard and moustache,
black as the deepest cave, covered the lower part of his
face–another affectation not allowed males in Concordia. Large dark
eyes regarded her with amusement. He was exceptionally
good-looking, even with the facial hair partially concealing his
features, with a blade-like nose, high cheekbones and full, sensual
lips she knew would make for glorious kissing. Not that she would
ever kiss a swine like him.

“
How dare you accost me,”
she said, forcing her voice to harden.

His lips quirked up on one
side, as if he were about to laugh. “You are Concordian. We are at
war.”

Was it possible he didn’t
know who she was? If so, she must be careful never to reveal her
true identity, for if her captors knew it, her life would be
worthless.

“
What is your name,
Saturnian?” she said with a confidence she didn’t feel.

The quirk became a
lop-sided smile. “I’m wounded that you don’t recognize me, Your
Highness.”

Confound it all. He did know who she
was.

Tariza tried to shrug,
although her bound hands made it difficult. “My apologies. Perhaps
you might refresh my memory.”

“
I’m Dario
Saturnios.”

She clamped down on a
startled gasp. “You!”

“
Me.” He gave her a courtly
bow.

“
You looked different
then.”

He’d been clean-shaven.
She’d ... wanted him. Her fantasies of taming him returned in a
rush, making her face burn.

“
As did you,” he said. “If
I recall correctly, you wore a dress then, like any normal
woman.”

She narrowed her eyes. He
mustn’t know how weak and exhausted she felt. She must show him a
strong Concordian face. “Don’t imagine that kidnapping me will gain
you any ground in the war. As a warrior, I’m prepared to lose my
life and my mother is willing to sacrifice me.”

“
You are her heir. She’ll
negotiate.”

“
She’ll sacrifice me for
the good of Concordia.”

He smiled a little more broadly as he
leaned over her. He smelled like healthy male sweat and some spice
that was his alone. A bolt of lust speared her, made her sex ache
and her heart suddenly pound for reasons other than
fear.

Goddess, what was wrong
with her? This man was her worst enemy. Yet she still lusted after
him, although he’d captured her and was about to do terrible things
to her. Unspeakable things.

“
What you don’t seem to
understand, Tariza,” he murmured, staring into her eyes, “is this.
I haven’t kidnapped you. I’m not holding you for ransom. What I am
doing is making you one of my girls.”

Her lips parted in shock.
“You wouldn’t dare.”

“
Oh, but I would.” He
grinned openly, his gaze traveling over the battle-stained uniform
in which she’d slept. “I’ll bet once we get you out of those
man-clothes, I’ll find I’ve stolen a real prize.”

To her shame, her nipples
hardened eagerly under his regard. Apparently her body didn’t know
the difference between a decently chained male and a beast like
Dario Saturnios. She swallowed hard and licked dust-dry
lips.

“
Shouldn’t I go to the king
himself?” The king was a wrinkled old man, not a virile young
warrior like Dario. He would be no threat to her.

A mask seemed to slip over
Dario’s handsome face. “Maybe you should, but you’re not going to.
Paolo!”

An adolescent boy with a
shock of dark blond hair wandered over from where they’d hobbled
the horse. “Yes, milord?”

“
I’ll need a witness to
this.”

Tariza shrank back against
the stone. “A witness to what?”

Saturnios gave her an
expression she’d seen before ... but not in a male. It was the way
a Concordian woman looked at a slave she planned to dominate. Maybe
to fuck.

“
No. You can’t. I’m the
heir to Concordia. This isn’t the way an honorable soldier treats
hostages.”

“
Sweetheart, you’re not a
hostage. You’re my slave.” He reached for the knife at his
belt.

Her heart thundered and her pussy
clenched in eagerness. Curse her stupid body. She was a warrior,
not some adolescent girl with her first slave. She ought to have
better control over herself than this.

The knife flashed darkly in the low
light. Saturnios turned it so the blade rested against his palm as
he unbuttoned her jacket. His fingers lingered against the linen of
her shirt, teasing her with what was to come.

Probably a hurried rutting,
like an animal. These Saturnians couldn’t know how to please a
woman, since they never had to. They weren’t required to please
their women the way Concordian men were, and he would be an
ignorant brute. But her body yearned for his touch
anyhow.

He unbuttoned her shirt as
well. He certainly wasn’t in a hurry. Didn’t he know her women
could be following them?

No doubt he believed he could fight
off a Concordian attack blindfolded and with one hand tied behind
his back. Fool.

Of course, he’d killed her
guards. Killed anyone who could have raised the alarm. The thought
of her friends dead, because of her, because of this barbarian,
sluiced icy water over her lust and drowned it.

He cut away her jacket sleeves. Then
the blade slipped, cold and hard, inside her shirt. He carefully
repeated the action with her shirt sleeves, pulling the tubes of
fabric from her arms and tossing them to the side.

He contemplated her
breast-binding for a moment. “I hope you haven’t ruined your figure
with that bandaging.”

Tariza merely glared at
him.

With a grin, he cut the
breast-binding down the middle. It sprang open, displaying her
breasts. Her nipples pearled in the chill night air. Paolo let out
a sigh. She couldn’t look at him as her face burned with
shame.

In Concordia, women went
bare-breasted all the time in the summer, but that was different.
There, men didn’t dare to ogle women or touch them uninvited. Here,
she was bound hand and foot, helpless, while two enemy males stared
at her in undisguised lust.

Saturnios cupped her left breast,
lifting it, his touch surprisingly gentle. She stifled a whimper of
pleasure.

Show no weakness. No
weakness.

He rolled her breast in his
hot palm, while his thumb stroked over her straining nipple. Tariza
bit her lip. He bent down, lowered her head. Goddess, no. He
couldn’t. She’d –

Saturnios took her nipple
in his hot, wet mouth and suckled her. Delight arrowed straight
from her breast to her cunt. She moaned. The sound slipped out
without her conscious intent or knowledge. It just happened, and
she couldn’t take it back.

He gave an answering moan.
His response to her excited her even more, at the same time as she
flushed with even greater shame. She couldn’t stop her back from
arching, from pushing her breast up like an offering. The head blow
had surely driven her mad.

His blade touched her skin again. The
cold made her jump. He drew away from her breast and carefully cut
the fabric of her trousers in two slashes from the fly to the side
seams. Another couple of cuts freed the trouser legs from her body,
leaving her sex bare to his gaze.

And gaze he did.

His eyes grew so dark they looked
blacker than the sky. She felt a trickle of moisture from her cunt
as her body warmed and opened for him. He put a hand beneath her
right knee and lifted her leg as far as it would go against the
ankle bindings, opening her for his inspection. Then he brushed her
lightly between her legs. Tariza jumped, gasping.

“
You’ve trimmed your hair
here,” he said.

Most Concordian women kept
their pubic hair short for reasons of hygiene. It wasn’t done for
the convenience of their slaves, that was certain. She said
nothing.

He dragged a fingertip
lightly along the crease between her crotch and her inner thigh,
making her shudder and gasp again. She hadn’t had a male in a long
time; she’d been too busy with war. That was the reason she
responded so strongly to this barbarian beast. It was the only
explanation that made sense – besides head trauma,
anyway.

Saturnios toyed with her, stroking her
inner thighs, then each fold of her sex, his touch gentle as he
explored her. She quivered under his exploration, her cunt flushing
with more cream.

“
Get on with it,” she
snapped. “Or do you want to be caught?”

“
We won’t be caught.” He
leaned over her and captured her mouth.

Concordian women never
allowed men to loom over them. The man was always beneath the
woman, often chained to the bed or floor. Dario’s body heat seared
her, his weight oppressing her even though she knew he wasn’t
really leaning on her. He was too close, too big, too –

Her heart zoomed so fast
she felt dizzy. She kicked out, twisting her head away from him.
“Don’t! Don’t crush me.”

“
Shhh.” He stroked her
hair. “I’m not crushing you. I won’t hurt you, Tariza. I’ll never
hurt you.”

“
Yes, you will. You want to
hurt me. Isn’t that why you kidnapped me?”

“
Not to hurt you. To make
you mine.”

“
To bring down
Concordia.”

“
That, too.” There was a
smile in his voice. He took her by the jaw and urged her face
toward him. “I’m only going to kiss and pet you. There’ll be no
crushing.”

She panted as he leaned in again and
pressed his lips to hers. He kept his weight off her, although
their torsos met, the waxed leather of his armor cold and smooth
against her bare nipples.

“
You see?” he whispered.
“I’m not crushing you.”

He took her mouth once more. Somehow
he managed to be gentle and overpowering at the same time. His lips
caressed, sucked at hers; his tongue dipped into her mouth in a
rhythm that mimicked the way he would possess her cunt. He tasted
of wine and man.

She tried not to respond.
Her body betrayed her, as she unthinkingly angled her head for a
better fit with his mouth, as she swept her tongue across his and
sighed against his kiss. Those lips of his were even more glorious
than she’d remembered.

Saturnios found her breast
again, pinching her nipple as he moaned and kissed her. His weight
pressed into her, just a little. Tariza’s breath came faster, fear
and arousal mixed with the taste and scent of him.

He broke away from her mouth to kiss
his way down her front, his beard tickling her skin. When he
reached her navel, he dipped his tongue inside and her breath
caught. Then he settled between her thighs.

Paolo stood to the side,
watching. She knew he was there, but she didn’t look at him. If she
didn’t see him then she could pretend he was somewhere
else.

Dario spread her open with his thumbs.
Cool night air met her pussy. He bent his head and enveloped her
with his mouth.

She moaned loudly. His tongue
ruthlessly possessed her, plunging inside her, so hot and wet and
perfect. She bucked against him as her moans turned
desperate.

“
In a moment, pet.” He
kissed her inner thigh.

When he rose above her, his trousers
were already unfastened. His cock jutted out, straining with
undisguised eagerness for her body. He was enormous.

Saturnios lifted her other knee and
positioned himself at her entrance. He thrust into her in one
powerful stroke that made her cry out in shock and near-pain. Then
his mouth recaptured hers, mating with hers, tasting of her pussy,
and she moaned helplessly.

She couldn’t fight him and
win. He was too much for her.

He withdrew almost all the way from
her sheath. Then, with a groan, he plunged deep. Ruthless pleasure
speared her all the way to her womb. She cried out again, the sound
swallowed by his kiss.

His hips moved in a lazy
rhythm against hers, each thrust sending a burst of delight through
her pelvis and into the rest of her body. It felt so good. So
different from the female-superior position she was accustomed to.
The shove of his pelvis against hers, even the slapping of his
balls against her created a fuller, richer pleasure than she’d ever
experienced.