Enslaved Read online

  “I can’t let you come until you answer one question.”

  Kaela squeezed her eyes shut. “What?” She rolled her hips forward, seeking more than the featherlight caress. Every nerve ending quivered, the promise of release hovering just beyond reach. “Please,” she whispered, meeting his gaze.

  He shook his head, raw hunger flashing in his eyes. “How long have you wanted this?”

  He actually wanted an answer? He’d restrained her, held her still while he used his mouth and fingers to shove her to the brink, and now he expected her to admit something out loud that she hadn’t wanted to acknowledge at all?

  “Tell me,” he growled. “Tell me how long you’ve wanted my mouth on you, tasting you?” His tongue flicked across her clit. “How long you’ve wondered what it feels like to have my fingers inside you?”

  She whimpered as he thrust them inside her, pumping hard before withdrawing.

  “You’ve wondered, haven’t you, Kaela? Wondered if I would have fucked you on the table earlier. You wanted me then, didn’t you?”

  “Yes,” she hissed. The memory of it alone almost triggered the climax building within her.

  “And right now you’re wondering if I’ll take you against the wall, keeping you pinned while I sink so deep inside you, you’ll scream for me.”

  She swallowed as the carnal image unfolded in her mind. “Yes.”

  “And the more you think about it, the hotter, the wetter you get.” He ran his thumb along her slick seam to confirm it.

  Jerking her head, she clenched her fists, torn between wanting to pull away and sinking to the floor with him.

  “Tell me, Kaela.” He closed his mouth over her, sucking softly. “Admit how long you’ve wanted me.” His fingers pushed at her snug opening, but moved no further. “Tell me and I’ll let you come.”

  She shuddered, the seductive vow plucking at the last threads holding her together. She met his fierce gaze, the words lodged in her throat. “Too long,” she breathed.

  * * *

  Primal satisfaction churned in his gut and he buried his fingers in her slick sex, seeking the sweet spot… Seconds later she hissed his name, and he grinned. She rocked her hips and he opened his mouth over the plump knot between her folds, tugging at her.

  Too long.

  If her answer didn’t so closely mirror his own thoughts, he would have pushed her harder, driven her further. Accepted nothing less than her complete surrender.

  And she was close, going wild in his arms, bucking her hips, pushing against his mouth. As much as he wanted her to come truly undone, he was fast approaching his own breaking point.

  The restraints clinked overhead, grating against the bolt that he couldn’t believe had held up this long. Her drenched inner muscles clamped down on his fingers, a deep moan ripping from her throat as she came.

  Keeping his fingers buried inside her, he shoved to his feet and caught her mouth in a long, hungry kiss. Her lips opened beneath his and he tangled his hand in her hair, quickly losing himself to the mindless rhythm. The intensity of it shook him, challenging him to keep it together. An impossible goal when kissing her fast and hard and deep felt like nothing he’d known before.

  He slid both hands to her ass, lifted and pressed her against the wall. Sliding his cock down her cleft, he pushed at her opening, waited until she opened her eyes, and then drove into her. The snug, wet walls gripped him tight, and she shouted against his lips.

  Fuck!

  His eyes slammed shut, the hot edge of pleasure tearing through him. He bit down as he withdrew and plunged back in, slower, softer. He managed to keep it like that for a whole ten seconds, and then he couldn’t stop himself.

  Over and over, he sank inside her, the pressure building. Like a man possessed, he pumped his hips, working himself deeper.

  “Lorcan,” she murmured against his mouth.

  The sound, one part pleasure and one part uncertainty, grabbed a hold of him and wouldn’t let go.

  Trouble.

  He shook his head and hoisted her higher. Using one hand to jerk the restraint clear of the bolt, he then turned toward the bed. He didn’t give her a moment to thank him or protest or do whatever he thought he wanted from her.

  Instead, he lowered her to the mattress and propped her up on her hands and knees. Moving behind her, he smoothed his palm across her gorgeous ass and tucked the head of his cock at her entrance.

  She rocked back unexpectedly, taking him inside her. They both groaned and pushed again—him forward, her back—until he was buried to the hilt. His gaze followed the graceful arch of her spine, down to where her cheeks parted and her sex clutched and pulled at him.

  His jaw ached from the force of holding back his release, clinging to the moment, drawing it out. She moaned and trembled, her sex spasming around his shaft. He groaned, and grabbing her hips, thrust one last time. He couldn’t hold back the primal shout wedged in his throat, the force of his release stealing his breath.

  Kaela shuddered and let out a soft sigh, her body softening beneath him.

  He dropped his head to her shoulder. “You okay?” He had to ask, pretty damn sure he’d never been so ruthless with a woman before.

  “Yeah.” She rolled to her side, her eyes drifting shut.

  Lorcan watched her for a long moment, waiting for his heart to fall into its regular tempo. She didn’t complain about the restraints, even going so far as to lace her fingers through his at her hip. He studied their intertwined fingers, hers so much smaller than his, but equally capable. Maybe more so.

  Uncomfortable with the growing intimacy, he sat up, taking her with him. She tensed when he scooped her up, but said nothing—a damn good thing, he decided—when he carried her into the shower.

  * * *

  Lorcan hissed at the friction that burned across his neck.

  A sound rasped in the dark next to him. A frightened plea.

  He cursed as the restraints locked around his neck dug into his skin. “Kaela.”

  The warm body next to him thrashed in the bed, jerking on the restraints. He’d nodded off with her sprawled on top of him, her arms looped around his neck. At some point he’d rolled to his side. Either she hadn’t minded sleeping with her hands tucked up close to his heart or she’d been too exhausted to even notice.

  She sure as hell noticed now, wrenching hard on the restraints.

  “Kaela!”

  He yanked her arms over his head before she ripped through any more layers of skin, and rolled to trap her beneath him. He wasn’t fast enough to pin her but managed to snag her ankle when she kicked out at him.

  “Hey,” he barked.

  She went still. “Lorcan?”

  He frowned at the uncertainty in her voice. “Worried someone else might have stolen you away while I was sleeping?”

  Her breaths continued to come fast, the panicked sound magnified in the dark. “Could you take these off? I can’t sleep like this.” An unmistakable tremor of fear ran beneath the request before she cursed under her breath.

  “Bad dream?”

  “Do you care?”

  Surprisingly, he did. He ordered the AI unit to brighten the room. She instantly averted her face, but not before he caught sight of the moisture that shimmered on her cheek. Not drawing attention to it, he disengaged the locking mechanism on the restraints.

  She tossed them to the floor and stretched out on her side, keeping her back to him. “You can dim the lights again.”

  He reached out to haul her closer, pausing at the sight of the scar that curved across her hip. He’d noticed it briefly before but studied it now. She tensed as he tugged the sheet down to get a better look at it. No other scars were apparent on her body, and in her line of work that meant she was very good at her job and rarely injured, or as was the trend with most people, had any permanent scars removed.

  “Why do you still have this?” At best guess the scar was a few weeks old, maybe less.

  She tugged the sheet up, cover
ing the scar in a self-conscious gesture. Interesting. The woman could parade before hundreds of people with next to nothing on, never once betraying any vulnerability, yet one small scar made her shift uncomfortably in bed.

  “It’s a reminder,” she said softly.

  Dimming the lights, he roped his arm around her waist and dragged her up against his chest. “Of what?”

  “Not to screw up.”

  “Does this scar have anything to do with your dream?”

  She jerked around to face him. “You’re getting awfully personal, Hunt.”

  At least her evasion, delivered with more than a hint of bite, told him more than her silence would have.

  He bent and brushed his mouth across hers, taking her by surprise if the startled gasp that rumbled against his lips was any indication. Hell, it took him by surprise when the soft kiss had nothing to do with getting even and everything to do with taking away the fear he’d glimpsed so briefly in her eyes.

  He might want her any way he could have her, but he didn’t want to see her hurt. Annoyed or pissed off he could take, but hurting, not so much.

  Kissing her again, lingering a little longer, he murmured, “Go to sleep, slave.”

  She bit his lip hard enough to make him wince. “Whatever you say, prime.” She rolled back over, not bothering to squirm out of reach. Smart woman.

  In no time her breathing evened out and she relaxed against him. Falling asleep with a beautiful woman tucked against him, especially after two rounds of incredible sex, wasn’t a sensation a man forgot. Why then couldn’t he remember it ever feeling so damn good?

  As though his hands had a mind of their own, they started at Kaela’s shoulders, sweeping across her skin. He took his time exploring each sleek curve, the leisurely exploration more about his own curiosity than heading for round three. The puckered edges of her scar grazed his palm.

  “Kaela?”

  “Mmmm?”

  “Who did this to you?” It shouldn’t have been important. He didn’t need to know, didn’t care—didn’t want to anyway. He had his own problems and wondering why the sentinel chose to keep one small scar had nothing to do with him or his next job. Yet, he knew he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep without knowing.

  “Some nasty people I pissed off.” She took so long responding, he’d almost given up on her answering at all.

  “You piss off a lot of people, huh?”

  “Only on a good day. Present company included.”

  The smile in her voice dispelled any anger he might have felt by the mention of their history. Circling the scar, he continued, “From a fight?”

  “If you consider trying to fend off three guys while unarmed and secured to a chair a fight, then yeah.”

  “What did you do to them?” Unless he was way off base with her, he imagined she must have gotten in at least one good shot.

  “Before or after they caught up with me?”

  He laughed at the smug question. “I guess that answers my question.”

  She shrugged, nestling a little closer. “I was a lot easier on you.”

  Twice now she’d mentioned their altercations and neither time evoked any of his earlier anger or frustration. He’d think about why that was later. Much later. Sleep seemed like a better use of his limited energy and a lot less complicated.

  Keeping one arm wrapped around her, he closed his eyes. Just as he felt himself ready to drift off, he was compelled to ask her one more thing. “How did you end up getting away from them?”

  Another lengthy silence, then, “An infuriating treasure salvager with impeccable timing came along.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  He’d done more than get her off the dead-end planet, he’d inadvertently come to her rescue and she’d repaid the favor by screwing him over?

  He’d spent the last two days trying to wrap his mind around that and wasn’t any closer to figuring her out. He knew her body as well as his own, every tempting inch, knew the sound of her laugh and that she hated the taste of Solarian ale. He knew she enjoyed having her hair brushed, though she seemed loathe to admit it, and that she could even play a few bars of music on his grandfather’s old harmonica.

  He’d stepped out of the shower that morning to hear her attempt the same song he’d played for her the night before. It had been weeks since he’d last dug it out and usually only when he couldn’t sleep. Last night his tossing and turning had nothing to do with his upcoming job and everything to do with the woman hogging the bed.

  Leaving her, he’d sat down with the old family heirloom in his hand, but didn’t bring the polished brass to his lips until she sat up and asked him to play her something. The unexpected request had rattled him, as did glancing over his shoulder to find her looking adorably sleepy, her hair wild and mussed, the sheet awkwardly gathered across her chest.

  The moment he brought the harmonica to his mouth, conceding to the request, she’d smiled at him and nothing at all felt right in his world. Not when she was his slave—temporarily—and only offered herself completely when she’d run out of options. He wasn’t supposed to look at her and feel anything but lust.

  Which was why he’d spent all of today in bed, where there was nothing to do but sleep or find out how many ways they could tangle up the sheets. Between sleeping and sex, he didn’t have to acknowledge that he’d learned more about Kaela in the last seventy-two hours than he had any woman in the last ten years.

  “It’s not working.”

  He glanced over his shoulder to where she’d stopped behind him, pausing to take in the panoramic view of space from the ship’s observation deck. With the late hour, only a few people lingered near the benches or windows that ran the perimeter of the deck, many passing through on the way back to their quarters after leaving the ship-wide parties tonight.

  “You look just as frustrated as you did when you insisted on taking a walk,” she pointed out. “We’ve been up here over an hour.”

  Lorcan stopped, mildly irritated she read him so accurately and majorly irritated he found her long, pink wraparound skirt and strapless shirt as enticing as any transparent garments she’d worn.

  He dragged his gaze away, focusing on the blur of distant star systems instead.

  He felt her watching him. She did that a lot. Sometimes with a deliberately calculated edge to her expression, as though she didn’t want either of them to forget this arrangement was temporary. Other times with the same barely concealed hunger that hummed under his skin.

  Unsure of which look he’d find on her face now, he kept his back to her. Despite how he’d pressed the issue, she hadn’t revealed her mission and the role the auction played in her objective.

  He wanted to believe her loyalty and commitment to the Dominion assured her silence, but knew there was more to it. Something he suspected that tied into her spontaneous offer to play the role of his slave without argument, something more than just a fear of a Battalian interrogation.

  More voices drifted across the observation deck.

  “I should have brought a blanket and pillow with me,” she grumbled, taking a seat on the closest bench. “Had I realized you only planned on brooding when you dragged me out of bed, I would have brought them along.”

  “I am not brooding.”

  She snorted. “I suppose walking around the perimeter of the deck two dozen times in the last hour is all about the exercise?”

  Arms crossed, he swiveled in her direction. “Had I realized you were so keen to stay in my bed I might have made a point to put you there weeks ago.”

  “In between your last thefts, I suppose?”

  He’d given up on correcting her faulty assumption that he used treasure salvaging as cover for more nefarious activities.

  One, he didn’t care what the sentinel thought of him. Two, sometimes a job involved bending the law occasionally, making it pointless to argue semantics, no matter how justified his actions might be. Three, she’d fallen into a predictable habit of using that assumption to
try and piss him off.

  He was pretty sure she’d finally figured out that the more she tried to push his buttons, the more he wanted her.

  Like now.

  He straddled the bench, pulling her into his arms. Her spine locked then softened as he draped her legs over his. Catching her braid in his hand, he wrapped the woven tresses around his fingers. “If you want to return to my quarters so we can pick up where we left off, just say so.”

  “It’s amazing how much arrogance can be packed into one man.”

  He grinned. “It really shouldn’t come as a surprise.” Lacing his free hand through hers, he guided her down to where his arousal strained against his pants.

  Her thumb brushed the head of his swollen cock. “Some men do feel compelled to compensate—”

  He cut her off, taking full possession of her mouth. She curled her fingers around his shaft and moaned against his lips. The carnal sound ignited his blood, the drugging kiss quickly spiraling sideways, starting with the first hot sweep of her tongue.

  Cradling her jaw in one hand, Lorcan explored the tender curve of her throat. “You enjoy provoking me.”

  “Not half as much as you get off on telling me what to do.”

  “Is that what you think?” He laughed. “The big, bad sentinel. Always in control. Always the one calling the shots. You want to know what gets me off, Kaela?” He laved at the soft hollow, sucking it slowly between his lips. “Watching how much you enjoy being told what to do.”

  She adjusted her skirt to hide the hand she slipped into his pants. “You think so?”

  He caged her face in his hands, but not before she closed her palm around his hard length, pumping slowly. Everything inside grated to a stop, everything but the pleasure that twined around the base of his spine.

  It took him a minute to string together a coherent sentence. “Even if I told you to get on your knees, right here, right now, you’d do it.” He closed his mouth over hers, pushing his tongue past her lips. “You’d use that incredible mouth of yours to lick and tease and drive me crazy because, for once, you’re not in control and that excites the hell out of you.”