by Marie Harte
“Oh yeah. Better.” Ryen returned his attention to Dreyk’s chest. He bit hard.
Dreyk sucked in a breath and moisture beaded at the tip of his shaft. “Stop,” Dreyk rasped when Ryen let go of his shaft to massage his balls.
The feel of another man’s dick, hard and slick for him, sent Ryen over the edge. Like an animal, he tore at Dreyk’s clothes and yanked them off. He nipped and sucked, laving his way down Dreyk’s body, using any and all excuse to rub against his gray-eyed seducer.
“More,” Ryen growled until he captured Dreyk’s cock in his mouth. So fucking good... He let go of the pheromones bursting at the seams.
“Damn it, Ryen.” Dreyk ground into his face, holding him close by the roots of his hair.
Ryen sucked hard, wanting more of the salty-sweet seed beading at Dreyk’s slit. He wanted to drink it down, to swallow every fucking drop.
Dreyk yanked on his hair. “Let go, I said.”
Forced to release Dreyk’s cock, Ryen stared up at Dreyk in a daze. “What—”
In a heartbeat, Dreyk reversed their positions. He shoved Ryen flat on his back and held him down with ease. Amazed at Dreyk’s speed, agility, and a power he’d never accredited the male, Ryen could only stare up at him. Sure Dreyk was strong, but to manage him with such ease?
“Cuffs, spread wide.”
Ryen’s arms and legs spread open, turning him into a human X. “Damn it, let me go. Let me touch you, taste you.” He licked his lips, drugged on Dreyk’s taste as he watched that slit fill with milky seed. “Stars, Dreyk, let me suck you.”
“No.” Dreyk’s voice was hoarse when he answered. “Remember who’s really in charge, Ryen. You don’t please me unless I let you.”
Ryen bucked, enraged in an instant. Denied his desire, frustrated to be so close and rejected yet again, he went crazy.
Through it all, Dreyk sat over him and waited until Ryen exhausted himself. “Done?”
Ryen didn’t know why, but this torture seemed worse than anything he’d been through. Though Dreyk hadn’t physically harmed him, not allowing him the ecstasy he craved, the intimacy he knowingly sought, wounded him.
On the verge of tears and fucking pissed about it, Ryen readied himself to break every bone in his body to escape when Dreyk leaned down and kissed him.
So softly, so gently. The touch undid him.
Sighing into Dreyk’s mouth, Ryen’s tension faded. He demanded more but quieted when he realized Dreyk had indeed resumed control.
“Please,” he whispered, wanting the untouchable offering Dreyk held so near.
“Please what?”
Confused, Ryen didn’t know what to say. Dreyk stared down at him with compassion, and the hurt within faded.
“Wait here.”
Like he was going to get up and leave? Ryen tugged at his wrists and ankles, his cock tormenting him with every brush against his rough trousers.
Dreyk returned with another band, this one wider and studded with gray stones the color of Dreyk’s eyes. Gray stones? Not a band, then. “A collar.” He cringed when Dreyk put it on him. But as the fastening cinched closed, a surge of meekness took him by surprise.
“Please what?” Dreyk asked again and straddled Ryen’s belly, resting on his knees. His glorious cock bobbed, flushed and ready, the head wet with arousal.
Dreyk had earlier told Ryen when submitting to call him Sir—a reality Ryen had discarded until this very moment.
“Please, Sir,” Ryen choked on the word, though Dreyk’s delight soon soothed the sting.
“Very good.” Dreyk ran a finger over the synthetic collar that was surprising smooth against Ryen’s flesh. “You acknowledge my control. Your subservience to someone else. To your master.”
“Yes,” Ryen whispered, confused as to why this felt so right, when he should have felt degraded.
“Tell me what Synster did to you.”
Shocked at the question, Ryen didn’t answer, and Dreyk repeated himself. The sound of that demon’s name on Dreyk’s tongue, here now, was a perversion.
“No.”
“Yes. Let that festering sore heal. Let the ugliness out.” Dreyk removed Ryen’s clothing, petting him with callused hands where he met bare flesh. The touch offered comfort while the words threatened to undo this careful peace. “Share with me, Ryen. Tell your master what he wants to hear.”
Ryen had trouble breathing, anxiety riding him hard. The sudden urge to please almost hurt, worse than the memories of what he’d been through.
“Easy. I’m here.” Dreyk put the clothing aside and knelt between Ryen’s spread legs, understanding in his eyes. “Tell me.”
Ryen saw a face that knew what his life had been like. Compassion and acceptance lent him the strength to share what had only been his private suffering.
“Synster hated me. For no reason I could ever understand, he pushed me harder than the others. Even as an adolescent, I was beaten for minor infractions. I never did anything right enough for him. He taught me to hate before I learned how to love my sisters.” Ryen would never forgive him for that. For all the negative bullshit he struggled with on a daily basis. “When I outgrew him, he set the AI’s on me.”
Constant battles with artificial intelligence machines that nearly bled him out. Several near death experiences. And one instance where Ryen did in fact die, where he saw countless star systems and the vague impression of a soothing presence just out of reach.
“Maybe he envied your strength,” Dreyk offered in the sudden quiet. “As I recall, my own handlers were weak. The scientists of Eyra are a puny lot.”
“Yeah, they are.” Were. Ryen eased at the reminder that Synster was no more. His sister’s new mate had seen to that. “The bastard got off on watching the AI’s beat me bloody. Enduring the beatings stirred my hungers. For what I was never really sure, but Synster filled that void with sex. The pervert would order me to fuck while the nanites fixed me. Painful pleasure. And each time the desire grew, until one woman wouldn’t satisfy. I needed two, then three. Many at the same damned time.”
“When you were alone? What did you feel then? The same need for many to sate you?”
“All I wanted was space alone, time to just be without an audience. But I was never alone.” Ryen couldn’t look away when Dreyk began stroking himself. Talk of Synster didn’t matter as much as watching Dreyk.
“Never.” Ryen swallowed. “Never given any privacy from my handler or the guards. They would make me want, so fucking bad. They took women in front of me, aroused me, then left me there. I wasn’t allowed the same pleasure. I’m still fuzzy on the details, but I found the notion of masturbating distasteful.
“My frustration turned to rage, and it built until I could think of nothing but killing. Synster used that energy to experiment. I’d meet greater and greater tasks, almost impossible tests that I didn’t fail. Yet instead of taking pride in his successes, Synster tried harder to defeat me. The bastard would assign me more killing until I came to crave it. I couldn’t stop myself. The destruction...”
Ryen didn’t want to think about it anymore. He wanted to be here, in the now. The memories were dragging him under. Fury rose once more, tempered by the mesmerizing sight of Dreyk stroking himself. Pleasure and pain, he reminded himself.
“Cuff, release right wrist.” Dreyk ordered in a quiet voice. “Synster’s gone now. Your creator is dead as well. You’re free to take pleasure. So pleasure yourself.”
“I can’t.” An automatic reply that alarmed him. More proof of his conditioning. So much for being free.
As much as he wanted to vent his frustration, he couldn’t tear his gaze from Dreyk’s arousal. Desire began to replace his anger as he listened to the rasping breaths of his sexy master.
“You can. When you watched those women, when you felt arousal, you could do nothing about it. But now you can.” Dreyk’s hand moved faster. “Touch yourself, Ryen. Do what I do.” He leaned forward and took Ryen’s free hand. Placing it over Ryen’s
erection, he ordered, “Take that fat cock in your hand and grip it hard. Up and down, like this.”
Enthralled, Ryen mirrored Dreyk’s actions. As if he were the one holding Dreyk. The scent of sex and desire flooded the room, eroding any need to distance himself from such physical joy. Ryen imagined himself jerking Dreyk off, and he groaned with desire.
“That’s it. Pretend it’s mine. Pretend that thick cock in your hands is my shaft. I’m going to come all over your sweet skin. Oh yeah. That’s it. Faster. Good, so good,” he panted as he shot all over Ryen’s belly.
The flash of warm wetness on his skin, coupled with Dreyk’s ecstatic expression, sent Ryen into orgasmic bliss. The smell of spent passion, of the beautiful spice Dreyk released to hold them close, took his inhibitions away.
Ryen moaned as he watched his seed spatter, mixing with Dreyk’s.
“All of it, every last drop.” Dreyk panted as he wrung himself, shaking the last of his release onto Ryen. He wiped their mingled fluid over Ryen’s belly, chest, and nipples, arousing him anew. “You did well. Very good for your first lesson in obedience.”
The satisfaction and dominance in Dreyk’s posture as he knelt over him forced Ryen to look away. It was a minute before he realized how deeply he’d succumbed, and Ryen struggled to accept what he’d done. No. He’s not my master.
As if sensing Ryen’s turmoil, Dreyk fused their mouths, drugging Ryen with a bruising kiss that sparked Ryen’s erection with new life. So firm, so demanding. Ryen flexed his ass, instinctively wanting to hurt there. Fucked hard, taken.
“Cuffs, release,” Dreyk ordered. He quickly clamped his hands over Ryen’s wrists with enough might to hold Ryen down indefinitely. Such raw control seduced Ryen past any hint of disobedience. “Say my name.”
“Dreyk.” Ryen breathed hard, winded, as if he’d just run a race. Dreyk kissed him again, his dick sliding through the mess on Ryen’s belly. Dreyk held Ryen’s wrists with one hand and reached with his other between Ryen’s legs. Warmth engulfed Ryen’s cock as Dreyk squeezed him tight.
“Say my name.” Dreyk started to jerk him off, harder and harder as he waited.
“Dreyk.”
“No. Stop dicking around and say it.”
“I don’t know—”
“You damn well do.” The meanness was back. “Fucking say it.” Dreyk’s grip was so tight it hurt. Stars, it hurt so good...
“Sir,” Ryen rasped as he prepared to come.
Dreyk let go and suddenly replaced his hand with his mouth.
“Yes, that’s so good.” Ryen couldn’t think as he tangled his hands in Dreyk’s hair, urging him for more.
Dreyk rubbed his hand over Ryen’s belly and sucked harder. Then, to Ryen’s shock, Dreyk pushed a finger in his ass.
“Oh, oh yeah.”
Dreyk shoved that finger past Ryen’s sphincter, a painful intrusion that, coupled with his heavenly mouth, forced Ryen into an orgasmic shock. He came hard, jetting into Dreyk’s talented mouth. The rapture was so extreme it forced Ryen to shut down, mentally and physically, while he tried to accept so much pleasure.
He faded with Dreyk’s scent over him like a blanket of comfort.
10
Dreyk swallowed every bit of Ryen’s passion. Like a drug, Ryen’s seed made Dreyk want more. Satisfied when Ryen’s cock, and then Ryen, went limp, Dreyk stood on shaky legs.
“Damn, you’re a handful.” And a mouthful. Dreyk licked his lips, his body quickly rejuvenated and wanting more. Rough urges rocked the control he worked so hard to maintain, and Dreyk concentrated to keep his inner beast at bay. Fuck me, Ryen is eating away at my self-control. And I’m loving every minute of it.
When Ryen had knocked him down and attacked him, Dreyk had almost put a stop to it. Then he’d sensed Ryen’s need to explore, to understand what it was he truly needed. He’d let the larger man gain control. For a while, he hadn’t intended to stop him. Ryen had been made to suck cock. Suns above, but his mouth fit Dreyk’s shaft like perfection.
He could only imagine what that ass would feel like gloving him as well.
Trying to cool his libido, Dreyk cleaned himself in the lav and dressed. He brought supplies out to clean the mess off Ryen as well but had to pause. Waves of satisfaction filled him at the sight of his and Ryen’s seed mingled over Ryen’s belly. Uneasy at the intensity of such feelings, Dreyk wiped evidence of their passion away. He took his time cleaning, unable to resist Ryen’s beauty.
He trailed a damp cloth over Ryen’s muscular arms and chest, past his ruddy cock, thick thighs, and sculpted calves.
“I am in way over my head with you,” he murmured to his sleeping lover. What he’d intended as no more than a way to help a fellow Creation overcome what fate had handed him now seemed a path toward a new relationship. Dreyk readily admitted to loving the intimacy he and Ryen had shared. But a relationship with a male so like the ravaging animal he’d once been? Could he afford to release that side of him when he’d worked so hard to bury the past?
Ryen could pull that out of him as no one had in hundreds of years. In all the time since his escape from madness, Dreyk had shared sex and affection, but he’d never truly loved. Around Ryen he wanted to possess and be possessed. His inner balance, at peace with dominance and submission, now fluctuated upon Ryen’s moods.
I’m the master. Me, he reminded himself. This domination, this sexual closeness exists only to save your sorry ass, Ryen. Your beautiful, tight, firm, sorry ass.
Dreyk rubbed his eyes in frustration.
Ryen, fortunately, chose that moment to interrupt his moment of self-crisis. “Dreyk? What happened?”
“I fucked you so hard you passed out.” He grinned at the astonished look on Ryen’s face. “Actually, I think your newfound passion fried your circuits. It’s happened to me a time or two. You’re healing, Ryen. All that emotion bubbling inside you is finally leaving you without violence.”
Dreyk resisted the urge to glance away from the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen. Fascinated didn’t begin to describe Dreyk’s feelings. Kaleidoscopes of blue sparkled and meshed around the golden pupils of Ryen’s eyes. The black collar’s studs gleamed against his now-glowing, golden skin. The strength apparent in Ryen’s frame contrasted with the uncertainty in his expression. Exotic, powerful, and achingly vulnerable, Ryen made Dreyk want to indulge himself in his infatuation and fuck him again, right now.
But after such progress, sex would not only be foolish but selfish. Though Dreyk knew he’d satisfied Ryen, Ryen wasn’t yet ready for the burden of intimate emotion between them.
For that matter, Dreyk wasn’t sure he was ready either.
Ryen shook his head and stared at Dreyk’s body as if he couldn’t help himself. When he zeroed in on Dreyk’s perpetual hard-on, he flushed. “Did we really just fuck?”
“Not exactly.” But we will. “How did it feel when you took control?”
Ryen paused in thought. “It felt, well, good. I was in charge one minute and not the next. Your taste, it, ah...”
Dreyk grinned. “Yes, yours as well. We complement each other, Ryen. That’s not a bad thing. Tell me how it felt when I took that control back from you.”
Ryen frowned. “At first I didn’t like it.” He struggled with his next words. “Then it felt right. I wanted, hell, I can’t believe I’m saying this. I wanted...more. Penetration more, if you can believe that.”
His candor warmed Dreyk from the inside out. “I can. That’s called progress. You wanted to be taken.” Stars knows I want to take. “The need to submit is so ingrained in you that even Synster’s abuse couldn’t mute it completely. We were Created to serve. You can’t deny that, as much as you and I might want to. Your problem is that you’re a strong male. That dominance wars with your submissive yearnings. But you can have both. You can be commanding in the world outside and free yourself to serve sexually, at least until you feel confident in your control.”
For a minute, it looked as if Dreyk had
gotten through to the stubborn male. Ryen seemed on the verge of agreeing, maybe even accepting the truth.
“You know,” Ryen began and tried to sit up. The cuffs holding him down stopped him. “Fuck. You going to let me up yet or what?” He grimaced at his restraints and tugged harder.
Dreyk sighed. “Cuffs, release.” At least they’d taken a step in the right direction. And he’d found some ease. Hell, helping Ryen had turned him into a rutting pig. He had a hard time thinking about anything but fucking the mulish Creation.
Ryen stood. He glanced in surprise at his belly and blushed, the sight so becoming Dreyk had a hard time keeping his distance. “Thanks for cleaning me up.”
“My pleasure.” Dreyk felt his vision clouding with desire, with the urge to take what he wanted. Whenever that happened, his pupils expanded, and he saw more of everything. Not what he needed right now with a naked Ryen standing so close. “Why don’t you hit the lav while I figure out what else we’re going to do today?”
Ryen grunted his agreement and left.
Dreyk took the time to straighten the room and calm his libido when his communicator sounded.
He answered the call, keeping his video signal black. “Yeah?”
“Is that any way to answer that expensive-as-shit communicator I bought you last year?”
“I thought you said I had a week,” Dreyk said to Rafe, not amused. He wanted nothing to come between him and Ryen—not after the progress we’ve made today, he told himself. Ryen had allowed himself to desire another male, but even better, to act on it. Aside from one instance, he hadn’t lost control of himself since his arrival.
“The mining op actually got pushed back by another week. Something else has just come up. I need you on this right away.”
Glancing at the bedroom and weighing his options, Dreyk swore. As if he had a choice. “What do you need me to do?”
“You’re not going to believe this, but some Ebrellions are making noise in Shathra.” Rafe lowered his voice. In the background Dreyk could hear deep voices arguing. “I’m trying to placate a bunch of ruthless gang leaders pissed off that their women are on the market.” The slave market.