Fortuna

by E G Manetti

  “Sensation?” Lilian echoes, moving on the sheets, enjoying the softness, warmth, and—strangely—slight rasp.

  “Are you enjoying my sheets?” Milord’s lips curl in amusement.

  Enjoying the sheets? Oh. Lilian ceases her pleasant stretching. “It is the brandy?”

  “Yes,” milord assures her. “It will make all sense of touch more intense.”

  To emphasize his point, milord lightly rubs his thumbs across the tips of her breasts, setting off flares of delight. “Milord!”

  “Lilian!” Milord grins, holding up the teal blindfold. “Have you used one before?”

  “A blindfold, milord?” Lilian eyes the teal silk curiously, her earlier wariness diffused by her heightened sensual response. “No, milord. Is it pleasant?”

  “It can increase your enjoyment,” milord explains. His smile fading, milord adds, “But you may find it distressing.”

  “Milord?” Lilian’s eyes fix on the blindfold, her pulse accelerating as trepidation joins her building desire.

  Milord cups her chin, tilting her head to meet his eyes. “I think you will enjoy it, but I will not be able to see your eyes. If it distresses you, voice ‘red gems.’ ”

  “Yes, milord,” Lilian agrees, relaxing into the glow of her building arousal. Milord gave her the halt word more than a year ago. She has never used it and, in her current state of euphoria, cannot imagine needing it.

  “Close your eyes.” Milord’s voice deepens with gathering purpose. “Raise your head.”

  Eagerly, Lilian braces on her elbows, closing her eyes in aroused anticipation. The silk is cool and slick against her face as milord ties the blindfold in place. It is tight enough to be secure, not so tight as to be uncomfortable. Milord is very skilled.

  “I am glad you think so.” Lucius chuckles at Lilian’s voiced thought. It is all Lucius had hoped: the tightly locked expression from a bell gone has disappeared. Lilian is relaxed, her unwittingly spoken thoughts a tribute to the potent drink.

  “Think what, milord?” Lilian wonders.

  “Enough thinking,” Lucius chides gently, easing Lilian into a prone position. He makes a note to thank Chin in the morning and confirm the medic’s diagnosis. With Lilian’s susceptibility to stimulants, a half measure was more than sufficient. Lucius wishes his apprentice relaxed and receptive, not unconscious.

  “Odd,” Lilian comments. “It should be black, but I see colors.”

  “Are they lovely colors?” Lucius asks, curious about what will come next.

  “Sparkly. Green, red, and blue, like Gloribelle,” Lilian says, turning her head from side to side.

  “Gloribelle?” Lucius wonders, reaching for his glass of moon brandy.

  “Katleen’s pet. A tree wombat.” Lilian turns her face to his voice.

  “Tree wombat? A pet?” Lucius startles. The rodents are a plague on the fruit trees in his Garden Center estate.

  “Katleen rescued it as a pup,” Lilian explains while her hands trace from her breasts to her sex.

  The abandoned gesture sends pleasant warmth to Lucius’ groin even as he knows it will not serve. Abandoning his interest in both his snifter and the unlikely pet, Lucius grabs the blue wrap and threads it through the headboard. “Lilian, give me your hands.”

  Lilian’s hands pull away from her glistening sex and reach toward the sound of his voice. Pressing the loose ends of the wrap into the waving palms, Lucius commands, “Hold these.”

  Lilian’s hands fist obediently on the silk. “I know milord’s game.”

  “Do you?” Lucius teases, sliding from the bed and dropping his robe to the floor.

  “The last time, it was milord’s belt.” Lilian nods emphatically.

  “So it was,” Lucius agrees, a small thrill of arousal running through him that Lilian recalls that night. “Did you enjoy it?”

  “Yes, milord.” Lilian turns to his voice, a smile on her lips. “Milord is wondrously inventive.”

  “I am glad you think so,” Lucius replies, sliding down the bed and between Lilian’s spread thighs. Bracing his feet on the dais, Lucius grasps Lilian’s hips and pulls her to him.

  At milord’s touch, Lilian tightens her grip on the sarong and relaxes into his strength as he drags her toward the bottom of the bed. The wrap pulls taut, raising Lilian’s hands over her head while her legs dangle over the edge of the bed, her toes scraping the silk rug.

  “Perfect.” Milord’s lips graze her navel, the tantalizing contact rekindling the arousal that had softened to a mellow glow.

  The bed gives under milord’s weight. The warmth of two moon brandy trickles across the tip of one breast, triggering marvelous sensations. The rough surface of milord’s tongue laps at the liquid, setting off a delicious ache. Milord sucks hard, and the ache becomes a flame.

  Milord releases the tender tip, blowing on the wet surface, cooling the hot ache, and easing Lilian’s rising need. “Milord.”

  “Yes?” Milord sends another delightful wash of breath over Lilian’s nipple.

  “Milord,” Lilian gasps. “Naught else, only milord.”

  Milord’s mouth snaps down on her eager nipple, his rumbling chuckle sending tingles of delight straight from Lilian’s breast to her sex. As Lilian revels in milord’s touch, warm liquid spills across her other breast. Milord repeats his actions, teasing and arousing the taut peaks and setting off an answering throb in her dampening sex.

  With each passing moment, Lilian’s senses expand, each touch of milord’s tongue and teeth an exquisite torment. Her hands twisting in the silk sarong, Lilian pleads, “Yes, milord, please. Milord!”

  A warm trickle slides between her breasts and toward her navel. More brandy. Holding her breath, Lilian pulls her muscles tight in anticipation of milord’s next erotic assault. Milord’s tongue rasps along the liquid trail as milord’s thighs slide between hers, the rough hair lightly abrading the delicate skin of Lilian’s inner thighs. The competing sensations curl Lilian’s toes as she arches toward milord’s questing mouth and rubs her thighs against milord’s, relishing the dual stimulation.

  “Feet on the floor,” milord rumbles, nipping at her breasts.

  The small bites explode into sparks of excitement that set Lilian’s pulse pounding. A small keening sound escapes her throat. Milord briefly presses against her. The hard, heavy weight lights up her flesh from her breasts to her sex, where the hard length of milord rubs tauntingly over her mound, not quite touching the swollen bundle of nerves. Milord’s mouth nuzzles her neck, the roughness of his evening beard scraping in the most wondrous fashion.

  Milord moves away, and Lilian arches her torso, eager to retain contact, her toes sliding on the soft rug of the dais. Reminded of milord’s command, Lilian presses the balls of her feet to the floor, the voluptuous brush of soft silk fibers resonating with the increasing ache between her legs.

  Something cool, hard, and slick drags along the side of one breast, pulling Lilian from her fascination with the sensation of silk on her toes. The glass beads wrap around her breast. Each small, cool pellet rolls tantalizingly along the swollen and heated flesh, arousing and soothing. The noose of beads tightens, gently gripping her breast and setting ablaze the aching jewel at the apex of her thighs. Beads encircle Lilian’s other breast. Milord’s determined onslaught is agonizingly slow as the caress of the beads sets off violent longing. The noose tightens wonderfully and with it, Lilian’s heated sex.

  Milord’s fingers pluck lightly at her nipples, the jolting pleasure setting her hips bucking and pulling a keen from her throat. The coil of beads slides free, dragging along her torso toward her hot and pulsing cleft. Milord slides one hand beneath a buttock, lifting and commanding, “On your toes.”

  At Lucius’ command, Lilian’s feet arch, and her luscious ass rises from the bed, leaving her open and vulnerable. Mild trembles lace her limbs as Lucius tightens his grip on the globe of her ass, enjoying the sweet curve and the well-defined muscle beneath. Doubling the beads, Lucius
strokes the strand across her swollen jewel, savoring its swelling response. A few more light strokes and the engorged nub is visibly thrumming with eagerness, the beads coated with the evidence of Lilian’s arousal.

  Lucius’ sex pulses hard at the sight, rising tight against his abdomen. The pleasure of his arousal courses through his body, challenging his resolve. Lilian’s sex is flushed, swollen, and soaked with her need. With a groan, Lucius drags his eager shaft along the hot, wet heat.

  Lilian arches against him, pressing urgently, her gasps of desire sweeter than the finest music. Her desperate “Milord!” turns his erection rock hard. She is ready. Lucius releases Lilian’s ass to grasp each end of the beads. “Hold, Lilian.”

  Milord’s voice is rough with passion as he releases her ass, leaving her pulled taught from toes to fingers, her sex quivering. The slick glass beads pull tight to her cleft, into the crease of her ass, and along the tight ring of muscle. The unexpected contact is wildly exciting—that forbidden little spot astoundingly sensitive. Slowly, milord draws the slick rope of pellets from her aching jewel, along her sensitized cleft, and to the delicate muscles beyond. The simultaneous stimulation of her most sensitive parts rockets her arousal, convulses her sex, and tightens her muscles until the last trails through her wet and swollen flesh, leaving her quivering and frantic with need.

  “Milord, please, milord,” Lilian gasps as the beads are discarded.

  The bed yields on either side as milord braces on his arms, milord’s torso presses against her breasts, milord’s mouth finds hers, his tongue sweeping in, commanding and conquering. The hard, hot length of his sex rubs forcefully against her throbbing jewel. It is too much. A cry of desperate passion wells up through Lilian only to be swallowed by milord.

  Milord releases her mouth and rises over her. The blunt head of his shaft probes at her entrance and then plunges deep, stroking over the place deep within her that milord knows so well. Milord grinds his pelvis into her eager jewel, the fierce contact exactly what Lilian desires. Milord withdraws and then surges forward. Working Lilian’s deepest reaches with his shaft, milord rocks his pelvis against her small nub, driving her into ecstasy. Discipline forgotten, Lilian wraps her legs around milord’s hips, wanting more, needing more. “Please, milord, please.”

  Milord responds by increasing his pace, striking faster and deeper, finding the rhythm that will take them both to the edge and over it. In the darkness of the blindfold, Lilian’s vision turns red, then gold as she nears the peak. It flashes white as pleasure explodes and then explodes again, swamping Lilian’s senses and drowning her in bliss as milord spasms within her, shouting his release.

  Lilian’s limbs feel oddly heavy, not unpleasantly so, but odd. In the warm darkness, the tangy scent of the sea brings Lilian to full wakefulness. Milord, the scent is milord. The heavy warm weight is milord, sprawled upon her. Languidly, Lilian stretches, gently squeezing milord’s softening shaft within her, savoring the feel, the weight.

  Milord sighs and rolls his hips. His sex twitches pleasantly as it slides from her. Milord’s pelvis grazes hers as milord tugs the blindfold from her head. The dim light is remarkably bright after the darkness of the blindfold. Lilian blinks up at milord as her eyes adjust. Milord’s expression is soft with his release. “You can release the sarong.”

  Sarong? Lilian follows milord’s gaze above her head where her hands have twisted in the silk.

  Oh. Relaxing her grasp, Lilian pulls her fingers free. In moments, they start to tingle and burn. Shaking them to release the cramps, Lilian finds them caught in milord’s hands. His strong fingers rapidly rub away the pain of returning circulation. With a frown of concern, milord demands, “Are you well?”

  “Wondrously well,” Lilian insists, a rare smile curling her lips. The euphoria of her release dances in her eyes. “Marvelously well.”

  “And the beads?” Milord’s eyes glint with mischief as he presses a kiss into her palm. “Are they yet lovely?”

  Lovely? It is far too tame a word. Pulling her hands from milord’s, Lilian yields to temptation and traces milord’s dark nipples with her thumbs. “Extraordinary, marvelous, wondrous, I know not how to express it.”

  “I do.” Milord pushes her onto her back, descending to take her in another sense-shattering kiss.

  Three bells later, exhausted, replete, and sore in places Lilian did not know could get sore, she eyes the blue beads with a combination of awe and dread. She very much wishes to keep them and at the same time wishes to consign them to the Crevasse.

  With a diabolical chuckle, milord tucks them into his robe pocket. “We will use them again when it pleases me.”

  “Yes, milord.” Lilian nods, collecting her jacket and slate satchel from their place on the console table. “As milord wills.”

  “Always, Lilian,” milord promises. Placing his hand on the small of her back, milord guides her from the chamber and to the foyer where his driver, Mr. George, waits to transport her back to Katleen’s house.

  5. Distant Planets

  Once the Code of Engagement was established, the Five Warriors embarked on different paths to achieve their ambitions. Socraide and Rimon looked outward and began to explore and expand beyond the Three Systems. By agreement, the two warlords focused their explorations in opposite directions, determined to avoid territorial conflicts. Rimon Ben Claude was almost immediately successful, discovering the habitable planet Fortuna in the Fourth System and its companion planet, the mineral-rich but uninhabitable Ruin. Within a decade, Socraide Omsted opened the Fifth System and established colonies on Troy and Milan. A few years later, Rimon claimed the Sixth System but, when Vistrite was discovered on Desperation, ceded it to Jonathan Metricelli as demanded by treaty.

  How the First and Second Warriors succeeded in such rapid stellar expansion without the propulsion and navigation aid of the stellar beacons is unknown. Records from the time hint at stellar transport technology that contained both propulsion and navigation for leaping among the stars. If they ever existed, the specifications were lost by the end of the Second Century in the last great wave of civil unrest. ~ excerpt from The Origins of the Five Warriors, a scholarly treatise.

  Sevenday 90, Day 6

  Awake. Upright in bed, Lilian shivers, her staring eyes searching the chamber and finding the gray rectangle that marks the windowed doors to her balcony. The watery light of the setting moons keeps the chamber from total darkness. Reaching for her slate, she finds her thorn in her hand. Unwilling to release the talisman, she use her left to illuminate the screen. It lacks a full bell until dawn.

  Knowing she will not sleep again, Lilian rises from bed and moves to the dim windows. Lilian stretches shaking limbs, the cool tile floor naught compared to the chill of fear.

  I am the sum of my ancestors. Well-trained muscles flow into the contemplation sequence. There is little more than a month before Lilian travels with milord to Fortuna.

  I am the foundation of my family. It matters not that the core of the apprentice protocol is the same throughout the Twelve Systems. Custom and nuance will be different beyond Serengeti. Lilian increases her pace, moving into defense.

  Honor is my blade and shield. Milord will not be as tolerant of error as he was her first seasons.

  Honor knows not fear. Attack. On the stellar transport and in the Fortuna guesthouse, Lilian will not be able to avoid the many highly ranked seigneurs. Unwitting violations of custom or nuance are almost inevitable.

  Honor acts as duty commands. Avoid. Somehow, Lilian must discover a means.

  »◊«

  Naught. It is naught. Lilian crosses the scarlet threshold to the sound of the eighth-bell chimes. There was no one following her on the transport or through the lobby.

  “What have you for me?” Milord leans back in his desk chair, teacup in hand.

  Milord. Status. Lilian ignites her slate with fingers that will not cease to tremble. Do not. Milord. Status.

  “Mercium,” Lilian begins her re
port, focusing financial projections and operational summaries.

  “A moment,” milord halts her, turning to his techno array.

  As milord attends to the interruption, Lilian scans her notes. The figures blur, her mind drifting to the morning’s transit. The certainty that she was being observed. Master Malcon’s assurances that it is naught but the oversensitivity of stealth training fail to comfort. What if—

  “Lilian!” Milord’s sharp tone calls her to attention.

  Milord’s lips are tight with annoyance, the teacup abandoned. Five Warriors take it. “I beg pardon, milord. I was not attending.”

  “So I noticed.” Milord’s voice holds a dangerous hint of silk.

  Quailing inwardly at the evidence of milord’s rising temper, Lilian repeats, “I beg pardon, milord.”

  With an irritated huff, milord gestures her to continue.

  Where was she? Desperation Mine and Refinery? Tentatively, Lilian begins, “Mine projections through the end of the season—”

  “You covered that.” Milord’s eyes narrow as the silk deepens.

  Adelaide, aid me. Lilian skips forward in the report, “The Bright Star—”

  “The Refinery?” Milord’s eyes snap with impatience.

  “What? I mean . . . I beg pardon.” Embarrassed, flustered, Lilian fumbles her slate as she struggles to find her place.

  “Enough.” Milord plants his hands on his desk as he rises. “What ails you?”

  The slate drops from Lilian’s fingers to the floor. Knowing that a restless night and possibly imaginary stalkers are no excuse, Lilian drops to her knees, head bowed in contrition. “I beg milord’s pardon. I have erred.”

  Milord’s booted feet round the desk and stop in front of Lilian’s knees. “Explain.”

  “There is naught,” Lilian says softly.

  “Lilian,” milord warns.

  “Truly, milord, there is no excuse,” Lilian replies miserably. “I am distracted by phantoms. This morn, I thought someone followed me into the Cartel. I know not what ails me.”

  For long moments, milord does not speak. Then, with a sigh, milord leans back against the desk, crossing his ankles. “There was no one there?”