The Bid

by Jacquelyn Frank

  16

  Vejhon paced for a good hour, his stomach in knots for leaving her, his eye on her brother. If anything happened to her, her brother would shift out of the Otherside. When the door opened and she stepped into the large foyer, Vejhon tackled her right off of her feet, his body nailing hers back against the door and his mouth fastening to hers with ferocity.

  I thought the worst. I need you. We are safe.

  The jumble of thoughts had no discernable origin. They were as melded together as their mouths and just as emotional. Jhon was breathing so hard from relief of fear that his breath heated her face. She slid her fingers through the white waves of his hair and held him to the passion of his kiss.

  The dress she wore was short skirted and both his hands ran up her legs beneath it until he had a firm hold of her ass and was pulling her forward into the press of his hips. They devoured each other’s mouths, the heat and intensity blinding them with the sensuality and need of the moment. She lifted her leg and hooked it over his hip, her calf crossing over his tight backside as she pulled him between her legs.

  Vejhon could feel the heat of her radiating through his clothing and he reached to shove her skirt out of the way and to release his penis from its cruel cloth prison. He needed her. He would always need her. But now, now he needed her around him pulsing and alive. Safe. His. He guided himself between her moist folds, following the increasing wetness as he rubbed over first one clit, then the other, making her gasp into his mouth both times.

  “Yes,” she cried when he hovered right at her entrance. “Now. Now!”

  He agreed. Now was not the time for pause or patience. This was a time for heat and raw need. He plunged into her, gritting his teeth when she thwarted his thrust yet again in that pleasurable, frustrating clench of muscles.

  “Relax,” he murmured against her mouth. “When you do, I’m going to fuck you until your juices run down your legs. I’m going to make you scream, Hanna.”

  She couldn’t possibly relax after a promise like that, and his evil little chuckle told her he knew damn well she wouldn’t. But luckily the vice inside her body worked on different commands than the rest of her and he was sliding up hard with a bump into her cervix.

  “Oh…I felt that,” he notified her with a grin.

  “Feel this,” she whispered against his cheek. She consciously put every ounce of focus on reclamping her vaginal walls around him. He jerked and let out a gruff groan. She smiled sweetly and relaxed. “Now you can fuck me,” she instructed.

  Jhon laughed and did exactly as ordered. He rammed up into her again and again, putting all the power of his legs into each thrust as the door held her in place. He freed a breast from her neckline and bent to suck the rigid nipple. Hanna squealed loudly as the voracious sucking shot up along those same nerves being stimulated by his constant rhythm across her clit and over her G-spot. She grew dizzy, pleasure swimming over her until all focus and control faded completely away. She began a cadence of low husky moans, timed to his thrusts into her. They grew in volume, spurring him on, turning him on. Jhon was nowhere near done with her, though, so he just reveled in her sexy cries.

  Hanna came with a low-register scream that turned into pleasured grunts as her head fell back and her nails bit into his shoulders. Jhon felt heat and wetness rushing down over his pumping cock, the sensation maddeningly divine.

  “I know what you like,” he whispered against her throat between hard breaths. “I know what makes you come.”

  He shifted, drawing her leg off his hip and tilting her hips back toward the wall. He was thrusting into her a little shallower than before, but he was also stroking over both of her clits now. She gasped wildly again and again, already too sensitive from barely finishing her first orgasm. He tore her dress, ripping the neckline open so he had better access to both breasts. Now he bit and licked and sucked at them both, feeling her body jolt every time he sent those bolts of pleasure down the same group of nerves.

  She opened her eyes and stared into his as tears flooded her vision. They were triggered by the overload of the orgasm that tore through her, shredding every nerve she had into little pieces. She felt him jerk her leg back to his hip, felt him deepen his stroke and quicken it. He was close. She sensed it. Even as overwhelming darkness tried to steal her away from savoring his release, she held on with everything she had as she listened to him rasp out her name over and over again, her name becoming his moan of pleasure. He slammed up into her and froze like time standing still. She loved this part, where the recoil of pleasure was too much for his body to handle so everything just paused for an instant. Then it released in a blinding rush that made him shout and swear because he felt himself turning inside out for her.

  Hanna let go.

  Vejhon had barely caught his first breath when he felt Hanna fall in a dead weight against the wall. He held on to her a moment, giving himself time to gather his senses. He leaned forward and kissed the side of her neck, and then her shoulder, little worshipping touches that she wouldn’t know about, but would be left on her just the same. He eased away from her just far enough to repair his state of dress with one hand while holding her against his side with the other. He tried to tidy her up a little, but he’d done too much damage. He scooped her up in his arms, turning her close to his chest, and moved toward the stairs.

  At the foot of the steps he suddenly stopped, his senses refocusing and picking up the fresh familiar scent of someone else in the room. Jhon clenched his teeth together, blaming himself for his haste and need that had had him taking his mate in so public a venue. But he would deal with the watcher later. Now his only care was Hanna. Jhon wasn’t satisfied until she was safe and comfortable in her own bed, with himself tucked up tightly behind her.

  It was many hours later when Hanna flew lightly down the stairs, her bare feet hardly touching the cool mosaic tiles. She hurried to the door and activated the scanner. It opened to reveal a group of official-looking persons.

  There were two sentries, their uniforms a distinctive white. A City Official, one of those in charge of investigating crimes. And two Masters. Or rather, one Master and one Baron. Just by the makeup of the group and the grimness in their eyes, it was obvious to Hanna immediately that their purpose in being there was to oversee the examination of one of their own.

  Hanna instantly bristled, unable to hold back the reaction when she saw Majum on her doorstep. She realized that she must allow the group in to appear as guiltless as possible, but she would be damned if that murderer would cross her threshold.

  “Gentlemen, what may I do for you today?”

  “Master Drakoulous,” Master Fusut began, “you may or may not have heard, but a large jungle cat was seen loose and wild in the bazaar yesterday. It mauled six men to death and caused a panic that destroyed a fortune in goods, not to mention those who were injured running away from the thing.”

  “How terrible,” she said with total honesty. She had not intended to harm so many and it pricked at her conscience to think anyone would suffer from what she had had to do in order to save herself and Jhon.

  “In point of fact, Master Drakoulous, you are the only one with a collection of wild cats in her gardens,” the Baron spoke up, his dark eyes studying her intently. “You will be held responsible for all deaths and damages, my Lady.”

  “If it should be proven it was one of your cats,” the other Master hastened to add. “We will need to come and inspect your enclosure.”

  “Gentlemen, as you are well aware, that enclosure has housed a great many cats over a great many generations, and never once have they escaped. I treat my cats like family and would never see them set loose on society where they could harm or be harmed.”

  “Let us in, my Lady,” the Baron said, stepping forward to crowd her, “or forfeit all of your animals to the city at once.”

  Hanna’s nostrils flared as she picked up all the vile little scents clinging to the Baron, from his obnoxious cologne to the remnants of another
male’s ejaculate. She could even smell blood. And why not? The man was stained to his soul in the stuff.

  “Baron Majum, I advise you to step back,” she said coldly.

  “That’s it then, gentlemen, you see she refuses!” Majum was just shy of gleeful as he became excited at the prospect of seeing her strong-armed.

  “On the contrary,” she broke in smoothly. “You gentlemen are most enthusiastically welcome,” she said with a smile to charm the others before turning frozen eyes on Majum. “But you, my Lord, will never step foot in the house of my mother. The house of my father. The house of so many who fell beneath your boot heel. I will not desecrate their memories by allowing it.” She snapped her eyes to the other Master who was gaping at her. “And how thoughtless of the COM to send the murderer of my parents to my home to question me! I am insulted and wounded that you would be so heartless! Back away, Majum, or I promise you I will risk fifty years of banishment to see you brought to justice for the crimes you still owe in my book.”

  “You dare to threaten me?” he hissed, fury shuddering visibly through his frame as she stood to bar his way. “You threaten me in front of these venerable witnesses? You all heard her!” He turned to the witnesses who were paling to the fairest of blues. “You can stand in judgment against her!”

  “Threats mean nothing, Baron,” Master Fusut said dismissively. “If they did then you would have been jailed countless times by now.” The Master paused only long enough to wait for the muffled snicker of the Official to pass. “And she is right. You are only here to cause damage where you can whilst still remaining in the guidelines of the Feudal sanctions. I ought to have realized it myself when you so eagerly volunteered for this duty. Take yourself away, Baron.”

  “The investigation requires two Masters for authority! To prove there is no favoritism!” Majum was so furious now at being thwarted yet again from a victory that he shoved himself up into the Master’s face physically. “You favor her and we will never gain an unbiased investigation into what has happened here! People are dead, Master Fusut. Something must be done about that!”

  “I can easily call on another Master. Any number of them will be happy to stand for this investigation. You are simply inflaming the situation, Baron.”

  “I believe you heard the gentleman when he said to take yourself away, my Lord?”

  The prompt brought everyone around in surprise, especially the Baron. He wasn’t used to a male voice speaking for the House of Drakoulous. Women had been heirs for two generations now. When Majum saw the stoic figure of a beautiful and familiar male standing at Hanna’s back, he stood in total shock for the longest moment. His surprise broke when Hanna turned slightly to lay a quelling hand on the brute’s chest. A warning. That was what it took for him to snap to the awareness that a slave had just given him a command. Instantly his mind raced with the advantage he could turn this into. He had wanted to deprive his enemy of one of her two precious jewels, and he had failed so far. He didn’t care how she was deprived; only that it happened. There might be the added delight of obtaining him for his own purposes, the Baron thought with a rush of excitement running down his chest and into his belly.

  “You dare to address me as an equal, slave?” He hissed out the sentence with a huge measure of affront, making certain everyone there felt the depth of his insult. Inside he was so delighted he could hardly think. The slave had made the critical error in front of witnesses of the highest order. If he could not use them against Hanna, he would use them against her slave.

  “No, my Lord. I was merely reminding his lordship of the request already put forward by the esteemed Master Fusut.”

  The heavy-handed respect and following bow made Fusut smile in pleasure and effectively beat the wind out of the sails of Majum’s advantage. He felt it wash away with a receding pull like water swirling down a drain. Worse, he knew he had been purposely thwarted. The clever bastard had done the dance on purpose and with perfectly plotted steps. And Majum had left himself open for it. For all of it.

  Vejhon couldn’t resist pushing his luck and smiling. He felt Hanna’s nails pushing into his skin through the material of his shirt. He reached up and caught up her hand in his, smiling as he pressed an affectionate kiss in its palm. Her brilliant eyes slid over to him and the sly look that she shot him out of the corner of her eyes was a mixture of humor, affection, and warning.

  Hanna looked back at Majum, knowing full well what he had been gearing up to do. It was as if the man had made a career of plotting against her at any and all opportunities. She had never quite understood what her family had done to earn such bone-deep wrath and hatred, but she wished it would end. She had her preferences of how she wished it would end, but any end would do at this point. She merely wanted her family to live in peace.

  Unable to justify any further protests, the Baron had no choice but to turn sharply on his heel and march off in an obvious fury. The group at the door watched his progress down the drive for a long minute before Hanna cleared her throat to get everyone’s attention.

  “Gentlemen, please come in. I will have Jhon gather the cats in a safe place so you may inspect the enclosure at your leisure. Master Fusut, you may use my communication system to contact a second impartial witness. Please choose someone who contests me frequently in the COM. I would not wish to be accused of any further acts of avoidance or favoritism.”

  “I know just the one,” Master Fusut said with a wink and a chuckle.

  “It was a terrible risk,” Hanna sighed after she had closed the door on the final visitor to her House.

  “We have come through the entire incident unscathed, Hanna. It serves no purpose to rehash what might have happened.”

  “And you should not have baited Majum, Jhon. I fear for your safety. For your life.”

  “I don’t,” he retorted. “I think there’s entirely too much fear in this House already. It’s suffocating your entire family. Don’t you see that?”

  “That’s easy for you to say. You made a living putting your life and those of others on the line. My family is not an army about to volunteer for you while you play the god with us!”

  “Hanna,” he said, his eyes darkening with simmering emotion. “I take nothing about you so cavalierly. I want nothing to harm you or your family, least of all me. I am only saying that you need to realize that you’re not living a full life so long as you suppress the needs and the potentials of your…of our other half. It’s bad enough you ask me to suppress my independence and strength when in public; now you give me this other power, all this potential and capability, and you want me to suppress that as well? You also need to consider what happened yesterday, and what Ashanna has done. Why do you think the cat took us over like that? Why do you think Asha instigates trouble? She is suppressing something not meant to be suppressed and it bursts out in uncontrolled behaviors.

  “I’m not saying you should come out of the closet and show off what you can become, merely that there’s something to be said for embracing the bellcat within you and letting it feel everyday freedoms. You are already cunning and quick witted in the COM, but why not be sensual and dominant as well? Maybe a little forcefulness is called for. Maybe it will keep those like Majum in check, keep him from thinking you are an easy target. I guarantee you he’s stewing over that knowledge right about now.”

  “Very likely,” she agreed, not able to hide her smile of pleasure over that fact. “But I know Majum well. His anger will fuel him into action. It will not bode well for this House. I…I have a brother out there whom I have not heard from in some time. Majum continually implies he is the reason for that…as if…as if he has him locked away in his dungeons somewhere. I dread the very idea of it. The only reason I know my brother is still alive is because the next eldest in his litter remains trapped in the Otherside.”

  “He’s probably lying to you. Somehow he found out that you were worried about not hearing from your brother and he is using it to mess with your mind. It’s an old
tactician’s trick.”

  “I don’t doubt that it’s a possibility, Jhon, but you do not know this man the way that I do. You don’t know the lengths he is willing to go to just to get back at this House.”

  “Just what is he getting back at this House for?” Jhon wanted to know. “What offense have you committed against him?”

  “I offend him by not being afraid of him. By standing up to him and his cutthroat ways, and by reminding him that very shortly his nephew will be the Master of his House and Majum will be nothing of importance afterward. I remind him of how little power he truly has. I make certain he knows that there is at least one family in this city that he will never intimidate and never win against.”

  Her passion struck him like a bell. “And what has he done to you, Hanna, that has made you hate him with such a passion?”

  “He killed my parents,” she told him. “He knows he killed my mother, but until just now what he didn’t know was that the slave he cut down to get to her was my beloved father. And mere hours after doing so he was pardoned of the crime by the Feud sanctions. I was…” Her fingers curled into fists and Jhon could feel her shaking. “I was never so angry in all my life. I felt so cheated of my right to avenge them. I have all of this power at my fingertips and yet can do nothing to see him answer for his crimes. Anything I did would make them look at this house much too closely. As you know, we cannot afford that.”

  “And yet as long as Majum lives, you will continue to be at risk. Think, Hanna. Who do you think was responsible for what happened in the bazaar? We were targeted on purpose, that much was very clear to me. Now tell me if you have another enemy I’ve not heard of; otherwise, I have to believe that it was Majum coming after me.”

  “Perhaps,” she agreed grimly. “But you weren’t supposed to be with me. It was supposed to be Najir. I changed my mind in the COM. No one else would have known there would be a switch.”