Mastered By Love

by Tori Minard

  “I haven’t forgiven myself,” he said, remaining on the floor.

  She sighed. “All right. Stay where you are, then.”

  Tariza stuck her fork in a piece of the fish they’d been served and put it in her mouth. He waited for her to finish chewing, to select a bite for him. She forked up a second piece and extended it to him. He pulled it off the fork with his lips.

  None of the other Concordian women had fed him this way. He’d gotten his gruel and watery soup while sitting alone in his stinking prison cell.

  Dario leaned against Tariza’s knees. “You don’t know how much I wanted to see you. How I dreamed of you.”

  “I wish I’d known where you were.”

  “They didn’t want you to know.”

  “I suppose they thought they were protecting me.”

  That was what the queen had said. “They must have thought you’d be afraid if you knew I was still alive.”

  “I guess so.”

  “I don’t want you to ever be afraid of me.”

  “I’m not, love.” She petted his hair. “Not even when you were my Master.”

  ***

  After dinner, Tariza stood, her stomach pleasantly full. Time to get Dario into a bath so they could get all that dirt off his beautiful skin and out of his hair. She held out a hand to him. He gazed up at her for an instant before accepting the hand and rising to his feet.

  “We don’t have showers here, but I can offer you a hot bath,” she said.

  He towered over her now. “I’d like that.”

  They walked hand in hand to the bathroom, not speaking. At the moment, Tariza thought, words seemed unnecessary. Superfluous. Their clasped hands said everything that needed saying.

  Tariza started the hot water. This was one area where Argelians had made some concessions to modernity. Indoor plumbing and proper sanitation had long ago been deemed more important than adherence to anti-technology idealism.

  While the tub filled, she led him into her bedroom. She produced a key from a box on her dresser and unlocked his chains. “These can come off in here. Outside this room, they have to stay on until we can escape.”

  “I understand.” He gathered up the heavy chains and shackles, setting them in a pile at the foot of the bathtub.

  Dario removed the threadbare trousers he wore and climbed into the steaming water with a sigh. She wet and soaped a washcloth and gently rubbed it across his forehead.

  He caught her hand. “What are you doing?”

  “Washing you.”

  He kept his hand around her wrist. “You don’t have to do that.”

  “It’s my pleasure to care for you.” She continued to clean his face in spite of his shackling hand.

  “Tariza –”

  “I want to do this for you. It’s been weeks since I’ve touched you.”

  “Believe me, I know.” His voice sounded strained.

  She glanced down to see the tip of his fully erect cock jutting out of the water. “I’ll get to that.”

  He put both hands over his sex. The gesture startled Tariza. Was he ashamed of his desire? She studied him, noting the downcast eyes, the flush on his cheekbones. It seemed so unlike him.

  She brushed her fingers over the damp skin of his left cheek. “What have they done to you?”

  “Nothing that wasn’t first done to you,” he said without looking at her.

  “I don’t think that’s true.”

  Dario shook his head.

  “Can you tell me about it?”

  Another shake.

  “All right.” She re-soaped the cloth and scrubbed his back. “I like that you want me.”

  He closed his eyes, turning his face away from her.

  “Dario, I want you. I can hardly wait until we can make love again. You know that, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know anything anymore.”

  She dropped the washcloth, cupped his face in her hands so she could turn him to her and kiss his lips. “You’re scaring me.”

  His eyes flew open. “Scaring you?”

  “It feels like you’re pulling away from me. And I don’t want that. Please don’t leave me.”

  He covered her hands with his. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure,” he said, his gaze locked on hers. “This is more difficult than I thought, that’s all. I don’t deserve –”

  She shut him up with another kiss. “Stop saying that. I feel like you don’t believe that I really want you.”

  “No. It isn’t that.”

  “Then what? Tell me.”

  He slowly raised his gaze to hers. His dark eyes were troubled, kept trying to slide away from hers, as if it pained him to meet her regard. He swallowed heavily. “I want things, Tariza. Bad things.”

  “Like what?”

  Dario shook his head, turning away from her. “You know what.”

  She puzzled over that. He wanted bad things ... but nothing they’d done together had been bad. It had all been gloriously, shockingly good. Did he imagine all of it had somehow been wrong?

  “I liked what we had together. No, that’s not true. I loved it.”

  He shot a quick glance at her. “You don’t mean that.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “You loved being dominated? Spanked? Led around on a leash?” he said bitterly, scowling.

  Tariza flushed. He was going to make her say it and she’d rather not have to put her strange feelings into words. They were embarrassing. Un-Concordian. Yet, looking at him, she knew he needed to hear them.

  “Yes,” she said.

  He frowned skeptically. “You’re just saying that to spare my feelings.”

  “When have I ever spared your feelings?”

  He laughed. “There’s always a first time.”

  “Well, this isn’t it.” She stripped off her clothes, throwing them on the floor. When she was naked, she knelt on the cold tile next to the tub, bowing her head in the pose of a submissive slave.

  “What are you doing?” he snapped.

  “How may I serve you, Master?”

  “Tariza, don’t. Please don’t.”

  “Why not?” She raised her head to look at him.

  Lines of strain had appeared in his face. “I can’t bear it,” he whispered.

  Pain crept through her at the sight of his misery. He was so intent on punishing himself for what he’d done to her. The complications of their relationship, the injustices committed by both sides – she couldn’t allow them to destroy what she and Dario had together.

  She climbed into the tub with him, straddled him in the hot water, put her arms around his neck. Lowering her head, she nuzzled the side of his throat.

  “There’s something I learned from all of this,” she said. “From my time with you in Saturnios.”

  He grunted but still wouldn’t look at her.

  “Dario, are you listening?”

  His gaze slid toward hers. “I’m listening, Mistress, but I don’t know what good you could have gotten from me.”

  She pressed her fingertip to his lips, searching for the words that would help him understand. “Our pasts make us see the world a certain way. Our families, our countries, they give us certain ideas about things that aren’t necessarily true, and all our choices arise from those ideas.”

  He frowned. “What are you saying? That I’m blameless? Because that isn’t true.”

  “No. Neither of us is blameless. I’m saying that we were blinded by faulty beliefs. And now we’re not quite so blind as we were before, and it gives us pain but it also allows us to make better choices.”

  “Tariza –”

  “The fact you feel so guilty about what you did gives me a lot of hope that you’ll be able to change. That you’ve already changed, the way I have. Even before I knew you were still alive, I’d decided to give up my position as crown princess. I don’t want to be the heir to the throne, and I don’t want to keep slaves. I’ve been t
hinking about going somewhere else, outside of Concordia.”

  His eyes widened and his lips parted. “You have?”

  She nodded. “Anyway, you were right.” She nipped his earlobe.

  “About what?”

  “Submissive men bore me. When you dominated me ... it was exciting. Sexually exciting.” Her confession made her sex begin to tingle.

  “Truly?” He sounded doubtful.

  “Truly.”

  His arms wrapped around her waist. “I don’t want you enslaved.”

  “I’m not asking you to enslave me. I don’t want to be a slave – not really.”

  “Then what are you doing?” he said, pulling his head back to stare into her eyes.

  “We could switch roles in the bedroom. I’ll be your mistress outside these walls and you’ll be my master within them.”

  He gave her a disbelieving stare. “Is that what you really want?”

  “Isn’t that what I’ve been saying?”

  His head lifted, his face changing subtly, taking on a sterner cast. “You need me to dominate you.”

  “Yes.” Tariza squirmed on his lap. Against her bare ass, his cock thickened, growing even longer.

  “You wish to serve me, to submit to me.”

  She flushed as a rush of moisture flooded her pussy. “Yes. I do.”

  Dario reached up to take her chin in his fingers. “Yes, what?”

  Her eyes widened. “Yes, Master.”

  “That’s better. If you really want to serve me, you’ll have to remember your manners.”

  “Does that mean –”

  He wrapped her hair around his hand, using it as a handle to pull her head down. With his mouth, he captured her in an all-consuming kiss. Tariza moaned. She opened her mouth in surrender.

  Instantly he plunged his tongue inside, mastering her with long wet strokes that drove shafts of pleasure all through her body. Dario pushed himself up out of the water, grabbed her and hoisted her into his arms, their mouths still clinging.

  Stepping out of the tub, he carried her into the bedroom and laid her on the bed. He pounced on her. She reveled in the weight of his body pressing her into the mattress, in the tight clasp of his hands on her wrists as he imprisoned them above her head.

  He released her wrists. His hands rushed feverishly over her body, touching everywhere. She writhed beneath him, buried her fingers in his damp hair, arched her breasts into his suckling mouth.

  Tariza wrapped her legs around his waist. He shuddered, his breath growing rough. With trembling hands, he positioned himself at her entrance and plunged home in one stroke. They both moaned at the same time.

  Their coupling was fast and hard. Desperate. Then, after an unmarked interlude of dozing in each other’s arms, they came together again, tenderly this time, stroking and tasting until they both collapsed with the ecstasy of joining.

  He propped himself on one elbow, gazing down at her, just drinking her in as his hand stroked circles on her belly, sending warm waves of pleasure through her. He was even more beautiful than she remembered.

  Tariza gazed up at him with somber eyes. “I’m going to have to make a show of keeping you as my slave for the next few days. I want everyone to believe I’m punishing you.”

  He kissed her forehead. “It’s all right. You do what you have to.”

  “You may not think that tomorrow.”

  “As long as it’s just a game between us,” he said, kissing her lips. “As long as I know it isn’t real, it’ll be all right.”

  A shadow moved across her soul. “It was real when you were the master.”

  “Yes. It was.” He kissed her again. “Are you having second thoughts about leaving with me?”

  “No. Never. I’m just worried.” She clutched at his hands. “What if I hurt you? What if I can’t control myself?”

  “Have you ever hurt a slave in the past?”

  “No.”

  “Then I don’t think you have anything to worry about. I trust you.”

  She bit her lip. “I was so angry with you, Dario. When you first took me. I really thought I hated you.”

  “And you think part of you still does?”

  “I don’t think so.” Her gaze met his, worry for him making her stomach hurt. “But what if there’s something in me I’m not aware of?”

  “Darling, you won’t hurt me. Anyway, we don’t have much choice. We have to make it look real until we can get away.”

  She wrapped her arms around him, hoping he was right. “I wish we’d been born someplace else. Someplace without slavery. I don’t know how to be the woman you need.”

  “Neither do I,” he said promptly.

  Tariza looked up at him, her lips curling into a mischievous smile. “You don’t know how to be the woman you need?”

  He shook his head. “Not at all. I worry about it, late at night when I can’t sleep.”

  They both laughed.

  Chapter 25

  Two days later, Dario wasn’t sure their deception would work. Tariza had him kneeling on the floor next to her feet while she sat in the great hall, talking to her sister, Princess Lenora, and another friend, a brunette named Anata. He wore no clothes, just the collar and chains. It was cold in the room.

  The other two women gave him the same kind of glances as the slaves had, except theirs had covetousness mixed in with the anxiety. He could see them out of the corners of his eyes, although he couldn’t look directly at any of the women. Every few minutes, one of them would sneak a look at him.

  Lenora had summoned him to a sex room more than once. She had reddish blond hair and hazel eyes. She was a pretty young woman and would have been much in demand in Saturnios. That hadn’t comforted him in the least while she’d used him, however.

  And she’d kept the knowledge of his whereabouts from Tariza. Did his mistress know her sister had been part of the deception?

  Lenora leaned over and put a hand on Tariza’s knee. “Are you sure you’re safe with him?” She gave Dario another secretive glance.

  “Quite safe,” Tariza said. “Why?”

  Her sister shrugged. “He just seems so wild.”

  “I don’t know what you mean. He’s kneeling quietly enough.”

  “But he ... growls.”

  Tariza frowned at her. “Growls?”

  The redhead blushed fiercely. “Never mind.”

  “No, I want to know what that means. When have you heard him growl?”

  Dario continued to watch their exchange from beneath his lashes.

  Lenora’s blush deepened until it looked almost painful. “Just ... sometimes. Before. You know.”

  Tariza’s mouth opened. “You used him. Didn’t you?”

  “I –” She gave Tariza a glance of alarm. “I didn’t know you wanted him for yourself.”

  “I told you.” Tariza’s voice turned hard and cold. “I told you that I missed him. And still you didn’t let me know where he was.”

  “You were upset, injured. I didn’t take it seriously. I’m sorry, Tariza.”

  He flicked a sidelong glance at Anata. The woman sat as if frozen in her chair, watching the two sisters with a carefully blank expression. Dario nudged Tariza’s leg.

  Not now. Don’t reveal yourself, he thought at her.

  She looked down at him. Her hand fell on his shoulder, her skin warm against his, and she took a deep breath.

  “Yes, I can see how confusing it must have been,” she said in a neutral tone. “It’s confusing for me too.”

  “Well,” their friend said, “I’m not sure why you wanted him as your personal slave. He’s beautiful, but he’s such a disgusting barbarian.”

  Tariza looked at her. “Did you use him, too?”

  “No.” The woman colored. “No, I didn’t. I was too afraid of him.”

  Tariza looked down at him. “Dario, is that true?”

  He closed his eyes. She was giving herself, both of them, away. “Yes, Mistress. It’s true.”

  She
’d been so worried about hurting him, but the real danger was her inability to hide her affection for him. Her possessiveness. Every woman in the palace seemed to be stepping carefully, avoiding confrontation with the princess whose slave they’d used without permission.

  Someone was bound to guess at their true relationship, probably within the next day or so. And then the queen would order him removed from her, tossed back in that hole of a cell, and they’d never get free. He might never see her again if that happened.

  He had to do something to make the courtiers believe she was willing to punish him. Something to make them believe he and she were enemies, not lovers.

  “She did laugh while they raped me, though,” he said, putting all of his resentment in his voice.

  The brunette stilled. Her eyes went round. She looked from him to Tariza and seemed to shrink back into her chair.

  “I haven’t heard this story,” Tariza said, spearing her friend with a glare sharp enough to draw blood. “Tell me about it.”

  “It was nothing. Really.” Anata gave a forced laugh. “Everyone was here. I don’t know how he could tell one of us from another. He must have confused me with someone else.”

  “You should tell her the story,” he said. “She’ll enjoy it. She’s been hoping to get back at me for months.”

  “Dario, stop it,” Tariza said.

  “Why? So you can pretend you rescued me from prison? We both know the real reason you dragged me up here.”

  “Slaves don’t speak until given an order to do so. Now be quiet.”

  He looked directly at her, a forbidden thing. “I’m not a slave. I’m a prisoner of war.”

  Lenora and Anata laughed nervously.

  Tariza glowered at him. “If you don’t shut up, you’re going to force me to punish you.”

  “How can I force you to do anything if I’m just a slave? You’re the mistress. You make the rules,” he said with an insolent stare.

  Punish me.

  “Shut your mouth,” she said through tight lips.

  “They kept me a secret from you because they knew you couldn’t handle me.” He got to his feet and loomed over her. By now, the rest of the courtiers in the hall had stopped what they were doing to listen in horrified fascination.

  Tariza jumped up. Even on her feet, she looked tiny next to him. She pulled a whip from her belt. “Get back on your knees. Now.”