Captive Dreams

by Angela Knight

  “Fine,” she gritted, staring at his violently hard shaft. “Fuck me.”

  He took his organ in hand, started to press it back into her opening. Stopped. Met her eyes with a sneer. “Not good enough.”

  “Please!” she wailed, unable to stand it anymore, needing him too much for pride.

  With a triumphant snarl, he drove forward, ramming to the balls in one hard, hot thrust. Furiously he worked in and out, giving her no mercy, even as she, wanting none, drove up at him. Fighting each other and themselves, they writhed together until a single hot explosion took them simultaneously. Celeste screamed as the climax thudded through her body in endless hot jolts while he bellowed in triumph in her ear.

  She didn’t have another coherent thought until after the pleasure had faded and she lay under his heaving, sweat-slicked body. Oh, hell, she thought, staring up at the ceiling of her cell. I’m in deep trouble.

  THREE

  Celeste lay pinned beneath Jarred’s muscled strength and tried to think of something suitably annihilating to say. Before she could come up with a decent insult, her stomach rumbled loudly. As a blush heated her face, a warm, masculine chuckle gusted against her ear. “I guess that’s my cue to feed my captive,” he said, and levered himself off her with an effortless brawny surge.

  She watched resentfully as Jarred sealed his fly with a brisk movement of one big hand. “Release her,” he told the rack. It promptly obeyed, tilting upward as it uncurled its warm grip from her wrists and ankles.

  Celeste struggled onto her feet, biting back a groan as her abused muscles protested. He turned his back on her glower. “Come on, I’ll get you something to eat.”

  Longing to defy him, but afraid she’d be left in the holding tank if she did, Celeste hurried after him. When she was past the tank’s doors, she heaved a silent sigh of relief. “I’d like a bath,” she told his back with all the icy dignity she could muster. She wiped at the drying semen on her stomach. “I’m . . . sticky. And I need something to wear.”

  “You’ll get the bath after we eat,” Jarred said without looking back as he walked down the Vengeance’s corridor. “As to the clothes, no.”

  “Jarred . . . !”

  Now he did glance over his shoulder, his smile mocking. “There’s nobody here to see you but me, and I like the view.”

  Celeste tightened her lips. “Why are you doing this to me?”

  “I think we’ve already covered that.” He turned left into the galley.

  “You are not this damn unfair.” Clenching her fists, she wrestled with an urge to pop him in the back of the head. She wasn’t sure he wouldn’t pop her back—and given his strength, she might not get up for a while. “Not only did I have no reason whatsoever to think anything I wrote was real, I would have had to have been crazy as hell to think it was. I can’t believe you believe I deserve to be sold into slavery for that.”

  “Actually, I’m giving you away.” He moved over to a panel set into one wall and said to it, “Ambrosia snake with dressing and chiwka, a plate of Ga’q, and two glasses of seva.”

  Celeste had always thought seva sounded delicious, but she wasn’t sure about the ambrosia snake or the Ga’q. Picking her battles, she decided not to protest.

  While Jarred leaned against the wall waiting for the comp to send the food from the hold down the ship’s internal transport system, Celeste stalked to a wide basin set in a counter and stuck her hands down inside it. Just as they would have in one of her books, a dozen tiny inset nozzles sprayed her hands with a thick blue cleaning solution that gradually went clear as water was added.

  Pleased with that small victory over futuristic technology, she turned to eye her captor. “Why kidnap me, Jarred? You could have just appeared in my living room and said, ‘I’m real, cut it out.’ I would have left you alone.”

  “Or killed me.” He lifted a dark brow as he moved past her to the basin to wash his own hands. “Given your history—not to mention the fact that you were already talking about ‘cashing my chips’—I didn’t care to take the risk.”

  Celeste winced. Despite her anger at him, the idea that she could have caused his death made her feel sick. “I wouldn’t have actually killed you. I was just blowing off steam.” She had no intention of admitting that she’d only considered it because he’d come to haunt her, obsess her, in a way nobody should be obsessed with a fictional character. She’d wanted to free herself. “If I’d known you were real, I would never have—”

  “—Played God?” he interrupted, turning toward her, his dark gaze intensely cynical. “Oh, come on. Let’s say I did appear in your living room and manage to convince you I’m real. Assuming you didn’t kill me, you’d have tried to arrange some nauseatingly happy ending with some little”—his lip curled—“romance heroine like the ones Corinne creates.”

  Stung, she snapped, “Well, that’s better than being tortured by aliens.”

  A hiss and thunk announced the arrival of their meal. Automatically, she walked over to key open the big wall panel with a touch of her finger. A pair of long flat boxes and sealed glasses sat inside. She took one of the boxes and a glass and handed it to him, then grabbed her own.

  “The point is, I don’t want you controlling my life.” He strode to the gleaming blue dining table that sat in the center of the room and threw himself into a chair. With an easy flex of a muscular arm, he ripped the lid off his food, which instantly emitted a puff of steam as it flash-heated.

  Celeste sat down opposite him and tore off her own lid more cautiously. “Well, we’re even then,” she said, cautiously eyeing the contents and trying to figure out if she’d ended up with the ambrosia snake. “I don’t want you controlling mine, either. Particularly when it comes to giving me to some kinky alien dominant.”

  He slid a thumb along the lid of his seva to open it, then downed a deep swallow. “I’ve got to do something with you. Turning you loose to fend for yourself would be tantamount to that death sentence you were so worried about.”

  “So let me go home.” Celeste copied his gesture to open her own cup. It instantly chilled in her hand. Warily, she took an ice-cold sip. The seva’s taste seemed to explode in her mouth, vivid and sweetly sharp and completely unlike anything she’d ever tasted before. She tried to remember what it was made from. Some kind of alien root . . .

  He lifted a brow at her. “How? I searched for years trying to figure out a way to get access to your dimension, without success. It took Mykhayl’s spell and the blood of a dragon to get you here—neither of which are available in this universe.”

  Celeste put down her glass and stared at him in horror. If he was right, she was trapped. “Can’t you communicate with Mykh somehow? Ask him to send me home?”

  Jarred shook his head. “The only way we were ever able to speak is when both of you drew us into your universe. And even then, we were stuck in a kind of limbo between the dimensions.”

  Celeste frowned. “Why did Mykh do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Transport you both into limbo?”

  He forked a bite of something unidentifiable from his plate. “He didn’t. I told you, you did that.”

  “That’s impossible.” She waved a dismissive hand and took another sip of seva.

  “The same way it was impossible for you to kill Garr?” Jarred swallowed his mouthful of whatever and shook his head. “Look, I don’t understand the physics of it, either. All I know is, whenever you worked on one of your books, I would be dragged into your universe. I could see and hear what you were doing, but I couldn’t communicate with you. Mykhayl and I could talk if he happened to show up in limbo at the same time, but otherwise, we were completely cut off.”

  Celeste rubbed her forehead, feeling a tension headache gathering behind her eyebrows. “There has to be a way back.”

  “There’s not,” he said bluntly. “And even if there was, I wouldn’t let you go. You’d kill me.”

  Stung, she glared at him. “I would not!�
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  “You would.” His tone was as cold and hard as frozen steel. “And for the exact same reason I’m not letting you leave. You couldn’t afford to take the chance I’d eventually figure out a way to get to you again—and decide to kill you.”

  She swallowed as her mouth went dry. “You wouldn’t do that.”

  “You were pretty convinced I would when we got here,” he pointed out. “In fact, you thought I was going to space you.”

  “Because you were deliberately trying to terrify me!”

  “You should have been terrified. There have been times I would have killed you.”

  A chill snaked up her spine. She was suddenly very glad Mykhayl hadn’t known how to work that spell when Garr was murdered. Tilting her chin at him, she hoped the fear didn’t show in her eyes. “So why not let me fend for myself in your universe?”

  “You wouldn’t last a day,” Jarred told her with a snort. “It would be like turning a medieval peasant loose in your time. Assuming he didn’t get hit by a cargo transport . . .”

  She frowned, then realized he meant a truck.

  “. . . he’d have no skills, no way to make a living. He’d starve. You’d starve.”

  “What do you care?” Celeste demanded, staring at him with narrowed eyes. “I’m the bitch who killed Garr, remember?”

  He shrugged. “But as you’ve pointed out, you had no way of knowing what you were doing. I’ve decided you don’t deserve to die—”

  “That’s big of you.”

  “And since I brought you here,” he continued, ignoring the sarcasm, “I have some responsibility for you. With De’Lar, you could learn what you need to know while earning your keep—”

  “On my back.” Celeste glanced up sharply from her plate as she stabbed her fork into the dark lump that was apparently the entree. “Sorry, I really don’t like the idea of being anybody’s whore.”

  “Well, fucking is about the only marketable skill you have,” Jarred retorted with deliberate crudity. After pausing long enough to calmly fork a bite into his mouth and chew, he swallowed and said, “The way I look at it, it’s either De’Lar or it’s the Sons of God.”

  Her own fork halfway to her lips, Celeste froze and stared across the table at him. The Sons of God were a fanatic religious cult that made the Pennsylvania Amish of her own time look like secular humanists. “Forget that! Those jerks don’t even think women have souls. They’re like a Christian version of the Taliban!”

  “Taliban?” He lifted a brow as if he didn’t recognize the name, then shrugged. “The point is, all they require of a woman is fertility. You can manage that much.”

  She put down her fork and said with careful control, “You are not abandoning me on some dirtball with a bunch of misogynist zealots who believe women are the source of all sin. I’d rather be De’Lar’s sex toy.”

  He smiled slightly. “In that case, I suggest you help me prove you’re a submissive. Because if you don’t pass De’Lar’s test, I’m dropping you off at Christ Colony.”

  Celeste stared at him as her heart sank. Jarred didn’t make empty threats. If he said he’d do it, he would.

  She couldn’t afford that. There would be no way off Christ Colony—ships stopped there only rarely. At least on Kyristari, she would have a reasonable chance of freeing herself, either by escaping or simply talking De’Lar into turning her loose once she knew enough to make it on her own. Then she’d try to find a way to return home. She was damned if she was just going to take Jarred’s word that another dimensional jump was impossible.

  Celeste frowned. The problem with that plan was that it sounded as if it could take years. Unfortunately, it also seemed to be the only game in town. Which meant Jarred was right. She was going to have to go along with his game, much as it galled her.

  She was going to have to learn to play sexsub.

  Jarred watched his captive process her options—and find them not at all to her liking. He smiled darkly. Now she knew how he’d felt all these years.

  Morosely, she forked up a bite of ambrosia snake, popped it into her mouth, and began to grimly chew. He knew the taste had hit her when her eyes widened and she focused her attention on her plate. “Hey, that’s good!” Suddenly she looked up at him with narrow eyes. “It’s not the snake, is it? . . . No, on the other hand, I don’t think I want to know.” She speared another bite and popped it into her mouth with a soft moan.

  That tiny sound grabbed him by the dick like a demanding female hand. Jarred straightened in his seat, instantly hardening. Damn, he thought, fighting his lust as she worked her way through the snake, I’ve had her twice today, in one way or another. I can’t be hungry for her again.

  But as Celeste slowly slid a forkful into her mouth, her tongue flicking out to capture a drop of creamy sauce that slipped from the tines, Jarred felt the heat intensify between his legs. She was so incredibly sensual . . .

  He remembered how she’d writhed as he’d licked and sucked her glistening sex. How she’d ground fiercely up at him when he’d fucked her, her hard nipples teasing his chest, her skin so pale and soft and smooth against his own darker male flesh. Shifting in his seat, he surreptitiously reached under the table and adjusted the fit of his armor.

  Suddenly an image flashed through his mind: Celeste, helplessly bound and twisting in pleasure as De’Lar took her with long thrusts.

  Jarred frowned.

  Given her beauty and intense sensuality, he had no doubt she’d soon become his friend’s favorite sexsub. And despite her bitter protests, Jarred suspected it wouldn’t be long before Celeste fell for the big Kyristari king. Beyond his obvious looks, De’Lar had the kind of slick charm women liked.

  Jarred himself had never been any good at that kind of thing, never had a talent for coming up with smooth lines of pakshit. Not that he’d ever needed to. Women fell into his bed fast enough as it was.

  Celeste’s agile pink tongue licked the last of the ambrosia sauce from her fork. It was too damn easy to imagine her licking De’Lar’s thick cock the same way.

  Well, for the next two weeks at least, Celeste and that talented tongue belonged to him. And he was going to take advantage of every second he had them.

  Rising from his seat, Jarred stalked around the table to catch his naked captive by the arm as she put down her fork. “Come on.”

  “What?” she asked, bewildered, as he pulled her to her feet. “And why are you looking so pissed all the sudden?”

  “You said you wanted a bath,” he reminded her, hustling her toward the door. “And I’ve got something else I want you to do with that mouth.”

  Celeste hurried down the corridor, intensely aware of Jarred’s large hand engulfing her elbow, his powerful body at her back. She was still a bit sore from the last time he’d had her, yet she could sense waves of hot, angry lust pouring off him yet again. High-handed ’borg creep.

  She could feel her body going wet between the thighs, readying for his use.

  And that was what really ticked her off. No matter how angry she got at his arrogant belief that whatever he did to her was justified—despite the obvious injustice of it all—something in her responded to him. Good God. Is he right? Am I some kind of sexual submissive?

  It was an appalling thought. She remembered the shame on Corinne’s face the time Celeste had to come free her after her jerk ex-husband had left her tied to the bed. It was lucky she’d been able to reach the phone. Celeste hadn’t found anything in the least erotic about that situation; she’d just wanted to beat in Dylan’s smirking face.

  So why was the idea of being dominated by Jarred so arousing?

  God, she hoped Mykhayl didn’t indulge his kinky tendencies with her sister. True, he had a romance hero’s built-in decency, so he probably wouldn’t hurt her intentionally, but he might not realize how fragile Corinne was until it was too late. Particularly given how furious he’d looked before he’d sent them here.

  Jarred, on the other hand, didn’t give a damn. H
e might be heroic, but he could also be ruthless as hell in pursuit of his goals. And at the moment, Celeste knew his primary goal was to drive her right out of her mind.

  He hustled her through the door of his quarters. She caught no more than a glimpse of the furnishings she’d described in her books before he hauled her into the sprawling bathroom.

  She’d always figured that anybody living alone in an interstellar vessel would want big rooms and lush decorations to keep from going nuts from boredom. The Vengeance’s head bore out that theory with a tub damn near big enough to swim laps in. Sunk into the floor and built more or less like a Jacuzzi, it dominated the oval room. Water poured into its broad, deep basin from a dozen nozzles. Evidently Jarred had used his computer implants to order the ship to fill it for him.

  “Get in,” he growled.

  Celeste thought about telling him where to go, just on general principles . . . but she did want that bath. So, after a brief hesitation, she started down the steps that led down into the tub.

  Deliciously warm currents frothed around her ankles, feeling so silken she forgot her outrage. With a sigh of raw pleasure, she descended until she could bend her knees and let herself sink to her chin in the hip-deep water. Around her, throbbing jets gently pummeled her body, cleansing it of any lingering stickiness.

  Then she looked up and realized with a little skip of her heart that she was about to get sticky all over again. Jarred stared down at her with hot dark eyes as he leaned against a mirrored vanity. Popping the seals of his armored boots, he kicked his long legs free, then shucked out of his pants.

  She licked her lips. “I don’t want company.”

  “But I do.” He turned to toss the pants through the bathroom door. “And since I’m the dominant, I get what I want. Unless you’d rather spend the rest of your life on Christ Colony in a semipermanent state of pregnancy.”

  Celeste opened her mouth to growl a retort, only to forget what she’d been about to say as he turned, gorgeously nude. His cock jutted from his brawny torso in a display of male hunger that took her breath. Add long, muscled legs and a tight ass, and she had a view that made her hormones sit up and sing the Hallelujah chorus.