Captive Dreams

by Angela Knight

  And given what she knew he could do to her . . .

  Damn, Celeste thought. He may be an arrogant jerk, but he is a hot arrogant jerk.

  To make matters even steamier, he was staring as if he wanted to eat her. Slowly. With a spoon. Licking off the whipped cream as he went.

  As her nipples hardened helplessly at that particular image, Jarred descended the steps toward her. Celeste stood up so quickly, water sloshed. Crouching put her at eye-level with his cock, a view she found far too distracting to her peace of mind.

  Groping for something to say that would hide her reaction to his animal sexuality, she gave him a challenging stare. “You wouldn’t really abandon me with those religious lunatics, would you?”

  He shrugged. “At least you’d be safe.”

  “Safe?” She glared, trying to work up a comfortable head of outrage. “Jarred, those guys consider criminal domestic violence a sacred duty. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life as a punching bag for some self-appointed ‘saint.’ ”

  “Then you’d better concentrate on doing a damn good imitation of a Kyristari sexsub, because that’s your only other option.” He turned his massive back on her to fill his palms from a nozzle that poured liquid soap into them.

  “It’s a big galaxy, Jarred.” Celeste eyed the muscled topography of his back and felt her heartbeat pick up speed. “There’s got to be somewhere else I can go.”

  “Not if you don’t want to get locked up as a vagrant.” He turned and reached for her, liquid soap dripping from between his long fingers.

  “Isn’t there a school or something I could attend to learn whatever it is you think I need to learn?” She caught her breath as his soapy hands began to slowly stroke away the residue of his passion from her breasts and belly. His touch was slow and hypnotic, though gentleness was the last thing she would have expected after the way he’d hauled her in here.

  “Probably, but if you think I’m paying for it, you can think again.” Despite the brusque words, his low voice rasped with hunger. She looked up into his face, tracing the chiseled angles of cheekbones and chin, the sensual curve of his mouth, the line of his thick, dark brows over eyes that examined and possessed.

  “I could—” Celeste broke off as his slick thumbs stroked her nipples. “I could pay you back.”

  His gaze flicked to her face with a hot interest that turned the offer into something far more erotic than she’d intended. “And how do you propose to do that?” He reached down a muscled arm and cupped her sex.

  Celeste bit her lip as one long finger began to explore between her slick lips. “I could get a job.”

  “Doing what?” Jarred smiled tauntingly as he continued to explore.

  She struggled to formulate a coherent answer. His wicked fingers made it impossible to think. “Writing. I’m sure storytelling hasn’t changed any in four hundred years. I mean, we still read Shakespeare in my time . . .”

  A second finger suddenly joined the first deep inside her sex. “And screw some other poor bastard in another universe? Don’t you think you’ve got enough to pay for right here?” He drew out, then stroked inside again, thumbing her hard clit. “Though I’m getting some fascinating ideas about how to collect—”

  “Jarred!” She writhed, but he flattened his other hand over her backside to hold her still.

  “Mmm. You’re really tight, Celeste,” he purred, working his finger in and out in slow, suggestive strokes. “Though you may not stay that way if I have anything to say about it. And I do.” His mouth twisted. “De’Lar may not find you so much fun after all.”

  Her eyes widened as she looked down at the broad shaft nudging her hip. He could actually make good on that threat.

  “Luckily for you, I’ve got another orifice in mind right now.” Reaching up, he wrapped a big fist in her hair and gently tugged her head down until her face was inches from his erection. “Suck my cock like a good sexsub, Celeste.”

  She hesitated as arousal quivered through her. Then, with a soft moan, she leaned forward and took him deep.

  FOUR

  The sensation of Celeste’s silken mouth sliding up his shaft was so hot, so intense, Jarred had to bite back a moan. Tightening his grip on his fistful of her long blond curls, he watched in barely contained lust as more and more of his shaft disappeared between her soft lips. “Your knees,” he growled, arousal deepening his voice into a rasp. “Get on your knees.”

  She obeyed, sinking deeper into the water, the movement sending a warm wave surging around his hips. Just as he’d intended, the position forced her to tilt her head so he could see more of her face as she suckled him. Green eyes met his, filled with an expression of voluptuous surrender. Jarred shuddered.

  Her tongue laved the head of his shaft as her soft lips drew hard, sliding back and forth. Unable to resist, he made a slow, shallow thrust. It felt so incredible he began gently rocking his hips, savoring the sweet, raw eroticism of being serviced by the woman who’d tormented him for so long.

  “Do you have any idea how many times I’ve imagined fucking your mouth?” he demanded, tightening his grip on her hair. “Dreamed of forcing you to your knees and taking you this way?” He shuddered and arched his hips. “Deeper, dammit.”

  As obedient as any wanton fantasy he’d ever had, she took his cock farther into slick paradise. He thought about making her swallow his come and had to bite back a moan.

  Celeste had given her share of blowjobs over the years. Depending on her partner, the act had been a mildly pleasant chore at best; at worst, a tiring pain in the ass.

  But kneeling at Jarred Varrain’s feet and sucking his cock as he growled sensual orders at her was one of the hottest, kinkiest things she’d ever done.

  Damn, maybe he’s right, she thought, as she tried to work him deeper. Maybe I am a sexsub.

  She didn’t like that thought any better than she had the last time it had occurred to her.

  He groaned in a deep, carnal rumble that made her sex grow creamy and swollen. Something about the sound reminded her of the way she’d begged him when he’d teased her with his cock.

  She wondered suddenly if she could make him beg.

  The idea was so irresistible she just had to try it. Seizing on every skill she’d ever learned, Celeste lifted off her knees, wrapped a hand around one of the tight cheeks of his ass, and swallowed every inch of him she possibly could.

  Jarred’s knees almost buckled as Celeste suddenly took him down her throat in a breathtaking rush of wet pleasure. She withdrew, then plunged him deep again, milking his shaft with ruthless skill. The sensation was so indescribably good he knew he wouldn’t last more than a moment.

  But just as he could feel the pressure building, she backed off. One slender hand wrapped around the base of his shaft and began to firmly stroke as the other caressed his balls. All the while, her tongue played loving court to his cock’s sensitive head.

  Over the next ten minutes, Jarred balanced on the sharp edge of a blazing orgasm as Celeste played him with lips and tongue and fingers—sucking, fondling, even nibbling gently. Then without warning, she’d deep throat him again.

  Straining for the orgasm she never quite let him have, he didn’t notice the submission in her eyes had been replaced by calculation.

  The sensations she created were so intense he forgot his hunger for revenge, forgot his drive to dominate. All he knew was the sight of her kneeling at his feet, plunging him deeper into pleasure every time she took him into her mouth. Celeste, the woman he’d dreamed of for so long, his obsession and his fantasy . . .

  Jarred felt the burning wave of his orgasm begin its roll up from his balls. He threw back his head, gasping. But just before his climax hit, she paused, denying him that last hot stroke he needed.

  “God, Celeste, please . . .” he groaned. “Don’t stop.”

  She swallowed his shaft to the balls in a single hot swoop that kicked him over the edge. Arching his back, he came in rolling jets of fire, one han
d fisted in her hair. He roared in pleasure and triumph.

  When it was finally over, he let himself sink back in the water to float bonelessly in the glowing aftermath.

  “Jarred?” she asked, her voice a silken purr.

  He opened his dazed eyes to see her wearing a taunting grin. “This time I made you beg,” Celeste said.

  All right, she thought half an hour later, that was not the smartest thing I’ve ever said.

  She was flat on her back on a fluidmat bed, her wrists crossed on the pillow over her head, her thighs spread wide.

  Completely unable to move.

  After she’d made her little announcement, Jarred had gotten out of the tub and dragged her into his quarters, where he’d dug a cerebral control headband out of a drawer and snapped it into place around her forehead. The band had instantly emitted a field that blocked her brain’s commands to her muscles; she would have collapsed into a heap if he hadn’t caught her.

  Without a word, he’d carried her into Garr’s old cabin, where he’d arranged her limp body on the bed. The whole time, his face had looked as if it had been cast from frozen steel. His utter lack of expression spoke of rage far more eloquently than any ranting threats he could have made.

  He’d scared the living hell out of her.

  Straightening, he’d looked down at her. “I assume you know what else I can do with that band?”

  Her fear was so complete she couldn’t have answered even if she hadn’t been paralyzed. Still, he must have read something in her eyes that pleased him. Giving her a rather sinister smile, he’d gently turned her head on the pillow to face a sculpture of a woman sitting in an inset wall niche. Naked and bound, the little figure seemed to writhe in voluptuous invitation. “Unless you want to spend the rest of your life on Christ Colony being punished for the sins of Eve, you’d better follow that example.” Then he’d walked out.

  Note to self, Celeste thought now. Do not screw with Jarred.

  Restlessly she tried to roll over, only to find once again that her body wouldn’t obey. Hell, she couldn’t even move her eyes; they were focused on that stupid statue. She supposed she was lucky he let her blink.

  Between the cerebral band and his computer implants, Jarred could manipulate her body like a puppet, and there was nothing she could do about it. Worse, he could use the band to broadcast sensory illusions into her brain, rather like the virtual reality glasses some game designers had been playing with back in her own time.

  He’d once used a cerebral band on an enemy of his after slipping it onto the man in his sleep. Jarred had suspected his foe was the spymaster for a mole inside the Stellar Compact government, but he hadn’t been able to prove it. The band gave him that proof by making the spymaster’s brain see Jarred as the man suspected of being the mole. The spymaster awoke, thought he was talking to the traitor, and discussed the details of the next information exchange with Jarred. Both the spymaster and the mole had ended up in a Stellar Compact prison.

  Jarred could use the band the same way on Celeste, creating any illusion he damn well wanted. And since none of it was real, he could get pretty nasty without hurting her.

  But would he actually use the band to torture her, as he’d implied? She couldn’t believe he’d go that far. True, he’d been pretty pissed off . . .

  No, he was just trying to unnerve her.

  Maybe.

  Helplessly, she stared at the silver sexsub statue. Damn, she thought absently, that’s lewd. The thing writhed in simulated ecstasy in its niche, all tits and legs and ass as it morphed into different obscene positions. It was so damn tacky, no wonder Garr had bought it. It had probably appealed to his warped sense of humor.

  And Jarred wanted her to act like that? Dream on, you big ’borg jerk.

  She again tried to look away from the pornographic figure, but her eyes stubbornly refused to obey. Her nose began to itch. Automatically, she tried to reach up and scratch it, but her hand wouldn’t move, either.

  Suddenly it hit Celeste all over again that she was totally paralyzed. What if she needed to go to the bathroom? What if they were attacked by a Zyris slave ship? What if a chunk of space debris got past the shields and hit the outer bulkhead? She’d be sucked helplessly into space, unable to even grab onto anything to save herself.

  Okay, now you’re losing it, Celeste told herself, trying to regain control of her skidding imagination. Damn Jarred anyway for doing this to her. The son of a bitch. She should have bitten off his dick instead of sucking it.

  Rage rose in her, hot and searing. She stared bitterly at the twisting figure, watching it silently beg any male in the vicinity to fuck it. That’s what Jarred wanted her to become.

  Damn him, damn him damn him DAMN HIM DAMN HIM DAMN HIM DAMN HIM . . .

  The statue took off out of its niche like a rocket and shot across the room. A series of soft thuds announced its impact on the carpet.

  Jolted out of her frenzy of helpless rage, Celeste stared at the now-empty niche in shock. Did I do that? No, I couldn’t have. Unless . . .

  She knew telekinesis was possible in this universe; Jarred had fought a telekinetic assassin once, and Garr had been both precognitive and telepathic. Of course, she’d never had any such abilities herself—unless Jarred was right, and she’d somehow made everything happen here.

  Oh, God. Maybe she really had killed Garr.

  What if Jarred came in and saw the statue lying all the way across the room? He’d know she’d thrown it with something other than her paralyzed hands. What would he do?

  Celeste was deeply certain she didn’t want to find out. She had to put the statue back. But how? She couldn’t see it. Hell, she couldn’t even turn her head to look. Maybe if she pictured the thing in her mind. That’s how Garr had always performed his psychic feats in her books . . .

  Staring hard at the niche, Celeste remembered how it had looked sitting there twisting in lewd invitation. As if she was someone else, she imagined watching herself lying in the bed while the statue rose slowly off the floor and floated through the air.

  She stared at the niche with such ferocious concentration, a headache took up a slow, deep throb behind her eyes. Sweat broke out on her forehead.

  But nothing else happened.

  Dammit, she thought, I did it before. I can do it again. Concentrate!

  With a silent snarl, she focused all her energy on the image of the statue, on willing it to lift from the floor and levitate back to its niche.

  Nothing.

  Wait. She . . . felt . . . something. A sense of weight. And was that movement in the corner of her vision?

  Celeste tried to turn her head, forgetting that her body couldn’t obey. Her paralysis startled her so badly her concentration broke. She thought she glimpsed something fall.

  Thud.

  She wanted to scream. She’d been doing it! She’d almost had it!

  Okay, okay, calm down. Try again.

  Focusing her energies again, she reached out to the statue. This time she definitely felt something, as if she’d lifted it in one hand. Her skull was banging like a kettle drum now, but she ignored the pain. She was going to do this, by God!

  A flash of silver rose in her peripheral vision. This time Celeste didn’t let it break her concentration, instead focusing everything she had on guiding the statue back to its niche.

  Wavering, it advanced slowly into her field of vision, still writhing enthusiastically. Her headache rang like the Anvil Chorus. She stared hard at the niche. The statue glided into it . . .

  And promptly collapsed on its side. Blast it to hell, she’d put the thing down on its head.

  “Celeste?”

  Oh, God. Jarred was coming down the corridor. She had to right the statue before he walked in. Frantically, Celeste sent out a burst of energy so intense she could almost feel the burn on her skin. The statue flipped upright just as he walked in the door.

  Fortunately, he wouldn’t have been able to see the movement inside the wa
ll niche. At least, she hoped not. Barely breathing, Celeste watched from the corner of one eye as he moved to stand over her. He frowned, staring down at her face. “Are you all right? You’re sweating.”

  Feeling him release his control over her speech, she ground out, “I have a headache, and I need to go to the bathroom.”

  Both were the utter truth, as she knew his sensors would tell him. His frown deepened. Her muscles jerked as the band suddenly freed her. Celeste popped out of bed and raced for the room’s attached head as if shot from a cannon.

  She barely made it to the toilet before she began throwing up.

  Jarred listened to his prisoner violently expelling the contents of her stomach and fought a twinge of guilt. He could sympathize. In the past, an enemy or two had used his computer to paralyze him. And he’d hated it. At least with chains, you still had some ability to move, but paralysis turned your body into a cage of flesh. Both experiences had given him such a roaring case of claustrophobia he never used the band himself except with prisoners he couldn’t control any other way.

  Which, of course, hadn’t been the case with Celeste. He’d simply lost his temper. It had been so galling to realize he’d begged her for release after he’d sworn she’d be the one begging him.

  But even as furious as he’d been, when he’d seen the panic in her green eyes, he’d almost taken the band off. It had been all he could do to walk out the door and leave her like that.

  After he’d gone to his quarters, he’d found himself lying awake, straining to hear any sound, any indication that she might be suffering. That mysterious thud had given him the excuse he’d needed to check on her.

  How his enemies would laugh. The implacable Jarred Varrain, gone too soft to take even minor revenge on the woman who had tortured him for a decade.

  Garr had warned him.