Kulla chuckled quietly. Let the seismologists and the meteorologists try to make sense of that one. It would defy human reasoning. He relaxed back into his own physical musings, when Ninurta’s voice rang out again, worried.
Anshar. Tell me you’re clear.
Dead silence.
Anshar?
Kulla heard a wail that could only be Lenore standing off to one side of the cavern. Anshar baby, are you there?
No words of assurance were returned.
Shit, Marduk. I think Anshar might have been trapped between waves. Ninurta cried, clearly appalled.
Within seconds, Kulla could tell the room emptied of gods and goddesses.
Minutes ticked by. Words he could hear in his head flew back and forth between all of the immortals. There swirled so much debris under the water from all the turbulence, the gods couldn’t see. Anshar could be overcome and buried anywhere, over an area of hundreds of square miles.
I’ve just dropped the blue men into the soup. The words were Nergal’s, sent to everyone, and they raised hope. The Lauernley were more at home in the sea than they were on land; far more efficient than any of the gods. They navigated by sonar, using a nifty echolocation system built into their brains.
Kulla focused so intently, he barely heard the footsteps entering the cavern.
“I’m here.” Bee-Dee’s voice sounded in his ear, and he tried to grope for her, unsuccessfully, but she sidled up beside him. He could smell her unique fragrance. “They’ll find him,” she said to reassure them both. “Dorian’s gone to help, and so has your brother.”
Kulla was proud. Kabta had really stepped up to the plate for him and his friends. It only made him know how right he’d been to take his young sibling’s place in Hell all those years ago. The fresh-faced, emotional kid he’d left behind never would have made it out of the Underworld alive, let alone grown into the man that Kabta had become. Kulla felt like one lucky bastard at this moment, even without control of his body. He had his friends, his brother, and his Chosen. What more could any god want? He cleared his throat of the emotion that threatened to choke him.
Who’s here? Kulla asked. He could sense a number of bodies around him, but could anyone in the chamber communicate by head?
“All the human agents, as well as your mortal friends Tiny and Greg.” Queen Ereshkigal let him know. Kulla imagined the king had told his pregnant wife to stay put.
Angie? Addie-May? He inquired about the witches. Nobody had recently tried to slap a poultice on him, so he wondered if the pair were present.
“They stayed home to watch the compound and take care of baby Girin, Maity, Kate…oh, and Glory who’s having a resurgence of her morning sickness,” she informed him. He actually heard her frown. “It seems that Shamash and Lahar have just arrived at the ocean site. They demanded that my husband transport them to help with the search.”
Indeed, his other two brothers’ voices now added to the glut scouring the ocean floor.
We…h…im. What? Kulla wondered what he’d heard. Maybe exhales of relief?
The Lauernley. They have him. Dagon’s voice roared over the rest. Waylon found Anshar and the king’s guards are bringing him in.
Kulla wondered how Dagon knew, then remembered the serpent god had been allowed into the glowie collective even before the blue men. A useful tool, Kulla thought. They were all going to have to get on that network, once this was over.
Is he all right? Lenore’s voice shook with relief that they’d found her husband.
A little head injury, but it’s hard to tell how bad. Anshar’s always been a little off. Dagon’s voice joked, but in a rocky way. Clearly he didn’t feel as nonchalant as his playful words.
Fuck you, asshole. The weak insult came flinging back from his serpent cousin. You’ve always been the crazy bastard in the family.
Kulla laughed, and it felt right. Everyone weighed in with lively profanity and outrageous put-downs, the whole thing almost too much to take in.
My gods. Their lives had gone from centuries of nothingness, to a nearly overwhelming glut of loved ones and crises…of which another had just been averted. Amazing. They were all still intact. Everyone was still alive.
Suddenly the room overflowed with gods. Kulla distinctly smelled seawater and brine. Voices raised, filled with a heady mixture of boisterous catcalls and a deluge of testosterone…but most of all an overwhelming cornucopia of relief.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“It looks like everyone’s headed for the spa.” Bee-Dee’s voice caressed Kulla’s ear. “Dani says it won’t hurt you a bit to have a massage, and it might help. I’m having you moved.”
Kulla felt gentle hands lift him into the air, and figured that he must be floating on a sea of soft glowies. His sense of touch had definitely returned, and that buoyed his spirits. If he could get his vision back, not moving wouldn’t be such a bad thing for a short while. He could tell that Obedience would pamper him, and he would eat it up.
Kulla almost fell asleep, once he’d been settled on a soft surface. The ambient sounds that surrounded him in the moist air of what Kulla could only imagine as an underground lagoon, were potently soothing. The glowies added pan-flute music and the lapping of gentle waves to the soft voices that whispered through his head in every direction. Delighted moans wafted up around him and tickled Kulla’s imagination. He reached out.
Any immortals here? Marduk? Enlil? Can someone please tell me where I am?
Relax and enjoy things, architect. Enlil’s voice came back to him, drowsily. You’re in Hell, but about to be taken to Heaven. Enlil groaned. The glowies have made a retreat out of the luminescent pools we once frequented. It’s amazing. They have magic hands. His head voice faded back to a murmur. Tuning out.
Kulla guessed that everyone must be getting VIP treatment at the hands of Nergal’s loyal employees. He felt soft hands removing his clothing, and thought of his mate. As the stripping continued, and his pants were removed, he got worried. There was something highly erotic about being touched without being able to see…or move. What if he embarrassed himself with a spontaneous cock-stand? He didn’t like the idea. He forcibly sent the picture of Obedience out of his head, and instead imagined the petite, trusting little glowies. There. That should do it. Medicinal, not sexual. He could handle that. As good as it would feel, there would be nothing erotic about it.
When firm, yet downy touches inaugurated at his feet, Kulla let out the deep breath he’d been holding and relaxed into pampering strokes. Someone used oils on his body. His nose picked up the scent of lemon and his nerve ending tingled with interest. He felt everything now, and that boded well, even though he couldn’t yet move. Kulla was rubbed, coddled, and petted, and no part of him was left sacrosanct. Awesome. He wondered what could possibly surpass a glowie massage.
Minutes later, soft breath in his ear made him rethink his previous assumption.
“Are you enjoying this, my sweet god?” Bee-Dee’s voice thrummed through his sedated body. “Do you smell the lemon?” He couldn’t answer, but sensed that Obedience didn’t need him to.
“That’s verbena,” she purred. Kulla wondered what she was up to when he felt her tongue reach out to tease his lobe. Then a sharp nip delivered to the same tender flesh had his heart thumping wildly. “Verbena is used in herbal remedies as a sexual stimulant,” Bee-Dee whispered. “And FYI, the glowies have left me the bottle.”
Kulla’s mind jumped. Obedience ministered to him? Where were the glowies who had been in attendance? He didn’t know if he remained alone with his witch or if the room was communal and filled with gods lying about on tables all around, receiving the same treatment as he.
He felt hands on his shoulders again, but this time they were most assuredly not the three fingered glowie digits that had been touching him. These hands had something besides physical therapy in mind.
“I remember you used to love when I dug my nails into your scalp.” Bee-Dee’s silky voice accompanied a
deep grazing of his head that made him want to wince and moan in pleasure at the same time. He had no idea if any sound came out of his mouth, but his witch gave a low, seductive laugh. With or without noise from him, she knew just how much she affected him. In a minute, he would sport that hard-on he’d worried about earlier, and wouldn’t that be a sight for anyone else in the vicinity.
Kulla felt Bee-Dee’s nails work their way down behind his ears, and then lighten, to draw tantalizing lines over the sides of his neck. When he felt her mouth join her busy hands, across the expanse of his clavicle, he wanted to respond. Dammit. He needed to respond, but still his body remained uncooperative to his demands. Kulla could only lie still and wait.
His libido spiked when Obedience bit down on his left nipple, and holy shit. Did his hips just flex? Why couldn’t he tell? He could feel Bee-Dee’s warm breath playing across his skin, but couldn’t see his own reaction. He may have been writhing as she teased each of his small male peaks with her lush lips. How could he endure this torture without having any control over his body?
“I see this interests you.”
Kulla could hear the satisfaction in his little witch’s voice. “I’m checking out your equipment,” she teased. By this time he was certain his cock stood rigid and questing. He hadn’t needed the lemon verbena to accomplish that. Just Bee-Dee’s attention to detail.
Kulla tried to regulate his breathing. His mind worked overtime. The question in his mind? What would Obedience do next? Completely helpless, it both worried and excited him.
A trail of kisses fluttered down his chest, and across his ribcage. He could feel Obedience’s silky hair teasing his belly. He wanted to jump out of his skin when she purposely went lower and brushed her silky locks over his swollen balls, only to then spiral it up the length of his prick. He wanted to tell Bee-Dee to stop. He wanted to tell her never to stop. Fuck. He didn’t know what he wanted.
Part of him worried that he put on a peep show for his friends, and another part of him worried that Obedience set him up for something that would be finished too fast. Kulla felt like a volcano about to erupt, and didn’t think he could stop the build-up of pressure that would make him blow. In his present state, it wouldn’t take long.
He knew he made noise when her hand grasped his length, hard. Her bent fingers ran lovingly up the vein that he knew pulsed erratically from base to tip. He could feel the oil between their skins heating as her hand worked up and down his shaft. Every three or four tugs, his witch would sweep her thumb across his weeping slit, and rub pre-cum over the engorged head of his cock. Sinful, his taunting mate. Not being able to see, it was all about feeling, which enhanced every little motion Obedience made.
Kulla’s balls tightened and he poised, seconds away from a colossal orgasm when Bee-Dee abruptly let him go. Cool air brushed across the simmering skin of his prick and he floundered for a few seconds. What the Hell? He sent his senses outward. Where had his mate gone? Surely she wouldn’t leave him now? In this state? Wait. He picked up some small movements to his right. Bee-Dee fidgeted there. He wanted to cry out.
Had something stopped her? Maybe she realized she put on a show in front of their friends? Kulla moaned for real this time. He felt his vocal chords vibrate, and that wasn’t all that vibrated. He strained, left in a state of hardness that no one would be able to miss. He doubted his cock could stand any taller, and try as he might, he couldn’t bring it back under control. He wondered where his damned witch had gotten to. He scowled. If she’d left him alone, a blanket would have been nice.
He was just about to use head-speak to get help, when without warning, soft lips came down on his, brushing tenderly across his surprised mouth. He opened under Bee-Dee’s ministrations, and received his witch’s next words like breath.
“I love you, sweet man.”
His heart beat again
“But I’m sorry, Kulla. I can’t do what you want.”
The architect’s mind scrambled to give meaning to what she’d said.
“I can’t follow your wishes and wait until we’re mated.” Her words pulsed through his head…and his prick.
“I’ve taken off my clothes. I need to fuck you. Now.” He would have cried out with joy, if he’d been able.
Kulla felt Obedience lift her body up beside him on the bed where he lay. The next thing he knew, she straddled his hips. The slick heat of her pussy brushed up against his cock as she positioned above him. It felt so damned good. And it must have felt that way to Bee-Dee, too, because she repeated the motion, this time with more pressure, and a little faster. Up and down she rubbed her wetness the length of his cock. She rested both hands on his chest and rocked her sweet moist flesh against him. Devine torment.
Kulla came quickly to the point of explosion again, but willed his balls to hold off. He knew it would only be a matter of seconds before his love opened her nether lips to him and fed her pussy down onto his cock, enveloping every inch of him, right down to his balls. He strove for control, but gasped, blindsided as she descended. Light burst into his head, with red streaked explosions going off behind his retinas. His body turned hot; his shoulder, molten. Fire coursed through his veins and vitality stormed back into his body, energizing every last cell. Damn! He could move.
Kulla howled and grabbed Bee-Dee’s hips. With renewed, massive strength, he lifted her above him, positioned her hot cunt, and brought her down hard, impaling her on his now throbbing penis. Bee-Dee screamed, and gripped his hips with her knees. Kulla bellowed and filled her to the brim. She rode him, roughly, needfully, weeping her joy. He saw her tears. He saw her tears. His vision had returned.
Ah. Blessed sight. His woman a joy to behold: head thrown back, wetness coursing down her cheeks, and a look of such sheer bliss on her face that it shook him to the core. Kulla gripped her waist and stopped his movements, stopped her movements. She looked down at him, foggy and baffled, then understanding dawned as she must have seen the spark in his eyes. She knew he needed to be the one.
“Mine.” he cried, and flipped her over onto her back. Still impaled, he commenced a relentless drive into her warmth.
Bee-Dee wrapped her legs around his back and arched up taking every inch he had to give. His strokes were long and sure. He felt like he’d come home. So many years without this woman; so many years without this bond that was his life’s blood. He tried to slow down, but it was beyond his power. The best he could do was to temper his own release. Her satisfaction would come first.
Kulla bent his head and nipped the witch’s pretty pink nipples. Obedience dug her nails into his muscled ass, and he rotated his hips so that his prick would hit all the spots he remembered she liked. He leveraged up to one arm, and brought a hand between them, honing in on and finding her clit, the spot that would send her over the edge. He rounded the small bundle of nerves, once, twice. He pinched. Bee-Dee screamed and stilled, grinding into his hand until her interior muscles went wild.
Kulla bowed his head as she squeezed his cock. How could he have survived without this feeling? Her spasms around his prick were as affirming as the heartbeat lying next to his ear.
He slid forward again. This time slowly. It took about two additional seconds before Kulla poured his own life-essence deep inside his mate’s womb.
Bee-Dee quieted and softened under him, reaching for his mouth with hers. Opening for her, Kulla shivered as she stroked his upper palate with her tongue and raked her nails over his back. Her firm breasts pressed harder up into his chest, and he shuddered in response.
They set their rhythm in motion again.
Kulla could feel her heat, the residual pulsations in her pussy from her first climax, and he thrust hard into her once more, reaching and driving. Obedience met his every movement with one of her own, lashing to him with arms that held him tight.
He climbed and climbed until he topped the pinnacle, first to spill himself this time. Kulla’s renewed voice rang out as he flooded Bee-Dee’s womb. Sweat streamed from ever
y pore as his orgasm ripped through him. He roared with satisfaction, and as he settled, Bee-Dee came apart.
Looking down at her sated face, Kulla felt like a god again. He threw back his head and laughed in triumph, and his sweet, witchy mate joined him. He finally felt happy, and complete. Bee-Dee, alone, held that power.
Kulla eventually allowed his body to relax, and came down off his braced arms to cover her body for a brief second before turning them both to their sides. His prick, still embedded deep within her, protested the need to disconnect. If he had his way, he’d stay joined until his dick called for retreat. Yeah, never for a god, or at least not for a very long time. Kulla nuzzled his witch’s neck. Obedience giggled.
“Welcome back to the world of the living,” she said.
Kulla sighed, then sprang to full alert. He had a moment of panic as he lurched up and lifted his head to look around. Okay. Not what he’d thought. The god let out a huff of relief and quieted down. He and his woman were in a private room. Not the populated cavern he’d pictured. Thank the gods for that. The last thing he wanted would be to have made love to Obedience with an audience of jeering idiots looking on.
“What?” Bee-Dee asked. She scowled at his sudden, erratic movements and punched his arm.
“Nothing.” Kulla shrugged, hoping she’d leave it alone.
“No, really.” She kept at him. “What?”
He wrapped his arms around her a little tighter, twisted up his mouth and confessed. “I thought you were seducing me in a room full of people,” he admitted, sheepishly. It sounded really stupid now that he voiced it. He should have known better. Bee-Dee wouldn’t have done that.
His witch responded with a bark of a laugh. “Well damn. If that’s what you thought, performing for an audience didn’t seem to impede you.” She smirked. “You were able to get pretty hard while thinking that your friends were watching.” Her eyes twinkled in merriment.
“I call no fair,” he spluttered. “I had no choice.” His face went playfully dark. “You had me helpless and totally at your mercy.”
Erecting Barriers Page 24