A Mate's Risk

by Cara Carnes

  “Djar, please.”

  He flipped the button again and the warm water pulsated on her clit. She cried out and braced herself against him when she began to come hard. “That’s it, let go and enjoy yourself. Have you ever taken it higher than this?”

  “No.” The increased pulsating intensified her orgasm. She seized his cock and stroked it.

  “You are very naughty, Melinda,” he said, his breathing erratic.

  “I figured it was your turn.” Turning to face him, she looked down at the erection in her hand. “You are amazing, you know. I’ve never felt this comfortable with someone before.”

  His hands trailed through her wet hair as his hips flexed forward, giving her hands the rhythm they needed. She continued pumping his cock, delighted by his ragged breathing and groans. His muscles flexed under her fingertips as she moved her other hand up his chest, then down his thighs. Increasing the pace, she watched in fascination as he came in her hand.

  Lathering her hands, she massaged his chest muscles, feeling them flex under her palms. Tiny cuts above his nipples caught her attention. “What are these?”

  “Reminders of what happens when I disobey the gods. Do not concern yourself with them,” he said. She flicked his nipples, drawing out a groan from him. “You’re going to be the death of me, woman.”

  Laughing, she ran her soapy hands down his washboard stomach and around his back, massaging the tense muscles she felt. “I could get used to showers like this.”

  “As could I.”

  She knew she was foolish for thinking this would last, but she intended to enjoy it while it did. This was her sexual adventure and nothing would stand in the way of it. The water washed away her thoughts and she rinsed him off. She laughed when he lifted her and carried her into the bedroom.

  “You really shouldn’t carry me. It isn’t necessary.”

  “I enjoy it,” Djar said.

  “I don’t want you to hurt yourself.” She giggled when he tossed her on the bed and began to tickle her.

  “I thought we covered all that earlier. I guess I’ll have to come up with a way to prove it to you,” he said. She moaned when his lips captured hers. The man was an incredible lover.

  Chapter Three

  “I see now what brought you to this dimension. At least you have better taste in women than Rhys.”

  Djar bolted out of bed and looked across the room at the man whose whisper had awakened him. Vlad Toksty. “This can’t be. You’re dead.”

  Panic rose within him as he looked over at the bed in alarm. Melinda slept, a slight whimper coming from her parted lips as she nestled into the covers. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep.

  Years of anguish came thundering back to the forefront of his mind. Vlad was dead. How could he be standing in the center of the room grinning?

  He followed the long-missed friend to the next room in stunned silence, unprepared to share information with Melinda. The less she knew about him and his dimension, the better off she would be in the long run. How could Vlad be alive?

  “I was wondering how they explained my disappearance,” Vlad commented as he sat on the leather sofa. Djar quietly regarded the man. His looks hadn’t changed at all. “You look good, Djar. It has been a long time, has it not?”

  “How?” Djar could remember few times in his life when he was surprised, but this was at the top of the list.

  “I answered the compulsion of a beautiful woman and fell in love.”

  Djar wanted to laugh at the irony as he glanced back at the bedroom where he’d left Melinda. He had answered a compulsion as well, and the pangs in his chest at the thought of leaving her sobered him. He couldn’t fall in love with her. It would not be fair to her.

  “And you were able to remain with her? That surely angered the gods.” Him being allowed to remain surprised Djar, and gave him hope with Melinda.

  Laughter filled the expanse of the room. “Ah it did indeed enrage them, which made me want it even more. Sadly I failed to take their wrath into account and they killed my beloved. I held her in my arms as she died and I cursed their very existence.”

  Anger for his friend’s loss and grief filled him. Then the ball of unease settled in the pit of his stomach. The bastards would harm Melinda if he tried to stay. “Your loss pains me. How long?”

  “I’ve lost all sense of time, really. Hours, days, weeks and months meld into each other. Terel is probably laughing his butt off knowing I’m eternally cursed to walk this plane of existence. It’s ironic that my immortality should be my punishment now, a constant reminder I failed to protect my true love.”

  “The gods should be damned—they had no reason to be that petty,” Djar said, sitting across from his friend. Fury coursed through his veins, firing the need for revenge against the gods. They had taken too much from those who mattered to him. From him.

  “Thinking of another woman pains me, yet they hang all over me like I’m the newest craze. I’ve changed lives nine times already since my lack of aging raises questions. How is Rhys anyway?”

  The sadness loomed in each word Vlad spoke. Shadows reflected in his eyes, where joy had once exuded. Djar remembered Vlad’s carefree spirit, nothing like the lackluster gloomy shell of a man sitting before him.

  “As willful as ever. He has made it his mission to drive every goddess mad by not bedding them and so far he’s winning the war.” Djar smiled hearing the laughter from his lifelong friend. Born in the same village of Tyzan, the two of them had been reared in true Minel fashion—the moment they could walk they had been on the training fields learning to wield a broadsword and hunt food.

  They had become close friends before being enslaved by the gods at the same time. Only twenty-five years of age at the time, the two of them were immortalized and ordered to protect their captors or their people would suffer the consequences.

  “I can still taste my mom’s kalla bread on the tip of my tongue when I first wake in the mornings,” Djar confessed. The nod from his friend reassured him. He wasn’t the only one who yearned for what had been. What could have been. What should have been.

  “Aye, that and the sweet nectar she used to bring to us each night. Do you wonder how much time has passed there? Whether they are still alive and remember us?”

  “Aye, every day, but I dare not mention it to anyone in the other dimension, as I’m sure you understand. You should try to go back there, you know.” Djar flipped through the photography book sitting on the table, absentmindedly blocking out the memories of his family. It still pained him to think of them.

  “How do you suppose I manage that feat?” Vlad asked, a derisive snort filling the room.

  Djar looked up at his friend and smiled. “Once I return to the gods’ realm, I see no reason why you can’t keep the time spinner and use it. If I distract them long enough, they’ll never be able to track its location.”

  Vlad leaned forward, his jaw twitching as he did. “Do you have any idea what the ramifications would be? No one else would be able to leave the dimension and return home. I would never do that to them or to you.”

  Djar stood and looked over at the doorway to Melinda’s room. Defying the laws of the gods and heeding Melinda’s cry of passion had been a compulsion. One that he would repeat in a heartbeat given the chance. “We both know me leaving that dimension is impossible now. Once I return from here, I’ll be as far away from escape as possible for a very long time.”

  Vlad stood and looked around. “Is she worth it?”

  Djar knew what his friend asked. Pissing off the gods was never the best idea and living centuries in the worst possible torment was a sacrifice rarely made. But he had experienced passion with Melinda he’d never had before and that meant everything to him.

  His cock swelled with renewed need just thinking about her lust-filled eyes and how her wet cunt had clutched him. His skin still burned from her scratches across his chest and back.

  “Yes.”

  “Then perhaps all is not lo
st. Get her to challenge for you to remain here with her as her true love,” Vlad said.

  Djar’s heart leaped in his chest, thrumming with renewed hope. Realization struck it down with thundering force. The gods would kill her given the chance.

  “Never. After what you told me, there is no way I would ever put her in harm’s way. My only option is to leave this place and either erase her memory of me or make her believe me to be the vilest man around. And the latter would destroy me faster than the dungeons I will be residing in.”

  Vlad nodded and patted him on the back. “Be safe, my friend. Should you need anything, I run the nightclub around the corner. Tyzan.”

  Djar shook his head, knocking the surprise out of his reeling mind. Only Vlad would dare to use the name of their old village.

  At least Rhys’ statement about home being around the corner made sense now. But that meant that Rhys had known Vlad still lived. If Terel or any of the other gods found out, Rhys would be alongside him in the bowels of the dungeon for centuries. “A little bold isn’t it?”

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way. I dare them to come and wreak any more havoc on me, because I have nothing worth living for at this moment.” Djar watched his friend walk toward the main door and knew it was futile to discuss the time spinner any longer. Vlad always made decisions that mirrored his own.

  “Be safe, my friend.” Djar hugged the man as he opened the door to leave.

  “You too. Remember I’m right around the corner if either of you ever need something.”

  Djar stared at the closed door and allowed the pangs of loss to reside within him. Vlad had been like a brother and he had mourned his loss for a long time. To have him walk back into his life and then leave even faster stabbed straight into his soul. The lunatic gods had made them all suffer long enough.

  Looking around the small place Melinda called home, Djar smiled at the disarray—her shoes tossed in the corner behind the door and her purse thrown over the end of the sofa. His Melinda liked her comfort. The thought sobered him. It wasn’t a good idea to regard her as anything important—it could cause her harm if the gods found out.

  Glancing at the clock, he smiled realizing how quickly time had moved tonight. For the first time in a long time he’d enjoyed himself. Centuries had passed at a snail’s pace for so long, yet this night spun by at a whirlwind pace. What he wouldn’t give for more time.

  His Melinda needed to eat. No. He reminded himself she was not his. Walking into the quaint kitchen, he smiled at how meticulous it was in comparison to her living room and wondered why it was so important to her to keep it like this.

  He took a deep breath and opened the stainless-steel refrigerator, grabbing a grapefruit and some cream cheese. One good thing about living in the other dimension was the vast amount of time he had to observe the other worlds. Earth had always been his favorite, since his own was forbidden to him. Surely he had seen enough breakfasts prepared to not foul it up too badly.

  Looking over at the range across the room, he shook his head. Hell no. He knew his limits and anything involving cooking and food in a confined space was beyond his capabilities.

  Now if he had Melinda on his world, he would kill the largest djunka he could find and roast it on an open pit of fire just for her. His mouth watered thinking of the tender succulent meat his people craved and his muscles ached thinking of the challenge it would be to capture and kill the most dangerous creature on his world. Many had died on the hunt, but Vlad and he had been deemed masters. He smiled thinking of his lifelong friend as he picked up a knife and sliced the grapefruit.

  Melinda watched Djar diligently prepare the fruit before him and saw the smile cross his face. Clad in a pair of her oversized jogging pants, his bare calves and ankles stuck out, making her want to laugh. They’d talked most of the night and she’d listened to stories of his childhood and shared hers as well. They’d laughed and made love. The inflection of his voice and joy in his eyes as he spoke of his world had made her believe what he said was true. She had no intention of turning into a scientist and trying to prove or disprove anything. The time she had with him was about him as a man and her as a woman. Nothing else mattered. Growing up, the kitchen had always been the focal point of her family. It was where her heart-to-hearts with her mother had taken place. Where she found out her brother had died.

  She tugged on the hem of the rumpled shirt she’d donned and walked into the kitchen, her bare feet welcoming the coolness of the flooring.

  “You look very happy.”

  “Good morning. I was just remembering the hunts I used to go on with a friend of mine and the thrill of cooking our catch for others. There was nothing quite like preparing food you captured yourself,” he said.

  She sat on the counter and looked over at the fruit. “Interesting choice for breakfast. I imagined you to be more of a meat and potatoes sort of guy given your size.”

  “I figured you didn’t want your place burned down while you slept. My culinary talents don’t lie within this dimension,” he said, popping two bagels into the toaster at the end of the counter.

  “You seem to be doing pretty well for someone from a different time and place.” He handled the knife with precision, but she suspected he considered it a weapon rather than an instrument of preparation.

  What had gotten into her? He had. Repeatedly. And she had loved every moment of it. The throbbing between her legs began when she saw his firm ass.

  “You don’t believe I’m from another dimension, do you? You’re still clinging to the belief that your friends somehow paid me to be here.”

  She silently reprimanded herself for letting her libido rule her thoughts. But wasn’t that what this was all about? “No, not paid. I was perhaps too quick to jump to that conclusion, but I do suspect you were nudged into coming here and spending some time with me. It doesn’t make sense they would conjure up this whole other dimension stuff though.”

  She grinned when he stood in front of her and braced each arm on the counter beside her, effectively trapping her. “I am from a world far away and my time was different than yours. We led a simple life with little technology, and we had large families filled with laughter and love. The eldest male child of each family was enrolled in the training facility at a young age, and reared in the ways of the broadsword.”

  Her fingers ran across his biceps and down his chest. “That explains the honed physique then. I bet you wield that weapon quite well.”

  He smiled. “Yes, I do and that’s why I was taken from my people to serve the gods of the upper dimension.”

  “Is that like heaven?” She trailed her hand down his stomach and around him to trace the contours of his back.

  “Something like that,” he whispered, his breath mingling with hers as he brought his lips to hers. She moaned and kissed him, savoring the taste of his mouth, liquid heat pooling between her legs.

  “How do you serve these gods?” Her hand slipped inside his pants, grasping his rigid penis. “Do they take advantage of this?”

  His heavy breathing against her ear resulted in a shiver down her spine. “They try, but you were much more successful than they have ever been.”

  Her breathing became labored when his hand spread her legs and began a slow path up her inner thigh, his mouth running down the valley between her breasts. Cool air hit her skin when he parted her shirt and removed it.

  “I was going to feed you the breakfast of a goddess,” he said.

  “Goddesses eat grapefruit?” Melinda asked in amusement.

  “They eat anything succulent, but I can think of many things sweeter and juicier than grapefruit that I’d rather feast on.”

  Melinda’s pulse quickened, the moisture pooling between her legs right where Djar’s fingers stroked. Back and forth. She threw her head back and writhed against his fingers, silently begging for relief. An exasperated sigh escaped her when she realized he had no intention of entering her. Not anytime soon at least. It was time she t
ook matters into her own hands.

  “Food isn’t what I want right now.” Tugging down his pants she grasped his rigid penis, stroking it until he took her hands and pushed her down onto the surface of the island.

  “Impatient minx, aren’t you?” he asked grinning down at her.

  “I know what I want.”

  “And what is that? Do you not want the feast of a goddess?” he asked, his teeth skimming her ear lobe. She shivered against him, the chilly counter offsetting the heat emanating from his body.

  “You inside me,” she moaned. She flexed her nails into his arms and heard the responding growl.

  “Good.” Her thighs quivered as his cock plunged into her in one smooth stroke, a wave of satisfaction spiraling through her. “I’ll show you how I wanted to take you the night of the dinner party.”

  She couldn’t move. The realization struck her with force. She was immobile and at his mercy. The thought slid through, snaking into her darkest fantasies with a seductive force she couldn’t fight. Not that she wanted to.

  “This is how I wanted to fuck you last night.” His thrusts increased in intensity, the feeling of his hard cock pumping in and out of her flaring the pleasure within her.

  She had wanted to cede total control to a lover, but never imagined it being like this. No silk ties, no ropes or toys. Just the lust of one man holding her down however he wanted and nothing could have thrilled her more.

  Unable to speak, she savored each powerful stroke of his cock as it drove into her with a hunger that matched her own. His hands kneaded her breasts and trailed down her body, and the expression in his eyes when he looked down at her made her feel beautiful.

  “Nothing is as good as being inside you, Melinda,” Djar whispered. “I miss your touch.”

  The weight lifted from her limbs and she pulled him to her, raking her nails down his back. She nibbled on his neck when the waves of pleasure began washing over her. Unbelievable.