Calder withdrew his hand and the sensation died. She whimpered. “Could you do that a little longer?”
“No.” Calder stripped off the glove. The hand he bared was large, bronze-colored flesh tight against sinew. Katarina realized too late that a spanking with that powerful hand would be no less painful than one with a lash.
“Pull up your dress,” he said. “Bare your ass for me.”
Hands shaking, Katarina caught the hem that hugged her buttocks and jerked it upward. She felt his hands, one bare, one velvet-covered, both stroking her gently.
“You have a fine ass. So beautiful. Did you know that, Katarina?”
Katarina closed her eyes. “No one’s ever said such a thing to me.”
“What I’m going to do with this beautiful ass is spank it until it’s cherry red. Then I’m going to put my tongue inside it.”
Katarina drew a sharp breath. She imagined his warm, wet tongue delving into her, something she’d never felt in her life. Heat squeezed her body.
“Later,” he went on, “it will take my cock.”
She thought of the huge, hard thing that had rubbed her backside, and she gulped. “I’ve never done that before.”
“Mmm.” He brushed her buttocks, soft velvet contrasting with callused fingers. “I might be sweet to you and show you how, slowly.” He put his lips to her ear. “But you have to be very, very good.”
“I will be,” she babbled.
“I don’t believe you. But we’ll see.” He moved from her, taking away his beautiful touch.
She glanced behind her. He was waiting, kneeling back, his bare hand pale in the shadows. His thighs were large and strong in tight leather, his face hidden behind a black hood.
She wanted this. So what if the medics at the clinic had sent her here to play a joke on her? Katarina no longer cared. What she cared about was how this man made her feel.
Sexy. Beautiful. Wanted.
Taking a deep breath, Katarina turned around and lowered herself facedown across his thighs.
Chapter Three
The leather of Calder’s leggings was cool on Katarina’s half-bared chest. She felt the warm power of his thighs beneath the fabric, smelled leather and his sharp musk.
Calder circled his bare palm over her ass, smoothing her skin.
Then he spanked her once.
Katarina yelped. She was right, he was strong. But the instant she felt the sting, he placed his gloved palm on her and the sting turned to a tingle of vast pleasure. Katarina groaned softly.
“Remain quiet until I say.”
She sucked in her breath. Another swat on her ass, another caress, the pain segueing to pleasure in an instant. Katarina wriggled, wanting more.
He gave it to her. He spanked her thoroughly, his hands practiced, and yet what might have hurt her only gave her deepest pleasure. He had her squealing and gasping, despite his command to keep quiet.
Calder made a circular motion with his gloved hand on her skin once more and leaned over her. “Do you want more?”
“Yes,” Katarina said breathlessly. “I think so. Yes.”
His voice turned thoughtful. “Is that why you are here today?”
“What? No. I didn’t mean to be here at all.”
“Get on your knees, Katarina.”
He didn’t believe her. Katarina was too out of breath to tell him the whole story, and she found she didn’t want to anymore.
She climbed to her knees, her butt tingling as the leather dress slithered over it again.
Calder unfolded his big body and stood, planting his feet on either side of her. Katarina found herself looking straight at the front of his leather leggings.
The fabric molded to the incredible length of his cock, outlining it from base to tip. It was huge, Shareem at least twelve inches, she’d read, rigid and wide.
Calder brushed a hand over it. “Do you want this, Katarina?”
“Yes.” Katarina gazed at the leather, unable to look away. “You’re big. Would it hurt me?”
“It will only hurt if you want it to. It can be all sweet pleasure, or it can hurt. Whichever you want.”
“Why?” Katarina looked up at his face, still swathed in black. “Why only what I want?”
He shifted slightly as though her question surprised him. “I am Shareem.” It was a flat statement.
“What has that to do with anything?”
Again his muscles contracted the tiniest bit. “I decide the games in this room, not you.”
“Games?”
He leaned to her. “Bend over.”
“What?”
“Now.”
The harsh word made her squeak. Calder caught the back of her neck and leaned her forward until her face was on the floor, her buttocks in the air. He spanked her again, not softly this time. His bare hand stung her a dozen times, and only then did he use his gloved hand to soothe her skin.
“Do you understand now?” he asked.
“Not really.”
Calder let her up, but only back to her knees. Katarina surreptitiously rubbed her backside while Calder positioned himself in front of her again.
“You asked what I want,” he said. “I will tell you. I want to feel your face pressed against my cock. I want you exploring it, learning it.”
Katarina touched the leather in front of her, the fabric so tight she could feel every inch of his cock behind it, including the round tip of its head.
She knew what a penis looked like, having studied them in detail during her medical training. It was an appendage jutting from the male body, smallish when flaccid, extended and hard when engorged and ready to penetrate a woman. Most Bor Nargan men got injections to keep their penises soft, so they wouldn’t be distracted by the inconvenience of lust.
Katarina knew all this clinically. She’d studied diagrams and read treatises. But charts and diagrams didn’t prepare her for the real thing, especially not one attached to a Shareem.
She leaned forward and nuzzled his cock through the leather.
A small noise escaped Calder’s throat. So he could feel. She nuzzled the tip again then the shaft beneath it.
Calder growled, and his bare hand snaked through her hair. His other hand, still gloved, balled into a fist.
Katarina nuzzled some more, enjoying the feel of the cool leather and the hard, hot man behind it. She might be acting at his command, but what she did disarmed him.
“I like it,” she murmured. “So hard.”
Her own words startled her. She’d never have dreamed of saying that out loud. But it seemed to be all right to say it to Calder, her faceless captor.
“Lie down on your back.”
Katarina looked up. “But I thought—”
He put his gloved hand to her face and pushed. “Lie down.”
Katarina let herself more or less fall onto her back on the floor. She shivered when his large, dark body covered hers, so warm. He was wonderfully warm.
“I want to see you,” she said. “Why won’t you show me your face?”
Calder didn’t answer. He jerked her skirt upward, baring her thighs, and pressed his leather-covered cock right against her clit.
“Gods,” she whispered.
The burning sensations as he rubbed his cock against her made her suck in a sharp breath. Katarina reached up to touch his face but he turned his head, and her hand fell on a swath of velvet.
“Please. I want to look at you.”
“No.”
“You know what I look like.” She stifled a groan as his cock rubbed her swollen clit. “Highborn women don’t like to show their faces, but I showed you mine. And so much more. It’s not fair.”
“You did not come here for me to be fair. You came here to give yourself to me.”
Sensations clawed for attention, the burning in her clit, the hot tingling all over her body. “It’s only a little thing,” she said.
He put his face close to hers, but she could only see velvet and the glitter of h
is eyes behind it. “Come for me and I’ll show you.”
Come. Climax. The woman’s vulva squeezes the man’s penis, helping to stroke the man into releasing his seed . . .
Katarina’s medical manuals never mentioned the dark power of the feelings pouring over her, the intense need. How beautiful it felt. How she never want to stop.
Without consciously telling herself to do so, Katarina snaked her legs around Calder’s thighs and lifted herself to him. She wanted him inside her, needed him inside her.
She’d never be able to take him, and at the same time, she wanted it more than anything in the world.
“Show me,” she said. “Please.”
“I don’t like to be commanded.”
“Please,” she babbled. “Oh, please.”
Calder’s heavy body pressed hers to the floor. He was so strong, she’d never get away from him, she was helpless under him, and the thought thrilled her. He rocked his hips, grinding the large cock over her opening, the barrier of the leather keeping him out.
The friction against her wound wild sensations through her body. The heat and weight of him pinned her, the excitement of his scent woke her. His breath was hot where it touched her, and his big hand—the gloved one—raked her hair from her face.
“You want this,” he said, words hard. “You want more than this. You want to do whatever I say, and you want to be afraid of what I’ll do to you.”
“No . . .”
“It’s what you want, Katarina. Deep down inside you, you want to fear me, so your other fear will go away.”
“Other . . .”
“Of losing what you hold dear. You want to forget about that and only fear what I’ll do to you in the dark.”
His mouth was next to her ear, his lips brushing it as the words slithered down inside her. Was he right? That she wanted to let go of her heartache, that she ran away from herself, leaving the hill to come down to Pas City, telling herself her goal was to help others?
Did she want to surrender to Calder’s power, and let him make everything go away?
“It’s what you want, Katarina.” He pressed down with his huge body, her legs wide and wrapped around his. “What you want in your heart.”
Katarina tried to shake her head, her crazed longing making her body arch against him. “I want to see you.”
Calder’s head came up. He was an inch from her, but she saw only the mask and his eyes.
“I want to see you,” she repeated.
Calder clapped his hand over her mouth. “You will obey me.”
Katarina tried to turn away, to free herself, when sudden waves of mad pleasure poured over her, the world narrowing to the one bright point between her legs. It was too much. It was not enough. Katarina grabbed him, pulling him to her, his body so heavy on hers, but the pinning weight was right.
Nothing existed but this large man on her in the darkness, his hand on her face, his hips moving against hers, the pressure that didn’t stop. He was making her ride out the whole thing, from first burst to very last frisson.
Katarina’s cries were muffled by his hand. She couldn’t breathe—and then she was sucking in breath after breath. Her vision blurred, dizziness swamping her.
He wouldn’t stop, his strength forcing her to endure every last second, her throat hurting from her screams.
And then she was falling, her head going to the hard floor, except his gloved hand was there to catch it. Her body was hot all over, shaking, the dizziness swamping her. She clutched him with her legs, still wanting his touch, and an ache started in her heart.
Katarina reached up as Calder started to slow, to ease her down, her fingers closing around the soft velvet of the mask.
Calder grabbed her wrist and slammed her hand to the floor, pinning the other hand as well. Katarina struggled, but the iron bands of his grip did not let her up.
“Please,” she heard herself say. “I know you were burned. I’m not afraid to look at you.”
His voice was raw with fury, and he dragged her upward. “Get on your knees, or you will have to beg harder than that for mercy.”
“I just want to see your face.”
Leather enclosed her wrists behind her back as Katarina landed on her knees, his wonderful warmth disappearing. A chain kept her hands together, and she made a noise of frustration.
Calder bent her forward again, holding her so she wouldn’t fall. Her arms were behind her, her cheek against the floor, Calder steadying her with his gloved hand. She expected to feel his bare palm again, but she instead felt the mean bite of thin leather, once, twice. . .
The sting came a third time, and tears formed in her eyes. Calder was kneeling beside her, leather stretching over his thick knee.
“You want what I say you want, Katarina. Do you understand me?”
Katarina turned her head, her face wet with tears. “I still want to see you.”
Calder hauled her up by the chain between her wrists, then turned her to face him, his hand gripping her face.
“You want to look upon the Beast? Every woman thinks she wants that, and every woman is wrong.”
Before she could answer, Calder stepped away from her, his warmth disappearing. Katarina rocked on the high heels, the dress caught around her waist, which she knew bared her to him. Her hands behind her back didn’t help with her balance, but she dug her toes into the boots and stayed upright.
He ripped the mask from his face. Candlelight illuminated him—and Katarina gasped.
The right side of Calder’s face was handsome as sin, sculpted perfection around deep blue eyes, a hard jaw, a firm mouth.
The left side was a complete ruin.
Scars overlapped scars that twisted over his cheekbone and down his neck, the skin mottled and ugly. One side of his mouth was pulled into a perpetual frown, possibly slightly paralyzed. His left eye was untouched, but scars encased the brow and eyelid.
The burning had happened a long time ago, she could tell, but the pain of it lingered in his very blue eyes.
“It must have hurt you so much,” she whispered.
Calder growled and swung away.
“Wait. Calder . . .”
“No.” He turned back again, stepping close to her, his voice harsh like it had been in the clinic. “I don’t want this with you.”
They stared at each other for a few heartbeats, Katarina’s eyes stinging from tears, Calder’s face hard.
Then he jerked her around, yanked the cuffs from her wrists, and left her there, disappearing into the darkness beyond the candles.
Chapter Four
“Wait!” Katarina tried to run after him but she nearly fell from the stupid high heels.
The sound of a door sliding shut stopped her. The feeling of his presence dissipated, the soothing calm, the excitement, the peace—all gone.
“Please. Calder, don’t leave me.”
As if in answer, lights went on in the room and a sudden whoosh of air extinguished the candles.
Katarina found herself standing alone in a square room with a platform bed, a wall fountain, and smoking, guttering candles.
It looked so ordinary with the magic of the darkness and the flickering lights gone. Katarina saw cameras—dark shining lenses all over the ceiling and walls—surveying the room at every angle. He must have watched her through these before he’d entered.
Katarina looked for the hidden door through which Calder must have exited but she found only seamless black walls. After a few circuits of the room, she gave up and plunked down on the bed, feeling bereft.
She tugged off the boots and stood up to throw off the leather dress, not caring that she was mother-naked in a bright room with cameras all over it. Let him watch.
Katarina pulled on her tunic and pants, which were still lying where she’d dropped them, and then grabbed her sun-blocking robes, veils, and breath mask.
“I’m going,” she said to the air.
The entrance to the greenery-lined walkway shot open. Kat
arina plunged into the garden she’d thought so beautiful, now finding it overly exotic, the scent of the flowers too strong.
Soon she was running through the door that led to the dingy hall. The outer door opened for her as she hurried toward it, heat blasting her before she even made it outside.
She ran through, and the door slammed shut behind her with finality, the rusting metal as unyielding as it had been when she’d arrived.
Blinking back tears, Katarina pulled on her sun-blocking robes, wrapped her veils around her face, and then walked down the street in search of a hovercab.
*** *** ***
Fuck.
Calder, pent up and furious, paced the small quarters of his apartment. He’d always liked the contrast of his functional, minimal living space with the exotic decor of his lair, but today, he wished he had more room to pace.
Damn her. The minute she’d walked in, Calder’s plan to show the nervous medic what a Shareem truly was evaporated. She and her condescending highborn attitude were supposed to crumble like dust—she was supposed to learn that Calder always had the upper hand.
His plan had gone all to hell. Hence his frenzied pacing, like an animal in a cage.
Shareem were made for sex; they needed sex. Any woman could get Calder hard, because his body was built to react instantly and strongly to a woman’s pheromones. If she wanted it, his body wanted it too.
But that was a simple chemical reaction. What rarely happened was Calder looking at a woman and wanting to fuck her because of her, for the pure joy of it. This woman, Katarina d’Arnal . . .
Calder slammed his fists into the white wall. His Shareem chemicals had shot all kinds of joy through him, and he’d wanted to touch every inch of her.
If she hadn’t been so damn curious he could still be in there, maybe with her on the padded platform, her legs around his hips while he enjoyed a good fuck.
Why had she ruined everything?
Women had seen him before—sometimes he decided they needed to see what kind of being they craved to be with. They’d scream in horror, those highborn, face-sculpted women, for whom physical beauty was easily purchased, and run from him. He’d hunt them down and take them, which was what they wanted. That was the fantasy, to be ravished by the Beast.
Tales of the Shareem, Volume 2 Page 3