Tales of the Shareem, Volume 2

by Allyson James

  Katarina had hired the equipment, planning to transport it down to his place in Pas City. Calder had saved her a step by coming up here looking for her.

  Why had he? He’d made it clear how angry he was, how much he didn’t want Katarina trying to cure him. How much he didn’t want her, period.

  But he’d braved Serestine patrollers to come to her house and see her.

  Why? And when he woke up, after what she’d done to him, would he still want to see her?

  It didn’t matter. Katarina’s motives for healing Calder weren’t so he’d be grateful to her, obligated to her. She wanted only to make his life better.

  He was Shareem, so it would be only so much better, but at least he wouldn’t have to hide his body anymore. If Katarina’s regenerating technique worked, Calder could let himself wear the sort of light clothing Braden did and laugh and talk with his friends without hiding. He’d no longer have to keep to the shadows.

  And if he didn’t want to see Katarina after this, she’d let him go. She promised herself she would.

  She knew now why all women wanted Calder. Calder focused his Shareem-blue gaze on a woman and made her feel as though she alone existed. He delved into her fantasies and laid her bare. When he was done, there wasn’t a secret in her head she hadn’t trusted him with.

  His women wept when it was over. Katarina would too, but she’d let him go. It was more important to her that Calder was alive, whole and happy, than for her to remain the center of his wonderful attention.

  Katarina repeated this brave litany all through her vigil. But when she was honest with herself, in the dark hours of the night, the thought of losing him for good made the tears come.

  *** *** ***

  Calder woke with a jolt.

  He was alone, flat on his back on a bed. Tubes snaked from a machine in the wall down into his arms, and a cool sheet rested lightly across his thighs and legs.

  A body on a slab. Again.

  He was in a large room painted a cool shade of green with gold mosaic patterns running along the tops of the walls. White curtains billowed at a window, which was open to soft air. Soft air—an open window—on Bor Narga.

  Everything spoke of luxury and taste, including the mattress beneath him. Calder blinked for a moment, groggy with sleep, but then his memories came flooding back—he seeking Katarina’s house, the stupid patrollers waylaying him at the gate, the surprise when Katarina’s majordomo let him right in.

  Then the beauty of the outer garden, the amazing magnificence of the house, Katarina, beautiful in her thin silks. And just when Calder had been feasting his eyes on her, something loosening within him, she’d turned him back into a lab rat.

  Calder sat up slowly, his limbs sore, but only from being immobile for a long time. The excruciating pain that had seared him when Katarina had stabbed him with the damned hypo had completely vanished.

  Calder pulled the tubes from his arms, sliding them out quickly so he wouldn’t bleed. He’d learned how. He threw back the sheet and stood up. His legs shook a little, but not too much.

  A look out the window showed him trees moving in a faint breeze. The canopy surrounding the house must allow for artificial weather. It felt like fresh, cool springtime, not the perpetual summer of the bone-hard desert.

  Must be nice to be so stinking rich. Calder had money after years of being the Beast, but Shareem wouldn’t be allowed to set up in something so nice. He stashed away his funds so he wouldn’t have to worry about survival, and to help his friends. Let the Bor Nargan ruling family think Shareem were just this side of broke.

  As he turned away from the window, he scratched his arm. Whatever Katarina had shot into him made him itch a little.

  As soon as he stopped scratching, the itch came back, stronger. His legs started to tingle, and then suddenly the skin all over his body was one burning, massive itch.

  Calder let out a noise of irritation, rubbing his palms across his arms and torso—which were still scarred, by the way. Stupid cure hadn’t worked, and he’d known it wouldn’t.

  He kept rubbing but the itching increased. “Damn it!”

  The door slid open, and Katarina ran in. Part of him enjoyed watching her silken clothes move with her body, part of him wanted to throw her to the ground and screw her senseless. Part of him didn’t want her to see him at all.

  “What are you doing out of bed?” she demanded.

  “Itching like crazy. What the hell did you do to me, woman?”

  Katarina smiled. “That means it’s working.”

  “It’s killing me. Shit.”

  “Come with me.”

  Katarina ran out. Calder glared after her, still rubbing his skin, but he followed. She was a medic; she might have something to relieve this seriously fucking irritating itching.

  She took him into another room, again with windows overlooking the garden. This room had a deep, square marble tub in the middle of the floor. One entire wall was mirrored, which made the room look even larger and airier.

  The tub was full of water, and Calder jumped straight in.

  His skin burned as though a thousand needles were being jabbed into him, and he threw back his head and shouted his agony. Katarina watched, fingertips at her lips, eyes worried.

  After a few minutes of horrific burning sensation, the feeling lessened. And then lessened again. “Thank the gods,” Calder breathed.

  “It’s healing,” Katarina said. “The itching means healing. This is what’s supposed to happen.” She sounded relieved and happy.

  “Warn me next time.”

  Katarina looked down at him in the tub, a smile on her face. Water blotched her thin skirts where Calder had splashed them jumping into the tub, and the breeze from the window lifted her hem to show her shapely legs.

  Calder suddenly had the biggest hard-on he’d had in years.

  He reached up and grabbed her ankle. “Come in here.”

  She lost her smile. “I shouldn’t. The servants.”

  Calder rose, wrapped his wet arm around her waist and dragged her into the water with him. Katarina shrieked as she and her dress quickly became sodden.

  Calder pried off the dress and dropped its soggy mass to the edge of the tub. “You should,” he said.

  His arms went around her, and he jerked her to him, her breasts pressing snugly into chest, before he slanted his mouth over hers.

  He tasted her, drank her, licked water from her lips. Calder plunged his tongue into her mouth, hardening even more at the little sound she made in her throat. Katarina pushed at him, hands weak—but too bad.

  She’d awakened the Beast.

  Calder raised her up in the water, licking her throat, then between her breasts, chasing droplets on her skin. He closed his mouth over one of her tight nipples, biting down.

  Her little scream stirred his excitement. He nibbled and tugged the nipple, then took her breast fully into his mouth and suckled. Hard, harder.

  The water made Katarina slick and pliant. Calder roved his hands over her as he kept sucking. He touched every curve, every crevice, loving the feel of her under his hands.

  She was gasping by the time he let go of her breast, then he turned his head and did the same biting and sucking to the other one.

  Calder drew his head back, smiling to see her nipples red and raw. He pinched one, liking the little squeak she let out.

  Now for the other things he’d seriously missed.

  He lifted Katarina onto the lip of the tub, parted her legs, and lowered his head between her thighs. He licked her clit, pink and swollen, then bit it and sucked it as he had her breasts, tasting the fine wetness that flowed over his tongue.

  Katarina caught his hair in her hands, her toes curling as she rocked her feet in and out of the water. Her body shuddered, Calder pressing his mouth firmly over her to catch every spasm.

  This tub was the perfect place for more play. Calder the Beast turned her over, Katarina gasping in protest, and laid her facedown on the t
iles with a firm hand. Her butt hung over the edge of the tub, Katarina squirming as Calder held her down.

  “I hope this room is soundproof,” he said.

  Katarina whispered, “Oh, gods.”

  He shoved her legs apart, then put his large hands on her buttocks and spread the cheeks. Lube would be better, but Calder wasn’t about to walk calmly out of the bathroom to go looking for it.

  Lovely, clean, bare ass. Calder licked between her cheeks, from pussy to ass. Damn, she tasted good.

  “What are you . . .?”

  “Remember when you first came to me?” Calder said, his breath brushing her. “I said I’d spank your beautiful ass until it was cherry red. Then I was going to put my tongue inside it.”

  “Yes.” The word was a gasp.

  Calder drew back, gave her buttocks a few, quick, warming slaps, then leaned down and plunged his tongue inside her.

  Katarina screamed. She squirmed and tried to get away from him, but Calder held her down with a hard hand. This was what she got if she wanted to mess with him.

  He thrust his tongue into her again and again, hands tight on her ass. He’d laid her down so that her clit was rubbing on the edge of the tub, and Calder had the satisfaction of feeling her go over the top while his tongue was inside her.

  Calder licked her some more while she squealed and came, her body writhing and squirming. The sounds she made were so adorable. Beautiful, wonderful woman, coming apart under him.

  He bit her ass as her orgasm kept on, then he spanked her, just because he loved the sound of his hand on her butt, the tingle on his palm, the way it made her coming turn frantic.

  Later on, when he’d trained her a little more, he’d show her how surrendering herself to him entirely, letting him give her the sting of the lash while she was coming, would dissolve her into pleasure so intense it would erase all pain, and all thought of pain.

  It wasn’t pain women wanted from him, no matter how much they pleaded for it, but the rush of release Calder gave them. He was a master at it.

  For now—he couldn’t hold himself back any longer.

  He washed his face in the water, then rose to his feet, spread Katarina’s legs around his thighs, and pulled her backward, her pussy positioned to slide right onto his cock.

  Calder groaned with it, at last finding the place he wanted to be.

  The sex was swift and brutal. Calder thrust hard into Katarina, and she scrabbled on the slick tiles, her noises of pleasure driving him on.

  He sexed her like that for a few minutes, but he needed more, needed her arms around him.

  Calder withdrew and got himself out of the tub in a slosh of water. He turned her over, Katarina flushed and nearly spent, and finished with him on top of her, on the tiles beside the tub.

  No elegance, just him spreading her and shoving inside. His body came down on hers, hardness to softness, Calder shuddering when she slid her hands up his back.

  Need you, need you, my Katarina.

  He kept pumping, fast, hard, groaning. Katarina held on to him, her sounds changing to wild cries of pleasure.

  She was beautiful, so beautiful. He wanted this to last for hours, days, forever. But Calder’s body, put through too much, tired from whatever Katarina had injected into him, and having stayed too long away from the sweetness of her, would not let go on very long. Calder shouted, almost in disappointment, when his climax hit him.

  He kept riding her as long as he could, then he withdrew and landed on his back beside her, rubbing his sweating face and breathing hard.

  Katarina smiled at him, her eyes full of warmth and happiness. “I guess you’re feeling better,” she said.

  “No,” he said, barely able to get a sound out of his throat. “That was me taking the edge off.”

  Her brows rose. “The edge off?”

  “Yep.” He could hardly breathe. “Now I want to take my time, and do you the rest of the afternoon and all night.” Calder rolled onto her and kissed her swollen lips then the bridge of her nose. “Would you like that?”

  She nodded, her eyes so soft and beautiful. “Yes, I think so.”

  Calder’s heart was pounding. “You’d better be sure. Once I start, I won’t stop. I’m Shareem. I have to give you that warning.”

  Katarina smiled and laced her arms around his neck. “I believe you have my signed consent form.”

  “Baby.” Calder kissed her lips again. “I’m going to make you regret looking so sweet when you said that.”

  *** *** ***

  Calder knew some amazing things. But Katarina refused to regret anything.

  He carried her into the bedroom and laid her on her bed, which was a cushion of pressurized air instead of a mattress. When the bed was covered with quilts and pillows, it looked like an old-fashioned four-poster, but a person could sleep floating or adjust the pressure to make it a firm surface. Katarina had always found her bed relaxing but Calder used it in ways new to her.

  He’d brought some interesting things with him, tucked away into the pockets of his tunic, which she’d had cleaned and hung up in her closet. The accoutrements, she’d put into a box for him, hiding them from her servants. She wondered if he always carried such things about or if he’d brought them to the house especially for her.

  The first thing he did when he dumped her on her back on the bed was to part her legs and look down at her pussy, shaking his head.

  “I saw that you’d let the hair grow back. You should have had it removed permanently.”

  Katarina wondered how he could be so calm while she was so excited. All he had to do was look at her, and she lost all control.

  “I didn’t know whether you would like me bare before I made it permanent,” she said, trying to mimic his conversational tone. “And then I didn’t see you again, so I concluded that there wasn’t much point.”

  “Well, I do like it.” Calder lifted a small device out of the box and strapped to his first two fingers. “This is a shaver,” he said. “Specially made for ladies.”

  He spread her legs farther and ran it around her opening. The device was warm, the vibration of it stimulating.

  “Go back to your salon and get it permanently done.” He gave her a dark look. “Unless you want me shaving you all the time.”

  Hmm, which would she choose? A cold depilatory alone in a room at the salon, or Calder’s hot hands moving on her?

  Calder put away the shaver and soothed Katarina’s skin with a cream. A heady-smelling oil from a small bottle followed, his fingers dipping into her entrance and then, wonderfully, into her anus. His tongue there had excited her beyond belief.

  “What are you doing now?” she asked.

  “Getting you ready.”

  She shivered at his hot, dark voice. “For what?”

  “For the Beast, Katarina. He wants to play.”

  “So you said.”

  Calder leaned over her, hands on either side of her head, water from his wet hair dripping to her. “You don’t understand yet, what that means. But you will.”

  While Katarina went through another shudder of half delight, half fear, Calder brought out another device from the box. This one was a small pad which he kissed, then fitted to her clit.

  Whatever technology the tiny device used to stay put, Katarina didn’t know, but she wasn’t curious about that right now. The point was that Calder warmed her with his hands while he let the pad form to her clit, leaving her pussy open, then he activated the device.

  “Oh! My . . .”

  The pad tickled her clit, little vibrations similar to what Calder did with his tongue or his fingers. Katarina lifted her hips, tightening against the sensation.

  “Don’t fight it,” he said. “Relax. Go with it.”

  Calder’s voice lulled her. She felt her limbs easing, going limp. And then it felt wonderful.

  “That’s right. I’m Shareem, sweetie. Made for your pleasure.”

  “Yes.” Katarina stretched. The vibration on her clit mad
e her hips rock. “I love it.”

  Calder reached beneath her in the bed of air and pressed something warm to the opening of her anus. Katarina gasped, tensing again, but Calder ran a soothing hand over her abdomen. At the same time, he pressed the stiff little thing inside her.

  “What is that?” she asked, eyes widening.

  “A plug for your ass. It will open you, make you feel good.”

  “It does already.”

  Katarina never thought she’d like such a strange sensation. It was hot, tight, and made her feel wicked.

  Calder stretched out beside her. His warm, hard body and the protective wall he formed were more exciting to her than the strange devices. She tried to see whether his skin had begun the final stage of healing yet, but she hadn’t brought the lights full in here, and she admitted she’d stopped paying attention.

  The pad on her clit kept vibrating, sweet pleasure. The plug inside her was tight but also loosening her. Conflicting sensations, but beautiful ones. “What are you doing to me?” she whispered.

  “Watching you find pleasure.” Calder’s voice rumbled over her, the vocal chords still unhealed, but the timbre took on the velvet richness she’d first heard over the speakers in his lair.

  “It feels good.”

  His blue gaze warmed her, and the vibrations and the plug spiraled her into hot wanting. Katarina would never have guessed that she liked being watched, that she’d want Calder to find her beautiful while she found her pleasure.

  Katarina slid her hand down between her legs and cupped her now-bare pussy. She pressed as she’d taught herself to, alone in her bed.

  Pleasure built and built, Calder’s gaze growing intense, until Katarina jerked, starting to come . . .

  In a sudden move, Calder rose over her, yanked her hand out of the way, parted her legs, and slid himself inside her.

  Katarina rocked against the waves of pure feeling that poured over her. The device stimulating her clit, Calder inside her, his weight on her body, her nipples hard, the hot plug in her ass . . .

  She screamed.

  Calder caught her screams with his mouth—raw, hot kisses. He thrust into her, she so wet that even his huge length glided in and out without constriction.