She’d thought as much. “Only a week?” she asked glumly.
“May I sit and talk?”
“Oh yes! Please! I haven’t had anybody to talk to since they brought me here!
I’d begun to think I was going to go crazy down here all alone!”
“There are others here,” he said. “They are confined as you are, far away from one another so that they believe they are completely alone.”
Simone searched her mind. “Solitary confinement,” she said angrily, wondering who else was in the prison and how they were doing. “Liz? Sharon?”
“I regret—I do not know the names of the others. “One of those you used to sit with.”
Simone frowned, disappointed. It would’ve helped her feelings just to think of being close to her friends. Guilt smote her almost immediately. She should be hoping they weren’t having to deal with what she was! “How many of the women did they throw in jail?”
“All. They are scattered, though. Some here, some in the palaces of the other princes.”
Simone gaped at him. “I’m in a palace?”
Zev nodded. “The House of Jakaar. This part was once the only part of it—when Macedon was first colonized. Later it was used as a prison but that was also very long ago, which is why no one thought of this place.”
Simone’s heart sank. She swallowed convulsively a few times. “Does … do you think that Camryn knows?”
He stared at her with shock. “You are speaking of Prince Camryn?”
“Yes.”
He looked awed and disturbed. “Gods! You speak of the prince as if he is … of no more importance than I am! They allow that on your Earth?”
“We don’t have princes where I’m from. Does he know?”
“He was on his death bed, we heard, when you were brought here. I do not think so.”
Simone felt like she might faint or burst into tears again. “Oh my god! Is he … alright?”
“He lives. It is hard to get news … now, when there is so much unrest, but I heard that he was recovering.”
Simone was so focused on clinging to the hope that it was true and Camryn was alright that it took her several moments to register the rest of what he’d said. “Unrest?”
A gleam of excitement lit his eyes. “Revolution!”
“Oh my god! You aren’t serious?”
Some of his excitement waned. “In truth not, but it was a near thing and the city, indeed the Empire, awaits only a spark to set it off! There was much unrest before, which is why the council finally allowed the mission to take you and the others captive.
That pacified everyone for a time. No one was completely satisfied, but when you and the others were brought, they at least felt that they would have some chance to have sons of their own and mayhap even a woman. We were all told after the march that the women had been confined to the barracks, which we expected. It made everyone angry, but they were certain none would come to harm. When the warriors discovered that they had been tricked, however, and that all of the women had been taken away and hidden, they were furious! They stormed the council chambers!”
Simone stared at him wide-eyed and speechless. “What happened?” she asked breathlessly.
“A great deal of shouting, threatening, and struggling, but little else. The High Council had anticipated trouble. They had called upon the city guards to keep the peace.
They were heavily armed and the warriors were not. The warriors were told that you were all being punished for your behavior by being confined but you were well cared for and their sons would not come to harm so they turned away.
“They did not return to their quarters, however, as I am sure the council believed they would. They had been lied to once already. They did not believe anything the High Council said. They have been rampaging all over the city since, breaking in doors and destroying things in their search.
“And now I see that they were right!” he finished angrily. “They were lied to!
This is no fit place for an animal! And you would not have been so hungry if they were feeding you and caring for you as they should! You may be certain that I will make it known!”
Simone couldn’t help it. She was so deeply grateful that he’d found her and that she would get to leave the horrible place that she surged toward him again, throwing herself into his arms regardless of her welcome—or the lack of it. “Promise?” she asked a little tearfully, burrowing her face against his chest. “I don’t think I can stand much more of this!”
He surprised her by embracing her more readily than he had before, tightening his hold on her. She felt his hand settle on the back of her head and drift downward. “If I knew how to fight, I would kill them myself for what they have done!” he said fiercely.
His sentiment comforted her and at the same time made anxiety flutter in her chest. She didn’t want him to get hurt because of her! “Just get me out of here,” she whispered, pulling away to study his face anxiously. “Don’t do anything that could get you hurt. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
He swallowed convulsively and leaned closer as if mesmerized by the movement of her lips. She knew he wanted to kiss her. She knew she shouldn’t allow it, let alone encourage it, but she’d been so alone! She’d never felt anything as horrible as the silence that had surrounded her. When he nuzzled his face against hers, she turned her head to meet his lips in mute appeal for more comfort.
He had no inkling of how to kiss! He rubbed his lips across hers with painful pressure and went back to nuzzling her face with his, lifting shaking hands to grasp her head.
She wasn’t ready to give up! “Not like that,” she murmured. “Let me show you how we kiss.”
“Kiss?”
“Make love with our mouths.”
He gulped, pelted her face with a rush of breath. “Show me.”
The scrape of soles on the stones outside the cell made both of them jerk apart in sudden fear and whip their heads to look at the door Zev had left ajar.
Simone felt as if the air had been punched from her lungs when the door was shoved abruptly and so hard it slammed back against the stone and bounced. Camryn stood in the door.
A horrible sense of déjà vu swept over Simone directly behind the thrill that went through her when she recognized him. “Camryn!” she whispered.
The blank look on his face contorted with rage. “Get away from her, gutter rat!” he roared, surging into the cell and lifting Zev bodily from her bunk.
“Don’t hurt him, Camryn! Please!” Simone screamed, bounding up from the bunk and trying to pry Camryn’s hands off of Zev. “He’s a friend! Please don’t hurt him! He found me! He brought me food! He was just trying to help me!”
Something she said or did finally seemed to penetrate his rage. He looked at Zev for a moment as if he was tempted to break him in half despite her pleas and then looked at her.
“Did you take him as your lover?” he bellowed. “Did you?”
“He hasn’t touched me! I swear to god, Camryn! I didn’t even kiss him!”
He shook Zev and finally dropped him on the floor. Zev scrambled to his feet and fled. Panting for breath, Simone pressed a hand to her runaway heart, her shoulders slumping slightly with relief.
It only lasted until Camryn backed her against the wall, planting his palms on the wall on either side of her and she saw that he was still furious. “I didn’t touch him … let him do anything!” she gasped.
Camryn’s face twisted, abruptly shifting from a mask of rage to pain. “Do not … give yourself to him.” He closed his eyes, leaning into her, and pressed his forehead against hers. “Take me, Simone,” he said harshly, swallowing audibly. “Take me into your bed.” He rolled his head, brushing his cheek along hers and then turned his face to drag his lips along her cheek and then her lips. “Take me into your arms. Take me into your body. I cannot bear this torment anymore. Give me surcease before I go completely mad.”
Simone gazed at Camryn’s face, unable
even to drag in a breath of air. Dizziness swept over her. “You want me?” she managed to whisper.
“I have wanted you so long I am a shell from the hunger. I cannot think, Simone,” he said harshly. “Do not expect it of me. Show me the kiss you offered him.
Teach me. Make love to me with your mouth as you offered him.”
An avalanche of heat fell over her, surged through her as a wild tidal wave of want and need. She was totally confused about their customs—she’d understood that she couldn’t take a lover outside of the lower class and that no one from Camryn’s class would lower themselves to touch her even if she was stupid enough to ask—but she wasn’t confused at all about what she wanted. She’d coveted him since the first time she’d seen him in the nightclub. She lifted her hands to his hard cheeks, lifted her mouth to his and coasted her lips along his hard mouth, pressed to them with tender pressure, and then explored his wonderful lips with the stroke of her tongue. His lips parted. A heavy breath laden with his scent invaded her as she sucked in a breath in response. Her entire body abruptly felt almost too heavy to stand.
She slipped her hands through his hair, lacing her fingers behind his head to draw him closer as she sought more of him, pushing her tongue into his mouth. She felt the jolt that went through him, but she’d done little more than explore the faint roughness of his tongue with her own when he seized control of the kiss. He pressed her to the wall with the weight of his body, locked one around her waist to hold her, and opened his lips over hers, thrusting his tongue boldly into her mouth.
The taste of him exploded on her taste buds. She sucked in a sharp breath in delight, pulling his scent deeper into her. It rocked her, almost literally. She clutched at him more tightly as her universe tilted on its axis, setting her adrift in an oddly buoyant current that lifted her up and then allowed her to sink over and over until she felt drunk, too lightheaded and heavy to keep her knees locked. He bent one knee, pressing it between her thighs as her knees gave out and she lifted the leg opposite his, curling it around him to draw her hips closer to his. Jolts that were almost electric spread outward from her clit and up through her as she rocked against his muscled thigh, trying to counter the pressure that was swiftly building to an ache in her lower body.
His large hand settled on her leg, found its way beneath her gown and coasted along her thigh. He broke for a sharp draft of air and tilted his head to find a new angle before locking his lips to hers again. His questing hand closed on her hip, found her waist, coasted up her ribs and settled beneath a heavy breast for a moment while he sought a new connection of their mouths, gasping, sucking at her lips.
He felt so good, so wonderful! She shifted her own hold on him, grasping at him in her urgency, trying to pull him closer, desperate to press her aching breasts to his hard chest, to move against his erection. He shifted the hand beneath her breast higher, thrumming her erect nipple with is thumb, and she uttered a hum of appreciation in her throat.
“Camryn!” she gasped when he broke from her lips again. “Come inside me now!”
He pressed his forehead to hers, gasping hoarsely, and abruptly caught her buttocks in both hands, hoisting her upward. Eagerly she shifted her hold on him, coiling both legs around his hips and locking her ankles together. She locked her arms around his shoulders in a like manner, arching to rub her sex along his shaft. It sent ripples of pleasure through her, made the walls of her sex clench in a kneading motion of anticipation.
Camryn’s hands tightened on her buttocks. He ground his teeth, countering her thrusts for several moments in a motion that was almost as tortuous as it was pleasurable as he slid her along his thick shaft. Her clit began to thrum a warning of imminent release that echoed inside of her. She made a sound of distress, trying to hold her release back and yet unable to bring herself to avoid the pleasure he was offering.
Abruptly, he shifted one arm to support her buttocks and slid a hand between them to tear at his clothes until he’d removed the barrier. She felt his heated flesh as he guided his cock along her cleft and squeezed her eyes tightly as she felt the thick, silky knob of flesh that was the head of his cock force its way into the mouth of her sex. Her body clutched at his frantically, almost as if it was trying to grip his cock and pull him inside.
She tightened her hold on him, panting, trying to force her body to relax and accept him as he sawed shallowly in and out of her, trying to gather enough moisture to penetrate her fully. A long, low groan of pleasure eased from her as began to claim her channel and she felt the delicious stretch of her muscles to accommodate his thick shaft.
He paused for a long moment when he’d penetrated her as deeply as he could go, nuzzling his face against hers until she turned her face to match her lips to his. He shook, groaned into her mouth when he’d thrust his tongue inside her mouth and she sucked at it.
Tearing his mouth from hers, he gulped a lungful of air and lifted her, pressing down on her hips the moment his flesh slid to the opening of her body and plunging deeply again. Simone felt her body begin to clamor for release with the next upward thrust and began trying to move with him, her mind completely focused on the rush that went through her with each passing of his flesh along her inner walls.
She held her breath, panting when she couldn’t hold it any longer, uttering mindless sounds of pleasure, whimpering as her climax continued to tease her. When it burst upon her, it was so intense she groaned at the hard quakes rippling along her channel, felt a rush of goosebumps break all over her. She settled her mouth on the strong column of his neck, sucking at the flesh frantically to silence the urge to cry out.
Camryn shuddered, jerking all over as his body seized and began to pump a hot stream of semen into her. A breathless grunt was forced from him with each spasm. He held her for long moments afterwards, curling his hips to eject more when he could find no more.
Her legs felt like rubber when he finally eased from her and allowed her to regain her feet. She drooped against the wall behind her. He slumped heavily against her, trying to catch his breath. Finally, he pulled away, cupping her face in his hands, stroking her cheeks, a look in his eyes that made her heart thump heavily in her chest.
His gaze flickered over her face after a moment, though, and a frown drew his dark brows together. The frown deepened as he leaned away to look at her more keenly.
He shifted his hold, stroking his thumbs along her hollow cheeks. Fury slowly gathering in his eyes, he backed away from her and lifted her arms to examine them.
“I will kill him,” he growled abruptly.
The vow shook Simone from her euphoria. “What?”
He stared at her for a long moment and then pulled her almost roughly against his length. Turning his head, he surveyed the cell. When Simone pulled away from him to look at his face, she saw his eyes moving assessingly, the flicker of thoughts. “I cannot leave you here,” he muttered.
“There are others. Zev told me. He’d been looking for … us.” She faltered on the last word when Camryn’s gaze zeroed in on her sharply again.
“How many?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t say.”
He frowned. “They will have to stay a little longer.”
Simone felt her chin wobble. “We will?”
“They. I am not leaving you here another moment. I will get you to a safe place and make arrangements for them.”
“Where are you taking me?”
His lips tightened and she realized immediately that he didn’t know where to take her. Somehow, she’d gotten it into her head that he’d come to release her—been sent, or at least been given permission. “You’ll be in trouble if you take me.”
“Do I look like I give a fuck?” he growled. “Come on.”
He caught her arm and led her from the cell, closing the door and locking it with the key Zev had left in it. He strode quickly down the passage she’d been brought down before—at least she’d thought it was. Evidently, it was a different direction from the one she�
��d come down. She kept thinking they’d reach the stairs the guards had dragged her down. Instead, the passage ended at another that crossed and went off in either direction at a ninety degree angle. She lost track of the turns after that and wondered how he could possibly know where he was going. He seemed to. His stride was rapid and unfaltering.
She began to pant with the effort to keep up.
It seemed to penetrate his abstraction and he glanced down at her. Pulling her close against his side, he brushed his lips along the top of her head. “Not much further, dear heart.”
Warmth tingled through her, drawing her lips upward in a smile. He’d called her dear heart!
He brought her to a set of stone stairs at last, but she saw that they spiraled upward instead of angling down as the other stairs had. Slipping his hand into hers, he led her upward but paused at the top. “Wait here,” he said in a voice so low she barely caught it.
Fear instantly squeezed at her heart, but she nodded.
He pressed his ear to the panel for several moments and finally opened it and stepped out. The door closed behind him. Simone looked around uneasily. The stairs, like the entire area, was lit by a faint, odd sort of glow that almost seemed to come from the stones themselves. She didn’t see any sign of anything that looked like a fixture to produce artificial illumination. The view looking down the spiral stairs was dizzying.
Trying not to think about the possibility of having to race down them, she pressed her back more firmly against the wall and focused on the door. Her heart leapt in fright when it opened.
Camryn stepped in, swirled something dark around her, and caught her around the shoulders. “Quickly now.”
He didn’t have to tell her twice! She would’ve run when they stepped out into a wide corridor if he hadn’t been holding her. He strode swiftly enough along it, however, that she had to jog to keep up. With her first step, her bare feet slapped against the stone almost like a handclap. She was careful to run the remainder of the distance on the balls of her feet.
Camryn paused at a door, keyed a code into the panel beside it and whisked her inside when the door opened.
Alien Penetration Page 19