Was giving in the best way that she could fight for her sons? If she did that and they allowed her even a little time with them, she could give them love and the council might agree that it had been a good thing that she’d been brought to Macedon and send for more women for her sons.
So that those poor things could go through what she’d been put through and still faced? Was it ever right to set the needs of someone you loved above other people?
She was certain it wasn’t and that she would be guilty the same as the draks were if her behavior contributed to more kidnappings, but she could salve her conscience with the reflection that it might not make any difference at all. It wasn’t her decision, and it wasn’t anything she could really stop.
Was there any possibility, she wondered, that she could manage even a small concession? A little bit of a compromise that would make life a little more bearable?
Chapter Sixteen
Lielani finally realized that waiting hopefully for any of the younger Jakaars to come to her was useless and it still took a great deal of effort to work up the nerve to confront them. If not for the fact that she was worried more about them than herself, she didn’t think she could have managed even then.
Camryn was so intent on rushing directly to his apartment that he nearly bowled her over when she stepped out to intercept him.
“By the Gods, Lielani!” he growled, reaching automatically to catch her before she fell. “What are you doing skulking about the palace?”
It wasn’t the opening she’d hoped for. “I … needed to speak with you,” she gasped.
Wariness instantly entered his eyes. “I have been busy, Lani. You know how it is to petition the council. At least, I do not suppose you do beyond what you have heard, but it is like battering at a stone wall with a feather! In any case, I told you I would not discuss … that with you!”
Lielani blinked at him, trying to recall what it was that he expected her to remember. She wasn’t happy when she did. It made her wonder if that was why he had been avoiding her. “It is not that … at least, not precisely that. I just thought I should mention that Arrek and Bastian may notice that neither you, nor Kael or Ean, have been to see me and might remark upon it.”
He stared at her blankly. “Why would they remark upon it? We are almost never here. They are more used to not having us in their way than they are of having us in their way.”
“This is true,” she said slowly. “And I am sure they must know that you and the others gather every night in your room to discuss the proceedings at council. I will not keep you.”
Camryn stared after her uneasily when she’d left, trying to decide whether she’d been trying to warn him or if, as Ean suspected, it was yet another ploy for attention. It was enough, he finally decided, that she was suspicious. He did not think she would carry tales to their fathers, but could they really afford to place their faith in it?
Intercepting Kael and Ean, he told them they needed to speak in Kael’s quarters.
Kael and Ean both looked at him with obvious irritation.
“But your quarters are just there!” Kael objected. “Let us go in and speak.”
Camryn ground his teeth. He didn’t believe his father had surveillance within the palace, but he could not be certain. “Yes, I know—inconvenient, but I wanted to borrow your … uh … new pistol and thought you might as well instruct me on the use before I try it out.”
Kael and Ean exchanged a look, glanced a little longingly toward the door of his apartment, and finally, very reluctantly, went with him.
“What the fuck, Camryn? You know I don’t have a new fucking pistol and what’s more, if I did, I would not give it to you!”
“Lielani has noticed that we are always in my apartment when we are in the palace!” Camryn snapped. “That is why I wanted to meet here. I don’t give a damn about your pistol!”
They stared at him blankly. “You are certain?” Ean asked a little suspiciously.
“She told me to my face! Waylaid me in the corridor!”
“I do not know why she would think anything of it! We often do that … don’t we?”
Camryn turned an accusing look on Ean. “You did not go to her as I told you to, did you?”
Ean blushed. “Gods damn it, Camryn! You know very well I didn’t! In any case, I am not under any obligation to take orders from you when we are on leave!”
“Well, you have made a mess of things!” Camryn snapped. “If you had gone as I said, she would not be suspicious now!”
“I would have missed my turn with Simone, gods damn it!”
Camryn thought it over. “Be that as it may, I think that we will have to be more careful if we do not wish to be found out. You and Kael are not invited to my apartment tonight. Mayhap tomorrow.”
“Now wait just a gods damned minute!” Kael snapped. “We are not allowed, but you are?”
“It is my apartment!”
“Then we will bring Simone here to my apartment, and I will stay here, and you two can go to your own.”
“Are you completely mad? We cannot stroll across the palace with her!”
“He has a point,” Ean said. “It would be much safer to move her from one to the other. I never thought it was a good idea to keep her in one place. It will make it too easy for them to find her. I think that we should move her every few days.”
“Exactly how do you propose doing that?” Camryn growled. “Shall we bring in a few transporter units so that we can beam her back and forth?”
Ean and Kael both scowled at him. “She is breeding. You know that is not advised.”
“I also know that it is not advisable to shuttle her from one end of the palace to the other when she will be exposed to unnecessary risk of capture. My solution is the only one that makes sense. I did not say that you could not come, only that we need to stagger the visits so as not to attract unwelcome attention—as we have now. You cannot be in such desperate need that you cannot contain yourself for a day or two!”
“I think the question in both our minds is will you contain yourself?” Kael asked tightly.
“What difference does that make?”
“A very great deal to Ean and me if we are sitting in our rooms with our dicks in our hands while you are sitting in yours with your dick in Simone!”
Camryn rolled his eyes. “Fine! I will not touch her.”
Kael studied him suspiciously. “You swear that you will keep your hands to yourself?”
“I swear it!”
* * * *
Simone knew she should’ve just counted her blessings when Kael and Ean didn’t return with Camryn as they usually did. Since she’d displayed her nasty temper and told them to take themselves off to Lielani for all she cared, they’d been a little less demanding, a little more considerate. She’d been surprised even at that small concession, and gratified that she seemed to have gotten it through their thick skulls that it was just too much to expect her to accommodate all of them piling in on her one after the other.
It was a very small concession, though. They were still determined to have sex every day—maybe because they were afraid any minute they’d lose their sex toy. She didn’t know, but she found it hard to believe they wanted her that badly, or that they needed sexual relief that often.
Camryn was generally first at the trough, falling on her almost as soon as they came in the door. Ean would wait until after they’d eaten and retired for bed and Kael woke her before they left in the mornings. Sometimes they switched around, just to keep her confused, but generally she could count on that order—and a few hours rest between.
Rest being the key word, since she didn’t particularly sleep well in bed with Camryn and he had decided that that was where she should sleep instead of the couch.
As he’d complained, he wasn’t accustomed to sharing his bed and he was prone to throw some part of his body—leg or arm—across her during the night at least once and bludgeon her awake. Unfortunately, it woke him,
too, and he played with her breasts, or stroked her clit until she grew tired of being teased and popped his hand. Then he would sulk about it until he fell asleep again.
It was a pattern that shouldn’t have been easy for her to grow used to, and yet she discovered she had when Camryn appeared without the others. “Where are Kael and Ean?”
Camryn grunted, sprawling in one of the chairs instead of grabbing her immediately and heading for the bed. “We thought it best not to risk the possibility of drawing attention to you by piling into my apartment every night.”
“Oh.” That didn’t explain why he’d suddenly lost interest, though. “So they won’t be coming tonight?”
“No. It will only be you and I.” He favored her with a hungry look when she settled across from him that warmed her, but he didn’t approach her.
“I guess that means I have the night off.”
He looked a question at her.
“No fucking tonight,” she bluntly.
He narrowed his eyes at her speculatively. “They would not see reason until I gave them my word that I would keep my hands to myself.”
“Oh.”
He laced his hands behind his head. “I did not swear that I would keep my mouth to myself or my cock,” he murmured, his lips curling up at one corner. “They are yours if you wish to play with them.”
A shiver worked its way down her back. She felt her belly clench, but she was actually glad she had the night off. “I’ll give it some thought.”
“I have been giving it a great deal of thought. I have thought that if I had your pretty pink nipples in my mouth that I could suck them and roll them on my tongue until you began to make those little sounds of pleasure in your throat. I have thought of making love to your mouth with my mouth until we are both drunk from the taste of one another. I have thought about taking that little bud between your thighs in my mouth and sucking it until you come,” he murmured in a low, deep, mesmerizing voice that seemed to resonate through her.
Heat climbed into her belly and lit a fire, sending shivers through her.
He studied her for a long moment and finally rose and stretched. “I am weary from arguing in council all day. I believe I will stretch out for a bit before dinner. I would not mind a massage if you are of a mind to be sweet.”
Simone watched him strip and lie down face first on the bed. She struggled for a few moments with the temptation to ignore him and finally got up and followed him.
Pulling her robe off, she dropped it on the floor and climbed up. Planting a foot on either side of his hips, she settled her bare buttocks on his and leaned forward to rub his back.
He was tense, she discovered. As muscular as his back was, as she stroked his back, she could feel that it wasn’t merely the firmness of his flesh beneath her hands that she was used to but a bunching from strain or tension or both.
She kneaded his back with more pressure, working her way slowly from his tense neck down his spine to the curve at his lower back, massaged those muscles, and then worked her way upward again.
He had a beautiful back, but that wasn’t surprising, she supposed. He had a beautiful everything. She’d even gotten used to his pointy ears.
In a way, his black eyes still bothered her, although they didn’t unnerve her nearly as badly as they had when she’d first seen them. For someone used to being able to see emotions in the eyes, it was disturbing to look in his eyes and find fathomless pools that revealed nothing of his thoughts. That wouldn’t have so bad if he’d been more prone to exposing his thoughts in other ways, but he very carefully kept them secreted away.
Even when he was amused it was hard to tell unless she listened carefully to his voice and watched his face just as closely. Anger was the only emotion he was ever careless about displaying and as often as not he hid even that—which made him dangerous to the unwary.
She supposed it was a combination of training and their society, which distained emotionalism—to such a degree, apparently, that they’d all but wiped out their females.
Maybe that wasn’t part of their reasoning in preventing female births and treating the few women they had as they did, but she suspected that it was—contempt that women were more prone to be ruled by their emotions.
She thought Camryn had dozed off during her massage, but when she stopped, he shifted in a silent demand to turn over. She slid off of him, watching as he rolled onto his back. He placed his hands behind his head and studied her from beneath hooded eyes.
“You’ve sworn not to touch me?”
“Foolish of me,” he murmured.
She smiled faintly and settled lower to explore his chest. He hadn’t really given her a chance to do so. He was always the aggressor, always in control and usually in too much of a hurry to allow her time to play.
He had scars she hadn’t noticed before, some old, several that were still an angry pink from fresh healing. They disturbed her, not just because they marred sheer perfection but because they represented pain and the possibility of death. “Where did you get this?”
He looked surprised. “On Kylo. We were overrun by the skeets and disgraced ourselves by retreating,” he said wryly.
Simone sent him a sharp look. “How is that a disgrace? It’s stupid to fight when you’re outnumbered.”
He studied her curiously. “You know nothing of war.”
“No,” Simone said a little testily, “but I have common sense. The idea of war is to win. Dying isn’t winning.”
His lifted his dark brows at her. “Curiously enough, I thought the same thing.
The council did not agree.”
“I’m sorry but the council doesn’t have a very good track record, as far as I can see, for making good decisions.”
“They sent us for you.”
Anger flickered through her but then amusement took its place. She smiled faintly. “I rest my case.”
“It was not their decision,” he said after a moment. “We demanded it.”
“Another point against them,” she retorted. “You shouldn’t have had to demand something that was that important to Macedon. It is the duty of those who rule to make decisions based on the needs of the whole, to do what is best for the majority, not to focus on their personal agenda.”
“You have been studying our laws?” he asked curiously.
“I can’t read your language, but I know wrong when I see it and when I hear it.”
Deciding they were bound to reach the point of arguing if they continued, she leaned down to distract him, and herself, by exploring the flesh she’d been stroking with her lips. She kissed his scars, wishing he hadn’t known such pain, wondering what he would be like if he hadn’t. She explored his taut belly and male breasts, teasing his nipples until he was grinding his teeth.
“That feels … strange.”
“Not good?”
He considered it. “Strange.”
Smiling, she moved to his throat, lightly gnawing and then bypassed his face and explored his ear with her tongue until he was breathing heavily. He lifted his face when she lifted her head, staring at her lips in demand until she settled them against his.
He almost reached for her to drag her back when she broke away. She gave him a look. “Give me your breasts,” he demanded a little hoarsely.
She smiled faintly, feeling her belly clench in response. “In a minute,” she promised. “I’m not done exploring.”
She worked her way back down his body to his cock and teased the head with her tongue. It bobbed against her mouth. She grasped the thick shaft, studying it as she played with it. It didn’t differ a great deal from a human man’s cock, she decided, but she supposed a cock was a cock. Designed by nature for a specific purpose, there wasn’t much need to vary. The head was slightly larger than the shaft, maybe a little more angular than what she accustomed to, but it felt wonderfully the same gliding along her channel.
She teased him until his hips were lifting off the bed in a silent demand for her to go do
wn on him again each time she lifted her head, until he was gasping for breath, until he forgot himself and grabbed her for a moment before he snatched his hands back.
She stopped then, lifting her head to look at his face. “More?”
He swallowed convulsively. “Give me your breasts.”
She moved back up, straddling his chest and lifting her breasts in her hands.
“Which do you want?”
He lifted his head and latched onto the tip of one, catching her by surprise.
Clenching his teeth on it threateningly, he lowered his head to the pillow. She gasped, following him, though she felt no real fear of pain.
He suckled first one and then the other until she was so drunk with need that she had to brace her arms to keep from crumpling on top of him. When he finally stopped, gasping for breath and strained upward to reach her mouth, she lowered her head and kissed him. She’d begun to move back to mount him when he stopped her.
“Let me kiss those lips first,” he said hoarsely.
Shuddering, she paused on her knees. He slipped down. “Part the outer lips for me.”
She reached down to comply, leaning over him. She almost came the moment his lips covered her clit and he sucked it into his mouth. A hard shudder raked her. She propped on one arm, dizzy, weak, relishing the jolts of pleasure that kept washing through her, building a dam within her that was rapidly reaching its limit. She pulled away abruptly when she felt the first threatening quakes of release.
“No! Give it to me!” he growled.
She found she couldn’t resist the allure. She leaned forward again, parting her outer lips. Almost the moment he began tugging at her clit again, she went off. She groaned, shuddering, almost blacking out with the intensity of it, struggling to hold still for him until she couldn’t stand it any longer.
She wanted to collapse and enjoy the dizzying aftershocks, but she slipped backwards again instead and carefully aligned her body with his, bearing down and lifting again until she’d managed to engulf his flesh. She rode him, struggling to meet his silent commands and move as he needed her to. Each time she settled fully against him, though, another spark shot from her clit and she found herself climbing toward a second release. Within a short space of time, she was more focused on achieving her own goal than giving him release.
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