Captive Desires

by Diane Whiteside

  “We need to pay the barkeep.” Alek sounded a bit uncertain for the first time.

  “I already tipped him a bundle not to bother us, far more than the cost of our meal.” She stroked Alek’s jaw, exploring the contrast between strong bone, soft skin, and emerging beard.

  His blue eyes flashed, sending a jolt of heat through her core.

  The practicalities learned during the past fifteen years spent living on the road raised their head.

  “Do you have a private room with a king-size bed?” she asked, a little unsteadily. After all, GriffinCon did take up every hotel room in downtown Atlanta for the entire weekend. Who knew what Alek’s arrangements were? And he was sure to need a damn big bed.

  He shook his head, his beautiful mouth a little twisted.

  “My room it is then.” And he’d better not say anything about its condition. At least she’d sent the laundry out to be done.

  “You honor me, my lady.”

  She stared at him blankly. Honor?

  He tilted her chin up with one finger. “Honor,” he repeated firmly. He kissed her hair, his lips traveling forward until they brushed her forehead.

  Danae shivered and slid her arms around his waist. He wasn’t behaving like any other lover she’d ever had.

  He scattered more kisses over her all the way back to the big hotel. Her hands, her hair, her cheeks—never too frequent or lingering too long. But always making her aware of his every move, his heat, his scent, his eyes intensely fixed on her alone despite the crowd around them.

  Her heartbeat skittered and raced like an out of control Russian ballet. She couldn’t breathe for wanting to drag his mouth down to hers.

  He stood behind her in the elevator, his fingers resting lightly on her waist. How could that mean so much? Why were her knees so weak?

  She desperately counted off the floors, thankful her room offered the concierge level’s privacy. But that meant surviving the sweet torture of close contact longer and longer. Until at the end, she had her eyes shut and her head thrown back against his shoulder.

  The chime sounded once again.

  “May we disembark here?” Alek asked hoarsely.

  The doors started to hiss shut.

  “What?” She opened her eyes. Her nipples rubbed eagerly against her tank top, desperate to seek him.

  Alek bowed formally, his hand indicating her path forward—and keeping the door open. He was still doing the role-playing of being a Torhtremer warrior, as he had since she met him. How unusual—and how delightful, given that it played directly into her fantasy.

  “You’re amazing.” She turned around just outside and ran her hands up his shoulders.

  “Where’s your room?” he whispered against her ear.

  “That way.” She tilted her head and pressed herself more firmly against him. Wow, his chain mail was really supple. She could definitely feel his chest and his thighs and . . .

  He half-swept her off her feet, half-tugged her down the hall.

  She blinked but blushed when they passed the concierge’s lounge, spilling its loud bursts of current news and social chitchat into the hall. On another day, she might have hunted a partner there, but not tonight. Not with Alek at her side.

  The room numbers spun past, anonymous and boring. His strong muscles rubbed against her legs, driving her forward more harshly than any partner she’d ever had onstage.

  Her hand was shaking so hard, especially with his hot breath in her ear, that it took her three tries to successfully insert her cardkey into the lock’s tiny slot.

  He reached around her and slapped down the latch, then shoved the portal open. She staggered inside, too crazed with lust to care what anyone thought.

  Light blazed into the large room from the evening sky outside. Alek kicked the barricade shut and pulled her up against him. Danae leaped at him, heat throbbing through every vein.

  His head came down to meet hers and they finally melded together. Mouth to mouth, lip to lip, hunger blazing through them both. He tasted spicy, rich, uncannily smoky and complex.

  She moaned and rubbed herself against him. Damn his dedication to accuracy! He was covered from head to foot in layers of silk, chain mail, and linen. All she could feel was strength and solidity over the harsh outlines of a man.

  But his mouth—oh, dear God in heaven, his incredibly skillful mouth!—traveled over her face and down her throat, kissing and inciting her to madness. Her ears, the pulse at the base of her throat, even her collarbone . . .

  “More, please, Alek, more!” She whimpered, unzipped her favorite hoodie, and tossed it onto the pile of assorted clothing and paraphernalia in the room’s corner.

  He rumbled his approval and nuzzled the swell of her breasts, his big hands shaping and kneading her ass to pull her closer.

  She fondled him eagerly in return but found her hands blocked by an array of pouches, belts, and weapons. She sniffed, considerably disgruntled. As a theater professional, there were certain standards to maintain, such as both partners being equally easy to undress.

  He chuckled a little roughly and kissed the corner of her mouth. “Give me but a moment, sweeting.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest and tapped her foot.

  He proceeded to undress with amazing speed and rapidity. His axe, sword, and dagger, the belts that crisscrossed his shoulders or hung at his waist, and the pouches that loaded them were soon neatly draped over her big armchair. He stripped off his brilliant scarlet silk surcoat, then his chain mail hauberk as if it weighed no more than the silk. The indigo linen tunic underneath hid another thin, quilted tunic. He neatly folded them all and set them down on the sleek, modernist desk.

  She didn’t give a damn about his jewelry—his earrings, cuffs, rings, even the pendant around his neck. She wanted man.

  Finally he stood in a sheer white shirt and drawers, which stretched from neck to wrist to ankle. They clung to his body, thanks to his sweat and the pre-come seeping out of his rearing, crimson cock, only lightly veiled by the lucky cloth.

  “Dear God, you’re beautiful,” Danae whispered. She could finally see his muscles’ hard curves, his nipples’ small dark circles, the fast rise and fall of his chest.

  She needed more.

  “Party box,” she muttered and looked around.

  “Party?”

  “Condoms, honey, condoms.” No matter what her room looked like, she could always quickly put a handful of those on the nightstand.

  “Excellent,” he growled.

  Errand done, she kicked off her shoes, letting them land wherever they wanted, and ran toward Alek.

  He caught her up and spun her around. “Adored one.”

  Adored? Ooh, delicious nickname!

  She wrapped her arms around his neck enthusiastically and tried to kiss him more slowly this time. But it was so difficult when his body pressed and flowed against hers, making her so aware of his different textures and shapes, the planes of his pecs, the hard ripples of his abs, the columns of his thighs, the jut of his cock against her mound . . .

  “Lovely Danae.” He tilted her back onto the bed and knelt between her legs. His hand slipped under her tank top and spanned her belly, warmly inciting more heat to fan through her bones and into her core. She rocked against him, moaning, and he rubbed her, fondling her breasts underneath the thin knit.

  What a wonderful way to go insane.

  He explored underneath her jeans waistband the same way, unbuttoning it but not unzipping it. He had some wicked, wicked ways to tease her without ever putting his hand inside her, until she was thrashing wildly, her jeans’ inseam teasing her clit, and fire raging through every cell. Cream rippled and flowed until she was mindlessly, achingly wet.

  “Alek, please, oh please . . .” She clawed at his shoulders, desperate for him, only for him.

  He fumbled at her zipper and yanked it down. Cool air—or was it hot?—surged onto her belly, ripping her toward fulfillment. Her hips surged toward him impatiently
.

  He tugged again and pulled her jeans off with more haste than style. Perfect, just perfect. He wasn’t a polished, twenty-first-century gentleman.

  Now, surely now.

  She rolled onto her side, ripped open a condom, and caught his hip.

  “Danae!” He stilled for a moment and she rolled it onto him, showing the same frantic urgency he’d used on her trousers. His cock swelled into her grasp and she palmed it in welcome.

  “Great gods, woman, you know how to rouse a man,” he growled.

  She glanced up at him, his belly rapidly rising and falling against her other hand, and deliberately licked her lips. Tasting more of him, feeling all of him, couldn’t come too soon for her drumming senses.

  Alek pushed her back and she held out her arms in welcome. He poised for a moment over her, his blue eyes intent. She wrapped one leg around his hip, opening herself up to him.

  He groaned and found her entrance as smoothly as she’d somehow known he would. She hummed her pleasure and pulled him closer, begging for more.

  His thrusts filled her, hot and strong. Every inch of her, inside and out, gripped him, fought to keep him. He snarled and hunger surged through him, blatant on his gritted face—and then ripped into his eager drive for fulfillment and blasted away the last links to his consideration for her.

  Nothing existed for Danae but this moment, this man. Everything in her spiraled into a whirlpool of magma, centered on him. Pulsing shockwaves beat through her bones and her blood, tearing her loose from her foundations.

  And when he shouted his climax, and spilled his seed, the hot flood pulsed into her, setting off a cataclysm of pleasure from the inside out. She shattered, tendrils of fire spinning around and through her, behind her eyelids and through her nerves.

  Afterward, all she could do was lie half across him, her fingers tucked inside his shirt tracing the lines of his muscles. She dreamily tapped out his heartbeat on his arm with her finger as if it would teach hers how to beat steadily again. She yawned and tucked herself a little closer.

  He stroked her hip possessively. “Sleep your fill, sweeting.” His voice was a little unsteady, she noted smugly, and she fought back another jaw-breaking yawn. It had been too long since she’d had a good fuck or slept really well.

  The only logic for why she trusted him was his resemblance to Alekhsiy. Even the wry smile at the back of his eyes was similar.

  But her instincts had never led her wrong yet.

  “Rest.” He kissed the top of her head. “The night is young yet.”

  “Mmm, yummy.” Her eyelids drifted farther down.

  The last thing she remembered was him wrapping her close.

  Several hours later, Alekhsiy pulled the curtains shut against the gaudily lit buildings outside and the velvety black sky. Fireworks displays had more colors but they evaporated in moments, unlike these fortresses of light. He should sleep and gather strength for tomorrow’s trials, like his oblivious darling. But he could not, not when the gods offered him the chance to fill his senses with his little dancer.

  Danae. His lady who’d given him hope and pleasure so many times during the long war against the Imperial Terrapin and his great ally. Now she slept exactly where he’d left her, while he’d made his way to the window to avoid eyeing her temptations— or the horrific mess her clothing and equipment had made of everything else in the room. Not that such a mare’s nest meant anything next to the joy of spending time with her.

  He stretched his back one last time and turned off the table lamp. Corinne, his sister-in-law, had given him a spell explaining much of daily life here. (She hadn’t included how to dispose of a used condom. He’d deciphered that mystery for himself.)

  A delicate warmth rippled across his chest and pooled under his collarbone.

  Alekhsiy stilled for a moment. Then he spun to face himself in the big mirror.

  A very small spark flickered inside his amulet, only visible because of the room’s darkness.

  “Praise be to all the gods!” Making love to his little dancer, she who’d given him so much, so many times before, had rebuilt his chi enough to relight his amulet.

  Alekhsiy leaped, joy racing through his veins like dragon fire, and clasped his hands together over his head. He would sacrifice a dozen baskets of red roses to the Horned Goddess!

  Now he had hope he could one day return to Torhtremer, if he exchanged pleasure with Danae often enough. And who would consider such pastimes a hardship?

  Dare he wake his darling? She’d abandoned herself to slumber as passionately as she did everything else. The single golden light from the ceiling picked out little details of her to tempt him—her thick lashes waiting to reveal her green eyes, her dark hair displaying itself to tease his fingers, and her sweet breasts still hiding under far too much cloth.

  She hadn’t moved since she’d fallen asleep in his arms. She was a professional dancer, blessed with an athlete’s strong, supple body. Surely she couldn’t be too exhausted for another bout of delightful exploration. This one would come far more slowly, of course, than the ravenous plundering of their last round.

  He smirked and blew a kiss toward her alluring mouth. Those few minutes had been far more than anything he’d ever hoped for. Who could blame him for wanting hours more?

  His bruised body, battered by his arrival this afternoon, had forced him to take a short nap.

  His heart and loins ached for another taste of his sweeting. The salty bite of her sweat, the heat of her breath on his skin, the spicy musk of her excitement spiraling from between her legs . . . By the Horned Goddess, he hadn’t tasted her there yet. Surely she would forgive him if he coaxed her back into rapture by drinking her carnal liquors, the finest wine a man could ever hope to taste. The drug that could bind a mortal into serving a sorceress for the rest of his life, with only a single taste.

  Pour one mouthful of a sorceress’s sweetest, most hidden delights over a man’s tongue and he’d hunger for her all the rest of his days. That honeyed cream would be an irresistible temptation to him.

  His little dancer twisted slightly, sending the sheet sliding down her arm.

  Alekhsiy’s mouth dried. How often had he watched her shoulder roll the very same way from high atop that cloud?

  Could she be a sorceress? Probably, to have successfully meddled in his life so often. Perchance that was why the amulet had taken fire so quickly: Her chi was strong enough that finding pleasure with her once was enough to relight it, praise the Maiden.

  Surely she was nobody to fear, unlike the sorceresses he’d fought during the Great War. She’d always only done good for him. It didn’t mean she was the one who could open the gate back to Torhtremer. Corinne, his sister-in-law, was also a sorceress but she couldn’t travel between worlds unassisted.

  By the red roses of Bhaikhal, he had every reason to frequent her bed and enjoy it, too, if it meant setting his amulet ablaze and returning home that much faster. And giving him memories to burn in his heart through the long cold nights ahead.

  He quickly shrugged off the thought, his jaw tightening. He was the High King’s brother and duty-bound to serve, whether that meant patrolling the cold northern wastes or making sterile conversation in foreign courts. He could take these few hours for himself, before he returned to his quest.

  He turned back to his oblivious darling, still slumbering peacefully under the lamp’s golden glow. She stirred and flung out a slender arm, a rosy nipple peeking out from her breast band.

  She was perfection indeed. Why should he resist anymore?

  He picked his way back toward her, every step as carefully chosen as his heart’s focus. He sat down on the bed and slid her long hair off her shoulder, baring so many delightful opportunities for savoring her. He cupped her cheek in his hand, his fingers fanning out into her hair.

  “Danae.”

  He nuzzled her skin, inhaling her scent to hold as a priceless memory. He dipped lower, finding and tasting the tangy salt pooled at t
he base of her throat. He lapped, taking little licks, running the tips of his teeth over her delicate collarbone . . .

  Thrice-damned academy instructors, they were insane to teach that a dancer couldn’t be strong and delicate at the same time! When he returned, he would force them to recant the error of their ways. But not, of course, with Danae.

  His pulse drummed harder and his fingers trembled. Ridiculous, that. A woman’s heartbeat under his fingertips shouldn’t shake him, nor should her breath stirring his hair.

  He’d seen as much fighting as his elder brother, now High King of Torhtremer. When the Cadet Corps was dissolved at the start of the civil wars in order to provide officers for the raw levies, he’d gained his commission as a stripling under the old king, before Mykhayl came to the throne. The sights he’d seen and the blood he’d shed for so many years had hardened him. And he knew his way around women—or he’d thought he did. He’d been well-trained and he’d had many pleasure loves, each for a night or two.

  Danae’s breast rose to meet his palm under the sheet.

  His breath stopped. He was an educated man; surely this time he could decipher how to remove her breast band. It appeared to be tightly knitted of a very stretchy fabric, with narrow straps and no apparent fastenings. Much as he’d longed to, he hadn’t dared rip it open before—and he loathed shoving it into her armpits now. Surely that wouldn’t gain him any tender feelings.

  What else?

  He pushed it down a little farther and nuzzled the delicious upper curves of her breasts. They were perfectly shaped, too—round, sweet, rising eagerly to meet his mouth. Her adorable nipples were a trifle larger than usual for dancers, hardening rapidly under his fingers’ focused attentions.

  Encouragement spilled forth in his own language. Too much needed to be said to wait for translation.

  “Ohmygawd, Alekhsiy.” She sighed and rolled to bring herself more fully under him, kicking off the covers. Her fingers sank into his hair, caressing him, and her chest rose and fell faster. “You do know how to wake a girl up nicely.”

  He chuckled a little roughly, his heartbeat thudding faster. His rod swelled and he cursed privately. Idiotic telltale pawn of Chaos, he’d planned to take his time pleasing her, not rush to satisfy his own foolish flesh. By all the gods, there were excellent reasons the temple priestesses made their male students adorn their rods with rings before class. Sometimes discipline was best attained with steel, not mental games.