Wicked Beloved

by Susanne Saville

  Wandering into the kitchen, he opened the medicine drawer and removed the large tube of mending cream. Then he retrieved her vet papers and read for a while. He’d already noted how similar her exterior was to females of his race, and her interior physiology was wasn’t too far off, either. But their genetic compatibility was nothing short of amazing.

  He’d guessed Tellurians could eat the same foods and use the same medications, or the clerk who had pointed out their sexual compatibility would have issued a warning, but these papers confirmed that and more—including a remote chance of viable offspring between them. No wonder Tellurians were so expensive. Rather like having dominion over one of your own. He understood the dark excitement inherent to such a situation, even if it was too close to his job for him to feel the pull of it himself.

  A steady knocking caught his attention. That shouldn’t be happening. He placed the papers and tube on the counter, then followed the sound to the washroom. She was rapping on the door. He hit the panel but the door only buzzed.

  “I’m stuck,” she called, her voice muffled by the metal barrier.

  He glanced at the panel readout. “It’s merely locked. Hit the yellow button again.” He listened for the click. “Now the purple one.”

  The door slid open. She stood there wearing an abashed grin, her collar and a towel wrapped around her body. “Sorry.”

  “I’m beginning to suspect you spent your entire previous captivity in a cell.”

  “I did.”

  He nodded, feeling grim. Some people shouldn’t be allowed pets. “Just remember, yellow operates the locks. Purple opens doors.”

  “Even the front door?” Her expression was very carefully neutral.

  He smiled. She had to realize he could see through that. But he didn’t mind. A desire to escape was natural. “Even the front door. Now let’s fix your back.” He led the way to the kitchen and retrieved the tube.

  “What are you going to do?” Her voice was small and hushed. Worried.

  “Heal you. This cream can regenerate anything. It’s saved my life a few times and I swear by it. Lie down.”

  She swallowed audibly. “Where?”

  “What?”

  “Where do you want me to lie down?”

  “Wherever you feel like it. Bed. Table. Couch.”

  She wandered out and, deliberately turning her back on the bedroom, glanced between and table and the couch. He fought the urge to make up her mind for her. She seemed to appreciate the freedom to choose and was taking her time with it.

  Eventually she headed to the couch and lay down on her stomach, burying her face in the cushion, her elbows bent and hands fisted at her shoulders. He followed and sat on the edge, the side of his hip pressing against hers.

  “I must remove the towel in order to proceed.” He took hold of the fabric’s edge below her near shoulder blade, his fingers grazing her skin as he did so, and she stiffened.

  He waited. She didn’t relax. One inhalation and he knew why. The sweet scent of her fear had returned. He trailed his fingers up to her neck, stroked her wet hair out of the way and, with minimal interference from her collar, found her pulse. It fluttered so fast he wondered if Tellurian hearts ever exploded.

  Lowering his mouth to her ear, he whispered, “Would I be correct in saying you’re terrified at this point?”

  “Yes.” The couch cushion half smothered her word, but the tone was understandable nonetheless.

  “Would it help if I tell you this will not hurt?” He let his breath caress her ear and she shivered in response.

  “Would you be lying?”

  He laughed. “No. If you’re like me, it will feel cold at first. Then, as the mending gets going, it warms.”

  Her fear was fading, her scent settling into a combination of his spicy cleanser and water, and beneath that something savory that was her essence alone.

  He gripped the edge of the towel again. “I’m going to ease this off you now.”

  She shifted as he slowly pulled, helping him free the towel from her body, though her face remained hidden in the cushion. He pushed the wet coils of her hair off her shoulders so they wouldn’t get mussed by the cream.

  “I’ll start at the top of your shoulders and work down,” he informed her.

  She made a soft sound of acquiescence against the cushion.

  CHAPTER TWO

  At first he simply brushed his fingers slowly back and forth across her shoulders then up and down her spine, like he was getting her accustomed to the contact. His warm, dry fingertips created a slight friction against her skin, a sensation that sent alternating waves of heat and tremors through her marrow. Focusing on his touch, and not the knots in her stomach, made her aware of the hypnotic nature of his strokes.

  She inhaled a few shaky times before she was able to manage a deep breath. He said nothing, just continued the gentle passes along her back. Gradually she realized she was allowing herself to melt into the couch.

  Insanity! How could she let her guard down like this? Sure, he was being unbelievably humane, but unbelievable was the operative word. It was a trick. It must be a trick.

  “You’ve tensed up. What is it?” When she didn’t answer, his hand returned to her neck. “Heart rate back to racing as well. Talk.” His tone was brusque.

  The last thing she wanted to do was anger him. Swallowing, she tried to form some placating words, and could think of nothing.

  “You realize you haven’t the power to prevent me from doing whatever I want to you. I’m a fair bit stronger than you are. If I had a mind to hurt you, you couldn’t stop me.”

  She shivered. She was all too well aware of that.

  “So you must also realize I intend you no harm or I would not bother talking to you.”

  That was logical, not that her emotions were quieted by logic. Shaky breaths interrupting her words, she finally managed to get out, “Would you warn me if you were going to kill me?”

  He snorted. “Not normally.”

  A moan of fear escaped before she could stop it.

  “But I don’t intend on killing you,” he added. “Or harming you in any way. Do you not realize I’ve taken you up on your offer?”

  “My offer?”

  “What you said at the shelter. I won’t hurt you and you’ll be my perfect slave.”

  Oh, yeah. That. She had said something like that, in an effort to get the only potentially decent man she’d met on this god-forsaken world to purchase her.

  She cleared her throat. “For real?” Even to her own ears, her voice sounded choked with tears. She lifted her head enough to glance over her shoulder at him.

  He gave her a small smile, the same crooked grin he had flashed at the shelter, at once both unreservedly heartening and adorably bashful. He really was a beautiful man. Tall and muscular, with intense gray-green eyes and rich chestnut hair, he could have been human, except for those odd olive irises that glimmered as if lit from within. “Yes,” he answered.

  Lying back down, and hoping he couldn’t see how much that smile affected her, she tried to relax. Surely a person who could smile like that couldn’t be all bad? And muddle-headed thinking like that was precisely how serial killers got victims. She was such a fool. But she’d better act relaxed or he might lose his temper and she didn’t want him angry.

  He warned her before he started applying the cream. Her muscles tightened in anticipation. It did feel cold going on, but warmed up considerably in a handful of seconds. It tingled, too. Not unpleasantly. In fact, the sensation was the best thing she’d felt since she’d been kidnapped from her bedroom and woken up in the hold of a slaving spaceship.

  She swallowed back the little sighs of contentment trying to purr their way out of her throat as he spread the healing relief along each scab, each sore, each ache with easy, lazy strokes, like he had all the time in the world for this. Like he didn’t mind caring for her. Perhaps finally she’d been granted some luck.

  His tenderness seemed too goo
d to be true. Could this man actually be different from any of the other males she had encountered? When she’d first seen him at the shelter, with his terribly, frighteningly handsome good looks, she assumed he would be vain and cruel. But when he spoke, with that gravelly, husky voice—damn, but she’d pay to hear him read the dictionary—he had been polite. Almost kind. He treated her as if she were of a similar rather than lesser species.

  His hand reached her haunches. Snapped from her thoughts, she stiffened again, embarrassed that he could see her every clenched muscle but unable to stop her body from locking up. This was when his attitude could change.

  Owners had the right to do whatever they wanted with their slaves’ bodies. And from what she had both experienced and seen, they took full advantage of this. Her heart careened around her chest as she held herself rigid, muscles twitching at the strain, dreading probing fingers or groping hands—or worse.

  Yet nothing happened. His application of the cream continued in the same professional, respectful manner. His touch trailed lower to the backs of her thighs, still impersonal, still performing nothing save the cessation of pain.

  But a change came when, in following one lash that had wrapped around her leg, he hesitated as his hand approached the inside of her thigh. Then his progress stopped.

  He had never completely stopped before. His hot palm rested on the back of her thigh. Her breath caught in her throat.

  “I’m going to need you to part your legs.” His voice was particularly calm, like he was talking to a spooked animal.

  “Don’t. I can’t.” The cushion muffled her words, which was just as well since they shook with panic she didn’t want to acknowledge.

  “Allow me to finish.”

  He could have forcefully repositioned her limbs himself. He was right about her being unable to stop him. Or he could have ordered her to obey. She had promised she would. Instead, he was allowing her the semblance of being in control.

  There had to be an ulterior motive in there somewhere, but she couldn’t spot it. She was so tired of being terrified. Her pain was almost gone and she wanted to relax.

  She wanted to be able to trust him. She wanted him to be trustworthy. Trust had to start somewhere. With painstakingly tremendous effort, she parted her legs.

  His hand continued its journey, healing the welt, the cream very cold against the hot, sensitive skin of her inner thigh. She was rather amazed that he was being honorable, just healing the scar, like he said he would. Then his fingers skimmed higher.

  Her heart skipped in erratic panic. She’d been wrong. Oh, she’d been wrong. He was going to….

  She squeezed her eyes shut and wished she could do the same with her legs. But he could overpower her in an instant if he wanted to. Maybe if she didn’t anger him….

  She stifled a whimper, biting her lip, as he brought the icy paste in contact with her delicate, over-heated flesh.

  For a long moment, his hand rested there. Just rested. It occurred to her that perhaps he thought she had been raped and only wanted to provide the benefit of the healing cream. With the wounds on her back, rape wouldn’t have been an outlandish conclusion. She had been lucky in that regard. Her former master had been uninterested in her sex.

  His hand continued to linger and she braced herself, every nerve in her body concentrated on that point, on the heavy press of his palm right where she was most vulnerable. He could do what he liked with her. She couldn’t stop him. She could only hope her lack of resistance would encourage him to be merciful.

  “Your knuckles are turning white. You fear me again?”

  At first words refused to come. She cleared her throat. “Y-yes. Sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I wouldn’t trust me either. But, for the record, I do not force myself on females.”

  His hand moved on then, tracing another wound down her leg. In the absence of his touch, she realized how soothing the cream was. Under different circumstances, she’d thank him for being so thorough.

  When he finished, he put aside the tube of medication with a soft thump. She started to rise, glancing about for her towel.

  “Lie down,” he ordered. The snapped words were unquestionably a command and she obeyed without a second thought.

  His hands returned to her back, rubbing, exploring, finding kinks of muscle she hadn’t known existed and alleviating them. He certainly seemed familiar with anatomy. Gradually she relaxed and welcomed his fingers, her embarrassment at the absence of her towel finally forgotten.

  Soon her skin was tingling from more than the medicine. His massage had ignited a matching sensation in her belly. Tendrils of excitement snaked up her spine—she was enjoying this too much.

  Even more damning, an ache was building deep inside her body. She desperately wanted to be touched there. Correction, she wanted him to touch her there. Her stupid body wanted him to ravish her. Unbelievable. What had she become?

  Self-loathing brought the first tears. She was so pitifully desperate for a little kindness that his mere comforting touch pitched her headlong into arousal. She barely knew the man. Alien, she corrected herself.

  Any moment he was bound to start hurting her. Bound to. Torture seemed to be what slaves were for on this planet. Fear made her tears fall faster.

  And that was irrational. He’d said he wouldn’t hurt her. She was afraid of everything these days. She was a coward. Her dark emotional vortex circled back to self-loathing.

  Streaming eyes and a runny nose made breathing against the cushion increasingly difficult. She didn’t want him to see her tears, but her sniffles were getting louder so he’d probably notice anyway. She twisted her neck to rest her cheek on the cushion and sucked in a breath. He’d be able to see the wet surface of her other cheek now.

  His reaction was immediate. “You’re crying.” The words weren’t accusatory. Merely surprised. “Have I been causing you pain?”

  “No. No, you’re amazing. I’m just….” It would be so nice to be able to tell someone how she honestly felt. Begin as you mean to go on. She sniffled and then huffed out a breath, deciding to admit the truth. “I’m afraid,” she whispered.

  “Why?” His tone, although mystified, was not unkind.

  “This is…I keep expecting….” Her voice cracked.

  He stroked her back, his touch reassuring. “Remember. I won’t hurt you and you’ll obey me.”

  “Right. I know. Right.”

  He massaged her shoulders in silence for a few moments. “Most slaves…. From what I understand, most slaves enjoy their punishments.”

  “I don’t.”

  “I gathered. Your previous master would have stopped once you broke for him.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “You never tried asking for mercy?”

  “I couldn’t let him win.”

  “Why?” He sounded sincerely curious.

  “He was an evil piece of garbage, may I live to spit on his grave.” She swallowed and made an attempt to lighten her tone. “Also, I’m not very smart.” A smart girl would have realized her predicament sooner and proved her worth, not let herself be tossed away, to end up on death row. “Thank you for buying me.” The words were awkward to say. They shouldn’t be. He’d saved her life.

  But the words reminded her of how foreign the situation was. This man owned her. And he appeared human. But he was a million miles away from being human. Maybe more.

  “You’re welcome.” Amusement lurked in his tone. “So where is Telluria?”

  “Where?”

  “Your home world.”

  “Earth is…uh….” This was a good argument for making astronomy mandatory. She had no idea what the names of the stars and planets were beyond Pluto—wait, Pluto wasn’t a planet anymore, right? And even if she did, would her names translate into the correct designations in his language?

  He had started chuckling. It was a deep, seductive sound. “Earth? You call your planet ‘ground’? You’re not a very imaginative people, are you?”
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  “I don’t suppose they ever thought they’d leave it when they named it.”

  “Valid point.”

  His good humor was catching. She let herself relax a little. He sounded so different from anyone she had yet met in this place. Kind. Considerate. Perhaps being his slave wouldn’t be so terrible.

  She took a deep breath. “Can I ask you…er…may I ask you something?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Wh-what would you like me to call you? Sir? Master?”

  He snorted. “Master is the usual form of address.”

  “Can you…would you…would you please call me Slave? I don’t like Whore. Or anything you want, actually. Just not Whore.”

  “Your other master called you Whore?”

  “Yeah. I really, really don’t like that.”

  “Slave it is, then.” He gave her hip a playful slap. “You’re done. Here’s your towel. I’m thinking of having an early night.”

  She sat up and took the towel, quickly wrapping it around herself. He wanted an early night. This was it. Zero hour. He wanted to get started with the sex.

  Panic pulsed through her system. She was in for it now. Yes, he seemed nice. And yes, he had said he wouldn’t hurt her. But did he truly understand what would hurt and what would not? And what if he wanted to press the boundaries?

  This place…country…hell, maybe the entire planet had an unhealthy attitude toward violence and suffering, as far as she was concerned. Or maybe only the suffering of slaves was sanctioned. Maybe they were nicer to each other. Not that it mattered to her. She was a slave.

  Which meant she could do nothing. He was going to have sex with her. That was why he’d bought her, after all. She knew that. Sex was all her species was good for, according to the repeated mumblings of the shelter clerk.

  So there was going to be sex. She tried to get comfortable with the idea as she stood to follow him. She had heard about what passed for sexual titillation here from other residents of the shelter. Hopefully she could talk him out of strangulation or drawing blood. Those practices obviously involved pain, so he should agree to refrain from them. Restraints might be iffy. She might have to give him that, if they weren’t too tight.