by Mima
She considered saying thank you. Didn’t.
The corridor branched off in three directions. He pointed down the left. “That’s my apartment.” He pointed down the right. “That’s my parents’ rooms. They won’t be in residence.” He led her down the central lane. “This is yours.”
They passed through the doorway and the floor changed to cloth. Wool. Ancient woven carpets, their coarseness thick and fascinating. The colors were muted with age, but the reds and blues still glowed. The walls were a terra-cotta shade, and the light was all indirect. Several shelves circled the room. Velvet-covered lounging furniture was grouped in a loose central cluster.
Sitting in the middle of the floor was an altar. It had a beam of pure light shining down from above. Amazingly, it was wood, carved and black with age. As high as her waist, the scooped counter over four sturdy legs seemed somehow sensual. All altars featured natural objects, but this extravagant expanse of wealth took her breath away.
“This belongs in a museum.”
“I hope it helps balance you during your stay. I left it empty because I thought you would like to choose your own focus items from my things.” He gestured to the shelves. She saw a straw basket, a pair of leather gloves, a feather. She couldn’t take any more wealth in.
“You collect natural things?” She faced him, her veil pulling a bit as it trailed across the wool floor.
He considered her for a long moment. She hadn’t thought the question worthy of that wait time. “No.”
She raised one eyebrow. Gestured, as he had, to the shelves. “No?”
“All of this was for you.”
She lowered her hand. Straightened her spine at the confirmation that he had indeed planned this. Rage burst at how he’d played her. A pretty cage for his singers.
“I don’t collect singers either.”
Hmph.
“You’re the only one I want. The first I’ve contracted with.”
Really. All of this extravagance for her? “You don’t want me to tell. About the oak.”
“You’ll do what you think best.”
What was that, some sort of reverse thinking to convince her that his way was best?
“I know you won’t tell.”
Really. So she was to be some piece in a devious elite plan. He was lucky he had an ancestral red oak, or she’d be planning revenge. Anger curled her toes in the lush wool. She’d keep her eyes open.
“Are you hungry?”
She bet he had fine synth bites here. “Sure.” Might as well enjoy this wealth while she was stuck. Singers lived as well as most elite, but this was beyond luxurious.
“I’ll bring the food.”
“You will?” She was surprised and let it show.
“I prefer to craft what fuels my body with my own hands. Droids can be altered.”
Paranoid. She could use that.
“I’ll be back soon. You have enough time to rest. Feel free to explore your rooms.”
Ahhh. There it was. The cage was closed.
“And Shay-non.”
There was a surprising bite of command in his voice that had been absent before now.
“Yes?” She considered his retreating back warily.
“I’ll expect you to fulfill the contract’s initiation when I return. Prepare.” His footsteps echoed as he disappeared out of sight in the foyer. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Her heavy heartbeat remained.
Chapter Two
He crossed the foyer into the public space of his home. With every step, his rock-solid erection bobbed against the cotton pants, causing it to jerk in reflex. When he got to the kitchen, he calmly worked with a droid to pull down the supplies. He set to making food for two.
He couldn’t let himself think of the years of planning that had gone into this. He couldn’t think about the money he’d saved all his life and invested in this moment. He couldn’t think of his irrational fear that his tree, his treasure, his miracle, was dying while he calmly ignored it, mixing these flavors in his galley. The oak was only entering its dormancy. Shay-non would check on it soon enough. He needed her more, first.
He needed her now. He had to pause, lay down the spoon. Bracing his fists on the counter, he closed his eyes and breathed through the rising, unstoppable ejaculation. She was taller than he’d thought she’d be, even though he knew her height was thirty centimeters less than his. She was also more slender, with a waist his hands could grip as he drove into her from below. She had bitable ass cheeks and mouth-sized breasts with the tiniest, reddest nipples. Not as red as the hair on her head, or the color of her toes. There’d been no red curls shielding her labia below that shifting, glimmering veil that made her look like a mystical goddess. She wasn’t a goddess, just a powerful woman with the skills he needed, who he was going to fuck within the next three hours. A woman he’d grown to know well, and admired passionately.
He pulled the precious cotton down, wrapped a rough kitchen wipe around his tip and let himself come. Those big brown eyes staring at him in shock. That little fist clenched bone white. It was a brief, pulsing pleasure, then was gone. He cleaned himself, adjusted his pants, continued. This was an allowable deviation from the plan. He’d have more control now. He hoped. He would give her everything, anything, for her cooperation. He’d make it good for her. No, he’d fucking explode her world.
Shay-non was going to be the first to join their triad, making them a more stable quartet. It was all in motion now. When the food was in the synthesizer only he could work, he went to his office and sank into the lattice. He traced her contract’s acceptance from the singers’ compound. Without a vid, he couldn’t get a reading of how it was accepted, but they also couldn’t get a reading off of him.
He sent a trace to the others of his triad once it was acknowledged. The message was simple: Contract acquired. Out of contact twenty-four hours. He could just picture Tavish’s hard nod, and Cullen’s smirk. Tavish would say, “Do her well.” Cullen would say, “Tending the Spirit is such holy work.” The original plan had called for Tavish to bring the tree singer into their group. But when Sand had found Shay-non, he had known he didn’t want Tavish to be the one to convince her. Sand had wanted her. Deeply, painfully. His friends both agreed with his reassignment.
Twelve years ago, he and his two best friends had bonded in an amazing experience. An experience he still wasn’t sure whether to call a burden or a gift. Elements of both wove through the frightening reality that long-ago night had created. Some days the pattern was more painful. This wasn’t one of them. This day, he’d met Shay-non, face-to-face. Soon he’d meet her in the skin, literally. It was a responsibility his friends trusted him with, to convince her, to bind her to their plan. It was a reward his friends granted him, as they waited for him to identify the other two partners they’d need to take on for their plan to come to fruition.
Returning to the kitchen, he gathered up the food on light metal plates and set the droid to carry it. His dick twitched as he entered her hallway. There was a freshness to the air. Her scent. The initiation would come soon: her unveiling, and a touch of her choice, skin to skin.
He stopped while the droid laid out the eating cloth and set the food precisely in the middle. Then it left. And he was still staring. She was on the altar, unveiled. The opalescence of her skin was more glorious than the silver veil. Kneeling with her legs splayed, he could clearly make out her sex below her spread ass. Her cheeks rested on her heels, her back arched, her hands reaching gracefully up into the cone of light. The crown of her ruby hair faced him since her head was thrown back in apparent ecstasy. It was worth the cost of the sunshine bulb he’d installed.
He walked around her, within touching distance. Her belly was adorable. Her nipples were hard, bitty berries. The position she held flattened her breasts to merest swells. At mouth level.
Slowly, her hands drifted down and rested on those splayed thighs. She rolled her head forward to look down at him. He’d meant to initiate the contract afte
r a meal and some conversation to reassure her. But the plan could tolerate this new deviation.
“Shay-non, you are unveiled before me.” His voice sounded husky but he didn’t care. Let her see that his attraction was more than the plan needed.
“Sand, I initiate this contract.”
He did not think about the plan, his goals, his faith or his tree. He thought about the impact of those eyes without a veil between them. That skin, blushing in the strong light. That musk scent rising from her spread thighs. Those blood-red, lickable nipples. Wait. Wait for her. It must be her. His eyes flitted from one part of her to another, dazzled by her reality. Curves, everywhere. His cock fattened.
An eternity later, her hand rose toward him. His gaze flew to hers, but she was staring at his hair. She reached out like a slowed, half-time vid. Her touch landed on his hair near his left ear. He watched her eyes dilate, the brown fading from chocolate to black. He saw the tremor of her long lashes, her lips break open revealing a row of tiny white teeth. He was lifting in his pants, the cotton catching him.
Her fingers threaded into his hair and touched his scalp. He could feel each of the three fingertips. She pulled her hand down through his layers, behind his ear, heat scalding the rim. A hectic red appeared on her cheekbones that had been too pale. She hesitated at the bottom, then her thumb gently trapped his earlobe and rubbed it with her forefinger. He was so aware of how it was fleshy, and hot, in her firm grip. His head spun as his cock abruptly hardened.
Her gaze moved along the line of his jaw, and he felt her focus on his mouth like a physical touch. His own lips parted, fascinated, as the blush on her face spread down her neck. His earlobe was abandoned when she delved in a sweep along the curve of his ear. His breath began to come heavier. The head of him was rubbing against the soft waistband.
Her fingers moved where her gaze had, all of them trailing along, petting his lips, the outer edge, the inner skin. Rotating her hand, she sent her palm gliding on the sensitive skin under his chin while her thumb tested the edge of his teeth, boldly daring his lips. He froze absolutely still when she held her breath. She pushed her thumb into his mouth and he closed his lips over the joint while his tongue curled and sucked. The blush cascaded onto her chest, and his gaze followed it.
Her other hand lifted to touch herself, hesitated, middle finger a breath from her nipple. He sucked gently, scraped his tongue over her nail. Her nails scored restlessly against the line of his throat. She took her thumb from his mouth and laid her hand on his shoulder, her damp touch painting the hollow above his collarbone.
Then she closed her eyes as she delicately played over her nipple. He watched her face, now flushed. Her eyes tossed behind her lids. He studied her fingers, how she dragged the edge of a nail over the tip, how she barely touched herself, sometimes tracing the lower swell where her breast met her torso. His dick bounced.
Her grip tightened on his shoulder, nails biting suddenly, as she trailed those fingers down her sternum, over her belly, and hovered over her split lips. Open your eyes. See me. He didn’t say it. But she answered his plea. She gave the faintest gasp at catching his gaze. She wasn’t focusing as well as he. Her lashes fluttered like the rarest butterflies. Her lips were so plump and ripe. His mouth burst with saliva.
Her hand lightened its grip on his shoulder, soothed the shirt over the muscle there with a swirl of sensation. Then she dragged her palm flat down onto his pec and ground her heel into his nipple. His balls churned and boiled. Her eyes looked dazed as she watched her hand massage him, gripping the fabric and his muscle, fingertips pattering over the whole sweep of his chest. Finally, she stilled with her thumb pressing hard against his nipple. He was still watching her face, the want on it making him fiercely glad, when she looked up and met his eyes again. His breath hitched. Hers looked blank now, wild.
He steeled himself as her weight increased, pressing against him. She rose up higher onto her knees. She paused, gathering her balance, taking a deep breath, then looked down at her lower hand hovering over herself. He had no choice but to follow the slender line of her arm down past her breasts. Her knees were spread wide to the edges of the altar. The curved shape helped her hold the position, giving her something to brace against. Her clit was visible, angry red flesh, and her fingers shifted at the last moment so that it was her ring finger that set down and touched it. His ass clenched hard against the need to come.
His heart beat furiously against the pressure of her hand on his chest. He swallowed against the flood of moisture in his mouth. He saw the long line of cream drip from under her. It hung suspended for a moment, then the line snapped. It pooled on the gleaming wood, a button-sized treasure. His lungs struggled to keep up with his heart, leaving him light-headed. Her finger wagged over her clit once. Stopped. Again. Stopped. She waited, just touching herself with the barest connection. Another line of cream snaked down the inside of one thigh, a trail of want. His dick swelled solid, pulsing tight against the painfully soft cotton.
With a cry, her fingers clamped onto her clit, rubbing it, crushing it into her hood. He looked up at her face, but her head was thrown back again, her neck a study in muscle and hollows, gleaming white, a frozen statue of passion. His gaze jumped everywhere as it had when he’d first seen her. Her shoulder, her ribs, her hip, her nipples, and finally, her sloppily pumping fist. Her thumb drilled into his nipple. He came in utter silence, grinding his teeth, willing her to ask for him. All he needed was one little “please”. He could even work with his name, uttered on a cry.
But she didn’t. She finished herself, her body rocking and shuddering, drawn bow tight. A small throaty moan of delight drifted over their gasping breaths. She sank back down onto her heels, her hand on his chest falling away to her thigh. Her other hand lay like a shining white jewel.
“Shay-non. You carry the Spirit in you when you come. That was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”
She focused on him blearily. Face red, a shine of sweat causing her bangs to stick to her forehead. Her face was not closed, as it had been before, nor was it happy and welcoming. She seemed a bit dazed still. She tipped her head in acknowledgment.
“Shay-non, I’m serious. I am so honored to serve this contract with you. You were more glorious than the oak.”
At once, he saw it was a tactical mistake. An emotional veil fell and her eyes took on her cold goddess look, her pursed mouth kept from primness by the puffiness of her overheated lips. Mentally, he kicked himself. It was true, but it was a truth so outrageous he sounded like a fawning supplicant. His gaze caught on that pebble-sized dollop of her cream. He was reaching for it before he calculated the repercussions. It was on his finger and his brain was screaming at him but he couldn’t have stopped that finger from going into his mouth if she’d lit him on fire.
The taste burst on his tongue. He closed his eyes, rocked as he swallowed the juices her body had made. Dry and bitter, tangy and natural. He savored the taste, rolling it in his mouth. On his third swallow, he opened his eyes. Her face was still serious, but he saw surprise there too.
“Will you let me help you down?”
She looked down at her hands on her thighs. “I can’t feel my legs.”
“That wasn’t an answer.”
She sighed in a resigned sort of way that really irritated him. “Yes.”
He reached up, stepping into her, turning his head to the side to respect her breasts, sliding one arm up around her torso. Bracing his other hand on her hip, he lifted her and pulled her forward, catching her close as he took her weight. Her arms came around his shoulders. She moaned when her legs dragged off the altar. She moaned again when they extended to hang down along his. Her arms gripped his neck tight when he bent slightly to set her on her feet. He didn’t let go, and she didn’t either, both of them aware when her knees failed to hold her.
He scooped her up sideways, hefting her once, and set her on the synthsilk velvet lounge chair. He had to kneel to do it and he
r weight pulled him forward a bit onto her as he laid her down. When he went to pull his arms out from under her, she moaned longer, lower, and her hands dug into his shoulders. Surprised, he glanced at her face. It was scrunched in agony. She spasmed under him, writhing, her groan rising to a guttural wail.
Alarmed, he demanded, “Shay-non. What is it?”
She only pulled him closer, making him fall across her. Getting his balance, he set a hip on the edge of the chair so that he could stretch out next to her. Carefully, he gathered her up, his hands spread wide on her back and hip. She pressed fully against him, undulating. Spirit, she was burning hot. She smelled so good. Her body was strong and smooth, utterly hairless. “Shay-non?”
Her hands left his shoulders to attack his chest. She grabbed fistfuls of the cotton and dragged it over her breast with one hand, while the other smoothed around in a circle on his belly button. That’s when he knew. The cotton. He was precariously perched on the edge of the lounge so he let himself roll off and onto the rug. She followed him down, landing hard.
She was pulling so hard on his shirt, he feared she would rip it. He tried to angle up so that he could pull it off. It took two tries before he drew the back over his head, but she wouldn’t back away enough for him to get it down his arms. The material bunched between them. She was straddling his hips, pressing the sopping fabric against his groin. It was uncomfortably sticky and cool, but already he could feel the heat of her pressing down on him. He cursed his lack of control in the kitchen. He’d be longer recovering since he’d come twice, and so recently. She needed him now.
He felt like he held living flame in his arms. She never stopped moving, her hips churning on his, her thighs grappling, her hands stroking herself and him with the cotton. Every once in a while, her palm would slap down onto his skin, a shocking, searing imprint of chi sizzling his core, then she’d be off. She was leaning over him, her hair swinging like fire around her head. Her breath was desperate, panting, mewing, groaning.