Authors: Elizabeth Amber

Bastian (29 page)

BOOK: Bastian

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Folding his arms, Bastian half-sat on the desktop, looming over her. “An ass who has my opals.”

“
My
opals,” she countered softly. “And I'll be doing you a kindness in tonight's vote. A little thanks might be nice.”

His eyes wandered over her. “Did you kill him? Not that I would mind. I'm only curious.”

“You're constantly accusing me of mayhem,” she said in irritation. “Ephemerals are not murderers.”

“No, you only drug your lovers, leave them tethered to their beds, and steal their opals.”

She stared into the wine in her glass, seeing her masculine reflection in its glossy surface. He'd said he loved her, but tonight she'd presented him with a sample of the very real difficulties that loving an Ephemeral would entail. If he was going to spurn her, let him do it now. She looked up at him through her lashes and asked quietly, “And in spite of all that, do you still profess to love me, Lord Bastian? Do you love me as I am tonight, hosted by a manâone you despise?” She reached out and ran a gloved fingertip down his shirt buttons, her eyes holding his, as she headed for his groin. Bastian grabbed her hand and knocked it away.

She smiled slightly and cocked her head. “What's wrong? Don't you want to fuck me?”

He glared at her drink, then took it from her and slammed it to the desktop with a sharp movement that told her he was angry. “You're drunk.”

“No. Yes. A little.” Putting a hand to her forehead, she grimaced. “I'm sorry. I told you, the personality of the host lingers in the early days, influencing my own. Don't blame me for everything I do and say here tonight. Some of the blame for any ugly temperâmost of it at this pointâmust go to the minister.”

She felt his interest pique. “Did Michaela influence you all those nights we were together?” he asked.

Slipping away from the chair, she made a slow circuit of the office and felt his hot gaze follow her. She paused at the far side. “At first. But she was there less and less every day we were together, you and I.”

“Which means you were there more and more.” Going to her, he planted his hands on perpendicular walls, boxing her in the corner. He studied her face, her masculine collar and tie. “Gods, how long will you be like this?”

“Male?” She smiled up at him. “I rather enjoy being male in some respects. Men have more privileges in this world. And bodily functions are certainly an easier matter. But this host will last for no more than a day or two. Humans aren't durable.”

She ran her palms up his chest and tried to drive him away with the despicable truth. “I once scavenged ten human bodies in as many days, before settling into that of a fey for the entire month following.”

Bastian straightened away and ran a hand through his hair.

Her hands fell to her sides. “Too horrifying? I warned you I'm difficult to love. Complicated. Run while you can, signor,” she taunted in her soft male voice. “Before you are further embroiled with me.”

He examined her for a long moment. Then without a word, he made for the door.

Silvia's heart thumped painfully in her chest, and she compressed her lips against the need to call him back. But it was as she'd expected. At the first true test of their fragile relationship, he'd quailed.

Snick.

She went to the desk, picked up her wine again, and took a long draught.

“Did you think I'd falter at this temporary hurdle?”

She glanced over her shoulder, startled to find him still inside the room with her. He'd only locked the door to afford them privacy. “It's not an invitation most men would accept.”

Foolish hope rose in her as Bastian came to her and took her glass. Sniffing it, he frowned and set it aside. Then he lifted her to perch on the desktop before him. Nudging her thighs apart, he pushed between them and leaned close with his hands clasped on her upper arms. “I love you, Ephemeral. And I want you. No matter what shape you take, that will always be so.” His mouth bussed her cheek, her temple. “If you're inviting me to hunt my physical pleasures in this body you've chosen, I accept. Gladly. With all my heart.”

And with his every loving, accepting word, Silvia's doubt ebbed and she began to believe. A hesitant joy blossomed in herâsweet, new, and hopefulâand she turned her lips toward his, a flower to his sun. But he drew away, his superior height allowing him to easily keep his own lips out of reach.

She tugged off her gloves and let them fall to the desktop. “Kiss me properly,” she pleaded, touching the side of his throat.

“You drank, so I cannot,” he said, taking her hand and pressing a regretful kiss into its palm instead. “Not on your mouth.”

“You're that sensitive to liquor? Of any kind?” Silvia pushed him back so she could read his eyes. “It's not just because I'm a man that you won't kiss me?”

“I promise you, I'll kiss you anywhere you like, except here.” He pressed a finger to her mouth, then drew her hand to the buttons of his trousers, even as his own hand began unfastening hers.

“Have you made love to a man before?” she asked.

“I won't be making love to a man. I'll be making love to youâ” Yanking off his gloves and tossing them away, he shot her a cross look. “What's your name, damn you?”

“You may call me Minister Tuchi,” she told him archly.

He let out a snort of laughter. “I think I detect something of Rico's humor in you.”

She smiled up at him, then abruptly gasped. Having opened her trousers, his big hands had gone inside to push them lower. She made a move to stop him.

“What's wrong?”

She blushed and reluctantly left him to it. “Nothing. I don't know. A man can't hide what he feels as a woman can.”

“You have something to hide?” Tugging her to stand, he pushed her trousers wider, his tone teasing. “Ah. Yes, I see that you do, Minister.” He wrapped a gentle fist at the root of her cock and gave her length a single, light stroke of his fist. She bit her lip and forgot to breathe. On his return trip, a soft moan escaped her.

The mood went suddenly dark between them, fraught with the anticipation of this new, forbidden act of love.

Hard hands turned her. Their bodies pressed close, his chest at her back. She felt him shove his own trousers to his knees behind her. Then the cleft of her bottom cradled his tall erection.

She licked her lips and whispered, “What if someone comes?”

“We're in your office. Simply order them away.”

He reached over the desktop and took her glass of wine, and she heard him pour some of its contents in his cupped palm, then slick it over his length. “I'll hurt you if I don't use something,” he murmured.

Ever the protector, even in this.

A hand clasped her hip, holding her. She felt the smooth head of him nudge between the cheeks of her rear. Felt the first pressure of his push.

Her breath caught. She turned her head slightly toward him and whispered, “He likes it . . . rough.”

A pause. His hand flexed on her hip. “He? Or you?”

“Tonight we're one in the same. He cannot reach fulfillment through tenderness, which means I cannot while I am joined with him. He likes to be used. Likes it . . .”

“Rough,” Bastian finished for her, his own voice gone gravely.

She nodded and added in a whisper. “With little preamble.”

He adjusted his stance wider and his voice came, hot against her nape. “Then that is how I shall endeavor to serve it.”

She felt the subtle difference in how he held her then. His clasp was harder and more relentless; his body loomed somehow larger over hers, dominating her with the threat of his superior physical strength. He pushed his cock to angle downward between them so its head pushed at her scrotum. Then, he pulled upward, drawing his cockhead up her divide until it was well-seated at her anal opening.

His opposite arm bent over her linen-covered chest. She tasted the wine on his masculine palm as it covered her mouth. Then came a sharp push as his head pierced her. And she screamed into his hand as he took her, his thrust long, smooth, brutal. Tears formed in her eyes, trickling down her cheeks. But he only held her tighter to him with one hand on her mouth and one at her hip. And he fucked her, hard. And rough, with all of his strength, jolting her entire body with every slam of his hips at her bottom. With his every stroke, she whimpered, screamed, throbbed. Her trousers sagged lower, to her calves, then her ankles. And she moved swiftly toward release. Her own length twitched, and unable to help herself, she ran her fingertips over it.

The hand at her hip slid to palm her buttock and he squeezed hard, a sweet hurt. Then it slipped around over her belly and encircled her. Her cock jerked, bobbing upward under his touch. She gasped, never having felt such a sensation, and her hand sprang away. Her thighs quivered and blood coursed hot through her length, heating it.

“Put your hand under mine,” he gritted at her ear, “and help me fuck you.” When she hesitated, he slapped her haunch hard enough to make it sting. “Do it,” he gritted. Her shaking hand joined his.

Together, they milked her prick with voluptuous strokes guided by the hands of men who knew how men liked to be held. The sensation of having him inside her while their hands masturbated her phallus was beyond anything she'd felt before. The sacs below her root drew up into painful fists. Semen was coursing through her cock, like passionate lava. And still the hot male at her back fucked her in long, deep thrusts that burned with sweet fire.

And then he came, deep and hot and wet inside her, and she screamed a final time into his hand. Explosions of white filled her vision like snowbursts. He shoved her knees together with his own, so he felt even bigger inside her as he spent himself. And she arched back against his chest as she spilled into her own hand. Together, they gently masturbated her length, slick now with her own seed. She shivered as cum welled up again and again with each stroke. When it became too much, she fell forward onto the desk, panting.

Eventually, he lowered over her, his chest warm along her spine. His voice was thick and low with suppressed emotion as his lips brushed along her nape. “I miss the fall of your long hair,” he told her. “If you stay a male, will you grow it for me?”

“Umm.” She sighed, replete, lazy. “I won't
stay
anything. That's what you have yet to accept.”

She felt him glance at the clock on the minister's desk. “Damn. Duty calls,” he said. “I'm late for a speech.” With a kiss at her nape and a fond caress on her bottom, he pulled out of her and went to wash himself with a pitcher of water he found in the liquor cabinet and a stock of handkerchiefs bearing the minister's monogram. She cleansed herself in the same way, and they straightened trousers and shirts, refastened buttons, found a comb in the desk and fixed their hair, and replaced their gloves.

“How will I find you again?” he asked as they made their way back to the gala.

“I'll find
you
.” She glanced at him. “I actually came here hoping to discuss the opals, before we . . . got off track. I have five. And wondered if we might work together to locate the sixth.”

“So that you might steal it from me as well?”

She glared at him. “My reasons for wanting the opals are not greedy, I assure you.”

“Stay for the rest of the gala. Then come home with me,” he urged as they neared the crowds in the palazzo. “And we'll discuss the matter. Among other things.”

She shook her head. “I'll stay only long enough for the vote. This body is human. I can't remain in it.” She looked away. She didn't want him to know the details of the ghoulish exercise she would undertake in order to divest herself of her current host.

“Look at me.” When she did, he bent to her and kissed her on the lips, startling her and drawing shocked murmurs from those around them.

She jerked back, pushing at him. He let her go, but his eyes remained steady on hers. “Do as you must, then. And afterward, return to me.”

Emotion welled up in her at his daring in making such a public claim on her while she was male, but she only shook her head and left him.

And behind her, he stood in the midst of the crowd and watched his lover go.

S
cena
A
ntica
VIII

391
A.D.

Roman Forum

“I took another lover,” Michaela whispered one night as Silvia was drifting off to sleep.

Silvia turned her head on the pillow, instantly alarmed. Since the night of the scourging, Michaela hadn't admitted to any further acts against her vows. But she disappeared now and then without explanation, and Silvia had suspected. “Who this time?”

“Theodosius himself.”

“No!” Silvia came up on one elbow. “The emperor?
He's
your new lover?”

“Shhh. Not so loud.” Michaela put a hand over her mouth.

Silvia tugged away. “How?” she whispered. “Where were you that his wife didn't guess?”

“In his stable. I was veiled against the eyes of his servants. But he knew who I was and has asked to see me again.”

“Kayla, no, you'll be found out.”

“I'm not asking for your approval. The only reason I tell you is to warn you of a danger I have discovered. There are rumblings of antagonism against the old gods. Talk of bringing down the temples.”

Silvia stared at her. “That can't be.”

“It's so, I tell you.” She eyed Silvia speculatively. “Do you know what that could mean to us? If the Temple of Vesta is destroyed, we would be free. Free to marry. Have children. Be normal.”

Silvia shook her head. “I made a vow.”

“Under duress, when you were six.”

“But since then, I've dedicated myself to Vesta. I'm bound to her now. And to the other Vestals as well. Kayla, I'm begging you. Don't see the emperor again. He has a jealous wife. She will make sure you are punished. Maybe the rest of us as well.”

“In this time of political upheaval, my connection to him offers safety,” Michaela argued.

“It's too dangerous, I tell you!”

But Michaela only smiled and shrugged. “What is danger to the likes of us? We play with fire every sixth night, after all.”

BOOK: Bastian

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