Kieran (Tales of the Shareem) (16 page)

He stood up again, looking her over. Perfect. Her position would let him drink her, use the chair to sex her while facing her, or bend her over from behind. His cock pounded, wanting him to do all three, right now.

Instead he picked up the strap, thin and leather, though the leather was softer than what he used for women who liked it hardcore. Kieran knew how to judge what his ladies craved and exactly what they could take. He was never wrong.

He kept himself clothed, though his body itched to shed the tunic and hold Felice’s warmth to his. He’d learned long ago how to ignore his own needs to look after his lady.

Kieran moved behind Felice and put his hand on the back of her neck. “Bend over.”

Felice was shaking, he felt that, but she slowly bent at the waist, the tethers letting her rest her right hand on the table, the left on the chair.

Kieran liked the view. Her pretty ass was round above strong thighs, her hips as strong. He couldn’t resist leaning down and kissing one cheek, smiling to himself when she jumped.

Before she could decide that all Kieran planned to do was play, he stood up and slapped her backside with the strap.

Felice jumped, letting out a squeal. Kieran smacked her ass again, then kept the spanks coming, not waiting for her to settle herself between each one. She jerked and cried out, but she didn’t try to fight or get away.

Kieran had seen Felice in action—he knew damn well that if she wanted to break the tethers and kick the whip out of his hand, she could. Hell, she could pick up the chair and deck him with it.

She didn’t. She stayed folded over, submitting, while Kieran made her backside rosy with the strap.

“Are you going to disobey me again, Felice?” Kieran asked, his voice sliding into smooth Dom tones.

“No. No. I promise.”

She lied. Felice wasn’t made for obedience, didn’t matter how long she’d been kept a slave. Kieran would direct her, Felice would do what she pleased, and Kieran would punish her. That’s how it would happen. The anticipation wound him in tense wires of excitement.

“I don’t believe you,” Kieran said. He whipped her a few more times.

Felice let out a half scream. “I promise,” she said breathlessly.

“Hmm.” Kieran let fly a few more swats, the strap cracking across her tight skin. “You’ll do it again, and we know it. But I’ll always have my straps.”

Felice’s only answer was to squirm. Kieran couldn’t look at that backside, bright from his punishment, and stay away from her any longer.

He dropped the strap on the table and came around in front of her, stripping out of his tunic and loincloth. The false summer breeze danced on his skin, but couldn’t cool his body’s heat.

Felice stayed bent over, like a good sub. Kieran wanted to laugh. Great playacting. He wrapped fingers gently around her collar and pulled her upright, his touch caressing, making sure the collar didn’t bite into her throat. He’d never hurt her.

Kieran tugged her against him, his body relieved to finally be touching hers. Her breasts pressed his chest, the whole of her soft and inviting.

He never kissed his ladies when he started full level three, but Kieran tilted Felice’s head back and opened his mouth across hers in a deep kiss. Her lips were warm, welcoming, everything he needed.

He’d been right about the chair. If he used it to brace his knee, he could lower himself enough to pull Felice right down on top of his cock. He grasped her around the waist, guiding her onto him, and she came to him with no resistance.

“You’re sweet, baby,” he said, loving how her mouth softened and her head went back as he filled her.

Felice looked down at him, a sub gazing at her Dom full in the eyes. She wasn’t supposed to do that. He could blindfold her next time as punishment.

But by all the gods, nothing was better than Felice and her gray-green eyes looking deep into him, touching places Kieran had kept shielded from everyone in his life. That had been the only way to survive.

Felice, with Kieran’s cock deep inside her, was ripping away his barriers, driving out fear and anger, filling him with astonishing gladness. Sex had always been just sex, but with Felice, it was something new, fresh, fragile.

To feel her around him, taking him into her wet heat, made him lose his calculated control. Kieran drove up into her, wrapping her warmth and her noises of pleasure around him like silken bands.

Felice’s eyes began to lose focus, her breath coming faster, her body rocking on his. Kieran grasped her hips, pushing into her, her skin slick, her breath hot on his face. She cried out as the first of her climax washed over her, thrusting her body against his as she arched back, her sounds of pleasure carried away by the breeze.

When Kieran knew he could no longer hold the position, he ripped open her tethers and carried her away from the table, down to the warm, tickling grass. His cock was still rock hard, now wet with her and hot, so hot. In a moment, he was back inside Felice, this time loving her face to face.

Felice smiled and kissed him, the tenderness in her eyes undoing him.

Kieran groaned, then growled as he came, far too soon. She held him, welcoming, as he went on thrusting, kissing her face, hot openmouthed kisses because he wanted to devour her.

Felice smiled at him, so beautiful in nothing but his collar. Kieran gathered her to him, needing nothing more.

*** *** ***

Felice woke a short time later, entangled in Kieran and loving it there. The grass cradled them together, erasing any sting from her backside.

She’d felt a touch of fear when she’d seen his array of tethers, straps, and fine chains, but the fear had vanished when he’d started spanking. It had stung, but not hurt—difficult to explain, even to herself. It had been as though the slaps were releasing things from her, letting out tension with every stroke, until she’d wanted to scream out to the universe that she was free of it.

Just when she’d thought she couldn’t take any more, Kieran had come around her, shed his clothes, and given her all of himself.

Felice touched his face. The giant of a man was sleeping, his dark hair mussed, his mouth slightly mashed where it pressed the ground.

He was the most amazing person she’d ever met.

A harsh chime sounded, more like a klaxon, and Kieran woke with a start.

The trees receded. Felice blinked, then grew dizzy as the clouds, sun, trees, grass, hill—everything—drained away and vanished.

She and Kieran lay on an empty floor in a giant white room. The table and chairs were still there, arrayed before a white metal wall, with a floor-to-ceiling window showing the bedroom suite on the other side. That, at least, was real.

Kieran glared up at the blank white ceiling. “Buzz kill, Baine.”

So sorry to interrupt your procedure
,
came Baine’s voice.
But we have a problem.

“What kind of problem?” Kieran snapped.

I suggest you come upstairs and see. Dr. Laas wants a word.

*** *** ***

Dr. Laas explained as soon as Kieran and Felice were upstairs in her lab. Kieran hated anything to do with labs, but he put up with it whenever he came here. Dr. Laas had tried to soften the room with couches, vibrant wall colors, and another mural that depicted a view of high mountains, but it was still a lab.

Banks of computers beeped softly, and Dr. Laas had instruments and syringes lying about everywhere. Nothing Kieran ever needed to see again.

“What?” he demanded. All Kieran wanted was to be alone with Felice, and everyone kept
interrupting.

Dr. Laas touched a few controls and pointed at the screen. “That.”

“That” was two patrollers lounging in the alley near Kieran’s apartment. Not approaching his door, but sitting around as though prepared to stay until he came back.

Dr. Lass touched another control, and the screen dissolved to the street outside Judith’s bar. More patrollers. One was talking to Aiden, who was smiling at her in an attempt to melt her.

“They’re looking for you,” Dr. Laas said.

Felice stepped to the screen, watching, her eyes round. “For me?”

“I meant Kieran,” Dr. Laas said. “They’re wondering why a Shareem suddenly went off their radar. Rees contacted me. They think he got onto a transport with you and blasted out. If they can’t find him, they’re prepared to round up and punish the other Shareem for it.”

Chapter Thirteen

“Stupid,” Kieran said, but his insides roiled. “How do they know I’m not just holed up with a woman? I
am
holed up with a woman. At least, I was before Baine butted the hell in.”

“I know that, and you know that,” Dr. Laas said. “And Felice and Baine know that, but
they
don’t.” She calmly dissolved the image of Aiden going all level one on the patroller, and the mountains returned. “Rees and the others are covering for you, but that won’t last long.”

“Damn, fuckwad patrollers.” Kieran wanted to throw something at the screen, but all he’d accomplish would be marking the wall and making Baine say something coldly sarcastic. “Why don’t they leave us alone?”

“Because it’s their job to make your life hell,” Dr. Laas said calmly. “If they’re not seen doing it, they get disciplined or something. The price Shareem pay for being allowed to live.”

“We didn’t ask to live in the first place,” Kieran growled. “Dumbass scientists were playing gods, and now we’re stuck with all this shit.”

Dr. Laas flushed, though Kieran hadn’t meant her in particular. He’d meant the other experimenters at DNAmo, who’d looked delighted every time they’d tortured Kieran in the name of genetics and scientific discovery.

“I’ll go home then,” Kieran said. “You take care of Felice. That’s why I brought her here.”

He started for the lift, and found Felice in front of him, her gray-green eyes sparkling with anger. “You can’t go. They’ll arrest you. Question you. Punish you if they don’t like the answers.”

Kieran shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. If they search the city—I mean really search it—they’ll either find this place eventually, or start torturing Shareem until they give me up. Not gonna happen.”

Felice’s eyes softened. Kieran was still thrumming from their wonderful encounter in the meadow, which stupid Baine and the stupid patrollers had to ruin. He’d found completion in Felice, and any threat to that made his blood burn.

Kieran scooped her against him and kissed her, even as she parted her lips for more protests. He’d intending a simple brush of lips, but he lingered, tasting her softness, and at the same time, her strength.

How amazing was it to kiss a woman in tenderness like this? No level three, no expectations, no telling him to turn off and go away once she was satisfied.

Felice only pulled Kieran closer, her warmth caressing him in return. She kissed his cheek and whispered into his ear, “Be careful.”

A new sensation trickled through Kieran. No woman—ever—had looked at him in sweet worry and said,
Be careful.

Kieran touched Felice’s face, savoring the moment. He kissed her forehead, held her for another second or two, then walked to the lift, and left her.

Had to be the hardest thing he’d ever done.

*** *** ***

“You looking for me?” Kieran said to the patroller leaning on the wall outside his front door. Only one now—the gods knew where the other had gone.

He’d moved lightly and quietly up the alley and had come up behind the patroller before she realized he was there.

The woman jumped about a mile and came back down, her hand on her sidearm. She was one of the three who’d been prowling the dockyards the day Kieran had found Felice, the one who’d threatened to hose down the other two for talking about Shareem.

“I
am
looking for you, as a matter of fact,” the patroller said when she found her voice again. “Kieran, right?”

“You know it is.”

She gave him a severe look. “You need to tell me where you’ve been.”

“Where do you think I’ve been? With a woman. Having sex. Lots and lots of sex.”

Kieran tried to move past her, as though only interested in getting inside his apartment to sleep, but she stepped in front of him, blocking his way.

“You need to be more specific.” The patroller pulled out her handheld. “Name of the woman and where she lives. I’ll have to contact her to verify.”

Kieran glared at her. “Shareem don’t give away clients’ names. Part of the service.”

The patroller kept her eyes on her handheld. “Her name, or you go into a cell.”

Damn, stupid, asshole patrollers. Kieran was sick and tired of people fucking up his life.

“Why the hell do you need to know?” Fuck being diplomatic. Rees would shit himself, but Kieran was done with this crap.

The patroller started tapping the screen. “Because you were seen in a restricted area, twice. Because you fought with humans from off-world, which you’d have been arrested for if the witnesses hadn’t all left the planet. We know you did it, but the courts make us provide proof beyond what’s caught on monitors.” She looked at him, her eyes full of frustrated fury. “Which pisses me off, because I
know
you did it. We also suspect you stole an indentured servant, a woman, from TGH Corp.” Her lip curled. “Is she who you were holed up with? Did you steal her to play out one of your twisted fantasies? You Shareem make me sick.”