You are the master!

(PG Excerpt)

From now on, nothing private between us. That Duncan was tongue deep in Ylianor’s throat was an unavoidable yet unfortunate incident.

He could blame his lack of resistance all he liked. The truth was that, after he had succeeded in reclaiming her from Jeff’s possessive grasp, he had been overwhelmed by the need to devour her. Since sex was not an option, he had gone for the next best thing—her sweet, yielding mouth.

An unconventional move for sure, not to mention that he was probably breaking all of Cecilia’s rules on masters and slaves.

We’re going to play here in the open, where I can see you with my own eyes. Having managed, not without a great effort, to break off the lustful kiss, he reached his assigned place. I won’t touch you again, even if it kills me. Setting her down on the low table, he straightened to enforce his decision.

No matter how much you want me? Maddeningly bewitching, she taunted maliciously.

No. He grinned seductively. No matter how much you want me. No way would he fall for her coyness, not since the ferocious pounding in her cunt gave her away all too easily. Which isn’t going to make me change my mind. Studying her face, he caught her disappointment, however quick she was to suppress it. There’ll be no coming for you, not unless I say so. He made it sound final, without any grounds for an appeal. ‘Cause you’ll be nothing more than a mere object, a worthless toy people will use for their pleasure alone. Simply envisioning it, made his cock twitch. And you’ll have to service them all. ‘Cause I’m going to push you so far beyond your limits. You’ll never be the same again.

What if it sounded extreme?

He meant every word of it.

He would turn her into a real slut whatever the cost like he had vowed to Chris.

I won’t stop until you yield to sex for the sake of sex alone. He curled his lips in a snarl. Until they fuck you so hard, you’ll have to beg me to make them stop.

I’m no beggar. She threw back her head in defiance. No quitter, either. Her smoky green eyes glittered. Test me all you must. I won’t fail you, Prince.

It’s Master to you. Impressed in spite of himself, he leaned forward, carefully avoiding the slightest physical contact between their bodies. And I wouldn’t be so optimistic if I were you.

“Excuse me.” Cloaked like a master, a tall, dark-haired, beefy man bowed in his direction. “I’m Koren, and I want that slave of yours.” For good measure, he pointed at Ylianor. “Now!”

Do you love me because I am a man?

(PG Excerpt)

“I’m sorry, Ylianor.” Scrambling to his feet, Chris began untying her. “I didn’t mean to be so angry with you.” Ankles and elbows now free, he massaged the wrinkled flesh while flooding her with healing Virt. “Too much is happening too fast. Like that thing at the Nephis Valley, which I’m not sure was a spell at all.” He tightened his grip on her. “Not since I craved you like crazy and burned for your every touch.” Gently cradling her against his chest, he sat on the floor and stretched her out on his legs. “That’s why I cannot think it was only a spell. I wanted you with all my body, mind and energy. And it wasn’t the first time, either.” He pushed out a heavy breath, for this was the tricky part. “I thought I’d hate to be with a woman for so long, but I like you more than I care to admit even to myself. The worst thing is I keep thinking I might also miss you when our task is over.” Averting his gaze from her, he fixed it on his phase mate. “To think I prided myself on hating her gender.” His attention was all back on her as he raked his fingers through her long thick hair. “Maybe, I need to reconsider some of my beliefs about women—”

“You need to consider people as human beings, not as genders or categories.” Clasping his hand, Duncan squeezed it forcefully. “‘Cause people aren’t just men or women. They are individuals first and foremost, like I already told you. That’s why I don’t find it strange you should like the princess.” Still holding on to his hand, he ran it down her back. “For she isn’t just another woman. She’s the one person who is open-minded enough to accept us as we are, including our love and passionate sex.”

“If I admit I like women…” He shifted uncomfortably. “Where would that leave you, lover?” The thought was so unbearable he had to swallow hard simply to keep talking. “Would I still love you?” Anguished, he could not even bear to look at the prince.

“I’d rather you asked yourself those questions than love me because I’m a man.” Duncan cupped his face. “Did you choose me because I was in the right category?” Narrowing a penetrating gaze on him, the prince focused on his face. “I’d give up this love in a heartbeat if this were the case.” An anguished flicker crossed the velvety black eyes. “I dare hope I mean much more than just my sex, and that you chose me, not drifted my way ‘cause I was of the right gender for you.”

“Like you chose me that night at Arthur’s party?” That had been their new beginning. Their reconnection after the very shattering two-year separation Duncan had enforced between them at the end of their phase.

And he still wondered how he had managed to survive them.

“Exactly.” His lover bent forward, his forehead practically touching his. “I didn’t do it for sex. I wanted you back ‘cause you are the most important person in my life. Lover, brother, best friend, phase mate and more. You are my everything.”

The tender kiss that followed took his breath away. Not because the avid tongue plunged to his throat. Because the voraciousness of his claim threw him off balance, crushing her between their two bodies.

“I love you, Angel.” Drawing back, Duncan seemed out of breath, too. “For so many different reasons, I couldn’t possibly list them all.” Not breaking their proximity, he settled her so that he could stroke her more comfortably. “If I look back, I can’t believe how much we’ve grown together, which is nothing if compared to what I glimpse ahead of us.” A wide grin split his beautiful face. “Together, you and I can only get better and reach heights other people only dream about, some of which are happening right now. But the only way we can keep growing is by questioning our convictions every day, testing them against the persons we were yesterday. For if we take them for granted, how can we be sure we still believe in them?”

I love you, Angel!

(PG Excerpt)

“You need to consider people as human beings, not as genders or categories.” Clasping his hand, Duncan squeezed it forcefully. “‘Cause people aren’t just men or women. They are individuals first and foremost, like I already told you. That’s why I don’t find it strange you should like the princess.” Still holding on to his hand, he ran it down her back. “For she isn’t just another woman. She’s the one person who is open-minded enough to accept us as we are, including our love and passionate sex.”

“If I admit I like women…” He shifted uncomfortably. “Where would that leave you, lover?” The thought was so unbearable he had to swallow hard simply to keep talking. “Would I still love you?” Anguished, he could not even bear to look at the prince.

“I’d rather you asked yourself those questions than love me because I’m a man.” Duncan cupped his face. “Did you choose me because I was in the right category?” Narrowing a penetrating gaze on him, the prince focused on his face. “I’d give up this love in a heartbeat if this were the case.” An anguished flicker crossed the velvety black eyes. “I dare hope I mean much more than just my sex, and that you chose me, not drifted my way ‘cause I was of the right gender for you.”

“Like you chose me that night at Arthur’s party?” That had been their new beginning. Their reconnection after the very shattering two-year separation Duncan had enforced between them at the end of their phase.

And he still wondered how he had managed to survive them.

“Exactly.” His lover bent forward, his forehead practically touching his. “I didn’t do it for sex. I wanted you back ‘cause you are the most important person in my life. Lover, brother, best friend, phase mate and more. You are my everything.”

The tender kiss that followed took his breath away. Not because the avid tongue plunged to his throat. Because the voraciousness of his claim threw him off balance, crushing her between their two bodies.

“I love you, Angel.” Drawing back, Duncan seemed out of breath, too. “For so many different reasons, I couldn’t possibly list them all.” Not breaking their proximity, he settled her so that he could stroke her more comfortably. “If I look back, I can’t believe how much we’ve grown together, which is nothing if compared to what I glimpse ahead of us.” A wide grin split his beautiful face. “Together, you and I can only get better and reach heights other people only dream about, some of which are happening right now. But the only way we can keep growing is by questioning our convictions every day, testing them against the persons we were yesterday. For if we take them for granted, how can we be sure we still believe in them?”

Yeah, this made sense, however much he was still reeling from his lover’s most powerful declaration to date.

“I know it isn’t easy to admit we were wrong. It takes a lot of guts, and that’s why I’m so proud of you, Angel.” The full lips crushed his one more time.

His senses began swimming.

“‘Cause you aren’t afraid to take a chance and change if necessary. That’s what I most love about you, for I get too bored to hang around people who stay the same year after year.” The black eyes sank into his. “So, keep growing and changing, my beautiful angel. Then, I’ll recognize the person I chose that night at the Hall.”

“Lover, I…” What was there to say? What was there to do besides attack his mouth and drown in his intoxicating flavor?

For he did not just love the man.

He adored him.

Literally!

He would die for him.

Literally.

The way he felt about the dark-haired prince was unlike anything he had ever felt for anyone in his entire life. What better way to prove it than opening and giving up everything to the man entitled to have it all?

While heat rose rapidly, Duncan flattened him to the carpet. With Ylianor still trapped between them, he shifted her to lie on top of him, her buttocks pressing on the stirring shaft.

Which at once perked up his interest to stone-like consistency.

“Impatient, Angel?””

Why don’t we make it more difficult for her?

(PG Bondage Excerpt)

“Hey, Angel.” Yanking his hair, Duncan snapped his head back. “What do you say we make it more difficult for her?”

“For her?” Seemed to him, he and Duncan were in serious trouble just because she was there. “What do you have in mind?” Resigned to have the fastidious woman torment him also during his favorite activity, he groaned.

“Just a more fitting attire.” A broad grin split the prince’s handsome face before he spun his gaze on her. “Strip,” his tone became colder. “And kneel.”

That she scrambled to obey, he guessed from the frantic movement he caught with the corner of an eye. Not that he bothered to look. He much rather preferred keeping his gaze trained on the black one now locked on his.

“This way, she won’t be able to hide how badly she wants us.” Duncan chuckled.

“If you really want her to suffer, there are more efficient means to do it,” he blurted the words before he had the chance to think.

“Like tying her up?” For someone who had never loved any kind of bondage, the prince seemed to have a surprising ability to be one step ahead of him.

“Exactly.” Well, maybe this might just turn out not so bad, after all.

“Very well.” Letting go of his hair, Duncan reclined on the couch. “Can’t wait to see what your fertile imagination will come up with.”

If this was not a dare, he did not know what was. Straightening, he went to a small chest next to the couch. Opening the lid, he spotted several pieces of ropes and took them all. Then, he whirled around and saw her.

Body slightly trembling, she studied him coldly, almost defiantly. Like she had the night he had carved her to bits, she seemed to be expecting the worst from him, ready to sustain whatever cruelty he would inflict. Goddamn it, he just loved it!

So much, his equipment had a quite visible jerk, something she had no trouble noticing and counting as a measure of victory over him.

Ha! He would just have to show her worse than he had planned, and nothing would work better than the low table beside her.

“Get up there and kneel,” he snapped.

If she obeyed, she was not as prompt as she had been with Duncan, which was just as well. She was giving him one more excuse to be a vicious bastard.

Going around her, he clamped her wrists and tugged them backward. Hard and ruthless, he wrenched both arms until her hands almost touched the floor, and she had to arch her back if she did not want to break it. Absolutely perfect this way, he crossed over her arms, fastening just above the left elbow to the right ankle, the right elbow to the left ankle. Buttressing the bondage, he tied more rope around both ankles and elbows until she could not budge an inch.

“By the gods!” Rising from the couch, Duncan approached her. “I suspected you were good at this but never thought you could be such a master.”

“Had a lot of practice while playing my…games.” Unwilling to dwell on just how many of his victims he had tied down to torture more efficiently, he got up and reached his phase mate.

“Only thing, Angel…” The prince was eating her up with mere glances alone. “I’m not sure you achieved the desired effect.”

He looked.

And he could have kicked himself for having done such a splendid job of it!

I’ll always be the master!

(PG Excerpt)

Satisfied, Chris licked his lips and was about to increase his rhythmical slides when “Gee, lover, the way you’re telling this, you couldn’t get enough of her, either.” No, he really could not understand this.

“Jealous, Angel?” Duncan taunted.

“Of a nobody like her?” Never!

Scornful, he made a show of refusing even to glance at the despised creature as he tried to pull himself together.

“That day has yet to dawn!” He tossed back his head to stare into the amazing black eyes. “But since it never will, let me make it clear that this isn’t about her!” Taking a much-needed breath steadied his voice. “This is about you and the fucking hot game you played with her.”

“It was just a game.” Duncan shrugged as though it had meant nothing to him. “Nothing more.”

“Didn’t seem like you were play-acting much.” Somehow, he could not let it rest. “Not according to all the details I heard and to how fast news traveled.”

“You could’ve stayed and played with us.” The biting tone cut deeper than Chris would have admitted. “Or need I remind you that I wasn’t the one who disappeared the entire night long?”

“Just screw you, lover!” ‘Cause you’re all I wanted last night. “And that goddamn princess of yours!”

“Why didn’t you say it sooner?” With a sudden move, Duncan flattened him to the ground, trapping him under his more massive build. “Instead of depriving me of this fabulous ass of yours?” Despite the pants standing in his way, he managed to stuff three fingers through the narrow ring at the center of the cleft. “Same ass, I’ll claim when I’ll feel like it.” Pressing more weight on him, Duncan leaned to whisper in his ear, “‘Cause whatever game I decide to play, I’ll always be the master.”

Invading army

(PG Excerpt)

“You are.” Duncan was quick to press his fingers on her half-open lips. “But probably, only with a man.”

How can he possibly know what has taken me an eternity to figure out myself?

Ever since the end of her phase, sex had not been the same. It was one thing to do it with her chosen woman, quite another to do it with a man.

They were just too different and too hard for her taste. Plus, that bit about penetration had not excited her all that much.

If her first time with a man had been a disaster, her second had not gone any better. So bad, in fact, she had erased the memory just as quickly as she had washed away the man’s smell and juice.

No, she had not liked men.

At least, she had not back when her phase had just ended and in that horrible way.

Something about those straight, clear-cut lines with the hard bulge in the middle had not impressed her. Designed to hurt the delicate feminine opening—that was how she used to see them. Like an invading army, men attacked, conquered their position, retreated once satisfied and left all their waste behind.

Women had been more of her thing. Warm and curvy, their soft round bodies had aroused her far beyond any man she had known. And what about their wetness?

It was always enough to drown her senses like no stiff male equipment ever could, except for that of the very striking Prince Duncan Caldwell. He alone was changing the way she lived sex, and she still wondered how he was managing to drive out the loneliness of a lifetime in just a few touches.

Love gone wring

(PG Excerpt)

“Hem…” Clearing his throat, Duncan refocused her attention to the here and now. “If you need someone to talk to, feel free to use me.” His penetrating black gaze studied her face intently.

Cecilia had the feeling he had caught all her distress from the bat of her eyes.

“No, really.” How could she trust a stranger with her most intimate secrets? “There’s no need to—”

“Love gone wrong hurts so damn much.” His tone deep and grave told her that he knew exactly what she had gone through. “But it’s nothing compared to the pain of repressing its memory.”

“I…” Pushing out a heavy breath, she forced her voice not to crack. “I love my phase mate.” There, she had managed to say it, though it hardly conveyed the depth of what she had felt.

Truth was—she had embraced this love wholeheartedly, surrendering with total and complete abandonment. In short, she had lost her sanity to it. It had been like shutting her eyes and falling off a high cliff headfirst, rewarded tenfold by an incredible passion that had the taste of the flesh’s revenge over a domineering mind.

“But now, it’s over.” Alas!

Had it been up to her, she and Rowena would have lived happily ever after and never come to the same abrupt end as her childhood games.

“Now, she considers me only as a friend.” It fucking hurt merely acknowledging it. “Nothing more.” Or maybe what got to her this time was the fact she had let go of something no one else knew, not even Rowena.

“There are many other women in the world.” There was a note of real concern in Duncan’s throaty voice.

“But I love her!” Like a stubborn child, she would have stomped her feet had she been standing. “I want her, not just any other woman.”

“If her phase is over while yours isn’t, you don’t have much choice besides accepting it.” He sounded so downright reasonable that her heart sank way below her stomach. “Believe me, friendship is a most generous offer on her part.”

“You don’t think I can try to make her change her mind?”

They’re here!

(PG Excerpt)

“They’re here.” Cecilia approached her bed, where David lay curled on a side.

“I know.” He did not even blink, stretching as he was half rising to sit up straight. “I saw their horses.” A scowl crossed his handsome face.

Her heart sank to her feet.

Not because he had warned they would.

If he had been right about this, he had been right about everything else, too.

“You think they came after the pyramid?” In spite of knowing it already, she provoked him on purpose.

“Of course, I do,” he scoffed as though annoyed with her playing dumb. “I told you they would.”

Oh, yes, he had, and more than once since his return to Blue Oasis. Which had been a couple of days before.

“I told you that Prince Caldwell would come looking for it,” he insisted in repeating a point he had abundantly stressed already.

“How could you have known?” Until that evening, she had only half-believed him.

“As soon as I heard that Lord Fairchild had summoned him and Lord Templeton, I knew it had to do with the missing pyramid.” He sounded so confident that Cecilia wondered why she ever doubted him.

“Why them of all people?”

Let’s pledge!

(PG Excerpt)

“Or maybe, being a council member has nothing to do with it.” Her gaze switched to the pyramid she kept wrapped up in a silk scarf on her dresser. “Maybe, it has to do with this…” How to call it?

Needless to say, she had been more than impressed with his little trick of moving the small pyramid and convincing it to come to her. Precisely how he had managed it, she still had no idea. Nor did he, if given his lack of scientific explanation. It could not be enough simply to want an object to move for it to do so. Or could it?

“Power you have.” She could not suppress a sense of pride from lacing her words. “Even if I returned the pyramid, how could they possibly put it back?”

“Not your problem, Ceci.” His hazel eyes sparkled in impatience. “If that’s what they’ll need to do, I’ll be more than happy to help them put that thing where it belongs.”

“But I still need to learn its secrets.” Damn! Between her council duties, the district’s affairs and organizing her Game, she had had no time to do any serious studying. “Its connection to sex and babies.”

“If you want babies, pledge.” His tone was kind of exasperated since he had already said as much before she had taken the pyramid. “Afterward, you’ll have as many as you wish.”

“Then, let’s pledge.”

Unsolicited sharing

(PG Excerpt)

“Sorry, darling, but Rowena and I had sex with him,” she rushed to contradict him. “I can say for certain he didn’t seem focused on anything except his own pleasure.”

As soon as she had blurted it out, she was sorry she had. This bit about the stable keeper’s daughter was messing with her perceptions, something that had started from the moment she had laid eyes on the strange creature.

“I see.” His pursed lips told her he did not appreciate her sharing.

How to blame him?

She would not have, either had she only been in his shoes.

“That was before he started playing for real.” She tried to make it up to him by leaving the chair and sitting next to him on the bed. “And shattered everybody’s illusions.” Not just mine. She attempted a smile that came out crooked.

“What do you mean

He was so taken by her

(PG Excerpt)

“He was so taken by her that he practically ignored everybody else.” She lifted a shoulder, acting like it meant nothing to her.

Which was a lie pure and simple because, like everyone else, she had not been able to tear off her gaze from him.

“Their game was…” Exciting? Arousing? Heart pounding? Cunt wetting? “Extreme.” Or so it had seemed from the outside. “He pushed her to the hardest possible edge, yet she never got enough. Kept raising the stakes—”

“How could she?” His eyebrows flew upward. “I mean, if slaves can’t talk, how could she—”

“Well, the funny thing is that it seemed like she could.” She knew she was not making much sense. “It was like they talked among them somehow…” If her voice trailed off, it was because she had no rational explanation to offer. “Or something to that effect.” She stared hard into space, replaying some of the hottest scenes between Prince Caldwell and his slave. “I know you must think me crazy.” Her focus spun back on David. “But I wasn’t the only one who noticed this.” Or who was envious of it. “He did everything he could to attract notice.”

“Like what?” Exceedingly curious, David bent in her direction.

“For starters, he had her service half the men in there.” She licked her lips. “Good thing, his guest took care of the other half, or they’d still be at it.” She laughed out loud.

“I presume his guest was Lord Templeton, right?”