Authors: Emma Holly
“Do you want a ride?” he repeated. “It’s been brought to my attention that I’ve been avoiding my dearest friend.”
Being called his dearest friend was new, but rather than question the compliment, Beth shook her head to clear her thoughts.
“Yes,” she said. “A ride would be lovely.”
The route to the city took them through a series of wadis: ancient river courses whose water had dried up. The sheer rock walls towered above them like the ramparts of an old castle. Beth knew Charles meant the trip to be a friendly gesture, but for the first few miles he didn’t have a word to say.
His secrets are too big,
she thought.
He doesn’t know how to be a friend with all that locked inside.
Between her strange experience in Queen Tou’s chamber and following Charles to The Prince’s Flame, Beth was beginning to know how he felt. Worst of all, the rumbling of the motorcar over the stony roadbed was almost more than the throbbing flesh between her legs could take.
She braced against the dash, trying not to be hypnotized by how smoothly Charles’s hands worked the wheel. The side of his leg was a line of heat a finger’s breadth away on the leather seat. What salary Charles hadn’t spent on his natty clothes, he’d used to buy this boxy Model P. His “baby,” as he called it, barely fit two passengers within its claustrophobic black confines.
Beth was used to ignoring the attraction he stirred in her when they rode in it, which they’d done many times. Tonight, though, her dream of Queen Tou’s harem clung a bit too close. Every time Charles shifted his foot on the pedals, all Beth could think was how she longed to be riding his muscled thigh. She had memories of men’s flesh now, even if they were fantasies. It would have felt so good to swing across his lap, to undo the fastening of his trousers, to ease out his thick, hard length, and—
“Are you wearing a new perfume?” he asked out of the blue.
They were turning onto the dusty paved road that would carry them to and through Bhamjran’s Great North Gate. The gate was part of the old Silk Road, where camel caravans had pulled over to be taxed. The smoothing out of the ride was welcome, but the idea that Charles could smell her undercut her relief.
“I’m not wearing perfume,” she said.
“It must be your shampoo then. It smells nice. Like lemons and cinnamon.”
Smelling of lemons and cinnamon was preferable to reeking of sexual need, but Beth remained confused. The only shampoo Herrington stocked at the
haveli
was scented with lavender. Then again, now might not be the best time to say so—or to mention that Pahndir smelled like lemons and spice to her.
Unbidden, one of Tou’s memories (assuming the vivid dreams she’d been having could be true) slipped into her mind. The queen was watching the sun sink into the desert while comparing herself to a cat in heat, one that drew all the toms to her door. But that was crazy, because humans didn’t go into heat, and even if they did, it wouldn’t smell like fruit compote.
Of course, if it were possible, it might feel similar to what Beth was living through.
“It must be the shampoo,” she agreed hastily.
Charles seemed not to hear her uneasiness. He looked at her and smiled. “This is nice, the two of us on the road again.”
He reached over to pat her thigh. He’d done this a time or two before, but the touch had never affected her the way it did tonight. The instant his palm made contact, sensation shot through the muscle straight to her sex, hot and sharp and torturously good. She immediately wanted to shove his fingers inside her and writhe on them.
With a need like that stabbing through her, it was impossible not to make a sound.
Charles must have thought the muffled cry was a protest. He pulled his hand back like he’d been burned. “Forgive me, I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s all right, Charles. You have as much right to touch me as any man.”
“In other words, not at all.”
His face was steely with self-judgment, but Beth could hardly argue she was no angel without revealing what she’d done with Pahndir. That would have meant confessing she’d spied on Charles, which was the last thing he’d want to hear.
She squinted at the gate, whose sunset shadow they were passing under. The best course would be to encourage Charles to confide in her himself. She didn’t have much time for that on the remaining drive. The Old Quarter where they lived wasn’t far from here.
“Herrington was worried about you the other night,” she tried casually.
“He needn’t have been. But I expect I’ll be staying closer to the mansion from now on.”
“You didn’t enjoy your walk?”
That was too leading. Charles shot her a look to say he knew what she was fishing for.
“Very well. I admit it: I’m prying into your personal affairs.”
“Beth, when will you accept that there are things about me you simply don’t need to know?”
“But I don’t think it’s healthy to keep secrets bottled up. And you might be surprised at what I’d understand.”
“Beth.”
Shaking his head, Charles turned the car into the
haveli
’s underground garage. It was a clever space whose rolling doors had been adapted to let Charles in with a button’s push. Inside, where the Bhamjrishi were disinclined to leave any surface plain, the walls glittered with mosaics of river scenes: hippos wallowing in the shallows, palms swaying by the banks. Six autos could have parked here, but for the moment Charles’s was the only one. He pulled his pride and joy into a slot decorated by the image of a bargeman poling with the current.
An unexpected shiver gripped Beth’s nape. The bargeman wore the same knee-length white kilt as the harem men in her dream.
Lost in his own concerns, Charles turned off the humming engine and scrubbed at his face. Seeing him like that, so weary and bitter, Beth knew she wasn’t going to be able to let their conversation drop.
“I’m aware that your life was difficult when you were young,” she said. “That you saw things, maybe did things—”
“I was a whore,” he interrupted sharply. “I sold myself to men at a top hat club.”
He’d stolen her breath. A top hat club was a brothel for high-born males. Beth hadn’t known that was how he’d survived, not in so many words.
“I’m sorry,” she said when she could speak.
“Don’t be. It kept me from starving, and now and then, when I had a client who took his time or was especially good-looking, I enjoyed my work.”
For just an instant, an image flashed: Charles passionately kissing another man. Emotion coiled inside her, dark and forbidden and excited. The feeling couldn’t erase her pity, but she also couldn’t deny it was there.
“Are you expecting me to be disgusted?”
“I’m expecting you—” He must have heard the harshness of his tone. He forced his knuckles not to whiten on the wheel and tried again. “I’m expecting you to let sleeping dogs lie.”
“You don’t have to be ashamed of what you did to stay alive. Or that you didn’t hate it all the time. I mean it, Charles. You can share this with me.”
She honestly thought he wouldn’t, not with the way he stared at her, as if no one—least of all she—could forgive his past. Then, for no reason she could understand, he gave in. He turned to her on the leather seat, his knee unavoidably bumping hers.
“One morning I woke up and my mother didn’t,” he said. “She’d finally succeeded in drinking herself to death. She left me with no education beyond how to be a whore, no food, no money, and whatever clothes I had on my back, which—at fifteen and growing—didn’t last me long.”
“What…” Beth cleared her throat. She knew she ought to match his matter-of-fact tone. “What about your father?”
Charles lifted his shoulders and let them fall. “I doubt she knew who he was. Some nameless customer who shot a bit straighter than the rest.
“The top hat club was a step up from what she did. They fed me, dressed me well enough to cater to the toffs. She’d have been proud of me…and then she’d have shaken me down for every coin I had; beaten me, if it took that.”
“Not truly.”
“Yes, truly. I know you think of parents as people who protect their children, but that’s who she was, Beth. That’s how the people we knew lived. She would have thought it was her right as the woman who gave birth to me. It’s funny…”
Beth didn’t seen how any of this could be funny, but he went on, his eyes lost to memories.
“She hated the demons. ‘Stay away from those dirty demons,’ she’d always say. She was old enough to remember a world before they came, to remember how Queen Victoria let the Yama settle their exiles in Avvar’s slums, as payment for the technology they gave her. Most weren’t even criminals that I could tell, just
rohn
who couldn’t bootlick well enough not to be branded troublemakers in their own country. Their emperor sent them to us with gold in their pockets, so they wouldn’t be a drain on our economy. He didn’t realize he’d make them objects of envy. Those demons’ stake was enough to set them up like princes in Harborside. Buy a little business, homes of their own. Every one of those exiles was richer, smarter, healthier, and a hell of a lot stronger than us humans.
“Victoria called us citizens and gave us gruel. Their emperor called them criminals and set them up for life. It’s no wonder we hated them.”
“You don’t hate them now,” Beth ventured. He couldn’t. He worked for Herrington. Liked him. And as far as she could tell, the feeling was mutual.
Charles didn’t answer directly. “One thing my mother never did was sell her energy to them. She might have earned more if she had, maybe moved up from working on the street. I doubt it would have saved her life, but she’d have looked better for her customers. ‘We’re humans,’ she’d say. ‘We don’t sell our souls.’”
Did he think he’d sold his? “Charles, the Yama are only people, different from us but people nonetheless.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” He spat out the words, his face contorted with rage. “Don’t you think I damn well know?”
His anger shoved her back against the car’s tin door, her cheeks hot with a combination of embarrassment and hurt. Seeing it, his eyes closed briefly in remorse.
“I’m sorry.” He brushed her face with his knuckles. “Look what I’ve done to the sweetest girl I know.”
“If I’m the sweetest girl you know, we’re both in trouble.” She took his hand carefully. “Charles, you have to believe me. None of these things matter to—”
“No.” He pulled away from her, opening the driver’s-side door to swing his long legs out.
He was all business outside the motorcar, tugging out the electric cable that charged the engine, shoving it into the socket on the wall. Beth had heard that vehicles with Tesla coils, which sucked ambient energy out of the air, were more reliable, but Charles loved the Model P because it was what he could afford. Probably without knowing it, he stroked the cheap, shining hood.
In that moment, Beth could imagine how he must have looked to his customers when he was fifteen, a young man lovely enough to bring a burn to the eyes. Feeling as if one wrong step would forever ruin their friendship, she stepped cautiously out of the car. She left the bonnet between them, waiting for him to be ready to acknowledge her again. It took a minute, but at last he did.
He raised his eyes to her, the look in them heartbreakingly resigned. “I shouldn’t have done that, shouldn’t have burdened you with talk about my past.”
Yes, you should,
she thought helplessly.
Because I care enough to love you no matter what.
Charles didn’t know if he was irritated or relieved that Beth didn’t follow him from the garage. She let him stomp up the stairs alone, so hard with wanting her that every step was a punishment.
He slammed the door to his room behind him and held his head.
God
. Why did fighting with her arouse him? Why did everything arouse him, including blurting out his past? Something was stripping away his control, robbing him of the restraint he’d always been able to rely on. It had never mattered before that he loved her. He’d been in charge of his own urges.
He peeled off his tunic, the desire to strip and bathe uncontrollable. The front of his trousers was stretched taut over his huge erection, the finely woven cotton damp with sweat and other things. He pushed his hand down the firm, aching hump, biting back a groan at how good it felt. He wasn’t going to remember how he’d masturbated onto Beth’s breasts, wasn’t going to fantasize about doing that and more. Knowing the vow was useless, he curled his fingers over his balls and squeezed. He’d die if he couldn’t come soon, just plain die.
The click of the door latch nearly made him jump out of his skin. He couldn’t turn. His erection was too big to miss. Besides which, he already knew who was sticking her head inside.
“Charles,” Beth said, her voice so low and earnest it made his heart tighten. “Don’t waste your life hating yourself.”
He hissed out a curse she shouldn’t have had to hear.
“Charles—”
“Leave me alone!”
His shout didn’t scare her. Her light kid boots beat a tattoo across the floor. She was running to him instead of away. She hugged him from behind, pressing her face between his shoulder blades. He didn’t think she’d ever touched him when his upper half was bare. Her cheek was warm, her arms stronger than he expected around his ribs. Clearly inspired by her closeness, his erection did its damnedest to lengthen.
Shit,
he thought even as the betrayer inside him said,
Oh, God, yes.
“I’m not going to let you do this,” she said, her breath hot against his skin. “I’m not letting you push me away.”
He should have been able to, but his heart mustn’t have been in the effort, because her embrace seemed unbreakable. Even as he tried to get loose, she circled around to face him, her arms still twined around his waist.
Her chin lifted just a little to meet his eyes. “I’m not letting you think you’re the only person in the world with desires.”
His erection throbbed into the folds her skirts; half an inch of space all that kept her from feeling it. He wanted her to feel it, wanted to rub the bloody thing in her face. His entire body felt ready to catch on fire.
“You don’t know what you’re playing at,” he growled.
“I’m not playing at anything. I’m your friend—your dearest friend, according to you. Stop acting like I’m going to run screaming just because you’re not the same as every other man I’ve known.”
I know how you taste,
he thought.
I put my face between your legs and sucked you to orgasm while you slept.
“Charles!” She shook his shoulders at whatever anger or despair showed in his expression. “I need you to be my friend, too.”
Something in him snapped like a piece of kindling. He wished she could count on him to be her friend. She deserved that and so much more. Instead, he kissed her, wrapping her tight against him to shove his tongue between her startled lips. The penetration was not the quick remonstration he meant to make it. Her mouth was a plump, ripe fruit that instantly enchanted him. He slid his hand up to steady the back of her head, almost moaning at the silken mass of her hair parting for his fingers. This was Beth’s mouth, Beth’s gorgeous, tender lips. He had to taste all of her, had to suck her tongue and nip her…and then he had to gasp for air.
“I’m not your friend,” he snarled, and immediately kissed her again.
A sound broke in her throat. Suddenly, she was kissing him with equal fervor, pushing him backward until his legs hit his four-poster bed.
His heart leapt galvanically.
“Charles,” she moaned. Her hands slid down his spine to close on his rear. She squeezed him there, hard. Her hold was more potent than any fantasy. She was pulling him toward her, forcing the painful swell of his erection into the soft notch of her thighs.
They were both as hot as if a ball of sunlight were burning there.
Charles didn’t know how any man could have withstood her. He didn’t give himself time to think, but ripped her shirtwaist straight down the front, just dug his fingers into the neck and pulled. Finding her bare beneath it, he cupped one breast up and fastened his mouth over her nipple. He was sucking her like he was starving before her buttons finished bouncing on the floor.
If she minded, it didn’t show. She moaned again and writhed against him, her hungry little cries demolishing his sanity. Moaning himself, he switched to her other breast, digging his tongue around the hot, pebbled point. She was perfect: small but lush, her silky flesh just overfilling his palm. When he broke free to pant and look at her, he barely recognized her face.
She was flushed and dazed, her gilded hair fallen from its tie, her full lips swollen from the wildness of their kisses. She looked like she’d already spent the night in his arms.
“I’m going to take you,” he warned, pulling the back of her skirt up in greedy wads. “If you don’t stop me, I’m going to fornicate with you here and now.”
“I can’t stop you,” she panted. “I don’t want to.”
He threw her onto the mattress and climbed over her.
“Charles,” she said, low and shaking. He would have stopped at her tone of shock, but her hands were sliding down his bare torso to caress his groin. She moaned at the size of the bulge she found. “I saw you behind the cook tent. I saw you when you were wet from washing up.”
He couldn’t think clearly enough to figure out what she was confessing to. Her hand was on him, her thumb rubbing up and down the prominent ridge. He yanked her skirts up from the front this time. Her cambric drawers were damp, their lace-edged slit too loose to keep any part of him out. He cupped her curls, his longest finger sliding easily between the warm, slippery folds.
He might have been stroking a lightning bolt. She arched up at him violently. Cloth tore, loud in the evening hush. His cock was spilling into her hands before he realized she’d ripped the front of his trousers, not even bothering with the cord. Her fingers gripped his length and stroked, which made him feel like a brand was punching out of him from the inside.
“Stop me,” he begged, but she only bit her lip and shook her head.
She was tugging him by his penis between her outspread thighs, aiming him toward her core. Maybe it was because it was
her
hand and—God knew—that excited him, but her fingers felt unusually warm and tingly on his shaft. It was extremely hard not to simply allow her to have her way.
“I need this,” she whispered. “You don’t know how much.”
He’d wanted her too long to pull away, even if he knew she was going to be sorry afterward. He was so close to her now, too close. Helpless to resist, he ran his thumbs up her furrow and found her clit drenched in cream. The hood was slick as satin, perfect for working over the little rod. When he did, her body jumped like it had been shocked.
“Do that,” she gasped. “Touch me there when you’re inside of me.”
And then she had him at her entrance, at that little mouth of hot, oiled flesh. It molded to his trembling crest, the tiny kiss an invitation he wasn’t strong enough to ignore.
A raw sound of longing ripped from his throat. All those years of wanting her, of refusing to let himself even hope…The first thrust of his hips was like a convulsion, something his body did against his will. And then his will didn’t matter. Her pussy felt better than any pleasure he’d ever known. No real woman could feel this good. She was so hot she could have burned him, so wet she squelched as he pushed in. He felt her barrier snap and just kept shoving.
He had to claim her or go mad.
“God,” she gasped, her hands fisted in the small of his back. It was good they urged him onward, because his hips were hinging toward her, incapable of retreat. “Oh, God, keep going.”
He cupped her bottom to tilt her to a better angle, then jerked his knee up the mattress to catch her beneath one thigh. This spread and bent her leg perfectly. Despite her virgin state, she took him like a dream, tight and creamy, her need as strong as his. The ease of his entry shocked him. It wasn’t even twenty seconds, and his cock was nearly surrounded. He wrapped one hand around the headboard to increase his leverage.
Beth was beyond any such concern. She had thrown herself into his care with flattering abandon. Her head rolled back and forth on his pillow, eyes shut, lower lip caught between her teeth. Her cheeks were so red they appeared painted.
She was a million men’s sex dream come to life.
“Look at me,” he rasped before he pushed the final distance home.
Her extravagant lashes rose. She focused with an effort, her honey-brown irises so glazed he was mesmerized. He’d never seen a woman look like she wanted sex this much, nor guessed how incredibly arousing the sight could be. The skin of his cock hurt from its tightness. She licked the bruise she’d bitten in her lip. “I’m not hurt, Charles. I’m not afraid.”
As if to prove it, she braced her hands on the headboard under his, the position lifting her sharp-tipped breasts. Her nipples were still shiny from his mouth, and his prick jerked inside her at the graphic sight.
“Do it hard,” she said. “Please don’t wait.”
Her voice was as throaty as a stevedore. It didn’t matter that he’d hate himself when this was over. No force on earth could have stopped him them.
Beth had to swallow back a scream of relief when he let his body do what they both wanted. Though she hadn’t planned for this to happen, she didn’t have a single doubt now that it had.
This was so much better than a dream, no matter how vivid. The slight soreness of his first penetration simply sharpened her pleasure. His hips felt like heaven shoving tight against hers, plunging the length of him inside her, over and over. He was sweating with his labors, gorgeous, mussed in a way she didn’t think she’d seen him before. It felt so fundamentally
right
to have his heat and thickness moving inside her that she couldn’t think of anything better than to be doing this with someone she cared about.
She was born for this, and so was he.
She wrapped him in one leg as he thrust hard and fast, then had to run her hand up his perspiring back. His skin was hot, his back muscles working deliciously. He was doing something wonderful with his hips, a steady, rolling motion she wished she had the experience to match.
Because she didn’t, she touched him instead, dropping both arms from the headboard when she realized that despite his leanness he had the strength and skill to keep them perfectly in place. Free to caress him, she ran her hands over every inch of him she could reach. She loved his hardness, both where it was smooth and where it was rough with hair. The bunching of his upper arm, the one whose elbow he rested on, demanded that she admire it. That led her across his shoulders and down his neck. When she brushed his nipples, goose bumps broke out across his skin.
To her, his shiver was as good as a magic trick.
“Beth,” he gasped. “You’re going to make me come too soon.”
That didn’t seem like it mattered. Her hands were as greedy as the rest of her. But then he changed his position to put more weight on his knees, shafting her higher, longer, shifting his forearm to allow his finger and thumb to neatly squeeze her pleasure bud.
Lord, he really knew what he was doing. Her body
loved
the change, the parts he was focused on drinking in the new friction. She clutched his back, abruptly frantic for more. Pressure gathered between her legs, an ache as sweet as hunger before a feast. His hips began rolling faster, broken cries catching in his throat. The headboard squealed with how tightly his left hand was gripping it.
Something was happening to him, something big. His eyes squeezed shut, and the tendons in his neck corded. Instinct told her he was grinding his teeth against the closeness of his orgasm.
The sight of him straining to hold off for her made everything he did feel a thousand times more exciting. It was a repeat of her experience in the
haveli
’s shower, where her nerves seemed to multiply and draw closer to her skin. Each percussion of his cock was both a blessing and a torture. She needed release so badly she could scarcely breathe.
Betraying her inexperience didn’t seem important. She flung her hips at him in desperation, at which he grunted and pounded in harder.
Careful,
whispered some ghost of Tou.
You don’t want to break your plaything.
But Charles wasn’t breaking. He was pistoning into her like a machine, his breath whining from him, his muscles standing out like they were carved from stone. The veins in his arms were popping like a wrestler’s. Stirred beyond bearing, her pussy seemed to ripple over him of its own will.
“Lord,” he gasped, feeling it. “Beth!”
The force he used then was exactly what she needed. She came with a gasp of astonished pleasure, and came and came until he hissed out a curse and yanked his penis awkwardly out of her.
He spurted against her belly half an instant later, long, hot fountain bursts of wetness, grinding his hips so brutally against her body that she feared he would hurt himself.
She came one more time before his hand unclamped stiffly from her clitoris.
“Shit,” he said. He was on both his elbows above her, trembling, his silver-blond hair stuck to his forehead in wet, dark spikes. His fingers feathered the sides of her breasts, as if he had to touch her somehow. He shook his head disbelievingly. “Hell.”
Beth touched his cheekbone in concern. “Are you all right?”
“Am
I
all right?” His laugh was rough. “I almost came inside you. I almost forgot to take any care of you at all.”