Illicit Desire: Outlawed Realm, Book 2 (18 page)

“No. He told me how sorry he was and went into another part of the store to find what I wanted. There, rulers serve you and there are no guards.”

She stared. “How is that possible?”

“Everyone on that plane is free, Arez. Even more so than on E2 where you and I were born.”

She bounced in place. “What kind of fruit did he get you?”

“It’s called a banana. The outside of it is yellow, but once you peel the covering off, the inside is white. It has a soft texture and tastes as sweet as the fruit in the Palace, but it’s three times as large.”

“What does it feel like to have it in your belly?” she asked, resting her palms on his chest. “Tell me what your first bite was like.”

“No.”

Arez stared, then brought back her hands. “No?”

Lukan leaned forward to kiss her. She turned away. He whispered in her ear, “I don’t have to tell you. You can experience it for yourself.”

She muttered, “When we reach Regina’s plane?”

“No. Now.” He pulled his backpack closer, threw back the top flap and dug his hand inside. With a great deal of flourish and a mischievous grin, he pulled out the fruit, presenting it to her.

“Go on, take it,” he said when she did not.

Repeatedly, Arez turned the banana in her hands, exploring its contours, then brought it to her nose.

After she’d sniffed it a few times, Lukan said, “The sweetness is inside the outer cover. There’s no reason to be disappointed.”

“I’m not.” She held the ends of the fruit between her hands. “I’m surprised. I’ve never seen anything so big.”

His shoulders shook with laughter.

“What?” she asked.

He placed his hand on his fly, the bulge beneath the denim. Around her, he was always hard.

The comparison of the banana to his cock wasn’t lost on Arez. In the brownish gloom, he saw her cheeks color.

She waved the fruit in front of him and asked, “Are you certain this will taste as good to me as you always do?”

“It won’t,” he said, forcing himself to sound grave. “But it will begin to fill your belly. Here.” Taking the fruit, he broke the stem and peeled it for her.

With her attention on him, Arez swirled her tongue over the top of the banana much as she had his crown in times past.

She was killing him with temptation. Lukan spoke through his teeth. “Eat.”

Dutifully, Arez eased the banana into her mouth, then out, then in once more, reminding him of how she’d worked his male organ.

He was near to bursting when the fruit’s flavor made Arez forget her teasing. On her first bite, she moaned. During her second and third, she closed her eyes and chewed slowly, pausing only to lick her lips.

Her delight pleased Lukan beyond words. He smiled so hard his cheeks hurt. More than anything, he wanted to pull her into his arms and simply hold her as she ate. However, he had other tasks to do.

“Lukan.” Arez reached for him as he stood. “Where are you going?”

“To drive more bones into the ground. You want to be safe, don’t you?”

“Of course.” She turned to the cave’s entrance, watchful once more. “I’ll help.”

“No.” With his hand on her shoulder, he pushed her back down to the blanket. “Eat your banana.”

Only a fourth of it remained. She offered it to him. “You take the rest.”

“I had all I wanted before I came to the Palace. Now do as I say.”

She arched one brow at his sharp tone. “I will…though just this once.”

“Is that what you think?”

“It’s what I know.” She gave him a luminous smile. “We’re equals now, aren’t we, Lukan? Or are you foolish enough to think you’re my new master?”

With her, he’d always be enslaved. Backing away, he wagged his finger. “You’ll pay for your defiance.”

She popped the last of the banana into her mouth, chewed lazily, swallowed, then ran the tip of her tongue across her upper lip.

A whip couldn’t have brought Lukan to his knees faster. Fighting his lust, he went to the bones.

Behind him, Arez made noises that told Lukan she was rummaging through his backpack, no doubt searching for more bananas. Her sudden silence, then the way she sniffed said she’d found food she’d never seen before—apples, pears, Rice Krispies Treats and packages of what he liked most on Regina’s plane.

Given the way the package crinkled, she was mystified as to how to open it.

“Eat the fruit,” he said over his shoulder. “When I’m finished here, I’ll open the rest of the food for you.”

She continued to tug on either end of a bag of Cheetos. “I need to learn how to do it for myself.”

“Why?”

“So I can serve you…when I want.”

Sounded good to him. “If you don’t stop pulling on that bag, you’re going to tear it, and then everything will fly out.”

That stopped her. She made a face at the package and flung it away. “The things inside it are still alive?”

“No.” He fought another laugh. “Just choose one end and carefully pull the middle of it in opposite directions to separate the packaging.” He gestured to show her what he meant.

Squaring her shoulders, Arez mimicked his movements. Her face lit up as the seal separated, but she didn’t try the snack.

“Go on,” Lukan murmured, knowing how a lifetime of slavery affected a person. How difficult it was to do anything without a command.

Tentatively, she removed one of the Cheetos and licked it.

“You’ll enjoy it more,” he advised, “if you just take a handful and shove it in your mouth.”

She did as he instructed, halting at what he knew were the crunching sounds from her chewing.

“Go on,” he said once more. “No one can hear you. No one will keep food from you ever again.”

In the murky light, her eyes glistened with tears. She chewed and swallowed what was in her mouth, then filled it again and again.

Working quickly, Lukan drove new bones into the area where the subhuman had fallen. He added two more rows to the others before he wiped his hands on his jeans and returned to Arez.

Orange cheese coated her lips.

“What?” she asked at his broad grin.

Lukan sank to his knees. “You’re in need of some cleaning.” He ran his tongue across the seam of her mouth, enjoying the salty flavor of the Cheetos and the silkiness of her lips.

They parted for him immediately, her tongue coaxing his inside.

Unlike her approach to the food, her kiss wasn’t at all tentative. Her passion told Lukan how much she craved his touch and love. How he completed her as she did him. No meal, comfort or freedom could match what he found in her arms.

With her, he was grateful to be alive and prepared to fight to the death.

He hoped it wouldn’t come to that. He refused to think of it now. Deepening the kiss, he crushed her to him, knowing he was holding her too tightly but unable to stop.

Arez didn’t only yield. She returned his desire in kind, suckling his tongue, demanding he fill her mouth as much as possible. As he complied, her hands moved from his shoulders to his back, to his neck and finally to his hair. Driving her fingers through it, she held him to her, insisting that he give his all.

Their kiss went beyond hungry to necessary, as though they both knew what could happen in the coming minutes, hours or days. Surely, Nikoli wouldn’t keep them waiting that long. Hopefully, Vakar and his men wouldn’t find them.

On that thought, Lukan finished their kiss, lifting his chin to the cave’s roof, gulping as much of the musty air as he could, trying to calm himself.

Arez rested her forehead on his shoulder, her own rising and falling with her rough breaths. She swallowed, then asked, “Why did you stop?”

Not willing to tell her about his concern, Lukan grabbed the jar of peanut butter. “I want you to try this.” He wanted her to be full. At the moment, it was all he could provide.

With her mouth on his tee, she blew hard, her warm breath seeping past the garment to his skin.

The pleasant sensation registered in his quickened pulse and stiffened cock.

She murmured, “Do people on Regina’s plane wear these garments all the time?”

It took Lukan a moment to compose himself before he could speak. “When they leave their houses they do.”

“Inside their houses, they remove them? They’re as naked as you and I were in the Palace?”

He nodded.

She worked her hands beneath the bottom of his tee, pulling it up, resting her palms on his belly. Her hands were hot, her voice unbearably soft. “Show me how.”

The jar of peanut butter fell from Lukan’s hand. He cleared his throat. “How to what?”

“You behave when you’re alone in a house. Take this off.” She bunched his tee in one hand as her other sank to his groin. Cupping his balls and cock, she murmured, “This garment too. I want it gone so I can smell, touch and taste your skin.”

And he didn’t want the same? He stared at the rows of bones he’d set up and the vegetation beyond the cave’s entrance. Out there, insects buzzed and animals made furtive noises as they moved through the jungle, but none of them approached this shelter.

The lack of droppings in here told Lukan that no animal considered this area its home. As far as the subhumans were concerned, Meelo said the rulers had once hunted them for sport before Vakar decided to use the slaves instead.

“The subhumans have enough intelligence to recall those days,”
Meelo had explained.
“They stay clear of the Palace. Most will also avoid the caves. There, Vakar and his men found many of their females, killing them.”

He’d advised that a cave was the safest place to keep Arez as long as they protected themselves from the werewolves in the period before dawn.

Hours remained before that time.

“Are you denying me?” she asked.

As if he could. He cupped the back of her head, tilting it so he could claim her mouth once more. Savagely, he kissed her, just as they both wanted, but that didn’t mean he’d give in to their lust so easily. Never had they played as men and women did on Regina’s plane, drawing out the act to intensify their pleasure. They’d always performed as the rulers or guards wanted, at their pace, for their gratification.

No more. Never again.

Tearing his mouth from hers, Lukan said, “I want you to eat.”

Arez ran her thumb down his fly, her fingers over his too sensitive balls.

A shiver of delight ran through him.

She murmured, “I want the same.”

It took a great amount of will, but Lukan managed to suppress a smile. “I’m talking about food.”

She didn’t stop stroking. “I’m full. I don’t need anymore.”

“Perhaps I do.”

A command from Vakar couldn’t have stopped her faster than that one comment. Immediately, Arez released him and eased back. “Of course. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have eaten all of the banana or that other food.”

“I wanted you to have it.”

“That may be, but it’s now time for me to serve you.” She snatched the jar of peanut butter and tried to pry off the top with her thumbs. When that didn’t work, she attempted to pull it off.

Lukan finally stopped her when she grabbed a rock and lifted it to break the container. “It works like this,” he explained, twisting off the cap and dropping it on the blanket.

She sighed. “You didn’t have to do that. I would have gotten it.”

“You would have destroyed it,” he countered.

His amusement didn’t make her smile. He thought of something that might. “Take off your tee.”

“My what?”

In answer, he fingered the garment’s sleeve.

The edges of her mouth began to tilt upward. “I thought you wanted to eat.”

“I do.”

“And you intend to do so while you study my nudity?”

“No. Just do as I say. No more questions.”

“But—”

He stopped her next words with the tip of his finger that he’d slathered in peanut butter. “Taste,” he coaxed, slipping the tip inside her mouth.

As expected, she enjoyed her first taste of the creamy paste as much as he had when Regina offered it to him. Although peanut butter was available on E2—by a different name—Damir and Meelo had never given it to Lukan. Instead, they followed Vakar’s orders to feed him only that which Vakar knew slaves would eat in the Palace. To treat him with the same indifference and authority he’d know there.

Pushing those horrible memories aside, Lukan smiled at Arez. She would have continued to suck his fingertip if he hadn’t brought his hand back.

“What you just ate is called peanut butter,” he explained.

Nodding, she reached for the jar. He held it away.

“Give it to me,” she begged, adding quickly. “Not for me to have more, but so I can feed it to you.”

“You will,” he said. “Take off your clothes first. I want you nude.”

Chapter Ten

There was no reason for Arez to disobey his command. She trusted Lukan completely, knowing he’d never deliberately lead her to harm. However, she wanted to prove to him that she also had power now…that of a female over a male.