Claimed Possession (The Machinery of Desire Book 2) Page 24

  Beyond, framed by the wide opening, water rattled down to floor, to pool, and onto the abandoned knife – plinking, pouring, gushing, as the storm strengthened. Light turned gray and cool. Dappling sunlight became a sift of dark.

  Suited his mood.

  He wanted to hurt something, and she was all he had before him.

  What had she been doing up here? JI was bigger, badder, a military bot. She was a girl with a knife.

  He kicked shut both sides of the doorway, slamming them, just in case the pool harbored strange denizens. Surely not, but he didn’t want to be interrupted.

  “Don’t want me running in there?” she said, the rasp in her voice betraying her nervousness.

  He just smiled. They both knew this was past that. “I have questions.”

  “Oh?” Ari gulped and her palms flattened to the wall either side of her. Playing the victim? He liked that. “Good ones?” she asked, huskily.

  “Both of us are wet. I need you naked.”

  “So I don’t get ill?”

  “Something like that.”

  He grabbed the neck of her shirt, and pulled her out a foot from the wall. The mulberry coat, her shirt, her pants, all of her was dripping, same as him. He left his hand tangled in the twist of her shirt, while he assessed how the wet fabric bunched up and clung to her breasts.

  He was angry and needed to understand why. Anger made him hungry.

  He could just take her, like he had before. Today was different.

  He still had a hard-on yet his fingers rested on her cleavage, touching her.

  She wasn’t, technically, his slave. She wasn’t saying yes, and she hadn’t said no.

  All that past wrestling with his conscience.

  All her complicity in her apparent denial of her desires.

  Her wants were written on her face, her body, what she did.

  Yet she denied them.

  “What do you want, Ari?”

  Her eyes flicked upward. She’d been staring at his arm, fixated on how he held her. The bulk of his biceps contrasted with her delicacy. He could flatten her despite her fitness and lithe muscularity.

  “You just saved me from drowning.” Violence in his voice. He needed to simmer down. He released her collar, let her slump into the wall. Instead, he planted his hands above her, caging her, though she could escape.

  He knew she wouldn’t. They both did.

  “I need you to talk. I’ve done things to you just because I could and I wanted to. Here’s your chance. You want me? You don’t? You want to be fucked, or you don’t.”

  She shook her head. “This is a little too abrupt. I need...”

  God, what drivel.

  “Space?” He cocked his head. “Or a different man? I’m from Earth, and there, we don’t do what I did to you. It’s fucking with my head. I can be your master. I want to be. It’s my default with you, but if you want to go on, I need words. From you. Words about us, sex, what you need. Think you can do that?”

  The blush spreading across her face was cute.

  Calm spread. This was grounding him. Hadn’t known himself he needed this in the clear, but fuck it all, he did.

  Ari cleared her throat. “Still abrupt. I’ve never talked about ummm sex like this.” She frowned to the side, sort of shook her head. “Here is...messy.”

  “I don’t care if the bloody apocalypse is outside the door. You’ve never talked sex with a man?” He smiled. Yeah, this was right. He could do this. Go slow. Get his head straight. He leaned in and brushed his mouth across her damp forehead, kissed her and nipped her ear lobe, tasting her like the delicacy she was...then he let his words rumble out. “Let’s try this way. I’ll feed you the script. You say, yes, Sir for me. You answer my questions, but if you deviate, I’m done.”

  Lines marked her forehead. “Done?” she murmured – her lips so close he almost kissed her there too.

  He cradled her chin in his hand. Softness before the storm. “If you say, yes, Sir you accept my words. Done means I walk away. I’m past doing stuff that only scrapes the surface. You open up to me or I walk.”

  Negotiation of a kind.

  And if she really didn’t want him, this would show the cracks. He’d turned things upside down on her.

  If she stayed...

  His heart beat a little easier, if a little crazier. This was a crossroads.

  She stayed under him, waiting, eyes big, all of her wet and shivering. Maybe not from cold, he hoped. The air was pregnant with promise – dark promise.

  The storm boomed as if to underline that promise.

  “I won’t beat you with anything, even though you’d like that, won’t hurt you much at all. I won’t tie you up, but you will answer me. I also will never guarantee to be one hundred percent kind.” That last part was for him – it made his throat tighten. He needed it. “Total fucking kindness is not me.”

  She blinked up at him, swallowed then nodded.

  Fuck. Highlight and underline the promise.

  “You also keep that damn power of yours in check, and we both know now that you can, finally, do that if you want to. Yes?”

  Though she trembled, she said it. “Yes, Sir.”

  “Then let’s begin.”

  Whatever she wore for a bra under that wet shirt wasn’t working too well, because her nipples were sticking up so hard and high he could’ve ID’d them in a parade.

  He pushed away from the wall, took a step back, then another.

  For the first time, he knew he had her. Nothing imagined about this. She’d as much as placed her head under his boot by agreeing to his terms.

  Today, he’d treat her with kid gloves...ones with hidden spikes, but the spikes would be kept for another day – a day when she knew she belonged to him with the same certainty as he knew she did.

  “First answer me this. Name the first time you enjoyed what I did to you.”

  “Oh.” She looked aside, and he swore her blush deepened.

  “Remember the terms of this.”

  “Can I ask one question before we start, Sawyer?”

  He nodded.

  “Won’t they miss us?”

  They. A good point. He sent a quick mental message to JI that they were okay but occupied, and received an equally terse reply.

  “I’ve told JI to tell them we’re okay. Now answer.”

  “The first time?” Her cheek dimpled, her gaze dipped. “It was the first time you did...anything.”

  “I thought so,” he said softly. Oh yes. “Take off your pants, your boots, your coat.”

  Watching her do so after whispering, yes Sir, was another milestone.

  “Unbutton your shirt but leave it on. Take off anything you have over your breasts.”

  Another, “Yes, Sir.” She obeyed impeccably, standing there afterward against the wall as if she waited in the spotlight for a firing squad.

  His cock was at full attention, and he might have blue balls before this was done, but he’d do this all day just to watch her obey.

  Ari, mostly naked except for that opened shirt with her nipples playing peekaboo at the edge, and those white panties he’d not been aware of until now – both pieces of clothing wet and sticking to her flesh.

  “Pull your panties down just enough to show that cunt to me and then slide your fingers inside.”

  She obeyed that too. Slowly, reluctantly, but she managed.

  Her waiting there, slightly hunched over, with her fingers vanishing inside... “Push them in and out and say where they are.”

  There came that blush again. He’d pay to see that.

  “They’re in me, Sir.”

  “Where?” He smiled. “You know the word. If you don’t know it, maybe I should get you to walk back down to show everyone how many fingers you can fit up there?”

  Chapter 37

  Damn, what a threat. Bad man. It made her shiver; it made her want to smile.

  “Cunt,” she said, barely loud enough for anyone to hear. He’d discovered
the easy path – to tell her to obey his words, to say his words.

  Standing with the first half of her fingers squashed inside the soft cave of her cunt while he watched intently. Gods, she was dying for this. Wanted him there.

  And not.

  Couldn’t say either of those.

  The small uncertainties rattled her. Wants and lust warred with awareness of self. This whoring of her body versus her own...vague future. To set out, trek away from the swathe. It wasn’t a good, survivable option.

  This though...it was more than an option. It was need. It was obliteration. It was a consuming path. If she stepped upon it she feared she’d vanish, never to emerge as who she truly was, again.

  Oblivion frightened her.

  Her pussy walls clamped in and her entrance throbbed with sensations, all made worse by his eyes on her. She held her breath to stop herself moaning.

  Stupid. He was just a man.

  “What are you thinking?” he said as he came closer, and she didn’t move. She stayed there, hunched over, defiling herself.

  Her thoughts?

  She shook her head, overcome by shyness, stupidity. She’d had a choice, and she did this?

  Sawyer, this leviathan of a man, moved with sinuous steps. His scent occupied her animal brain, and soon, she could not make thoughts move.

  Breath silenced. The fall of water, the roar of rain, poured a background for her slaughter. His nearness threatened.

  He put his hand on the back of hers, where it lay crammed between her legs. The heel of her hand pushed at her mound. Then he shoved her hand, upward.

  “Uh!” Her gasp and the slam of her eyelids at that severe and sudden occupation of her cunt shunted quakes through her body. “This is wrong.” The words tore from her. Be herself or be his.

  “Is it? But I’m making you. It’s my decision.”

  She’d believe almost anything when he said it like this, with his male scent and his body occupying her space, sucking away her soul to cradle it within him. He made her his talisman for fucking.

  “Remove your fingers from your cunt.”

  When she did, appalled at how sticky they were, he pulled her hand to his mouth and nearly swallowed her fingers whole, sucking on each as if they were a treat. A thrill tumbled, languid fire to her clit. She swayed, watching him.

  He released her hand. “Take off your underwear.”

  “Yes, Sir,” she whispered. Obeying came easier with repetition. She slipped them down, feeling in a bubble of time, cocooned by the storm.

  Now was not the time for protests, not when she could see the length of him riding up against the inside of his pants.

  “Turn around and put your hands on the wall.”

  She turned and did so.

  Sawyer crowded her, wrapped his arm across her throat, the firm muscle nudging at her jaw. Though not strangling, his arm kept her in place. With a finger, he nudged apart her pussy lips, teasing her entrance, sliding, slipping, finding her clit. Mechanically, remorselessly, he pulled her toward orgasm. Biting her neck with just enough force to sweep her away, using those fingers, making her forget she was anything except his.

  The shudders of her breath, the shaking of her thighs, her involuntary thrusts into his fingers, and her groans, escalated, until she was so...

  Very close.

  He halted.

  He moved his hand and wormed his thumb into her asshole and two fingers into her pulsating cunt...her cunt that wanted something bigger from him. Then he fucked her slowly.

  The wetness down there was no longer water.

  Panting, she rested her forehead on the wall, arching, letting him do as he willed.

  “You almost came, did you?”

  She grunted a yes, wanting to go back there – to where pleasure could avalanche over her, shake her, spit her out, limp.

  “Good.” He stilled his fingers and thumb. “Do you want more?”

  She inhaled. “Yes.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Say, please.”

  This was...hard. It was begging.

  “I...want your cock, Sir.”

  “Good. And the truth is what I want from you, always.”

  She heard his pants slide down his legs then the softer head of his cock probed at her asshole. He pushed in just far enough to make her feel the pain as the circle of muscle stretched.

  “Fuck.” She grunted. “Not there. Please.”

  He only chuckled, and bit a new place on her neck. More of his cock pushed in, inexorable, remorseless, he opened her, and she could do nothing but accept. His cock seemed impossibly stiff and far too damn big.

  “Wait, wait, wait.” Desperate, she splayed fingers on the wall, breathed in gasps.

  His arm about her neck didn’t budge.

  “You’ve done this. Push out.” With his hand on the front of her thigh, he stopped his relentless invasion, to instead fuck her by infinitesimal fractions, grunting in pleasure.

  Whimpering, she made herself relax. She submitted and let the sensations roll in – swelling, rippling outward, the building pleasure reminding her of that so-recent almost orgasm. The one he’d deprived her of, on purpose.

  “Good girl.”

  Her forehead was pressed to the wall as he again pushed what felt like a metal dick into her. God, too, fucking hard.

  She tried to wriggle away, and he found her clit, stirred her there, massaging in tiny circles in that mind-obliterating right place.

  When she was moaning and begging in muttered curses, he took his hand from her clit and fucked her in earnest, making satisfied noises, enjoying her.

  Not enough for her, not enough to come. She wormed her hand downward, but he growled and trapped it, shoved himself in again, and out, three more times. He came, grunting his satisfaction, taking a piece of her shoulder between his teeth.

  Ari felt the hot swell of him inside her ass. She squirmed, begging for more of what she could no longer have.

  His teeth released from her neck, and she slumped on shaking legs as he withdrew.

  After a millennium, he spoke.

  “That’s all you get, today. You’ll come to me daily. You’ll do as I say. Sit in my lap and talk. Maybe I’ll molest you, spank you, finger-fuck you, bite you. Maybe not. But we’ll talk. When all this is done, when Osta has finished his little war, and hopefully we will both survive, you will tell me what you want. If you want me to be your master or not.”

  Her master. Two words that daunted her still.

  Sawyer hadn’t let her orgasm. Somehow being taken, fucked, was enough for her this day. The hunger she still felt reminded her of him being inside her.

  She was replaying, etching this into her memories to keep, when he removed his hands from her body, and she heard him step back. Ari turned, her shoulders to the cold wall. The storm cracked out thunder. Her breathing slowed; her body recovered. She could shut her mouth, gulp, and listen, even if she still craved.

  “Remember. You’re not allowed to climax without me, and I’m not going to do it to you either. Climax without me and I’m done with you. We can wash in the waterfall in the next room then dress again. We’ll go down and get some dry clothes for you, from someone. You can have a dry shirt of mine.”

  All so perfunctory, so precise.

  “How would...” She frowned. “You know if I come without you?”

  “Why would you? I want a woman who wants this. Who wants to be truthful.”

  “Okay.”

  She didn’t, quite.

  Following the logic behind that led her places she found curious and made her glimpse the attraction of belonging to him. If she wanted to be with him, he expected obedience, and for her to be honest. If she wanted it, she’d obey. And so if she didn’t want this, and she lied, he didn’t care, because she wasn’t his.

  They showered in the falling water. It felt cold on her hot skin. They dressed. The wet clothes clung to her as she pulled them on, buttoned. Her boots sque
lched.

  Then he rummaged in his pack and brought something to her. Black leather and a chain dangled in his hand.

  “Open your hand, girl.”

  “Yes, Sir.” He placed a collar and attached leash in her hand.

  “You know what I want from you now. All you have to do is decide if you want it also.”

  “Oh.” She stared at the collar. Yes, she knew.

  How was it that he gave her the opportunity to choose? Already she felt lonely.

  “And if I say no?”

  “Then it’s Osta, or...I help you get free of him.”

  This shook her more than anything he’d yet done.

  His words: We choose whether to be together or apart... We choose how alone we want to be.

  She’d always chosen to be alone before.

  Chapter 38

  The jaggs had eaten the rest of the mech spider-wolf, but JI had saved the head and he could feel the brain in there still thinking. He loosened a brain strand that he’d used in his own dying mechling and fed it through the ear hole of this creature and onto the surface of its brain.

  The damage this thing had done to his poor adopted mechling meant his own death would be sooner than predicted.

  Yet, he might learn from this.

  He sat in a deserted corridor that was a great distance from either the main party or Ari and Sawyer, because he too wanted to be undisturbed, just like the people who were having sex.

  This was far more important than having sex.

  The only way the brain inside this decapitated head could be alive without a blood supply was if the crazy mechling had merged its brain into the animal. JI deduced it had also merged with other mechlings and other animals, and must have done this several times since this swathe had died.

  He held a form of immortality in his hands, in this furred and bloody skull. He stared into the dull eyes.

  Alas poor Yorick I knew him well.

  He also held a way to get a cock, but, really, did he want to be an animal and go mad? No.

  Would he rather die?

  Not really.

  He hoped to learn something to prolong his life without going the desperate route this creature had taken. It wouldn’t hurt to possess this knowledge.

  This creature would still expire soon. Its blood had drained away. Whatever power cells it had kept beneath its metal casing were ancient and would not last long. Plus, he planned to kill it.