Flame of the Alpha (5 page)

A second strike hit lower, at the junction where Dante’s buttock met his thigh. This time, a low gasp muffled by Sophia’s pussy slid through the garden, followed by the appreciative murmurs of those assembled.

Dante didn’t try to kick or twist away. Instead, he licked Sophia’s
cunt
with more ferocious hunger, delving inside the pink depths of her folds, making her cry out again and again. And he angled his ass closer to
Neo’s
whip, the motion defiant and sexy beyond belief.

Oh, Saints
. This was definitely not what Neo had expected. The need to push Dante past of the point of resistance burrowed low in his balls as he gripped Dante’s waist, holding him down though it wasn’t necessary. The man’s skin radiated warmth, heat blazing from the places where he’d been hit.

Lust raging out of control, Neo continued to whip Dante. The pleasure servant’s tongue worked faster, harder, at Sophia’s pussy, swirling around the tight little nub Neo could see peeking from beneath its delicate hood and the neatly-trimmed black curls decorating her plump labia. Dante drew out her musky scented heat, letting it linger and wrap around Neo until he felt like he was drowning in the combined scents of male and female arousal, both wreaking havoc on his libido.

Neo let his sharp strokes fall vigorously, holding nothing back. He removed his hand from Dante’s waist and wrapped it around his cock, pumping his fist over the length of his shaft in time with the blows. The plaited switches lashed Dante’s ass, turning it a vivid red, marring the perfectly sculpted flesh with deep scores that marked him as
Neo’s
property even before the paperwork had been drawn up.

There wasn’t a doubt in
Neo’s
mind that he wanted this man. He had to have him, had to train him. Dante took the whipping like a trained pro, but the fiery hunger in the way he pleasured Sophia told of barely constrained anger simmering beneath the surface of his obedience.

Oh, the things Neo could do with --
to
 -- a man like that! The things he could teach him. His mouth went dry and his cock shuddered,
spasming
furiously as the seed spurted from the tip of his cock to land in creamy streaks across Dante’s back and dripped down the striped flesh of his ass.

Neo pumped harder, drawing every drop of cum from his balls, drowning in the hoarse sounds of Dante’s moans and Sophia’s cries as she reached the peak of her own climax.

A round of applause filled the air, bringing Neo back to the present. He didn’t acknowledge his audience, but fixed his gaze firmly on Sophia and waited for the haze of her euphoria to pass. She blinked her eyes open, watching Dante with unrestrained awe.

Then she looked up, and the awe turned to ice. “You’ve had enough of a demonstration for today, yes?”

She wanted him to leave. Hell, she’d wanted him gone from the moment he walked through those doors.

“Yes.”

She sighed, relief flooding her features. “Good. My guards will show you out.”

“I didn’t say I was leaving. I said the demonstration was sufficient.”

Confusion wrinkled her brow. She pulled back a fraction of an inch, her hand languidly sweeping through Dante’s hair in a fond, appreciative gesture. “I don’t understand.”

“Congratulations,
High
Priestess,” Neo said, imbuing the title with as much sarcasm as he could muster. “It seems you were correct. Dante is a…unique specimen.”

She cleared her throat, watching him warily. “Thank you.”

“That’s why I’ve decided to purchase him. He’ll be coming home with me.
Today.”

Sophia felt the color drain from her face. She didn’t have to look at Dante to know he was furious. Tension rolled through him like a maelstrom as she smoothed his curls over his forehead and let her fingertips trail down to his shoulders.

She dug her nails into his flesh, hoping the message she sent him was clear enough.

Don’t do anything stupid
.

She squared her shoulders and met Captain
Jolen’s
unreadable black gaze. “I’m afraid that’s not possible.”

The bright mid-day sun scattered golden hues across the Captain’s aristocratic face, doing little to hide the subtle nuances of emotion furrowing his dark brows. “This is a simple purchase, Priestess. The
Terran
government looks favorably upon such transactions, and this is no different. I’m a potential patron, ready and willing to buy one of your servants. You
will
draw up the papers.
Immediately.”

Dante stiffened and jerked out of her grip, rising to his feet. She caught a small grimace as he straightened, the pain across his buttocks obviously flaring to life with the small movement. Sophia’s inner walls clenched, fluttering madly with remembered pleasure.

Dante met the Captain’s haughty glare head-on and Sophia grimaced.
So much for the dutiful servant.
He’d taken the whipping well enough, but she didn’t fool herself by believing he’d have been as obedient had she not offered herself to him. He’d gripped her hips fiercely as he’d licked her pussy, varying the intensity to match the speed of the strokes slamming against his ass.

Fast, slow, then fast again…each swipe of his tongue across her slick folds had been pure heaven. She’d closed her eyes, depriving herself of her sense of sight in order to better hear the braid cut through the air with a potent
whoosh
before slamming down across Dante’s firm buttocks. Her clit had responded to his ministrations as well as to the sound of the whip, her senses filling in the blanks for her, imagining what he felt with each blow of the lash.

If she could have, she’d have taken Dante’s place. As a priestess of the
Pleasure
Academy
, Sophia had been training pleasure servants since reaching the age of twenty, what the
Terran
government considered the official age of consent. At twenty, Earth’s citizens were deemed to have reached their prime, and were able to carry out their assigned duties.

She’d had a number of tutors herself while growing up at the Academy. Some had been kind and eager to pass along what they’d learned of pleasure. Others were cruel, delighting in delivering heavy doses of miserable torment and agony along with their lessons.

Having been acquainted with the kiss of a whip herself, Sophia was familiar with the bliss that could be found in submitting to a master’s expert touch. She’d grown accustomed to the nuances of a whip lashing against bare flesh. She recognized the sound of an angry, jarring blow as well as she could identify the confident strike of a maestro’s flicked wrist.

Captain
Jolen
wasn’t an unskilled patron. At best, he was a connoisseur of the twin highs of pain and pleasure. At worst, he was a skilled specialist, adept at bending a pleasure servant to his will with nothing more than a few whispered commands and the promise of an open-handed slap across a fleshy cheek.

In either case, Dante wouldn’t last an hour alone with this man.

“His training isn’t yet complete,” Sophia said, imbuing her voice with as much confidence as she could muster. “You said so yourself.”

Captain
Jolen
shrugged.
“No matter.
I can continue his training myself.”

Sophia’s stomach sank to her knees. So the good Captain was used to delivering instruction away from the spaceport and Central Command. That made matters a hundred times worse.

“I couldn’t allow that. It would be highly inappropriate,” she argued. “We only sell Academy graduates. Those who haven’t achieved that status cannot have their ownership transferred to a master.”

“If he’s not ready to be acquired, then why put him on display at the showing? And why offer me such a delectable demonstration?”

Sophia
faltered,
her mind spinning as she tried to come up with another lie. “I --”

“She did so at my request.”

Sophia’s eyelashes fluttered closed for an instant to hide the wild relief that would be obvious in her eyes. She’d never been so grateful for a patron’s interference in her life.

“I asked for Dante specifically. Rumors of his existence had been circulating for weeks. Quite an impressive specimen, wouldn’t you say?”

Faye Laurens dragged the tip of a perfectly manicured finger across Dante’s washboard abs. His stomach rippled beneath her touch and a muscle ticked wildly in his jaw.

Sophia watched Dante as he assessed Faye from beneath long lashes. His gaze swept over the touches of gray in the mane of black hair bound in a fashionable coil behind the woman’s head and lingered on the faint lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth. At last, he tilted his head in a polite gesture of respect, but was wise enough to keep his mouth shut.

Sophia placed a palm on Dante’s shoulder, urging him to step closer to Faye. “He’s magnificent, but difficult to train.”

Faye’s easy laugh carried through the garden. “Why, darling, I believe that’s the point.” She pressed a hand to her cleavage, which pushed up through the low-cut top of a yellow sundress. Looking remarkably youthful for a woman her age, Faye never failed to attract the attention of the most skilled pleasure servants.

At the last showing, Faye had purchased
Rhyanne
Hamilton, a lovely and demure Academy graduate who’d drawn nearly half a dozen bids from interested parties. Sophia was the only one of the Academy’s staff who knew
Rhyanne
hadn’t been acquired for Faye at all, but had been meant as a gift for Quinton Stillwell, the Alpha whom Faye had raised from a wild, careless pup into the captain of a transport ship.

Sophia flipped her loose hair over her shoulder and turned her attention back to Captain
Jolen
. “As you can see, Dante’s already spoken for. Faye had expressed interest in acquiring him some weeks ago, although she’s aware he won’t be available for another couple of weeks yet.”

A scowl deepened the lines in the Captain’s face. He spun around to face Faye. “I can outbid you.”

“Doubtful,” Faye said, her fingertips drifting lower to glide across the slick surface of Dante’s
cockhead
. He shuddered at the contact. “I’ve already declared my intent to pay six million tokens for him.”

A gasp rose up from the nearby patrons who overheard the outrageous sum. Even Sophia’s mouth went dry. She was used to dealing with large transactions, especially for pleasure servants who had demonstrated exceptional skills during their training, but any sum larger than four million was unheard of.

Dante’s lip quirked upward in an amused smile, the first genuine one she’d seen from him since he’d drawn her onto his lap after being collared. She couldn’t help the urge to smile back.

“Ten million.”

At least a dozen patrons crowded in around them, jaws gaping. Sophia instinctively slid her hand into Dante’s, curling her fingers around his. “That’s insane,” she whispered.

Faye blanched, the color draining from her face. She darted a glance from Dante to Captain
Jolen
, then shrugged apologetically at Sophia. “I can’t beat that.”

“I know.” Sophia swallowed past the lump in her throat. She couldn’t hand Dante over to the authorities any more than she could let them sweep through the Academy.

Besides, she needed him. She refused to be one of the few High Priestesses who couldn’t execute the Lighting of the Flame ceremony. Her name would be permanently erased from the history books, and she’d be stripped of her title and sold to the lowest bidder in punishment for disobeying her patron Saint.

Dante was her best hope of assuring her legacy. She’d been the High Priestess for six years, and although she’d found suitable Flames in the past, none had garnered the blessing of Saint Valentine.

Dante was different. He
had
to be different. Sophia was nearing her thirty-fourth birthday. She had only a few more years left before her body began to work against her, fighting the natural pull toward granting Saint Valentine’s fondest wish.

“Two weeks,” she murmured, fighting the panic that welled in her chest. “You can claim him then.”

Captain
Jolen
looked ready to argue, but Dante released Sophia’s hand and strode forward with a purpose, stopping only when his chest was flush with the other man’s. Their cocks touched, Dante’s large, swollen member prodding the Captain’s spent shaft to full awareness in the span of a heartbeat.

“I want to be ready for you,” Dante whispered huskily in the other man’s ear. “The wait will be worth it.”

The captain snatched a handful of Dante’s curls and dug his fingers into the nape of the man’s neck, pulling him closer still. “Kiss me.”

Sophia stiffened, a groan catching in her throat. Would he do it? This was another test like all the others. One Dante could easily fail.

Her pulse pounded, hammering a steady beat in her ears as she watched.
And waited.

A hush had fallen over those nearby, until the only thing Sophia could hear was the beating of her own heart. It thrummed in time with her arousal, her pussy fluttering with need as she took in the two firm, masculine bodies pressed against one another, the battle of wills that kept them together, daring one another to make the wrong move.

“Beg me,” Dante
said,
his voice low and demanding.

Sophia forgot to breathe. She was certain the Captain would push him away and summon his men to arrest him. No pleasure servant would dare to speak that way to a prospective patron, or to
anyone
, for that matter.

Captain
Jolen’s
hands stroked up and down Dante’s spine before cupping his ravaged buttocks in his broad palms. Dante let out a sharp hiss between clenched teeth.

“The day I beg you for anything, slave, will be the day one of us takes his last breath.”

He yanked Dante to him, grinding his cock against the other man’s groin and pressed his mouth to Dante’s gorgeous lips. For a moment, neither man moved, then Dante’s lips parted and Sophia saw his tongue snake inside the other man’s mouth.