Lust Plague (Steamwork Chronicles) (6 page)

She halted, crouched, hiding where a tree and saplings grew near each other in a six-foot radius and ferns had sprung up, several feet high. Her bruised thighs cramped in protest, but she bit her lip and stifled a gasp.

The creature was there too, same side but farther ahead. It turned toward her, came closer. Eyes gleamed in the half dark.

Don’t panic.

Decision time. Reveal herself to the man, who might be Sten, or stay silent and hope the animal didn’t attack. Of course, if this was Sten, the creature would surely be his wolf?

But I don’t know it’s him, and I’m tied up and half-naked…and he’ll probably drag me back to base
. She squeezed shut her eyes and calmed her breathing. Steady, no panicking. From the small noises the creature came nearer. Ten…fifteen feet away.

No. I will not shout. No.

The man’s footsteps seemed closer too. The animal stopped. Through the fine spray of a fern leaf, past some tree trunks, she could see the thing—a dark mass sitting on its haunches, like some ancient rock sculpture. Barely, just barely, she could see it breathe. A thick animal scent sifted through the pungent odors of earth and decaying leaf. The man stood rock still fifteen feet to the right. Definitely a man.

Could he hear her? She clamped shut her mouth. Her heartbeats sounded loud as a drum. Leaves crackled under his foot, and now she smelled him too. Sweat, oil, leather, and a heavy, carnal scent. A big man. Unmistakable.
Damn, it is him.

Maybe the animal will run off if I wait, and then Sten might follow it? He doesn’t know I’m here
. Her thighs trembled. She clenched, unclenched her fists where they were bound to her sides. Seeing through the goggles in the low light of dusk made everything sepia and foglike—ethereal.

“I know you’re there, Kaysana.”

The words struck like a spear through her middle.

Disbelief gripped her. But she bit her lip, stayed quiet.
So embarrassing being tracked down like this. He can’t see me. Can he?

“I’ll count to ten. Then I’ll come in there and get you.
Then
I’m going to put you over my knee and spank your ass until it’s bright red. I just half crashed that gyro in my rush to get to where you fell. Thought you’d be dead or injured going straight down through those trees. Come out!”

She shut her eyes.
Stand up and be humiliated or stay here and be humiliated even more?

Slowly she stood. Sten was a dark silhouette in front of her.

“You touch me, you piece of excrement, and I’ll have you up on charges, so fast.”

“What? Here and now? Doubt it. ’Sides, you need me. Come here.”

She firmed her lips, wormed her way through the ferns, then trudged over to him.

The creature stayed where it sat.

She halted a yard from him, nudged her chin toward the shadow-clad beast. “What is that? Your pet wolf?”

“Cadrach? Good at tracking, isn’t he? I wouldn’t annoy him—he’s got big teeth.” Sten rubbed his jaw.

Was he grinning? Oh, she hated this, surrendering to him. She’d tell him to
ri ni ma
, except he probably…certainly didn’t have a mother.

This time he was fully armed—a shotgun butt jutted above his right shoulder. A sword hung from his belt. His hair stuck up even messier than before. In the low light, a smudge of black across his cheek might be oil or old blood. Had the gyro come down that badly? She felt a twinge of guilt.

“Fucking miracle,” he said in amazement. “How’d you survive without breaking something? Preferably that nasty mouth.” He stepped close, then went around her, checking the ropes, feeling up and down her limbs, undoing and slipping off the goggles, taking it slow when some of her hair caught in the strap.

He went behind her. His hand, warm and calloused and big, settled around her throat. The fingers almost touched. She swallowed, felt how close he gripped her, and shuddered. Heat rolled through her body.

“Yes,” he murmured, speaking an inch from her ear. “I’ve got you now. Gods, you tempt me.” His body moved in close. Cloth whispered as his shirt brushed against her bustier. Her butt was naked, though, and only his trousers separated her skin from his and her bottom from the length of his cock nestling between her cheeks.

Her breaths turned ragged.

“I hear you, Kaysana.” His tongue licked across her earlobe, light, ephemeral. A frisson skittered down to her stomach.

Anger squirmed into being, twisted like a knife—that her own self, her own
body
, betrayed her. She steadied, sucked in a tremulous breath.

“I may have lost the
Art of War
, but I have a mission to do, Sten. Someone has to get to Perihelion and shut down this device. If what happened on my ship isn’t enough to impress on you how important this is, you’re even dumber than I thought. I’ll go on alone if I have to. Someone with some guts has to do this!” She stamped her foot, aiming to crunch her heel onto his.

“Whoa! Missed me, dear. You think without your crew and airship you can get anything done? You’ll either get killed by some roaming zomb or get lost before you get to where you want to be.” He pulled her head farther back, made her body curve into his until she had to go up on her toes. His right hand coasted down over her taut abdomen, through her pubic hair, ending up in a V on either side of her much-abused clit.

“I’m an air fleet captain. I don’t get lost!” She spat the words out in an attempt to ignore the way her clitoris swelled.

Traitorous thing. Damn, but she wanted his finger on her, in her. Whatever had changed within still held sway, not as bad as before but like some surface memory whenever she saw Sten, or yes—she sighed—smelled him, things happened inside her. His teeth clamped on her earlobe, and she hissed, stiffened, her mind wandering from where his hand rested to where his teeth bit and the delightful singe of pain. Then he released her ear, sucking on it now and then as he spoke. Listening to his words and not reveling in that suction on her ear took a lot of concentration.

“Tell you what. I’ll help you with this mission, see if anything can be done, for payment. You need me. Promise to do what I tell you, whatever that might be, as long as my orders don’t mess up your mission.”

His orders? What in all the heavens?

“Or I’ll take you back to base.”

The V of his fingers narrowed, pressing her flesh in tighter, and her clit poked out from its hood. Didn’t take much anymore. The thing seemed wired for stimulation.

Clearly her body was what he wanted to order about. He was right though—she did need him. Who else was there?

“I—” She cleared her throat, tried again. Tightness curled like a sensuous snake down there, until her entire lower body seethed with lust and
not
thrusting into his hand took up half her thinking power. “Um…stop doing that.”

“This?” The baritone rumble at her ear vibrated into her bones, her mind. When his hand massaged rhythmically on her mound, she gave in, melting back into him yet pushing at his palm, concentrating on the surge of pleasure. He stilled. “Was that what you wanted me to stop?”

Coherent thoughts tumbled back into her head. “You bastard,” she said thickly. “What do you mean by orders?”

“What do you think?”

“You seriously”—he shifted behind her and she had to catch her breath—“expect me to bargain with my body?” Ahh, but her body, crazy thing that it was right now, was already screaming
yes
. No matter how she tried to ignore it, the feel of his hot, hard body against hers had her so rapt, so quivering with excitement, she could barely remember her own name.

But…am I ready to give him this in exchange for my mission?
If word got out, she’d be ruined, sent back to the ranks, if not cashiered from the air fleet. Completing the mission was paramount, but do it in a dishonorable way and the smear would never leave her record—or her soul. If her grandfather heard, he’d disown her. Eyes half focused, she stared out at the forest, at the muted gleam of light tinting the tree trunks with shades of gray.

“No more sex,” she said clipping the words like an ax chopping timber. “Nothing that will jeopardize my air fleet standing.”

“Hmm.” Amusement showed in the warmth of that sound. “Tell you what—no sex unless you beg me, but I get to kiss you three times every day, when I want to.”

Kissing?
She shook her head what little she could with his hand around her neck. “Beg you? I don’t…” Except she already had. An aberration that would
not
happen again. This was better than she’d hoped, in a way. “Okay. Yes.” She closed her eyes in resignation. “I agree. Now let me go.”

“Swear on your honor as an air fleet officer.”

“Really!” She snorted derisively.

“Swear.” He wiggled her head side to side.

“Okay! I swear on my honor as a captain in the GAM Air Fleet! Happy?”

Though his hand slipped away from her neck, with the flat of his palm between her shoulder blades, he steered her toward a wide tree trunk, turned her so she stood with her back to the trunk. The lowest branches were many yards up in the forest canopy. The bark was rough but not unbearable on her skin.

Sten went to his knees before her. In the thickening gloom, she could make out his raised eyebrows and a glint from his gold wolf earring, but very little else.

“Hey, mister. I like you kneeling, but you forgot to untie me. It’s part of the deal.”

“And you agreed to obey me. I’m taking my first kiss.”

He couldn’t mean there? His mouth was only a foot from her mound. “Kissing, we agreed on. Kissing means lips.” She pressed back into the tree.

“And I intend to use mine. I didn’t say where I’d kiss you.”

“You’re breaking the agreement already!”

“I’m not,” he said mildly. “If I use only lips and tongue, maybe teeth, it’s a kiss. Do you want to call the deal off?”

Lips and tongue? Teeth?
She fought back a whimper. Technically he was right. She scrambled through the rest of their agreement, praying he couldn’t twist the other words into something equally awful. Except she was wet, down there, already, and getting wetter by the second—anticipating his mouth on her, working his tongue—

“No. It’s not off,” she rasped out.

“Good.” Then, in a most agonizingly slow way, he moved in on her pussy and stopped with so little distance to go that she could feel the soft in and out of his warm breath on her clit. With hands on either side of her thighs, he kept her in place.

I can bear this
. If he thought she’d beg him after this, he was so wrong. Yet like a magician conjuring something into being, she could feel her clit stir and expand beneath his breath. Feel her folds moisten and the deep internal fullness gather. For ages he simply knelt there looking at her, as if nothing in the world was more important.

“Women are beautiful down here.”

She said nothing, willing him to hurry up so it would be over.

“Though some are like you—and find frankenstructs unattractive.”

She didn’t find him unattractive. But admit to that? No way.

“How true. And you think this is going to—”

The tip of his tongue darted out and touched the top of her engorged nub. She jumped, gasped. Another dab, a tiny stroke. He teased it, pressed it side to side until it stood up firm and she had to dig her nails into the bark to hold back mews of pleasure. He paused again.

“Do I think this’ll teach you to like men like me?” He shrugged. “It sure seems to be steering you in the right direction.”

“How long?” Her words tumbled out, half-choked.

“Will I do this? Didn’t say, did we? All night?”

“You’re joking!” She could barely stand it now.

“Am I?” His whole mouth descended on her clit, and she couldn’t help writhing, lifting into his mouth, craving the wet strokes of his tongue as he swiped straight over the top, then to each side, alternating the pleasure in the smallest unexpected ways.

I’ve shut my eyes
. The blackness made thoughts mash together in her head. Lust took over every part of her mind and body. She no longer clawed at bark—her hands grasped it to steady her body, to make the aim of his tongue surer. Her back hurt, but from leaning into the tree for leverage to press her groin ever harder into his hot, wet mouth.

Heat tunneled through her veins, and pressure built, all her thoughts concentrated on her clit and nowhere else.

The little sounds of lust she’d held trapped escaped her. Through panting mouth, she gasped and moaned and mewed. She didn’t care who or what he was, just that he kept on using his wicked, wicked tongue.

Torture. He fastened his lips and teeth onto the outside of her clit. With the smallest adjustment of his teeth, or a change in the angle of the swipe of tongue or in the depth of the suction, he brought her almost to orgasm…then stopped.

Gasping, mindless, she raised her head from the tree and stared down. He began again. That a mouth could render her speechless seemed mad, but his did. Five, ten times, perhaps a hundred—she lost count, teetering at the brink. One tiny bit of pressure and she’d come. But then he’d cease and sit there looking up, waiting for her to descend from the heavens. And again, and again.

When her legs were shaking and threatened to give way, he rose to his feet. The rustle of leaves, the rasp and creak of leather and cloth told her he stood in front of her, looking. So she pried open her eyelids and looked back. Sweat ran down her body. Heat flushed her cheeks. Her breaths came so fast she might have walked from the molten heat of a blacksmith’s forge. Understanding surfaced. This time he’d truly stopped, and oh, she ached so much down there, trembled so much, that every few seconds cramps twisted through her groin.

But…no. Comprehension slithered in from wherever her true self had hidden away. She wasn’t begging.

“No?” Sten seemed to answer her unspoken reply. “Never mind, I have many more times to try. We should be moving on.”

Then he did untie her and handed her a water flask to drink from while he coiled the rope and heaved on the haversack he’d left a few yards away. With shaking hands, she washed her thighs with some water, embarrassed though the act made her. There wasn’t enough to clean herself entirely. Not if they were to have water left to drink. Silly in a way to be embarrassed. Only minutes ago he’d had his face buried in her pussy.