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  Her people did not bathe as much. For all they claimed the Jorku nation to be savage, they engaged in some refinements that her people did not. Bathing regularly was one of them, it seemed.

  She leaned forward and touched her lips in a featherlight, uncommitted kiss. When nothing bad came of it, she kissed him again. He was silent and watchful, neither hurrying her nor pressuring her. But he did seem expectant. Did he want more than just those light kisses? Was he going to tell her what to do? She knew so little about sex. Or at least this part of sex. She had never heard of this before nor seen beasts in the field do this. But she had seen dogs lick themselves. Was that what he was expecting? For her to lick him like a dog?

  She thought to try it… but since she wasn’t sure she did it far more slowly and carefully than a dog might. She touched her tongue to him, all the while watching his face and gauging his reaction. If she offended him she wanted to know right away. The last thing she wanted to do was offend this man.

  She drew her tongue across the very head of his cock and watched as he closed his eyes and began to breathe quicker. His hand came down to rest on her shoulder, and she took it as a sign of encouragement. She licked him again, slowly and thoroughly, considering what she thought of how he tasted. It was a strong, salty flavor, not at all unappealing she was surprised to discover. Then again, she was surprising herself in a great many ways.

  She ran her tongue down his length, then back up again, watching and feeling his every reaction. He groaned softly, his eyelids fluttering as his eyes rolled back in obvious pleasure. His hand crept up her neck, and his fingers threaded into her hair. He did not guide her however. Not much. He let her go at her own pace. His hold on her was merely encouraging. She was glad at that. She wanted to manage this at her own pace.

  That feeling of power was creeping over her again. She felt it filling her up. What would it mean, she thought, if she could make this man lose control? Would that mean she then had control of him? Control of the man second to the throne of Jorku? It was a heady thought. But she was not frightened by it. In fact, she embraced it. She decided to chase down the possibility.

  She opened her mouth and took the head of his hard staff into it, onto her tongue, surrounding him with warm lips and wet mouth. Still she watched his face, but she need not have. The sound he ejected told her all she wanted to know. Encouraged, she let her instincts have rein. She could easily imagine what would hurt him, so she tried to avoid scraping him with her teeth or biting down on him in any little way. But she did begin to apply sucking pressure. When he reacted with a groan, she increased the suction of her mouth and took him deep against her tongue.

  “Great gods! Don’t stop!”

  She had no intention of stopping. Not when she saw how he writhed with pleasure… helplessly it seemed. It seemed he could not control himself. For the first time since she had been captured and turned into a slave she felt she had control over her life. Perhaps it was only in this one small way, but it was enough for now.

  She began to apply a certain amount of enthusiasm to her task. She took him deeper… a little quicker. Soon she was taking a little more than half of him into her mouth at a time. The hand in her hair was tight, his free hand gripping at the furs on the bed. Soon he was crying out, each shout of pleasure louder than the last. But suddenly he stopped, drawing her off almost violently. He cupped her face in his hands and dragged her up his body.

  “No!” he rasped. “Not like this. When you make me come it will be because you are surrounding me with that tight, wet, hot little pussy of yours. And that must happen. Now!”

  He rolled her over, trapping her body beneath his, and all her control evaporated like a single breath. Fear replaced it as she pressed against his chest, and she went stiff. It was so sudden. She had just been beginning to take pleasure in the way he was reacting for herself. That was when she had realized if he spent himself in her mouth she could avoid him trying to have sex with her… at least for a little while. She didn’t exactly know how often a man could make sex with a woman. Perhaps pretty often. But she knew from years of listening to her parents that it could happen more than once in a night. Still, there had been time between those acts, and she had known her father to fall asleep more often than not… thus leaving her mother alone for the rest of the night.

  Still, listening to her parents’ furtive lovemaking in the night was not much of a sexual education. She had learned so much more from this man.

  And now he was demanding more than she thought she could give. She had heard sex hurt some women… she was certain she would be one of those women. It was simply the luck of her life and how it was going at present. So she closed her legs and stiffened her body beneath his. A reaction he took in with a rich chuckle.

  “Come now, there’s nothing to be afraid of,” he said.

  “There’s everything to be afraid of! What if it hurts? What if I come to hate myself for giving in to you too easily? What if this is just another way for you to control me?”

  “Firstly, do not shy away from pain. It builds us. Shows us how strong we are. Tell me you do not feel stronger, prouder of yourself now that you have come out of our sessions with all your will intact.”

  She thought about it and realized he was right. Because he wasn’t trying to break her utterly, he was teaching her just how strong she really was. True, he was clearly trying to tame and condition her, but he wasn’t trying to destroy her.

  He didn’t wait for her reply because he knew she knew the answer already. “Secondly, there is no reason for you to hate yourself just because you seek pleasure with me. There is nothing wrong with discovering what pleases us, no matter what it is or whom it is with. And just because I was your enemy does not mean I should remain an enemy now that circumstances have changed.

  “And thirdly, I am designed to control you and everything around me. I would not know how to function if I could not control my world. And I imagine that is a little of what you are feeling here with me. But you were designed differently. I could see it in you from the very start. It is why I chose you above all the others available to me. You are a fire that wants to be tempered. A wild thing that craves the opportunity to be obedient. You are a fierce contradiction, and it arouses me beyond all measure to know you are mine.”

  She didn’t know what to say to that exactly. Emotion seemed to swirl about, stuck in her throat and pounding in her chest. He made her sound so beautiful and extraordinary. She hadn’t realized he looked at her like that. She hadn’t realized anyone could look at her like that.

  She allowed her body to relax, and the difference was readily apparent to them both. He smiled down at her and drew a thumb over the swell of her cheek.

  “There’s a good girl,” he murmured. “You’re eager to learn how to be loved, aren’t you?”

  “I… don’t think what you feel and how you act is love,” she argued.

  “Oh, it is. And it is a feeling within me that grows stronger every day. You will come to discover it on your own… you will come to believe in it. You will believe in me.”

  He trailed his fingers down her face and neck, down over her breast, into the curve of her waist and then lower, working his hand between where their bodies were pressed together. He found the bud of her clitoris and stroked her slowly.

  “Let’s bring you up to where I am,” he said softly, and then he kissed her mouth. The kiss grew instantly deep as her body swirled with regrown pleasure. It took no time at all before she was gasping softly against his lips. All the while he toyed with her pleasure centers, she was aware of his erection pressing to her inner thigh, mere inches away from where he would breach her. But slowly that awareness turned from borderline fear to intense craving. What would it feel like? To have him come inside her? What would it feel like?

  She felt his hand thread into her hair as he shifted his weight. He slowly canted his hips, running the rigid length of his cock through her slick nether lips. She felt him pass the entrance
of her pussy and was shocked to find herself craving his invasion. Shocked to find her instinct was to try and catch him with her pussy and help him thrust deep into her. He repeated his action again and then again until she was moaning from the stimulation and the frustration she barely understood.

  Then, suddenly, he pulled on her hair, yanking hard, just enough pain to startle her attention away from what he was doing. Then… then that was when he thrust into her. She didn’t know where to turn her attention -- the pain of the grip he had on her hair or the pain of him plowing through her virgin sheath. But both were so brief and faded so quickly she was left breathless and with nothing but the fullness of him inside her. That was when she realized he had pulled her hair purposely to distract her from what he was about to do. She didn’t know how she felt about that, and she didn’t have time to consider. His big body was moving over and inside her. His breath was in her ear, spooling rapidly against it.

  “I am being gentle this time,” he warned her, “but it will not always be so in the future. In the future you will learn what it means to be taken. Taken in ways you haven’t even dreamed were possible. By god, you feel good. And all I can think about it is how good you will feel when I am slamming into you, thundering into your soft body. But for now this is enough. For now I introduce you gently to love. But you should know what the future holds.”

  Melena didn’t know how to feel in that moment. Afraid of the future? Why should she be? He had shown her so much already. Even now he was showing her true and deep pleasure. Her body ran hot as he thrust slowly into her, but she could feel him quickening his pace. She could feel the urgency growing in him… because it was growing in her as well.

  The transition in her life was taking her breath away. She was moving out of innocence and into a land of mature, complex feelings and emotions. She would never be the same. She was changed for all time, and he had been the one to change her.

  She cried out as pleasure climbed within her. She couldn’t seem to help herself. She had no control. He was the one in control of their pleasure… and he handled it masterfully. He touched her, stroked her, kissed her, and thrust into her in a symphony of movement that swept her away. She moaned in his ear as passion built inside her again. She was ready to explode again, but this time she knew would be different… more powerful. This time she would be willingly giving him everything he was asking for.

  “Come for me,” he whispered hotly in her ear, “and take me with you. Give me all the power that makes you who you are. Give that to me, and you will give me the greatest of gifts.”

  He was asking so much! She knew she was on the brink… ready to give the last of herself away. But even if she wanted to stop she couldn’t. Her orgasm was like a charging horse that could not be stopped, that it was best to dodge out of the way of.

  So she let go, gave him everything that he wanted, abandoned herself and any remaining fight she had left. She threw back her head and keened out a long cry of pleasure, her body locking up. She heard him grunt out a sound of controlled release. She could feel him giving in to his passion, but there was a sense of dominance, the sense that he was never one to lose control. As she swam in the afterglow of the most intense feelings she had ever known, she was aware of his reserve.

  How could he not be feeling the same as she was? Was she not enough for him? Or was he incapable of abandoning everything and losing himself in a moment? If she could do it… if she could forget everything about who she was, where she came from, and how much she should be fighting to keep her own identity, then surely he could do the same?

  She realized then that that was in her hands. Where he was in control of everything else, she must be in control of his pleasure. That had to be her primary goal. Perhaps if she focused on that goal she could gain some sort of power over him. She could gain some sort of control over her life.

  The idea gave her comfort and helped her to swim in the sweet post-orgasmic lassitude that came over her. This, she realized, was only the beginning of things between them. And where she had once craved for the idea of him growing quickly tired of her, she was surprised to realize she now wanted the opposite. She didn’t want to be relegated to the anonymity of one of his forgotten women. If she wanted power over her life then she would have to keep him engaged.

  The question was… could she do that? Was she capable of being what she needed to be to keep his attention from straying elsewhere? Because she knew if she wanted to gain things for herself and her sisters, then she must gain a position of power in his life. Among his women. She could already see the dynamic of the women in his harem. She saw who had power and respect and who didn’t.

  Well, she would not be forgotten. She would see to that. And it would start now.

  As soon as she caught her breath.

  “Are you pleased, Sir?” she asked him breathily.

  He chuckled and pulled back to look down into her face.

  “Would it make you happy if I was? I thought you hated me.”

  “Hate is too strong a word to be used any longer. One thing I have learned in life is that one must make the best of whatever situation they are in.”

  “And will you make the best of being mine?”

  She lowered her eyes and her lashes. “Yes, Sir.”

  He regarded her for a moment, then said, “I am very glad to hear that.” He reached to stroke warm fingers over her cheek. “But do not lose all your fight and fire, Melena.”

  “Never,” she said with a lift of her chin. “Just because I am making the best of a situation doesn’t mean I have to roll over and take whatever is handed to me. I will not allow you to treat me badly.”

  “You will not allow?” He raised an amused brow. “I wonder if you have been paying attention these last hours. I am the one who will allow or disallow anything that happens to you,” he said sternly.

  She defiantly lifted her chin. “You will not abuse me.”

  “You no longer feel like you have been abused? Because mere minutes ago you were accusing me of being cruel to you.”

  “No. I see now that this is your way. What you have done to me is not out of cruelty… merely your need to control everything around you. Perhaps one day you will no longer feel you need to control me and your world. I think I should like to be present when you do.”

  His expression was bemused. Clearly he did not know what to make of her. Good. She would keep him guessing. She would not tell him all the secrets of her heart and her thoughts.

  “I think it is time you went to bed with the other women,” he said suddenly.

  He moved away from her, putting distance between them as he got to his feet. He turned his back to her and walked across the room, naked and unabashed. He reached for a bell and called a servant into the room.

  “But I… I do not want to go,” she said.

  He regarded her a moment.

  “Something has changed in you,” he said. “Dramatically. I cannot tell if you are sincere or if you are telling me what you think I want to hear.”

  “A little of both I imagine,” she said honestly. “I realize if I must be here, then perhaps I should abandon myself to my feelings and impulses. But rest assured, I will not do anything I do not want to do.”

  That made him chuckle. “We shall see about that. For now, leave me. Tomorrow is another day.”

  A servant appeared in the room. If he was embarrassed by his master’s nudity, he did not show it. But she was embarrassed to be nude in front of others so she hurried into the silks she had been wearing earlier. She frowned in consternation when she realized they were much easier to manage when there were many women at once helping her into them. And yet it had taken only one man to take her out of them… and that man had done so with masterful ease.

  He instructed the servant to take her back to the harem and to see to her comfort. To make sure she had everything she desired… within reason.

  Melena rose from her seat on the bed and followed the servant out of the roo
m. As she left she looked over her shoulder at him. He stood by his desk, seemingly absorbed in some letter or other already. She was already forgotten.

  She frowned.

  She would simply have to try harder the next time.

  Jacquelyn Frank

  Jacquelyn lives in the Western North Carolina mountain area around Asheville. After a lifetime of striving to be good enough to be published, she has enjoyed the many blessings her fans have rained on her with their loyalty over the years. With four sisters and other family scattered up and down the Eastern Seaboard, and a history of living all across the USA herself, she still always finds ways to give a nod to her native New York in her work.

  Jacquelyn lives with her three “children,” a trio of domestic shorthaired cats whose personalities have often inspired aspects of her characters. A former sign language interpreter and substitute teacher, she is a powerful advocate of reading and writing. She is known for her persistent gifts of books to her nieces and nephews, as well as all the other children in her life, in an effort to see them love both as much as she does. She believes there is nothing more rewarding than the imagination and all it inspires, and nothing more tragic than illiteracy.

  Feel free to contact her at [email protected] or visit her website at jacquelynfrank.com and follow her on facebook.com/authorjacquelynfrank and twitter.com/JacquelynFrank.

  Jackie’s Changeling Page: changelingpress.com/author.php?uid=206.