Perfect Master(8)

He had deliberately ordered that his bodysuits include a glove that would cover his hand. Now he regretted that because he wanted so much to touch his mate’s creamy skin, her soft, curly hair.

He hadn’t wanted to flaunt the scars that had sent strong men running for the latrines. He still didn’t. His scars that brought tears to his father’s eyes. It suited Arik to flaunt the leather and the hook with its limited functionality, for it reminded his father every day that he had tried to kill his own flesh and blood.

More important, Arik had no desire to look upon himself, compare his undamaged left side with the devastated flesh on the right.

He raised his prosthesis and moved it toward the glove on his hand, struggling to move the muscles in his damaged arm that caused the hook to open and close. Cursing silently, he finally caught the glove and stripped it off, freeing his hand.

Almost afraid she’d waken and run away in terror, Arik reached out and touched her satiny cheek, felt the softness of her hair. When she began to stir, he withdrew and lifted his bare hand to the right side of his face, feeling the sunken hole where his eye had been. That served as a stark reminder of the ugliness that lurked behind the mask. The sight of it, he knew from experience, terrified children and sent grown men running for cover. Not even for the tactile pleasure of running his fingers through his mate’s inviting curls, of stroking the ivory expanse of her belly, of dipping between her thighs to feel the warmth and wetness there, would he risk sickening her by exposing to her what he bore stoically as evidence of his father’s shame.

“Shall I waken her for you, my lord?” Hikaru asked. “Or would you have me ease you?”

If Hikaru roused her, Arik feared he’d give in to the compulsion to indulge his sense of touch beyond a mere caress for the first time since he’d wakened in an Eastphalian clinic, more dead than alive, to see pity on the faces of those who tended him.

“No. She needs her sleep. Carry her to her chamber, go cleanse yourself, and return to me. I’ll pass the night outside my leather prison, and I’ll make use of your ass to ease my lust.” It was the least Arik could do to provide the only sexual pleasure left to this royal cousin who served him with unfailing devotion, especially on this night.

Hikaru bowed low, his forehead brushing the plush carpet before he placed a kiss on one of Arik’s booted feet. “Yes, my lord. I will be forever grateful. You may trust me to care for your princess as I care for you, and to hasten with my preparations and return quickly to you.”

Once Hikaru left, Arik grasped his cock, felt it pulsing with life beneath his hand. What did seeing him swell with lust at the sight of his mate do to the royal eunuchs whose bodies were forever denied arousal and release? How did they feel, knowing they were so sexless their uncle, the king, deemed them completely trustworthy to prepare and arouse the crown princess of Obsidion for her prince’s pleasure?

Arik imagined it must pain them to realize that while they licked and stroked his princess and plumbed her tight ass with their false cocks, they could never experience the lust that had been so evident in her eyes, in the creaming of her cunt and the swelling of his own eager cock.

Over and over during the long day’s mating ritual, the royal eunuchs had witnessed Arik fucking Emerald. They’d had to watch while she brought him to climax with her mouth. They’d been forced to stand by, experiencing vicariously the sort of sexual pleasure they’d each been denied forever with the cruel slice of a surgeon’s laser scalpel.

Yes, Hikaru deserved whatever puny release Arik could give him. No doubt his three cousins would even now be massaging each other’s prostate glands, ass-fucking each other with dildos as they’d done to Emerald earlier.

Arik reached into the drawer beside his bed and drew out a condom and a tube of lubricant he’d brought back from one of his rare trips outside the palace to the Sex Slave Emporium where he rented the occasional willing female to ease his lust.

One thing about being less than whole—he had to plan safe sex well in advance. Opening up a condom with a hand and a hook wasn’t something he’d be able to manage through a haze of lust, especially when he couldn’t use his teeth. He barely got the job done and laid the condom beside the lubricant before he heard Hikaru’s footsteps in the hall.

Clearly, Hikaru had hurried. Water still glistened on his hairless skin, beaded on his prominent nipples while he unlaced Arik’s hood first and then loosened the laces that snaked down each side of the garment from his hands to his feet. Cool air made his skin tingle as Hikaru exposed it inch by inch. His queued hair tickled his shoulders. He tried not to wince when the hood fell away, but the slightest pressure on his crushed facial bones still sent shards of agony darting through the damaged nerves.