Imprisoned

  “What’s this all about, Ari?” he asked in a low voice. “Come on—you can tell me. You can tell me anything.”

  “Anything?” For some reason, his words drew another jagged laugh from the boy and then Ari shook his head and walked away, towards the less populated end of the Rec Yard.

  Lathe followed him, feeling more worried than ever.

  “Ari please… Ari…” He waited until they were at a deserted corner of the yard—the fuck-and-suck corner as a matter of fact he saw distractedly—and then took Ari by one bird-like shoulder and turned him around. “Ari,” he said as gently as he could. “What is it? Did something happen to you this morning before Mid Meal?”

  “You could say that,” Ari looked away and abruptly changed the subject. “You know, Wheezer told me that what Tapper said in the showers this morning was pretty much what everyone is thinking. About…you know—you and me? And what we, uh, were supposedly doing here yesterday?”

  “It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks when we know the truth,” Lathe said firmly. “Don’t give it another thought, Ari.”

  “I can’t help thinking about it,” the boy protested. “Especially when…when Wheezer told me it would be better to let them think it. Think that we’re… together. You know?”

  “Oh?” Lathe raised an eyebrow at him. “And why is that?”

  “Because…” Ari looked down, scuffing the toe of one small slipper in the sparse, dry grass of the Rec Yard. “Because Wheezer said that a man who’s protecting someone he loves—uh, cares about—is much more likely to fight for them and stay protective. Whereas a man who’s only looking out for a weaker inmate out of the goodness of his heart is probably going to get tired of playing that role and get rid of the person he’s protecting.”

  “Is that what you think?” Lathe demanded, feeling blindsided by the boy’s words. “That I want to get rid of you?”

  “No… not exactly.”

  Ari bit his full lower lip, a distractingly erotic gesture, Lathe couldn’t help thinking. Gods damn it, if only the boy didn’t have such a pretty face!

  “What are you saying then?” he asked, trying not to be distracted by Ari’s beauty.

  “I’m just saying…maybe it would be a good idea to let the other inmates—some of them in particular—believe we really are together. It might…help. You know?”

  His dark eyes darted to Tapper who was lounging idly in the far corner of the Rec Yard, laughing at something that Fenrus had said. Something stupid no doubt, knowing the dim-witted henchman.

  “Oh?” Lathe frowned at him. “And how do you propose we do that?”

  “Like this.” And Ari dropped suddenly to his knees before him. Reaching up, he had Lathe’s trustee jumpsuit open in a moment and was pulling out his shaft before Lathe could protest.

  “Wait! Ari, you don’t—” Lathe started but Ari was already licking the head of his cock, swirling his soft, pink tongue around the wide crown in a way that made Lathe—who hadn’t been erect at all before—instantly hard.

  For a moment he let it continue. Ari’s mouth was so hot and wet and the sight of the boy on his knees before him, looking up with those big, dark eyes as he licked and sucked Lathe’s aching member was unbearably erotic.

  But he’s not doing this because he wants to, Lathe reminded himself. He’s doing it because he’s afraid I’ll get rid of him—stop protecting him—if he doesn’t give me sexual favors.

  “Ari, no,” he said gently, pulling the boy away although his shaft ached in protest at the loss of the hot, wet mouth. “You don’t have to do that for me,” he told the boy, trying to raise him to his feet. “There is no price for my protection and I’m not going to get tired of you and throw you out of my cell just because the two of us aren’t…uh, intimate.”

  But Ari stayed stubbornly on his knees.

  “They’re all watching us now,” he pointed out, jerking his head at the rest of the Rec Yard. “If you make me stop before…before you finish, they’ll assume you’re angry with me. That you don’t want me anymore. At least…Tapper will think that.”

  Looking up at the interested eyes of the rest of the inmates, Lathe realized the boy was right. The last time they’d been in the fuck-and-suck corner of the Rec Yard, he had carefully hidden Ari with his own, much larger body. This time, however, the boy was in plain view, down on his knees before Lathe. It was almost as though Ari had positioned them for maximum visibility on purpose.

  Which is probably exactly what he did, Lathe thought grimly. Was Ari trying to manipulate him for some reason?

  Angry words rose to his lips but when he looked down again, he saw the fear and uncertainly in the large, dark eyes.

  He’s scared to death, Lathe realized, his heart aching for the boy’s fear. He’s got it into his head that I’ll leave him to Tapper’s tender mercies if he doesn’t please me.

  “Ari…” he said gently, leaning down to cup the boy’s soft cheek. “This isn’t right or necessary. I’ll protect you no matter what. Tapper won’t lay a hand on you, I swear. And,” he added, straightening up. “I don’t want you to do things for me you don’t want to do. I don’t want unwilling sexual favors.”

  Still Ari wouldn’t budge.

  “I’m not unwilling,” he protested, looking up at Lathe. “Please, Lathe, I admit I didn’t think I’d, uh, like this before I started. I’ve never…never done this before and all I could think of was Tapper and the way he shoved…” He shook his head, clearly pushing away the bad memory.

  “Little one—” Lathe began.

  “But it’s not like that with you,” Ari interrupted. “I like the way you feel in my hands…in my mouth. And you smell so good.”

  “I…do?” Lathe frowned, a suspicion forming in his mind. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean your scent. It’s like…warmth and safety and protection and it’s clean and masculine and it just makes me want to be with you.” He looked up at Lathe, frowning. “I don’t understand it. At first I thought it must be some kind of soap or cologne. But I’ve never seen you put anything on and you just use that same awful coarse brown soap that I do. Why do you smell so good, Lathe?”

  “I…I’m not sure,” Lathe muttered but inside his suspicion was becoming a reality.

  My bonding scent…he must be smelling my bonding scent.

  But that couldn’t be right. Why would his body make his bonding scent for another male? Lathe had never heard of such a thing. It must be that his body was unconsciously reacting to Ari’s female scent and making the same pheromones it would if the boy had really been a woman.

  Gods, this was confusing! Lathe shook his head, wishing for a moment that he’d never seen Ari in the first place…never rescued the boy from Mukluk and Tapper and every other Goddess-damned person who seemed out to get the lad in the evil depths of BleakHall.

  But then he looked into Ari’s eyes again. Large and beautiful and beseeching. The boy’s soft rosebud mouth was slightly open as though to plead…or to suck.

  Gods… Lathe groaned internally. This was so wrong. I can’t give him what he wants…what he needs. I can’t be with another male sexually…can I?

  He would have been certain of that fact only a week ago. And the sight of another male on his knees before him, begging to suck his cock would have turned his stomach. Now the thought of letting Ari wrap those soft, sweet lips around his shaft had him achingly hard. Was he changing? Becoming the kind of male who loved other males? Could someone change their sexual orientation so abruptly and completely?

  But I don’t desire all other males…just Ari. Only him, Lathe told himself. But just because he desired the boy didn’t mean he ought to let Ari—

  His thoughts were cut off abruptly when Ari leaned forward and placed a soft, sucking open-mouthed kiss against the head of his cock, making his shaft pulse back to aching hardness.

  “Please,” the boy whispered. “Please let me do this, Lathe. Please let me suck you.”

  He kissed La
the again and then ran his small, pink tongue from the base of Lathe’s shaft all the way to the crown.

  Lathe groaned with conflicted pleasure.

  “I shouldn’t,” he muttered harshly but one more glance at the boy’s pleading eyes broke his resolve. “All right,” he said at last. “All right but only…only this once. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Lathe,” Ari murmured softly. And then he bent to his task, using his soft hands and hot, wet mouth to pleasure Lathe as he had never been pleasured before.

  Ari hadn’t expected to enjoy it.

  When she’d first formed the plan of sucking the big Kindred in full view of the rest of the inmates in the Rec Yard, she’d expected that it would be a demeaning, disgusting experience. Maybe not as bad as if it was Tapper forcing himself on her, but still—it was something she’d never done before and had no urge to do either.

  But from the minute she’d knelt at Lathe’s feet and pulled out the big Kindred’s shaft, the warm, masculine scent had enveloped her, filling her with desire and erotic need.

  Having Lathe’s shaft in her face was nothing like having Tapper’s twisted, dirty root shoved at her. There was his amazing warm, delicious scent for one thing. And the hard, silky feel of the big Kindred’s flesh in her hands—so solid and hot, like a bar of iron warm from the forge—also called to her. She loved the texture of his big shaft—the skin soft as flower petals even while the shaft itself was hard as iron and pulsed like a live thing in her grasp.

  Ari thought she could feel his heartbeat as she held him—and it was beating just for her.

  Blocking out the rest of the curious eyes on her, she leaned forward and kissed him again…then took the entire broad head in her mouth and swirled her tongue around it. There was a tiny slit at the top of the tender nugget of flesh and Ari took a moment to explore it with the tip of her tongue. She tasted a drop of wetness there—salty and slightly bitter and completely delicious. Completely Lathe, somehow.

  “Gods, little one…” The low groan made her look up and she saw that the big Kindred was watching her, an unreadable expression in his turquoise eyes. Never breaking eye-contact, Ari licked him again and then sucked as much of his shaft into her mouth as she could at one time.

  It wasn’t much, actually because he was simply too big. But Ari had seen a few of her brother’s porn vids, which he’d always been careful to hide from their parents when they were younger. In several of them, she’d seen a technique for orally pleasuring a male who was extremely large.

  Using her hands, she stroked up and down his thick shaft as she continued to work the sensitive crown of his cock with her mouth and tongue. It was her first time trying such a thing—or sucking a male’s shaft at all for that matter—so she wasn’t exactly an expert. Still, from the way Lathe was groaning low in his throat and stroking her hair, she wasn’t doing too badly either.

  He’s enjoying it, Ari thought and felt a rush of wetness between her thighs. Goddess of Mercy, and I’m enjoying it too! It’s turning me on—sucking Lathe is making me so hot I can hardly hold still.

  It was true. She squeezed her thighs together hard, trying to control the surge of pleasure she got from performing the erotic act on the big Kindred but she couldn’t help the way her pussy pulsed with need as she sucked and stroked him. Goddess of Mercy, was she turning into some kind of an exhibitionist? Or was it just the fact that this was Lathe, she was pleasuring…Lathe who had protected and defended her from the first…who had sheltered and warmed her with his big body, asking nothing in return. Lathe, who—

  Listen to yourself, Ari, whispered a little voice in the back of her head. You’re falling in love with him!

  No—surely not! Ari pushed the thought away—or tried to, anyway. She barely knew the big Kindred, she told herself. They’d only been cellmates for two days. And yet…there was no denying that she found his gentle touch and the way he held her at night comforting. His big body curled around hers and his big hands on her skin were so warm…so tender. And just the thought of his sharp fangs sinking into her neck again was enough to make her pussy throb with desire.

  Goddess, maybe she was falling in love with him. But what would she do when he found out the truth about her? When he found out she’d been lying?

  Ari didn’t know and she couldn’t concentrate on such questions at the moment. All she wanted now was to please the big Kindred…to pleasure him and make him come the way he had made her come the night before when he bit her.

  As if in answer to her thoughts, she felt Lathe’s big hand tighten in her hair.

  “Gods, little one, you’d better pull off,” he groaned. “Think I’m close and I don’t want…don’t want to come in your mouth.”

  But that was exactly what Ari did want. She gripped him harder and bobbed her head, working the broad crown with her mouth and tongue, sucking and lapping the big Kindred for all she was worth. She didn’t care what the rest of the inmates would think when they saw her obviously swallowing Lathe’s seed—to be honest, she didn’t think of them at all. She just wanted to pleasure the big Kindred all the way to the end—to help him reach completion and lap away the evidence of his pleasure just as he had licked up hers when he’d sucked her fingers the night before.

  “Little one…Ari…Gods!” Lathe groaned. And then he was coming, spurting hot and hard against the back of her throat and filling her mouth with a rich cream like nothing Ari had ever tasted before.

  She’d expected his load to taste like the droplets of precum she’d lapped away while she was sucking him—salty and slightly bitter. Instead, it was somehow sweet. Not overpoweringly so, but just enough that it reminded her of melted snow-cream—a frozen dessert they had on her part of Phobos which had always been one of her favorite sweets.

  Lathe groaned and stopped trying to pull away when he saw she was serious about swallowing. Instead he held still, his hands buried in her hair as he fed her his cum, allowing it to pump into her mouth as Ari swallowed eagerly, enjoying every creamy drop as he fed it to her.

  At last his flow stopped and Ari sucked the last droplet away from his cock and let his shaft slip from her lips, Lathe sighed and stroked her cheek.

  “Thank you, little one,” he murmured, looking into her eyes. “You didn’t have to do that but it felt amazing.”

  “It was…amazing for me too,” Ari admitted in a low voice, licking her lips. “I…I never thought I…I would want to do that but…”

  “I never thought I’d want to let another male do that to me either,” Lathe told her in a low voice. He pulled away gently and tucked his shaft back into his jumpsuit. Ari couldn’t help noticing it was still hard. If it wasn’t for the way his creamy cum was currently warming her belly—making her feel much fuller and more satisfied than the awful Mid Meal food—she would have wondered if he had come at all.

  “I—” she began but she was interrupted by a catcall from one of the other inmates.

  “Look at Medic, gettin’ his knob polished! Here I thought he walked the straight and narrow but I guess he was just waitin’ for the right pretty mouth to come along.”

  Ari felt a hot blush creep into her cheeks. Rising hastily, she wiped her mouth on the sleeve of her jumpsuit.

  “Ari—” Lathe began but just then the whistle blew again and rec time was over.

  Not daring to look the big Kindred in the eyes again, Ari hurried away, keeping her gaze down and not looking at any of the laughing, jeering inmates who had seen her performance.

  I wanted them to see, she reminded herself impatiently, wishing she could stop blushing. But the fact was, she’d shown a lot more than she intended. When she’d first come up with the idea to go down on Lathe in public, she’d only intended to do it as a distasteful duty that would keep her safe—both by pleasing the big Kindred so much he wouldn’t want to get rid of her and by proving to the other inmates—Tapper in particular—that she and Lathe truly were being intimate with each other.

  She hadn’t expect
ed to enjoy it. Hadn’t expected to feel so much for the big Kindred or love the feeling of his hands in her hair or like the warm, creamy taste of his cum which was even now warming her belly.

  Forget about it, she told herself angrily. Just go back to work and forget about him. Do your job.

  But somehow the feel of his long, thick shaft in her mouth and hands in her hair wouldn’t leave her mind. And the taste of his seed lingered in her mouth, like a bitter-sweet memory of forbidden love.

  Twenty-Eight

  “Well, that was quite a show you put on out in the Rec Yard,” Stubbins said, arching one bushy eyebrow at her when Ari reported for duty after Mid Meal. For once he was alone—the rest of the Spice Lords gang was conspicuous by their absence. The gang leader was sitting at his folding table as usual, puffing on a nico-stick as he stared at her.

  “Yes, Sir,” Ari mumbled, looking down at her feet and not knowing what else to say. “Do you have any kites for me?” she added, trying to change the subject.

  But her new boss wasn’t so easily put off.

  “You were making a point, I’d say—you and Medic both,” he remarked thoughtfully. “Lettin’ everyone know that you belong to each other and nobody’d better try getting between you. ‘Ent that right?”

  “I…I guess so.” Ari looked up at her new boss, her face flaming. “I…I’m sorry if it, uh, offended you.”

  Stubbins laughed and spat on the floor beside the folding table.

  “Offended? We’re in BleakHall, lad! I see worse on my way to the shower every morning.” He gave her a sharp look. “Speaking of which, it’s my understanding you saw something pretty bad in the showers on E-block when I sent you up there this morning. I heard it had to do with Tapper—maybe that’s why you felt the need to put on a show?”

  Ari wondered how in the world the Spice Lords boss had found out about her run-in with Tapper. She shrugged and nodded, not having the words to express what she was feeling.

  “Uh-huh. I thought as much.” Stubbins nodded and took another puff of his nico-stick. “All right then—I understand. I just want you to know I don’t approve of what Tapper does with his Gods-damned list and wearing out the asses of all the littlest and weakest newbies. We was all newbies once—even me, lad.” He reached up and chucked Ari gently under the chin with his callused, nico-stained fingers.