Training the Master Ann Jacobs Book 7 in the Pleasure Partners series.
Pearl wants constant sexual pleasure, so she’s mated with Pak Lin, master maker of sexbots that are almost indistinguishable from humans. But she soon learns she wants more—some emotion, some human caring—from her mate, who seems about as cold as the sexbots who served as his groomsmen. Lin seems incapable of any emotion. Pearl knows she has little hope of ever meaning more to Lin than a convenient receptacle for his lust. She must lure him, seduce him—make him burn with desire for her alone. She must teach him how to love.
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Training the Master ISBN 9781419932397 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Training the Master Copyright © 2011 Ann Jacobs Edited by Pamela Campbell Cover design by Syneca Photography: Romancenovelcovers.com Electronic book publication November 2011 The terms Romantica® and Quickies® are registered trademarks of Ellora’s Cave Publishing. With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502. Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000. (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/). Please purchase only authorized electronic or print editions and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted material. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously. The publisher and author(s) acknowledge the trademark status and trademark ownership of all trademarks, service marks and word marks mentioned in this book. The publisher does not have any control over, and does not assume any responsibility for, author or third-party Web sites or their content.
TRAINING THE MASTER Ann Jacobs
Training the Master
Chapter One His girls were priceless. More precious than the most costly jewels in his inventory. Eli of Obsidion, jeweler to kings and rulers throughout the galaxy, had negotiated matings for his three beloved daughters, the last of which was about to be celebrated. “Eli, how do you feel, knowing that in just a few minutes the last of your beautiful daughters will take a mate?” Meredith the matchmaker wore a satisfied smile as she stood at Eli’s side, her sparkling sapphire-blue gown shimmering in the light of Obsidion’s three moons. He looked down at Meredith. Several times before he’d felt an attraction to her, but today that feeling was stronger than ever. Though his heart would always belong to the girls’ mother, Sadie, Meredith had a way of making his ancient cock stiffen, his pulse race. Perhaps… But now was not the time for considering his future. Pearl, his youngest, waited by a jewel-bedecked altar in the central courtyard of his home, flanked by her eldest sister, Emerald, and her mate, Crown Prince Arik of Obsidion. Garnet stood at Pearl’s other side, her arm casually looped through that of her mate, Romulus, the alien sex slave purveyor from Aurelion. If the gods were smiling on them all today, Pearl’s match with Pak Lin, son of the famed cyborg maker, would be as successful as the matches Meredith had made for her sisters. Eli frowned when he glanced at Pearl’s future mate and noticed the implacable expression on his face. From the beginning, Lin’s credentials hadn’t particularly impressed Eli. The boy was much too young, only a year older than the headstrong, beautiful Pearl. Unlike Arik and Romulus, Lin had demonstrated none of the traits of a typical Master when Meredith had brought him and his esteemed father around two years ago for an initial interview. 5
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Not that Eli could fault the boy’s appearance. Tall, with golden skin and only a hint of the Asian Earthling features that made his father stand out in any crowd, Lin had a regal look about him, surrounded as he was now by six equally detached attendants. The man’s apparent aloofness troubled Eli, but he shoved aside his concern. The boy might seem distant now, but as soon as the consummation began, Eli trusted that passion would take over and he’d become the eager bridegroom. He hoped so, because Pearl wouldn’t tolerate aloofness. Not at all. Of all his girls, she’d given him the most headaches over a libido that wouldn’t quit. He sighed, counting in his head the number of high-tech sexbots Pearl had gone through in the eight or nine years since she hit puberty. Twenty-four, including the last one that died a week ago, and she’d only had it for six weeks before its motor failed. Eli turned to Meredith. “Tell me you made no mistake in choosing this Pak Lin for Pearl. He seems so detached, almost bored. Not at all eager as I’d expect a bridegroom to be. As you know, my youngest daughter has a healthy libido that she will insist on having satisfied.” “A typical understatement from a loving father, considering you told me from the outset that this daughter kills off one of her sexbots every few months. Relax, Eli. I chose Pak Lin precisely because he is ideally qualified to feed Pearl’s voracious appetite for sex.” Eli wasn’t entirely reassured, but the ceremony was about to begin. The time was long past when he could call a halt to the proceedings on the basis of nothing more than an uneasy feeling about the match. As the assembled guests watched, Garnet and Emerald stripped away their sister’s pearl-encrusted robe, leaving her naked but for the choker of pearls and moonstones Lin had selected last week from Eli’s stock. When her sisters helped her lie down on the ceremonial altar, Pearl’s sable curls stood out against the gleaming marble. Against age-old tradition, Lin had insisted her hair not be cut, but instead be bound atop her head as one of the priestesses was doing now.
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“All will be well, my friend,” Meredith said, giving Eli’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “Here come the attendants. Pak Lin will soon join them. Let’s move a little closer to the altar where we can witness the mating ceremony.”
Pak Lin’s cock swelled. His pulse raced. His gaze locked on the woman on the altar as he observed the beginning of the mating ritual as it unfolded before him—an ancient tradition of groomsmen preparing a bride, to which he had added his own modern twist. His mouth curved upward with amusement at the joke he was making of the traditional mating insisted upon by Eli the Jeweler. Pride bloomed as he realized no one but he realized that the attendants now completing their preparation of his mate were not men but sexbots. Multipurpose bots of his creation, indistinguishable from living beings to all but the most discerning. Lin watched, unable to remain as calm as he had planned. Blood pounded in his cock as his bots set the gorgeous Pearl to writhing on the altar. He couldn’t help noticing her arousal, the fine sheen of perspiration on her enticing, naked body. Breathing hard, he anticipated with pleasure the mating that was about to take place. Fucking the beautiful, ebony-haired Pearl would prove no hardship. Keeping his feelings under control didn’t promise to be as easy as Lin had imagined before he’d seen her and felt the sensual promise in the way she assessed him with frank appreciation in those deep-blue eyes. He was practically salivating now as he watched the bots bring her to the edge of orgasm. No! Lin had sworn he’d be strong. No matter how difficult it might be, he would defeat the carnal urges that were trying to snare him in their grip. I am master over my emotions, and no mere woman is going to entangle them. I will not become a mindless slave to my cock’s demands. As he waited for his cue, he kept reminding himself he’d long ago sworn off emotional attachments. By avoiding them he’d managed to quell the pain and anguish 7
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he’d felt as a child when he’d lost loved ones, one after the other. Where grief had practically paralyzed him back then, now it had dissipated, though it still visited him in dreams after nearly twenty years had passed. The priest gave the prearranged cue for Lin to come forward. He took a deep, cleansing breath and schooled his features into a mask of passivity. Baring one shoulder from the black velvet cloak that masked his nakedness, he began the long walk to the altar. With every step he told himself the woman he would soon take as his mate was no different than a high-tech sexbot, except that she could provide him with the means of perpetuating his line. Every time his gaze strayed to her, laid out on the altar for his pleasure, he was struck by her beauty, her vitality. It was going to take his best efforts to think of her as a fuck mate and consort, but never allow himself to feel anything more for her.
Gods help her, she was going to disgrace herself if the six gorgeous males charged with preparing her for her mating didn’t signal Pak Lin to join them soon. Pearl gasped for breath and clamped down on her cunt muscles. She couldn’t come yet, before her mate even showed up. But she couldn’t hold back much longer if these six hot guys kept up their sensual onslaught. Her clit swelled and hardened under one talented tongue. Her breasts tingled from the wet, warm stimulation from two others. The other three sucked her fingers and toes, and she found their attention almost as stimulating as what the others were doing to her more obvious erogenous zones. Fragrant, arousing smoke from incense placed around the courtyard swirled about, enveloped them in a haze. It obscured her vision and made her focus on touch alone, a milieu of hands and mouths driving her to a fever pitch of sexual need. “The bridegroom cometh.” The words of the priest echoed through the courtyard. Oohs and ahs rang out as guests commented on her mate’s broad, lean chest, his muscled abs that were exposed 8
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by the drape of his cloak. Pearl closed her eyes and pictured the awesome appearance her young cyborg maker would make. Soon he would stand beside her and drop his cloak. She would see his cock and stroke the chest their guests seemed to admire so much. She’d feel his hands in her hair and his lips on hers. Their tongues would tangle and mate as his companions continued their delicious assault on her senses, bringing her passion to a crescendo. Then he’d wave them away, slide his cock into her very wet cunt and fuck her until she passed out from the incredible pleasure of the mating. If he accepted her. Pearl’s breath caught in her throat. Her pulse raced as she felt the heat of his dark gaze. She opened her eyes as the man chosen to be her mate looked down on her, his handsome face impassive. His expression inscrutable, he inspected her from head to toe, lingering nowhere, not even on her lush, full breasts that most men ogled. Was his cock hard and ready? Did looking at her send blood slamming out of his brain? By the gods, she couldn’t tell. His expression was unreadable, as though he were one of his father’s famous cyborgs, complete with all the necessary functioning parts except feelings. She waited impatiently for him to say something. “Has someone struck you dumb?” She’d waited long enough. She wanted his acceptance and she needed to satisfy the raging need in her cunt. “Silence.” Just that one word accompanied his fierce scowl. Pearl trembled on the altar of submission, worried now. Would he reject her, making her the object of pity to all on Obsidion? Lin swept her with an appraising gaze, his eyes intent, lips drawn tight as though deep in thought. His attendants continued stimulating her as if he were not there, warming her flesh, readying her. For what? she wondered. Then he tossed off his cloak and stood naked before her. His cock, bigger than most she’d seen, stood tall above a smooth scrotum drawn high against his groin. The outline of two fat, oval testicles within attested to his potency. She had no complaints. 9
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“I accept this woman as my mate,” he said, his voice as devoid of emotion as his expression was forbidding. For long moments he stood above her, saying nothing further. He made no move to claim her. His attendants continued their sensual assault, forcing her body to grow hotter, wetter. Gods but she wanted Lin to claim her as his own even though she read his inaction as lack of desire. Meredith the matchmaker had talked up this man’s virility, his stamina as well as his lusty appetite for women and his father’s desire for him to take a mate and breed an heir. His father’s desire but apparently not his own, Pearl surmised as he stood there watching while his attendants titillated her, shoving her inexorably toward the climax she was supposed to have here on the altar, but not until he claimed her. Why won’t he fuck me? She squirmed, embarrassed at the copious cream flowing from her cunt. It drenched her ass and probably had pooled on the altar between her widespread thighs. She bit her tongue so hard she saw stars, just to keep from screaming for Lin to take her now! Her nipples hardened painfully and her clit swelled even more. Still Lin did nothing but look down at her as she writhed in unwilling ecstasy from his attendants’ ministrations. Pearl wanted to fucking kill him even as wave after wave of luscious sensation coursed through her. Even as— Finally! He strode around her, moved the attendant who still was tweaking her clit, stood between her legs and resumed staring down at her. The attendants’ hands, seeming as though disembodied now, began a sensual stroking of her calves and knees, her arms. More hands lifted her head, giving her a bird’s-eye view of his rigid cock, which seemed to lengthen and thicken more before her eyes. Its thick, plum-like head nudged her glistening cunt lips. By the gods, he seemed huge. None of the traditional adornments pierced his flesh. Pearl’s mouth watered at the thought of feasting on his massive cock, of taking it into her cunt and ass and…
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Oh gods. Now he was strapping on another cock. The dildo looked eerily like his own flesh, only smaller. At his silent nod, his attendants untied her, flipped her onto her belly, and secured her, ass up, on the transparent altar. Her breasts hung free when the upper part of the altar retracted. An attendant held her by the hair while another secured her Master’s pearl-encrusted collar to metal rings on each side of the altar. The mirrors positioned beneath the altar allowed her to inspect her mate’s dark, tight scrotum, his throbbing cock poised to sink into her needy cunt and the strap-on he now was oiling with one big, capable-looking hand. Two attendants knelt beneath the altar. Two mouths clamped onto her nipples and suckled them. Their tongues flailed the sensitive nubs. Their teeth grazed her flesh, seemingly in unison. Pearl felt her stomach muscles tighten yet again as her cunt grew impossibly hotter and wetter. The heavily greased finger her mate had just worked up her ass set off waves of need—lust that burned more intensely than any she’d experienced. Lin withdrew his finger, positioned himself and sank into her cunt and ass at the same time, filling her, stretching her. Claiming her. He steadied her with hot hands as he pushed deeper and harder until his cock head rested at the entrance to her womb and the strap-on completely filled her anus. For a moment he stilled, letting her grow accustomed to the dual invasion. The two attendants who suckled her breasts stopped, too, in an eerily coordinated choreography of motion, the wet heat of their mouths containing her even as her Master contained himself inside her. His heavy balls rested against her swollen clit. By the gods, she’d never been quite so hot. Pressure built in her belly, spread its searing heat from her cunt and ass with every pulsation of Lin’s cocks inside her. Her nipples tingled. “Gods yes, Master,” she hissed as waves of pleasure began to overtake her. “Fuck me hard.” He began to move, his hips driving in and out, harder and faster with each stroke. The dildo slid in and out of her ass while his long, thick cock slipped in and out of the
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wetness of her cunt. Slurping sounds of sex echoed in her ears, a symphony of sorts. Her cunt and ass clenched as her body tried to hold on to his withdrawing cocks. Softer sounds of suckling mouths on her nipples reached her ears, along with the noises she couldn’t help emitting from deep in her throat. Another, stronger climax threatened to take her. The mouths sucked harder. The cocks slammed into her cunt and ass faster, deeper. Lin’s balls tightened, hardened against her clit. Teeth grazed her nipples. Her mate’s cocks swelled inside her, twitched and then erupted, sending burst after burst of searing, liquid heat straight into her womb. Pearl didn’t think she could come any more, but Lin’s orgasm sent more waves of pleasure through her body, leaving her limp, practically unconscious. We are well and truly mated. She was spent. Her eyelids drooped and closed. For a long time she lay there, the aftereffects of her climax soaring through her well-initiated body.
***** The ritual mating was over, the toasts drunk and quantities of costly foods consumed. Finally the celebratory gathering had broken up and he’d taken his new mate home. Lin’s jaw ached from smiling. His eyes felt as though they’d been crossed and uncrossed a thousand times. Not surprising since eye commands were the ways he sent instructions to the bots. Damn it, he’d have to figure another unobtrusive way besides eye signals to orchestrate the activities of his sexbots, or resolve never again to use as many as six of them at once, no matter the occasion. His cock twitched when he thought about how good it had felt, lodged inside the wet, swollen cunt of a real, live woman. Perhaps… No, his father most likely was right. Pak Song usually was. The old cyborg-maker always insisted that no bot could compare with a living female, no matter how carefully it was designed.
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Still Lin, always the scientist, was determined to create a female bot that provided the same tactile sensations as a living woman. After all, he’d managed to create the attendants who’d taken part in his mating ceremony. No one had guessed they were anything but six of his closest friends, taking part in the ancient ritual of claiming a mate. He was fairly sure that not even Pearl had guessed the six men were actually sexbots. She’d find out soon enough. Lin savored the thought of telling her his six attendants would be their constant companions in the mating chamber. Even now two of them were bathing and perfuming her. Soon they’d chain her to the bed so he could fuck her again. This time he’d test a new false cock he’d recently perfected—the one he’d installed on one of the bots. With luck she wouldn’t be able to tell the organ wasn’t real when she took it in her pretty mouth. Lin checked the notes on his handheld computer. It was Alpha Two in which he’d installed the experimental phallus and its drivers. He must remember. Perhaps he should order the other sexbots to leave the room so as not to get confused about which of them had the equipment he wanted to test. Stupidly, he’d created them all to look like more or less generic Earthlings, varied only by subtle differences in skin tone and height. Lin entered a mental note in the computer to make some alterations to the bots so they would be easier to distinguish from one another. As it was, he sometimes couldn’t tell at a glance which bot was which. Not surprising since they all wore the same biogenetically engineered muscles, bones and skin that made them look like living beings. There were still glitches but overall, Lin was proud of the progress he’d made, taking the sexbots for which his father had become famous throughout the galaxy and making them look and feel so real no casual observer, or horny female for that matter, could tell the difference between them and the real thing. Lin dropped his robe carelessly to the floor and regarded his own half-hard cock. This time he’d fuck her in the ass and try out the experimental cock he’d built into
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Alpha Two. His cock twitched as if it understood his thought, approved heartily and looked forward to invading its mate’s dark, tight hole. Perhaps he’d create a strap-on version of the new, intelligent false cock he’d made. He laughed out loud at the idea—two cocks on one man. Going further in his fantasy, Lin considered the possibility of creating one bot that could take care of all three of a woman’s holes at the same time. He laughed at the picture in his mind, of a cock growing out of the mouth of a sexbot, ready to deep-throat its owner while the bot used its other two cocks to fuck her cunt and ass. Lin immediately recognized that the triple-cock bot would have at least one major disadvantage. The woman and the bot would have to face each other, which would prohibit her ordering it to try many arousing positions. Rear entry, for instance. His cock swelled further when he recalled having clutched Pearl’s plump ass cheeks while he fucked her, having watched the bots suck her nipples and wishing at the time they hadn’t been there so he could have tugged at the hard, tight nubs with his fingers. He refused to succumb to maudlin emotion. No matter how difficult it might be to keep thinking of Pearl as a super-sexbot, he would absolutely never become a Master who was in truth submissive to his own slave-mate. He’d seen countless men come to his father’s shop looking for sexbots to provide them with erotic entertainment when their women would not. He’d even witnessed the phenomenon in his brother-in-law, the Crown Prince—a powerful, fierce looking man who obviously turned to jelly in the hands of his princess. And in the sex slave emporium owner, Romulus, who if rumor could be believed, had all but deserted his lifelong companion and male lover in favor of his own mate, Pearl’s sister. I’m stronger than either of them. Lin wouldn’t allow himself to become emotionally involved with his mate. While he’d honor his father and keep their line going, he would never let his beautiful mate distract him from his life’s mission. It wasn’t that he didn’t intend to enjoy fucking her. He simply wouldn’t let his feelings become involved.
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“No. I refuse to be chained like an animal. Leave me,” Pearl screeched loud enough to rupture Lin’s eardrums, even through the closed door to the mating chamber. Alarmed that one of his bots might have malfunctioned and done something to hurt her, Lin charged in to find her sitting up in the middle of the fucking bed, staring down Alpha Four, who was trying in vain to get her to lie down so he could fasten the chains to the metal eyelets in the collar around her neck. Lin sighed. Beautiful his mate might be, but she was obviously no biddable creature. This might mean trouble. “Go. I will tether her myself,” he said, relieved to see Alpha Two still waiting quietly by the door to the bathing room. “Yes, Master,” Alpha Four croaked as it made its way out. Damn it, Lin should have remembered to mute the bot’s speech mechanism. No way would any living being listen to it talk and not know, because the bot’s voice sounded mechanical. Tinny and halting, nowhere near the way a normal male spoke. Lin obviously had spent too much time on perfecting the bots’ appearance and ability to follow commands, and not enough on making their computer-generated voices sound real. Of course, he rationalized, the bots didn’t often have occasion to speak. Quick action would forestall Pearl’s questions. Lin pushed her onto her back and deftly tethered her collar to the neck and headrest portion of the bed. “Come,” he ordered Alpha Two. “Fuck her mouth.” “Damn you! I…oompf.” Her words were muffled by Alpha Two’s rigid cock, but Pearl lashed out with both feet and caught Lin in the right thigh, inches from his balls. “Don’t fight me, slave. I order you to suck his cock.” Lin grabbed one flailing limb at a time, securing her arms at her sides, her gorgeous legs in stirrups. Finally he managed to render her completely helpless, open for his possession. “I intend to claim your ass, the same way I claimed your tight wet cunt at our mating.” Despite having told himself to ignore all but her most essential parts, he couldn’t help noticing her creamy skin felt softer and more supple than what he’d so far been 15
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able to bioengineer for his bots. Looking at her full breasts with their ringed, rosy nipples pebbled now with apparent arousal got him hotter than he’d ever been when fucking any bot, even the experimental Omega Female he was in the process of perfecting. Damn it, mating is purely a biological function. The giving over of one body to another. The sharing of bodily fluids that might join to produce a new generation. I don’t need a mate for more than that. I don’t want her for more. Of course he didn’t. Lin reminded himself once more that he needed no living companions. He wanted no entanglements that eventually might cause him pain. He tore his gaze from his helpless slave and concentrated instead on remembered sounds and sensations of impending release. With every indrawn breath Lin grew harder and hotter as the heady smell of woman surrounded them. Lubrication oozed from the tip of his cock, captured inside the condom he’d put on. He tried not to wish Pearl were the one preparing him, smearing the cool gel lubricant over his sheathed flesh. When he felt her grip his finger with her inner muscles as he pushed the gel up her ass, he tried not to consider anything but the coming pleasure. But he failed. As he sank his fingers slowly into her ass and cunt, preparing her, her whimpers around the Alpha Two’s high-tech cock turned slowly to moans of pleasure. The enthusiastic sounds of her sucking cock made Lin want to order the bot away and shove his own throbbing organ down her throat. He would appreciate feeling her lips and tongue on his cock, the swallowing motions of her throat, the warm, damp caresses of her breath on his balls. The sexbot didn’t. Couldn’t. It had no feelings. Lin had programmed the bots to do exactly as ordered. He hadn’t imbued even the most advanced of the Alpha Male sexbots with the simplest emotions, hadn’t tried to transform them into living things. Alpha Two was cheating Pearl, giving her pleasure without enjoying the pleasure she was selflessly giving back.
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Lin had a sudden compulsion to throw Alpha Two against the wall. That gave him a moment’s pause. It seemed he was doing something he’d sworn never to do, becoming possessive of his mate, considering her as more than a vessel for his semen. He played his fingers along her swollen, damp slit, finding her cunt again and inserting two fingers before moving his other hand back to play with her asshole until he felt the flesh contract and expand as though needing to be filled. His cock throbbed. His balls tightened with anticipation. Whoever had convinced him that fucking a bot could give a man the same sort of satisfaction as fucking a mate had been wrong. Dead wrong. Bots didn’t tremble under his touch. They didn’t moan when he slid the lower part of the bed aside and stepped between their legs. They didn’t lift their asses in invitation when he positioned his cock. It doesn’t matter. Pearl’s feelings mean nothing. What I feel now is unvarnished lust. No more and no less than I’ll eventually experience with my experimental, Omega Female sexbot. Accepting that rationalization, Lin began to fuck her ass, gently pressing forward until his sheathed, lubricated cock head popped past her anal sphincter. When she tugged against her bonds, he slid all the way inside her incredibly tight rear hole and began to move. Gods but she felt better than any bot, even the Omega Female. Her ass gripped his cock almost painfully. Watching Alpha Two methodically fucking her mouth aroused yet infuriated him, but he couldn’t tear his gaze from the slender column of his mate’s throat, the motion of the bot’s cock within it. Her satiny skin glistened with a sheen of sweat on her brow, between her breasts, on her flushed, satiny cheeks as they expanded and compressed while she sucked the bot. The orgasmic clenching of her ass around his cock made her hot, snug passage even tighter, an erotic sensation somewhere between intense pleasure and exquisite pain. His balls drew up. If he didn’t come soon, he’d explode.
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There. The first spurts of his semen drenched his cock and filled the tip of the condom. His thigh muscles contracted and strained as burst after burst of his hot seed shot out. The wild contractions of her flesh around his shaft kept him coming until he was gasping for breath and struggling to stay on his feet. “Cease. Leave us,” he managed to rasp out to Alpha Two before collapsing over his mate in a stupor of supreme satisfaction.
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Chapter Two Pearl woke stretched out on a wide, soft bed, no longer restrained. She was pleasantly sore—and majorly pissed. Lin knew how to use his long, thick cock, all right. From all the emotion her mate had expressed while they he fucked her, though, he might as well have been one of his father’s deluxe sexbots. She understood about the attendants not showing emotion. They had one purpose, to arouse her for her mate’s pleasure. They’d done a damn good job of driving her almost to the edge of orgasm, even though she’d gotten the distinct idea the attendant Lin had called Alpha Two would have been equally engaged if he’d had his cock sucked by a sexbot. He hadn’t come, and he hadn’t made a sound, not even a howl of frustration when Lin had ordered him to stop and get out. Something funny was going on. She intended to find out what. Crawling out of bed, Pearl slipped into a creamy satin robe, flipped her long, high ponytail over her shoulder, and went off in search of her brand-new mate. Why hadn’t Lin stayed in bed with her after they’d made love? The answer is obvious, stupid. He didn’t make love, he had sex with me the same way he would have with a bot. That fucking pissed her off. She bet neither Emerald nor Garnet’s mates had left them to awaken alone and lonely, although on second thought she figured Prince Arik might have, back when he and Emerald were newly mated. Emerald had mentioned he’d been reluctant at first to let her see his scars. Still, Lin had no excuse, no disfigurement to justify him deciding to abandon her on their first whole day as mates. He didn’t have a lover he needed to placate, either, as Romulus had after he’d mated with Garnet. The first door Pearl opened led to an airy room with a tiled floor and comfortablelooking cushions arranged around a low table. Grayish-green draperies of slick, soft19
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looking material matched the covers on plump cushions stacked neatly in front of floorto-ceiling windows. Her nostrils flared at the flower-like aroma of steam coming from the antique lacquered teapot that sat in the center of the table. Looking closely at the delicately painted, glossy, black pot, she decided it probably was a relic from Lin’s family’s time on Earth. The room was perfectly appointed yet as devoid of emotion as Lin himself. Suddenly ravenous, Pearl sank cross-legged onto one of the cushions, landing pretty close to the spot she’d aimed for, and filled a thimble-sized cup with the fragrant brew. No sooner had she sat down than an expressionless servant appeared, bowed and set a plate of almond-encrusted pastries before her. “Welcome to Pak Lin’s home,” he said, his voice mechanical, much like the inflectionless voice of the attendant Lin had summarily dismissed last night. Mechanical. Not real. Temporarily rendered speechless, Pearl stared at the servant as he walked away. Could he be a bot? He didn’t look like one. As a matter of fact, he looked a great deal like one of Lin’s attendants who had taken part in the mating ceremony yesterday. She took a bite of the pastry and savored the crunchy almonds. The creamy frosting contrasted with flaky layers, reminding her of the rugala her mother used to make when she’d been a little girl. Pearl set down the pastry and lifted the dainty teacup. “That is jasmine tea, imported from Earth. I hope you enjoy the taste.” When she turned toward the normal, low-pitched male voice, she saw Lin. “It’s excellent. So are the pastries. I had hoped to wake and find you still in our bed,” she said, not able to squelch the tone of disappointment that crept into her last comment. “I rise early. You are welcome to sleep as late as you like. If I want to fuck you, I will wake you.” He sat much more gracefully than she had, but then Pearl reminded herself he had most likely been sitting on the floor to eat for his entire life, and she’d made her first attempt this morning.
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With unusual grace for one so large, Lin lifted the teapot and poured himself some of the tea. His expression was inscrutable. Emotionless. Maddening. Pearl could barely restrain herself from slapping that infuriating lack of feeling off his face. “I hope I pleased you,” she said, not really caring a whole lot but figuring conversing about it would open a dialogue between them. She had to know what he expected of her. She suspected his expectations might be completely different from hers. Sex and lots of it. Mind-blowing sex. That’s what she’d come into this mating expecting—sex that would surpass every whispered story she’d heard from Emerald and Garnet about life with their respective mates. But she also anticipated a certain amount of affection. Damn it, Prince Arik took pains to be kind to his cousins, the royal eunuchs. Romulus had the reputation of being considerate of the sex slaves who worked in his emporiums. Damn it, even the pets in her father’s household rated a pat on the head, a cuddle and a romp outside on a nice day. “I have no complaints.” Lin finished his tea and rose as gracefully as he’d sat. “I do, however, have much work to do. I will require your company later. You may await me in my bedchamber after the evening meal. I will send one of my attendants to show you around the house, and I will instruct him to see to your other needs until I return.” By the gods! Lin had just taken her expectations and blown them clear out of the galaxy. She expected affection from her mate. Both of her sisters had told her that by loving their Masters, they had tamed them. But if she was to do that with Lin, Pearl needed to make some emotional connection with him. That wasn’t likely to be easy, since it seemed she’d taken a Master with no more feelings than one of the marble statues in the Street of Pleasure. Pearl bit her lip until it hurt. If she hadn’t, she’d have lashed out at Lin—at his back, since having issued his fucking highhanded order, he was on his way out. The words she wanted to shriek at him would make her father wash her mouth out with the foul smelling stuff he used to soak the dirt off uncut gemstones.
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She’d see about this! Somewhere hidden beneath his stoic exterior, Lin had to possess the qualities she wanted in a lover. Pearl trusted that Meredith wouldn’t have deliberately paired her with a statue. After all, the matchmaker had picked ideal mates for her sisters, who had demanded qualities much harder to find than a huge libido and the sexual originality to match. In addition to the fact that Meredith had recently developed a soft spot for their father, she had to protect an unblemished record of having matched all her clients with their perfect mates. So far, the only admirable features Pearl had noticed about Lin were his massive cock and balls and a mindless, almost bot-like skill at wielding them in her cunt and ass. Oh, and she mustn’t forget his skill at using the strap-on dildo at their mating ceremony. It had felt incredibly like his own flesh—only smaller than his cock. She scrambled up from the floor. Maybe she’d missed something about Lin that she ought to have noticed. She would call on the matchmaker. Her mind made up, she started back to her chamber to dress. Before she could do that, the attendant Lin called Alpha Two appeared. In skintight pants and shirt that clung lovingly to his every well-developed muscle, he might as well be naked. As naked as he was last night when she’d sucked his cock and cleanshaven balls. Unlike Lin, who wore his black hair cut short and shaggy, Alpha’s nicely shaped head was completely shaved, in the style most males on Obsidion preferred. Like Lin’s, Alpha’s expression was blank, as though he didn’t have the ability to register pain, joy, any sort of feeling at all. His cock, however, drew and held her gaze, hardening and thickening before her eyes. If Lin didn’t want to fuck her, maybe Alpha did. Pearl’s juices began to flow. Her nipples turned hard and ached for attention. Her clit swelled and ached. Hmmm. Lin had alluded to her other needs. When she looked at Alpha and saw his visible state of arousal, she surmised he was well equipped to take care of those needs, whatever they might be. “I don’t need a tour of my Master’s house. What I need is for you to fuck me.”
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“Your…wish…is…my…command.” The words sounded good. The fact they were uttered slowly and distinctly, in a voice free of any inflection, disturbed Pearl—not enough, however, to make her send Alpha away. “Then show me to your fucking chamber.” She thought it seemed, well, unseemly, to have Alpha do her in her Master’s bed.
***** “These…are…my…quarters.” Alpha opened a door at the end of a narrow hallway off the room where Pearl had taken the tea and pastry, and stood back for Pearl to enter. What she saw made her mouth drop open. The other five attendants who’d readied her for the mating yesterday were lined up against one wall. If she didn’t know better, she’d say they were mannequins like the ones merchants used to display clothing in their stores, for she detected no motion. Not the rise or fall of a muscular chest, not even a twitch of an eyelid among the lot of them. No, these guys weren’t merely sleeping, they showed not a single sign of life. “What the fuck?” “I…do…not…compute…mistress…Pearl.” “What are your pals doing in here, propped up against the wall like oversized dolls?” Alpha hesitated so long Pearl imagined his mind whirring away like a computer. “Are you a fucking bot?” “I…am…processing…your…question…mistress. One…moment…please.” The guy she was about to fuck even sounded like a fucking bot. Maybe—the idea came to her like a light bulb bursting in and illuminating the darkness—maybe her mate had an army of very special sexbots. After all, Lin’s father was renowned for building the best that could be had.
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That couldn’t be. These guys didn’t look like bots. They hadn’t felt like mechanical toys. They’d felt like men. Like Lin. Pearl lifted an eyebrow, as if an exasperated look might hurry Alpha Two in his thoughts. “Yes. We…are…bots. Programmed…to…meet…your…needs.” “I knew it!” Pearl didn’t know whether to laugh or hit something. She imagined Lin bent over a mainframe somewhere in the house, orchestrating every move, playing the bots like violins and her like a fucking fool. Or a hot mate he thought he needed help to satisfy. Alpha Two grasped her hand, practically dragging her to the big bed in the center of the room. Pearl didn’t like, not one bit, living in a house full of bots that could pass for people, with a mate who exhibited no more feelings than the sexbot she was about to fuck. Alpha’s cock had tasted real enough last night, though. Very real. The slightly salty taste of him lingered even now in her memory. Her cunt twitched. By the gods, her mate had invited this super-sexbot to fuck her, so who was she to disobey? Shooting him a come-hither smile, realizing as she did that the bot needed no encouragement, she slipped off her robe and stretched out on the bed. “I order you to make me come.” Methodically, Alpha Two stripped off its clothes, first the soft-soled boots which it toed off and set by the bed. Then, with efficiency of motion, it drew the shirt over its head, paused a moment and then tackled the closure of the skin-tight breeches. Pearl had trouble remembering the bot wasn’t alive—hard to believe the hard muscles and throbbing cock were products of some genius’s imagination, and the handsome face had been conjured up by that same fiend. Lin? Could be, she decided. Or Lin’s father might have made these bots. In any case this one made her pulse race and her mouth water when it lay beside her and… nothing. “You…must…instruct…me…mistress.” Instruct? Oh, yeah. Alpha could talk, in a manner of speaking, but apparently it had no imagination. Since listening to its halting speech turned her off, she reached over and 24
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grabbed its hands. “Touch me. Taste me. Fuck me. Oh, and don’t speak.” Surely the bot could process such a simple order. Obviously it got the “touch me” part, because it rolled over, sat up and stroked her cheek, tracing around her lips with a finger before moving on to her throat and shoulders. When it reached her breasts it gently kneaded them, paying special attention to her nipples by rolling them between its thumbs and forefingers before it began rotating her nipple rings. What Alpha was doing to her felt good, yet as impersonal as when her much less sophisticated bots back home had taken care of all her sexual needs. Pearl felt as though disembodied hands were exploring her, paying as much attention to her prominent hipbones as they did to her clit and pussy lips. On the plus side, she was discovering erogenous zones she hadn’t realized before were sensitive, such as—“Oh gods yes, do that some more!”—matching spots behind each knee that nearly made her jump out of her skin when the bot caressed her there. “Stop.” The sexual tension suddenly was too much. It did. Stop. Completely. When she opened her eyes it had sat up and was staring down at her, arms folded across its chest as though awaiting further instructions. Pearl wanted a fucking man, not a sexbot! She wanted one who’d take the initiative, who would make her come until she couldn’t come anymore. Where in this insane household was Lin? How dare he leave her to this…this automaton? If Alpha had looked like a sexbot, she’d have expected to tell it exactly what to do and when to do it. But by the gods, these bots all looked like men—dropdead gorgeous, beautifully endowed male animals with computers for brains. Tragically. Pearl’s cunt contracted, as though telling her she needed satisfaction. “Get down between my legs and lick my pussy,” she snapped, as she had done almost every day to her own metal and plastic bot, before her mating. “Not…understanding…mistress.” 25
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One of the bots against the wall—this one tall, blue-eyed, and buff—suddenly came to life and strode purposefully to the bed. Silently it stretched out between Pearl’s legs and began to lick along the length of her slit, using its warm, wet tongue to pierce her cunt and lap the juices there. It covered her clit with its lips, sucked, nibbled… “Oh gods yes.” The waves of pleasure coursed through her, left her drained, yet needing more. Pearl needed a man, and she was about to go find one. A real man with a real brain and real feelings.
***** What was going on with Alpha Two and his mate? As hard as Lin fought to hold his concentration, he couldn’t keep Pearl off his mind. He plotted adjustments he needed to make to the Alpha series of sexbots in order to ready them for the marketplace, but none of the formulas he tried were working. “Cannot build the sorts of bots you’re working on, my son. If sexbots look and act like people, our customers will expect them to have real feelings. They will be sorely disappointed.” Pak Song’s words rang in Lin’s ears, but he wasn’t yet ready to accept them. Before his mating, he’d been perfectly satisfied with the Omega Female prototype he’d been using in his bed for close to six months. After one night with Pearl, however, he was beginning to realize how a customer might find himself dissatisfied with an Omega. Especially a customer who had experienced sex with a real, living woman. Lin’s cock swelled, but he was thinking about Pearl’s soft mouth, her tight, wet cunt—not the Omega Pocket Pussy he usually used to take the edge off his lust while he continued with his work. Fuck. Lin wanted nothing and no one to intrude in his neat, ordered life, or distract him from his quest to make the galaxy’s finest sexbots—better even than the ones his esteemed father had created before branching off into bionic engineering of replacement body parts for living beings—a successful venture that had earned Pak Song accolades
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all over the galaxy when he had created a perfect, bionic hand and forearm for Obsidion’s crown prince who had been maimed in a an attack off-planet. Lin didn’t need to have his mate invading his mind, keeping him from accomplishing what he’d set out to do. What he definitely didn’t need at the moment was a raging hard-on, which came up the moment he pictured her joining him, kneeling before him, taking his cock in her mouth the way she had last night for Alpha Two. Damn it. She might be sucking the bot again right now. And he shouldn’t care. Didn’t care. Alpha Two was only a bot, and if it was fucking Pearl, that was because it was doing what he had programmed it to do. All the gods be damned, I do care. I don’t want my mate fucking with my bots while I’m busy working. Rolling his chair back from the computer console, he got up and started for the door. Then Lin sat back down. I won’t give in to my emotions. I dare not. Determined to take care of his inconvenient problem expediently, Lin unfastened his pants, took an Omega Pocket Pussy out of the drawer and sighed when it encircled his cock in a tight, rhythmically undulating grip. The pussy moved up and down on him, wiggling from side to side, its warm, damp walls caressing his cock almost as a woman would. He closed his eyes and tried to let the sensations take him. But then he reached out to hold his mate and there was no one there. By the gods, he no longer wanted simple satisfaction, though he felt his climax coming on. He wanted a woman. His woman. No! He would fuck Pearl—regularly. It might be hard to think of her as just another fuck toy, but he’d never allow his emotions to become involved, no matter what. He forced himself to concentrate on his cock, on the tightness in his balls. On the impending release he knew would bring physical satisfaction. But not contentment.
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Restless, Pearl paced through her new home, looking for something—any hints as to what traumas might have shaped her new mate. Nothing. His house was beautiful. Obviously no expense had been spared in building and furnishing it. The sparse but elegant furniture and construction details such as a curved-glass window spanning two stories and looking out on a courtyard planted in various exotic foliage from around the galaxy, all pointed to the fact that Lin appreciated the finer things life offered. But the place had no color. No vibrant affirmation of life. Even the plantings in the
courtyard featured specimens in practically
monochromatic shades of gray-green. No white blossoms or brightly colored flowers like the ones in her father’s garden dotted the precisely manicured beds bordered by stone walkways. The reddish brown, irregularly shaped stones along the walkways lent the only warmth to the scene. Lin’s house, like Lin himself, displayed no emotion, no warmth. Pearl couldn’t help thinking her mate must have deliberately eliminated his emotions. Whether or not he’d done this consciously, he’d succeeded in turning himself into a living, breathing sexbot not too different from the bots his father was famed for producing. A frightening thought crossed her mind. Was Lin essentially just a sexbot like the ones that had attended him at their mating and that apparently tended this house? Pearl shuddered. If she had to spend a lifetime with someone who never smiled, never exhibited joy or pain, she knew she’d die. She’d asked for a man who would satisfy her craving for wild, imaginative sex. Meredith had found her one. At the time Pearl had been thrilled at the idea of mating with a man whose sexual arsenal included high-tech sexbots and toys beyond what most men could obtain, a man whose personal prowess at creating sex toys was whispered about throughout Obsidion. But Pearl wanted more than that. She wanted a man, not a super sexbot without a heart. She hadn’t realized how empty she’d feel after having sex without affection, hadn’t known it would leave her feeling unsatisfied. Of course she hadn’t even 28
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considered until she met Lin yesterday at the ceremony that she might be mating with a man without feelings. She hadn’t had a clue that men like him existed. Pearl turned away from the cold-looking formal garden that reminded her so much of its owner. If she was to stay here—and she wasn’t at all sure she would—there would have to be a lot of changes made. She couldn’t live without color, without variety in textures, in sound, in shapes. Most of all, she couldn’t live without laughter, or occasional tears. Alpha Two walked along beside her, saying nothing. The bot hadn’t uttered anything in its annoying monotone since she’d ordered it to be silent hours earlier. If Alpha had been a living thing, she’d have accused it of sulking because she’d put a halt to their fuck session before it had a chance to come. I’m losing my fucking mind! Everybody knew sexbots couldn’t come. And they didn’t have feelings so they couldn’t be hurt. Still, Alpha’s silence was beginning to grate on her nerves. “You. Where is my Master?” More silence greeted her. The bot probably was keeping its mouth shut because she’d ordered it to, so Pearl figured if she wanted an answer, she’d better rescind that command. “Speak, damn you. Answer my question.” “Works…office…upstairs.” “Take me to him.” Pearl intended to have words with Lin, and she didn’t plan on waiting to do it until he had her in their chambers, bound to the fucking frame or shackled to his bed, probably with a couple of his scary bots on hand to watch. Or take part in the fuck session. Alpha shook his head. “Cannot…disturb…Master.” The bot might be afraid of disturbing Lin, but Pearl wasn’t. “Leave me, then. I will find him myself.” “Find whom?”
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Pearl turned to see Lin approaching, his expression as inscrutable as the bot’s. “You, damn it.” “Is that the proper way to speak to your Master?” He turned to Alpha. “Leave us.” Alpha bowed and strode away. Pearl parked her hands on her hips and looked up at Lin. “That’s the way I speak to my sexbots. Are you one of them?” A tiny hint of a smile played on Lin’s lips. “I fear not even my esteemed father is capable of building a sexbot that lives and breathes and can build other bots. No, I am very much alive.” Had Lin had some dreaded disease that had destroyed his brain? Could his father have given him a bionic replacement, much like the artificial intelligence Lin had apparently given to his Alpha bots? “Are you a cyborg, then?” “I’m afraid not. I am undamaged and unaltered, just as you are. At this moment I want to ease my lust within my mate’s tight, wet cunt.” Lin clasped Pearl’s hand and dragged her down the hallway to their bedchamber. Pearl balked at the door. “Just a minute here. Are you bringing in your sexbot army?” “Do you want me to?” He sounded surprisingly malleable, as if he didn’t care one way of the other. His tone infuriated her. “No!” Pearl had had enough of her mate’s bots, at least for now. If she was going to fuck, she wanted to fuck with a living, breathing, feeling creature. She wanted her mate to—she struggled a minute for the term Garnet had used the other day when she had talked about having sex with Romulus—make love to her. Pearl liked the sound of lovemaking, as if there was something involved besides cocks and cunts and screaming orgasms. “I want to give you pleasure, and by the gods, I want you to show me your pleasure.” Lin looked bewildered but he pulled her inside the room, shut the door and proceeded to take off his clothes in much the same manner as Alpha had done earlier.
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Come to think of it, Lin even looked a lot like Alpha once Pearl lowered her gaze below his rather unique face. “Undress,” he ordered tersely. Pearl had to clench her fists to keep from slugging her unfeeling mate. “Unlike the sexbots you’re so obviously accustomed to fucking, I understand more than a few terse commands. If you want me undressed, I suggest you undress me.” There. A small spark showed in his chocolate-brown eyes—anger, she guessed, since tradition dictated that she was supposed to be calling him Master and obeying him without question. Instead of saying anything, however, he jerked her robe off and tossed it to the floor. Sparing a few seconds to glance at her naked body, he then drew her down onto the bed where she’d awakened alone several hours earlier. He ground his hips against hers. The action smacked of barely controlled violence. “Does this feel as though I’m unaffected? Does it?” “No, Master.” He did have an incredible body, with impressive muscles that rippled with the abrupt, fierce movement of his tight butt. As quickly as he’d taken on the almost desperate tone, he seemed to regain the botlike control she was coming to hate. “Spread your legs,” he ordered, his tone matter-offact. She’d be damned if she’d respond to a fucking bot. “No.” “Yes. Make that ‘yes, Master’.” His motion smooth and controlled, he nudged her legs apart and knelt between them, his rigid cock throbbing against her swollen outer lips. “Wrap your legs around my waist. Don’t make me bind you.” His dark eyes glittered. Sweat beaded on his brow. Well-toned muscles bulged in his shoulders and arms. Maybe he wasn’t as unaffected as he appeared. Who was she kidding? He obviously wanted to fuck her. He had all the physical signs of arousal. Was she trying to read his animal lust as emotion? When he drew back, found her cunt and thrust home, she forgot she wanted more.
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From a purely sexual viewpoint, he gave her all she’d ever wanted, all the power of a man intent on taking her with him, driving them both over the edge on a wild ride to ecstasy. Her inner muscles contracted around him, holding his searing heat inside her. With every move he made, the pressure built, spilling over and sapping her strength to resist. All she could do was focus on the delicious friction of his cock driving into her cunt, the wet, sucking sounds when he withdrew and the slapping of his balls against her swollen flesh when he thrust deep. Over and over. He was unrelenting, gathering her up and taking her for the ride, until she couldn’t think, couldn’t move. She could only feel his hot flesh searing her, driving her over the edge to a place where there was only his pulsating cock, her throbbing cunt and hot sensations draining her, sapping her yet carrying her along the most erotic journey she’d ever experienced. She came and came and came, over and over, barely recovering before he swept her up again. Drained, certain she could come no more, she screamed out her pleasure once again when he let go and came inside her, the long, hot bursts triggering a mutual climax that left them both barely hanging on to consciousness.
***** Once again, when Pearl awakened, she found herself alone and lonely in the big, soft bed, surrounded by the lingering smell of Lin—of male musk and his unique cologne and sex. He’d felt it, too, the raw emotion that had fueled the searing sex they shared. She had seen fire in his dark eyes, watched his expression change from bland to intense when he sank into her cunt and began to move. When he finally came, she’d seen tears in those eyes and a real smile on his lips. She didn’t understand. Why was he trying to deny he had feelings? It didn’t make sense. Maybe Meredith… Pearl had intended to go see her earlier, before Lin had found
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her in the courtyard. If anybody could tell her how to reach into her mate’s soul, it would be the matchmaker. She’d go now, before Lin or one of the bots came back. At the very least, she would have a few choice words for the matchmaker for having picked her a man who seemed as devoid of feelings as any sexbot. Most of the time, anyhow.
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Chapter Three “A visit just two days after your mating? This doesn’t bode well,” Meredith said after she led Pearl into her parlor and served her tea and cakes. The matchmaker settled on a chair and sipped from her own porcelain cup. “What brings you here, my darling?” Pearl met Meredith’s worried-looking gaze. “Pak Lin has no feelings. I might as well have been mated with one of my sexbots. Speaking of bots, did you realize he used bots as his attendants? I refuse to be nothing more than a living sexbot to be ordered about at his whim and set back on a shelf until his cock starts twitching again.” Meredith set her cup down. “Now, now, my dear. One thing at a time, please.” From the concern evident in her soft, soothing voice, Pearl gathered that the matchmaker must have had to overcome a reservation or two before mating her with Pak Song’s stoic young son. “Pak Song assured me Lin is a lusty boy, more than capable of meeting a woman’s most voracious sexual demands. Calm down, dear, and tell Meredith all about it.” “I’m telling you, Meredith, Lin has created bots that look and function like men. He used six of them at our mating ceremony. Bots act as servants in his house, too. And he sent one to service me this morning so I wouldn’t disrupt his work schedule.” “Surely you are mistaken. The young men who attended you at your mating certainly were not sexbots. Do you mean they are cyborgs?” “No. They’re sexbots. Lin admitted as much when I confronted him last night. I saw all six of them again today in a room where he apparently keeps them propped up against a wall like so many pieces of furniture whenever they’re not being used for something. The only way I guessed they might be bots was that they sound funny when
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they speak, as though they’re waiting for a computer to calculate what they should say.” Meredith shook her head and sighed. “My, my. From what you tell me, I’d say you’re feeling overwhelmed, my darling. I’d think, loving sex the way you said you do, having a vast choice of bots like the ones you’re describing, as well as a virile mate like Lin, would make you ecstatic.” “It would. Except for the fact that Lin might as well be another bot. He has no feelings. No emotion. He fucks me, very well I might add.” Pearl blushed, the memory of the fucking so vivid it embarrassed her. “But he doesn’t want me for anything except sex.” Unable to stop herself, Pearl poured out her heart to Meredith about Lin’s blank expressions, his terse orders and his refusal to converse with her. She described the sterile and colorless environment in which he chose to live. “He closes himself in his workroom, emerging only to take his meals and have sex with me. When he’s finished with me, he goes back to whatever he does in that office on the top floor. It’s as though he never sleeps. He says he’s not a bot or a cyborg, but he might as well be. I can’t live with a man who doesn’t have a heart.” Meredith sat quietly for a few minutes, as though absorbing what Pearl had said. “Hmmm. I’d say the young man needs some stimulation. Not in bed, for from what you tell me it seems he has the sex part down quite well. You say he became angry when you defied him—” “He did, but it was a controlled, almost mechanical sort of anger. Not fury, which is what I was feeling toward him.” “Yes, dear, I know you said the anger lasted only for a moment, but the mere fact he became that way at all tells me Lin is not emotionally void.” “If not void, then he certainly is emotionally deprived.” “Yes, he is.” The matchmaker paused, as if considering what she might say. Pearl looked into Meredith’s eyes. “Do you know what made Lin the way he is?” 35
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“Not exactly, but I can guess. I’ve known Pak Song since before you were born. He’s a true scientist, absorbed with his work. He always was, even before his mate died years ago. It doesn’t surprise me that Lin is a little reserved.” “Reserved? Lin has all the feelings of a sexbot. I can’t live with a man who doesn’t get happy or sad or even angry.” Used to the warmth and love that abounded in her father’s home, Pearl knew she’d go crazy if she stayed locked up in Lin’s colorless world. Meredith shook her head. When she spoke, she obviously was measuring her words. “Lin’s mother died when he was very young and Pak Song never chose another mate. I can imagine why your mate might seem not to have all the natural feelings. I didn’t know him when his mother was alive, but it wouldn’t surprise me if her death made him close up emotionally. I recall him as a quiet, studious boy whose father encouraged him to pursue his interest in robotics rather than interacting with other children.” Pearl snorted. “He certainly seems more interested in his work than in me.” “Now, now, my dear. I believe Lin may be afraid of caring for you. It wouldn’t surprise me if he’s afraid to care much for anything that has a will of its own.” The matchmaker reached out and took Pearl’s hand, as though offering sympathy. Pearl snatched her hand back. “I don’t want a shoulder to cry on. I want to know how to make Lin love me,” she snapped. For several minutes Meredith didn’t speak, but from the look on her face Pearl guessed she was deep in thought. Finally the matchmaker met Pearl’s gaze and cleared her throat “It may not be easy, but you must teach Lin that it’s all right to use all his senses—to feel rather than think, to see beyond the obvious, to hear the message beneath the words. Now he tastes and smells only the sweet, sour, and bitter basics. You need to show him how to enjoy the nuances of life’s infinitely varied experiences.” “How, Meredith?”
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“Use his clever submission devices on him. Restrain him. Show him before he can be your Master, he must submit and accept the feelings your touch evokes in him. Teach him he can afford to show his anger, his joy. Let him know that by letting his feelings out, he can bring pleasure not only to you but to himself.” That made sense to Pearl. Except for one thing. “Lin is hardly likely to lie down and let me strap him onto a fucking platform or tie him to the bed.” “Darling, use his bots. From what you say, it seems he has programmed at least some of them to follow your commands. Order them to restrain him. Then do to him what he did to you in the ceremony. Use them to arouse him as they aroused you. Drive Lin to the point where he can do nothing but give in to the emotions he has kept inside him most of his life.” Oh yes. Pearl liked that idea. “You think it will work, Meredith?” The matchmaker smiled, a devilish gleam in her eyes. “I think your young robotics expert is in for a night unlike any he’s ever experienced. It makes me hot, just thinking of all you can do with your mate. I think that after you leave, I’ll pay a visit to my own sexbot.” “Or my father, maybe?” Over the past year or so, Pearl had seen a relationship developing between Meredith and Eli. She thought it was past time for them to acknowledge it. Meredith blushed prettily. “Perhaps.”
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Chapter Four On the way home, Pearl detoured by the Street of Pleasure, but she ignored her favorite sex toy stores in favor of the merchants who hawked their exotic wares from all over the galaxy. Her enthusiasm building with each purchase, she picked out a bright cushion here, a colorful bolt of fabric there. At a florist’s open-air shop she selected several flats of vibrantly colored flowering plants to add some zing to the courtyard, and next door at an Eastphalian weaver’s stall she chose a silk coverlet in many brilliant hues to relieve the monochromatic color scheme in Lin’s bedroom. At this point she didn’t care whether or not he’d like the changes she intended to make in his house—or in him. Back home an hour later, Pearl waited impatiently for her purchases to be delivered. When they arrived, she set about putting her mark on Lin’s sterile house. For now she’d let him remain holed up in his workroom, until she turned his house into her home. First she transformed the dining area with colorful cushions and bright dishes that brought out the colors of the antique teapot. On a narrow table she placed a huge bouquet of multicolored straw flowers she’d found in the import store across the street from Pak Song’s House of Pleasure where her mate had told her he worked a few days each week with his father. Once the formerly drab room was arranged to her satisfaction, Pearl ordered a meal rich in color and textures—one she and Lin could eat with their fingers. Testing Meredith’s assumption that she could order at least some of the lifelike Alphas to do her will, she summoned Alpha Two and the bot that had licked her pussy so well. “I want you to plant the red, purple, and white flowers I bought, among all the greenery already growing in the courtyard. I’ve set each plant where I want it to go.”
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“Yes…mistress.” Slowly, methodically, the bots picked up shovels and planted the colorful flowers exactly as she’d instructed. Good. I was right. These bots will follow my instructions, at least to a certain extent. Gathering the package that held the coverlet she’d bought, she hurried to the bedroom where she stripped away the gray duvet cover on the bed and replaced it with the woven silk coverlet in a hundred tones of rose and red. She could hardly wait to see Lin laid out on it, as bound and helpless as he’d had her last night. The idea of tying down her mate and having her way with him made Pearl chuckle. The matchmaker might have given her the idea, but she was well on the way to making it her own. Just as she was turning his house into their home, she’d turn Lin into a lover. Her lover.
***** As night descended on Obsidion, Lin tore himself away from the calculations that had been perplexing him all afternoon. Perhaps after dining he could solve the problem of the Alphas’ halting, unnatural sounding speech. He’d resort to using a more powerful thought synthesizer, except doing so would give the bots a dangerous level of independence. Lin shuddered at the frightening possibility that he might inadvertently create a bot with a will of its own. An interesting combination of smells assaulted his nose as he made his way downstairs. It wasn’t that the fragrance was unpleasant, but it wasn’t the familiar smell of his usual evening meal of roast fowl, rice and steamed vegetables. He assumed the change in menu was his new mate’s doing. He wouldn’t let the change to his daily routine upset his equilibrium. After all, if switching around their diet kept Pearl occupied, she could change the menu any way she wanted. As far as Lin was concerned, food was food, fuel for his body and his mind. If his mate wanted variety at the table, he didn’t mind.
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When he turned the corner into the dining room, he couldn’t help noticing the blaze of riotous colors she’d mixed in with the unobtrusive beiges and grays he’d chosen. He started to comment but did not. Color, after all, was a minor issue unworthy of his concern. He doubted he’d even notice the huge bouquet of red, gold, purple and green straw flowers on the lacquered buffet table, once he got used to its presence. Sighing, Lin sank onto a cushion at the head of the low table and waited for a bot to serve him. But it wasn’t a bot that brought his dinner. It was his mate. Garbed in something see-through that flowed around her like a cloud, she came from the food-preparation center bearing a tray filled with something steaming. Though unfamiliar, the aroma of the stuff made his mouth water. More important, the outline through the gauzy material of her naked thighs and her full, firm breasts had his cock standing at attention, ready for action. When she set the tray on the table he had difficulty restraining himself from dragging her onto his lap and fucking her then and there. “Let me feed you.” Her voice sounded smooth, sweet, not unlike the pool of amber honey he’d noticed in a small oval bowl beside a bowl of fresh, cut fruit. Moving gracefully onto the cushion beside him, she picked up a spear of some exotic tropical fruit and dipped it. Then, smiling, she brought the dripping fruit to his lips. When he took a bite, she leaned over and licked a stray drop of honey off his lower lip and chin. “Does it taste good, Master?” “Yes.” The sweet, tangy treat tasted too good. And Pearl was too disturbing to his tightly controlled emotions. Lin was too tempted to let go, to give in and let his beautiful mate worm her way into his mind. But he dared not do that. “If I ever tire of feeding myself, I can easily program a bot to feed me. I don’t need you to do this,” he said, schooling his expression to one of supreme indifference.
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“Indulge me.” Her voice poured over him, as soft and sweet and smooth as the honey. “You may have noticed, I went shopping today. I added some colors here and there. The place needed cheering up.” “I noticed.” His mate obviously wanted praise, but Lin wasn’t about to tell her how much the bright colors reminded him of her. He wasn’t ready to admit he was beginning to see her as a ray of light in what had been his dull but predictable world. “Since you seem determined to feed me, I will try one of those prawns.” He couldn’t resist the urge to suck her soft fingertip into his mouth, savor the sweet aftertaste of honey mingled with some piquant sauce from the fat, succulent piece of shellfish she’d just held to his lips. His hunger for food was only exceeded by the need—something beyond the ache in his groin, he feared—to take her, master her before she had him turned to a quivering mass of out-of-control emotions tumbling end over end to fulfill her every whim. It was all he could do to resist taking her at the table, to try and ignore the sensual onslaught of all her colors, flavors, and textures in his previously well-ordered world. Finally. The tray was empty but for a few drops of glistening honey and the tails from a dozen or more of the prawns. “I have eaten enough,” he said, rising and pulling her to her feet. “Come with me. I have a very different hunger.”
***** Pearl held her breath, praying to all the gods that Lin wouldn’t notice the bots until it was too late. Good. He dragged her to their bedchamber, unaware until it was too late that they weren’t alone. Alpha Two grabbed his arms, and Alpha Four—“the magic tongue” was how she thought of that one—caught his legs in what looked like a death grip. Lin struggled mightily but could not break free.
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“I command you to put me down,” he demanded with a fierce scowl, but he maintained an even, calm tone. Pearl held her breath as Lin continued struggling with the bots. One of the Alphas looked up at her, appearing confused. “I ordered you to restrain your Master,” she said in as firm a voice as she could muster. Inside she shook with fear that the Alpha pair would let Lin countermand her commands. Alpha Two hesitated, its eyes shifting from Pearl to Lin. Then Alpha Four spoke in a rumbling monotone. “Mistress…commands…that…we…restrain…you.” The look on Lin’s face was priceless. Consternation, disbelief—and yes, even a bit of righteous fury registered in his dark, compelling eyes. With more than a little satisfaction, Pearl watched while the two bots wrestled her mate onto the brightly covered bed and shackled his limbs to the sturdy bedposts. Spread-eagle now, he was helpless, ready for whatever sensual tortures she might devise. She picked up a dagger and brandished it before Lin’s eyes. Shock was evident on his handsome face. “What the fuck—” “This.” In one deft motion she split his shirt and pants from neck to crotch and ripped the fabric away, baring him for her pleasure. Then she set the dagger down and captured his lips with hers, tongue-fucking his mouth, preventing him from protesting as the portion of the bed beneath his hips gave way. Alpha Four took Lin’s hard cock in its mouth. Lin groaned, the sound muffled by Pearl’s lips. Alpha Two crawled under Lin’s legs, pulled away the remnants of his pants and got into position on the lowered mattress to fuck his naked ass. At first Lin struggled, but soon he was kissing Pearl back, tangling his tongue with hers and moaning into her mouth as he bucked against his bonds. She lifted her head and looked into his eyes. “I’m going to show you I’m a lot more fun than any bot…Master.” She’d show him she was a damn better partner than the Omega Pocket Pussies the Alphas had shown her—disembodied pussies that apparently were her main rivals for 42
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Lin’s sexual attention. Pearl dismissed Four with a wave of her hand. Moving gracefully over Lin and claiming his mouth again, she lowered her swollen, wet cunt onto his straining cock. His massive organ stretched her beyond anything she’d known from the bots she had enjoyed. When Four fit its cock into her ass, she thought she’d explode. Her clit brushed Lin’s smooth groin with every downward stroke. Two’s energetic pummeling of its Master’s ass reverberated through his body and hers. Lin wrenched his head away and made one last, masterful effort to buck free. “May all the gods damn you for eternity. I don’t want this.” His cock let her know he was lying, because it grew harder and thicker within her wet, needy cunt. She saw his fingers curl into tight fists. His biceps bulged as he fought to free himself. Sweat ran down his neck as he struggled. Suddenly he went still. “By the gods, I’m coming. I don’t want to— Oh hell, fuck me. Fuck me harder. Don’t. Don’t…stop!” He came and came and came, each hot burst triggering another wave of ecstasy through Pearl’s body. “Leave us, Alphas,” she ordered between gasps of pleasure, certain that if they didn’t, she and Lin would both die from the incredible sensations. Afterward, once they’d begun to breathe normally again, Pearl loosened Lin’s chains, placing soft kisses on the red marks they’d made on his wrists and ankles before pushing the button to reposition the missing section of bed. “Why don’t you want to love me?” she asked quietly, her head resting on Lin’s broad chest. “How can you expect to be my Master if you can’t give in to your own feelings?” He shot her a nonplussed look. “I submitted to you just now, didn’t I?” “Well yes, you did. But you had no choice. I want you to make love with me because you want me, not just because your body’s demanding an orgasm.”
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He sat up, rearranging her so she lay across his lap. “I don’t want to care. I can’t. Whenever I care for anything, I lose whatever I care for.” While his tone was bland, the look in his eyes hinted at heartrending pain. Pearl remembered what Meredith had told her about Lin’s lonely childhood. “Tell me what it is you lost that you cared for?” Pearl kept her voice low and smooth— calming she hoped. She made no move to touch him, even though she longed to smooth the lines of strain from around his sensual mouth. “Elvira.” The word came out cracked, broken, as though it pained Lin to say it. It hurt Pearl, too, to see her stoic mate so distraught. Wanting to soothe him, she reached up and caressed his cheek. “Who was Elvira?” she asked more sharply than she’d intended. “Not a woman, my jealous mate. Elvira was my cat, a fat, gray Persian with bright green eyes and a fluffy face. Pak Song brought her back to Obsidion from a journey he made to Earth to deliver an order of sexbots to the rulers of the Federation. I was only eight years old.” Lin’s voice broke, just barely, yet enough for Pearl to notice and give him a soothing hug. “Every night Elvira would curl up beside me and her purring would put me to sleep. She’d follow me around all day, playing with me when I had time off from my studies. While I studied at my father’s shop she would nap on a cushion by the window. “Then one cold day, when I was eleven, Elvira sneaked outside the shop into the Street of Pleasure, past one of the bots that Father had programmed to watch out for her. She curled up beside the warm motor of a customer’s transporter. When the customer powered up to leave, Elvira was sucked up into one of the engines.” That hurt Pearl as she pictured how devastated Lin must have felt when he’d lost his pet, but she attempted to redirect his memories. “But while you had Elvira, you loved her. Surely you didn’t use up all your love on her.” She was beginning to understand how Lin might want to guard his emotions, but loving and losing one
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childhood pet couldn’t be the whole reason he’d decided to climb into a protective shell of self-absorption. “Tell me the rest. Please. I want to understand.” “When my mother died not too much later, I had nobody who loved me. Nobody but Pak Song. Not that he didn’t care for me—he did. But you’ve met him. You must realize he is a scientist, not given to an outpouring of emotion. He told me after Mother’s death that I must be strong, listen to my mind and ignore my heart. He encouraged me to put all my energies into learning my trade—building better, more lifelike bots, using them instead of living beings as my companions.” Pearl was beginning to understand. “Because the bots couldn’t die and leave you?” “You might be right.” He paused, as though in deep thought. “I never thought of why I more or less gave up caring for others in exactly that way, but it’s true. I started building better and more lifelike bots to be my friends—friends and lovers who would never leave me.” Pearl reached up and framed Lin’s cheeks between her hands. “You don’t want to care for me because you’re afraid? Because you’re worried that something bad will happen to me?” Lin nodded. “I couldn’t take losing someone else.” “You survived losing your mother and your pet. I wager if you had to, you could survive losing a beloved mate as well. I could if I had to.” Pearl laced her fingers through his straight, black hair and drew his mouth to hers for a long, deep kiss. “I’d rather love you now and lose you later than never to have the joy of loving you at all.” “I must think…” Lin moved to get up, but Pearl refused to be pushed out of his arms. “Do your thinking right here. Right now. Think about how good this feels.” She stroked his chest, paying special attention to the flat bronze nipples when they began to harden under her seeking fingers. “Think about how warm I feel in your arms, how incredible our matings make you feel. Most of all, consider how wonderful it is to share
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your thoughts and dreams with someone who can understand and react. Someone who lives and breathes and loves and wants, same as you.” “I don’t want to care…” His words trailed off, and she saw confusion in his dark, expressive eyes. “But you do care, Master. As hard as you may try not to, you care. I’m not going to let you crawl back in your shell. I’m going to make you see the world in all its colors, experience the joys and pleasures as well as the pain. Damn it, Lin, I want to fall in love with you, and I’m going to make you love me back.”
***** Lin wanted to love her, too, almost as much as he feared the pain of caring and then losing her. Still Pearl edged her way into his heart, with smiles, with small gestures of affection, with thoughtful touches like the aromatic tea she’d brought him that morning while he was working. He found himself needing her, and not just for the orgasms that beat anything he’d been able to achieve with his Omega Female. He found himself craving the warmth of her slender body, the softness of her that no bioengineered skin could duplicate—her willingness to share not only her body but her soul. Fuck, he might as well shut down the computer for tonight, because he was getting nothing done for thinking about his mate. Half angry at himself, half resentful of her, he tracked her down and found her in the marble bathing room, her raven hair piled atop her head, beckoning his hands. “You know, I can get no work done for thinking of you. Of these.” Bending over the tub, Lin cupped Pearl’s pale breasts, tweaking the rings in her rosy nipples with his thumbs. “I believe I will have to join you.” “Be my guest.” Smiling, she held up her arms, a welcoming gesture like so many others she had made toward him these past few days.
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Her smile warmed his heart as much as it fueled his lust. A glow of contentment spread through him as he shed his clothes and stepped over the rim of the marble tub. When she took his hands, he couldn’t resist gathering her in his arms, holding her. Her heart beat in time with his as she drew his head down and claimed his mouth. Steaming water swirled around them, a surreal setting that encompassed them like a cocoon, held out everything but him and her and their desire. His cock hardened painfully, yet he was in no hurry for relief, not when it felt so good just to hold her, to nestle his cock between her slender thighs, anticipating more without the kind of desperation to come that characterized his matings with his bots. Because Pearl wanted him as much as he wanted her. Her tiny moans, the arching of her hips toward him, the giving way she opened her lips to his tongue—no bot could do that. Lin wasn’t even sure he wanted to create such a bot, because Pearl was teaching him quickly the value of a living female as opposed to the Omega Female that sat abandoned in the workroom while Lin made love with his mate. “Fuck me, Master, please,” Pearl whispered against his lips, and Lin was happy to oblige. When he sank once again into her wet heat, she cried out his name. And when he joined her in an earth-shaking climax of his own, he realized he’d gone past the point of no return. He loved her. He dared not say it yet, but he did. “I thank you, my beauty,” he said into the fragrant mass of her hair. “Come, let us dry off and go to bed.
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Epilogue Three months later “Meredith looks beautiful, don’t you think?” Pearl looped her arm through Lin’s as they watched the simple ceremony that marked the matchmaker’s mating with Pearl’s father. “Yes, she does. Eli looks as though he’s thrilled to be mating with her.” Lin reached over, tilted Pearl’s chin up, and placed a long, deep kiss on her lips. In three short months he’d come a long way toward breaking out of his emotional shell. Just this morning he’d wakened her and told her he was glad she’d become his mate. Before long, she figured he’d be telling her in words that he loved her, though he’d do it in his own good time. She could wait for him to say it, as long as he made progress every day—which he was. Her oldest sister, Emerald, looked on while Prince Arik held their year-old son in the crook of his damaged arm. She was pregnant again, unafraid of producing another son now that Arik had outlawed the making of eunuchs on Obsidion, even royal ones like his cousins, whom his father had ordered to be nullified and enslaved because he’d feared they might seek to usurp the position of the rightful heir. The new prince or princess and Garnet’s first baby would be born within days of each other. They’ll be playmates, Pearl thought as she watched the children of two of her father’s jewelry artisans frolicking near a jeweled fountain. She waved at Romulus and Garnet’s bed mates, Antonio and his partner, Xander, who seemed intent on watching the ceremony, then shifted her gaze to Romulus and Garnet, who held hands like newlyweds even now, after more than a year had passed since their mating. It no longer seemed strange to Pearl that her sister seemed comfortable sharing her mate with the two male slaves.
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She sighed as she watched Meredith smiling up at Eli. It pleased her that her father had found happiness again after so many years alone. She looked forward to having Meredith in the family. After all, they’d all become fond of the matchmaker during the time she’d negotiated the three sisters’ matings. When Lin laid his hand on the curve of her hip, the gesture warmed her, for things like that—small signs of affection to most—were milestones for the man who three short months ago had vowed never to care for his mate. He grew more loving, more affectionate, each day, in public as well as when they were alone in bed. Each touch, every fleeting caress, even the heated looks they exchanged told Pearl as loudly as any words how Lin valued her, not just as a convenient sex partner but as a woman. For her part, she’d come to accept Lin’s very special bots. They added another, sensual dimension to lovemaking, like the imaginatively made dildos, Omega Pocket Pussies, and other toys Lin had created to enhance their pleasure—yet more. There was something incredibly erotic about having a half-dozen males seeing to her satisfaction. When she considered the fact that the Alpha bots, unlike living beings, were created by her mate to bring her pleasure, her heart overflowed. Besides that, she liked feeling she was helping Lin by creating a marketing plan to capitalize on his incredible talent. Pearl covered Lin’s hand on her hip, squeezed it, and drew his attention to the six Alphas who even now were looking at them, as though anticipating their next assignment. Pearl could hardly wait to get him back into their bedroom—a place now filled with color, light, and pleasure beyond anything she’d fantasized about before her mating. Going up on tiptoe, she found his lips, took them, loved it when he wrapped her in his arms and mimicked the rhythm of lovemaking with his tongue, the rocking of his hard cock against the softness of her belly. “I love you, my precious mate,” Lin whispered as they watched her father claim the matchmaker as his mate. “And I wish to make love now. Let us go home.”
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About the Author Ann Jacobs is a sucker for lusty Alpha heroes and happy endings, which makes Ellora’s Cave an ideal publisher for her work. Romantica®, to her, is the perfect combination of sex, sensuality, deep emotional involvement and lifelong commitment— the elusive fantasy women often dream about but seldom achieve. First published in 1996, Jacobs has sold over forty books and novellas, some of which have earned awards including the Passionate Plume (best novella, 2006), the Desert Rose (best hot and spicy romance, 2004) and More Than Magic (best erotic romance, 2004). She has been a double finalist in separate categories of the EPPIES and From the Heart RWA Chapter’s contest. Three of her books have been translated and sold in several European countries. A CPA and former hospital financial manager, Jacobs now writes full-time, with the help of Mr. Blue, the family cat who sometimes likes to perch on the back of her desk chair and lend his sage advice. He sometimes even contributes a few random letters when he decides he wants to try out the keyboard. She loves to hear from readers, and to put faces with names at signings and conventions.
Ann welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email address on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.
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Also by Ann Jacobs A Gift of Gold A Mutual Favor Another Love Awakenings Black Gold: Dallas Heat Black Gold: Entrapped Black Gold: Firestorm Black Gold: Forever Enslaved Black Gold: Love Slave Club Rio Brava 1: Loving Control Club Rio Brava 2: Switching Control Club Rio Brava 3: Unexpected Control Club Rio Brava 4: Learning Control Colors of Love Colors of Magic Commitment D’Argent Honor 1: Vampire Justice D’Argent Honor 2: Eternally His D’Argent Honor 3: Eternal Surrender D’Argent Honor 4: Eternal Victory D’Argent Honor: Eternal Triangle Dark Side of the Moon
Gates of Hell Gridiron Lovers 1: Naked Bootleg Gridiron Lovers 2: Forward Pass Gridiron Lovers 3: Hot in the Clutch Gridiron Lovers 4: Coach Me Gridiron Lovers: Hot for the Reunion Haunted He Calls Her Jasmine Heart of the West 1: Roped Heart of the West 2: Hitched Heart of the West 3: Lassoed Her Very Special Robot Illusions Lawyers in Love: Bittersweet Homecoming Lawyers in Love: Eye of the Storm Lawyers in Love: Gettin’ It On Lawyers in Love: In His Own Defense Lawyers in Love: Mastered Necessary Roughness 1: Sackmaster Necessary Roughness 2: End Run Necessary Roughness 3: Best Reception Necessary Roughness 4: Prime Defender Out of Bounds Pleasure Partners 1: His Pleasure Mistress Pleasure Partners 2: Pleasure Slave
Pleasure Partners 3: Enslaving the Master Pleasure Partners 4: Imperfect Partners Pleasure Partners 5: Perfect Master Pleasure Partners 6: Her Alien Masters Tip of the Iceberg Topaz Dream Wrong Place, Wrong Time? Zayed’s Gift
Print books by Ann Jacobs A Mutual Favor A Shining Future Another Love Bound by Love Controlled by Love Dallas Heat Dark Fantasies anthology Enchained anthology Eternally His Firestorm Forbidden Fantasies anthology Full Circle Haunted
Heart of the West Home Field Advantage Lords of Pleasure Men in Motion Out of Bounds Sandstorms Sex, Love and a Bit of Magic anthology The Defenders The Prosecutors
Discover for yourself why readers can’t get enough of the multiple award-winning publisher Ellora’s Cave. Whether you prefer e-books or paperbacks, be sure to visit EC on the web at www.ellorascave.com for an erotic reading experience that will leave you breathless.
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