Squeals and wet sounds, more moans and grunting. “I never realized a public orgy was the order of the day for these noble suppers.”
“You mean night,” corrected the bearded man, smiling. “Take care. The prince will get to you still. You would be best to do as he says.”
That had already occurred to him. The prince favored them with only one dark-eyed examination while the fucking happened, but he was aware of John and Po. If they tried to leave early, they would be stopped.
Once the master of the girl had come, jerking into her, fingers digging at her hips, the prince clapped his hands. “Last game of the night! You, dearest John, our guest. Let us see all of the treasured assets of your slave. She is prettier than any woman I have ever seen!”
The men yelled agreement, whistling, pounding the table, and most were already turning their way. The public sex had stirred them.
The prince’s gaze was rock steady and not exactly malevolent, more… mischievous.
“No!” Po said softly. “I cannot.” Then she pinched her mouth shut.
Smart Po. Yelling that word, here, would likely lead the prince to the truth.
He stood and plucked at her sleeve until she rose with him. “She is a little shy, lord. Let me reassure her, outside, where none can unnerve her. I will return.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Come, girl.”
This way he could check how many men guarded the surroundings, as well as talk in private to Po, who followed him with her head down, pretending meekness.
He could also calm his raging cock.
The thought of stripping her and making her display herself called to something primitive, masculine, and perverted, within. Any other time, except for when he’d tied her up, she was miss arrogance, miss powerful, miss sexy, and always, better than thou.
Tonight she was powerless, and she was his. Tonight he was her protector, her master by all the rules within this marquee, and maybe more than that, if he played this well.
The prince was letting them walk out, which surely meant he had soldiers outside.
As they neared the door, she slowed. “Maybe, John, it would be better if I simply confessed who—”
Struck by the catastrophe this could become, he grabbed her by the back of the neck then swung to look her in the face. “No.”
Wide of eye, she swallowed. “Why?” Her voice was surprisingly husky, her lips parted ever so slightly. Her tongue probed the inside of her lip then stilled.
His thoughts marched to a charming conclusion. Of course.
The neck hold, she loved him doing this. They were in the middle of a banquet of enemies, and yet she responded to him, sexually.
“Look.” He bent his knees to be closer to her level, slid both hands down her arms and pulled them to the front, clasped her hands together, squeezing them as he spoke, as if squeezing her hands were punctuation.
“If… you do this… if…”
A frown was building.
He straightened, sighed.
“We can say this outside.” The servant at the doorway was watching, so he marched her through and outside. The soldiers on patrol were obvious. He guided her into the shadows of the marquee, against the canvas. A web of tent ropes played deeper lines on her face and body.
With her back to the marquee, Po inhaled, exhaled. “Say this. I will listen. I am calmer.”
“Of course you will. You think you’re smart? This idea of yours is terrible. You said this yourself, earlier. Reveal yourself to the prince, and you will be a hostage. You know this.”
“I do. Go on. Though… at least I wouldn’t be humiliated. If he finds out who I am, after I strip, he will have that for ammunition, as well as who I am, but if—”
“Once he has you a captive, knows who are, he’ll do whatever strikes him as useful to his country or fun. Or both. Humiliating you over and over may serve all sorts of purposes. Or executing you. We don’t know. Also, I plan to leave before he discovers the truth.”
“There is no way of telling who might know me, here, now.”
“No one, or this would be far worse than it is.”
There was someone coming but she didn’t know it. They had five days. That had to be enough.
“I will promise to get you out of here in time. You will be forgotten within a week as one insignificant, if beautiful, slave girl, naked for a few minutes before the prince. That happens daily for him.”
“And if you’re wrong?”
Again he took her hands in his. She was trembling, and he realized why. This was such a departure from her normal reality, even more so than what he’d done to her. That had been isolated, forced on her, and pleasurable. This had the potential to wreck her world, to rip her away from everything she knew, permanently.
An overwhelming need to save her from that swelled within… and so did his rude, haughty cock. To keep her safe meant he could do all those dirty things he wanted to—to make her cry out in climax because of what he had done to her.
He’d done it once. Why not?
He’d promised. He’d changed. That wasn’t him, remember? And there was Xander…
What if Xander had never meant to share? Maybe for once he loved
