She was killing him. Jareth stood mere feet away and watched as Keliana danced, her body swaying seductively to a beat only she could hear. She was a study in grace and beauty as she moved, naked to the waist apart from those tiny bits of jewelry around her nipples.

His gaze fastened on them greedily as she turned again, casting him a sultry look from behind her arm. His breath rasped in his ears, the belt he’d been removing held absently in his hands as he just watched her.

His gut clenched as she turned again, the telltale glimmer of tears in her eyes. He knew she was scared, after a week of learning every inch of her body, every soft sigh and sexy little gasp she made, how could he not? Anger hit him again as he dropped the belt. She’d left him, just as he was about to give her everything.

Fury fed desire. The need for retribution and to have her in his arms again filled him until it overflowed. Gritting his teeth, he ripped open the front of his pants and shoved them down his hips.

“Keep dancing,” he ground out as she slowed to watch him. His cock sprang free, the engorged length slapping against his stomach as he bent to rip the ties on the sides of his boots and toe them off. A man undressing was never seductive so he didn’t even try, keeping his eyes on her all the time.

She jerked into movement again, the shimmy of her hips driving him crazy. Madam Clem had known Keliana wasn’t to be sold but she’d dressed her up to maintain the illusion. Dressed her up to drive him crazy enough to bid a ridiculous sum in the auction to make a point to all the other men looking and thinking they could own her for the night. Despite the fact that he owned Keliana, the transaction was real and the house would take a percentage of his money anyway. He had to give it to the madam, she was a shrewd businesswoman.

Keliana turned again, sweeping her arms out wide and finishing with a flourish. All other thoughts fled as he walked out of his boots and pants to stand naked before her. She didn’t flinch, looking up at him through eyes dark with wariness and something else. Fear? Did she fear him?

Reaching out, he captured a stray curl and wrapped it around his finger. She should fear him after what she’d done. He released the curl and shoved his hand into the back of her neck, tilting her lips up for better access. Her hands landed on his naked chest as he yanked her up hard against him, spreading wide for balance.

Her fingertips brushed against his nipple, the touch taking him to the edge of his control. Lips crashing down over hers, he parted them with a hard sweep of his tongue. Not a soft kiss, it demanded entrance, obedience…demanded everything she was and more. Cupping her cheek with his free hand, he kissed her as though he wanted to crawl inside and take up residence, until he wasn’t sure they were even two people anymore.

The desperate need he’d felt all week to have her back in his arms and the fury that she wasn’t, that he couldn’t just storm the citadel of the Purple Kiare and drag her out back to his bed all condensed into the claim of his mouth on hers. Although she was his, it was the point of the matter…tonight was a lesson. One he intended for her to learn well.

A soft whimper broke through the spell and he drew back, easing up on his grip as he noticed the lines of pain around her mouth. Controlling the urge to throw her to the floor, rip that excuse for a thong from her body and take her there and then, he let go. Stepping back, he wrapped a fist around his cock and pumped lazily.

“On your knees,” he ordered, forcing a hard voice rather than slipping back into the gentle manner he’d been careful to use with her before. This wasn’t about making love, even though the upset in her eyes made him want to gather her up in his arms and tell her everything was going to be OK. This was about proving a point and—

She slid to her knees in front of him, hands creeping up his thighs. Jareth lost the power of coherent thought as she leaned forward, moving his hand away with gentle fingers. Her hot breath washed over him, his shaft aching as the big vein on the underside pulsed and surged with blood. Goddess, she had to touch him…lick him.

She did neither. Instead she leaned forward and wrapped her lips around the thick, purple head, enveloping him in the warm, wet silk of her mouth. A throaty groan of need broke from his lips as his hand found its home in her hair again, holding her against him as she worked his cock with her lips and tongue. Heat threaded through his veins like a solar flare, arcing down his spine to wrap around his cock and balls.

He dropped his head back, eyes squeezed closed. He couldn’t watch her or he’d explode, the sensation as she suckled him, swirling her tongue around the sensitive head too much if he watched her lips around his cock as well. As it was he had to fight the urge to move, tightening his grip in her hair as he held his hips rigidly still. Any other whore, he’d have held on and fucked her mouth hard, until he came down her throat. But not with her. She was tiny, and no matter how angry he was, he wouldn’t…couldn’t…do anything that would cause her physical pain.

She pulled back, sliding her tongue in a spiral around his cock and slid him deep again. Her fingertips slid over his balls, tracing the line between them with sensuous little strokes. Too near the edge, he wrapped her hair around his fist and pulled her from him. Her lips left his cock with a small pop and his male instincts bellowed in fury at the loss.

“On the bed,” he ordered in a voice he didn’t recognize as his own as she just looked up at him blankly. Anger rejoined his lust. Just what spell had she cast over him? Why did he want her so much even when she patently didn’t want him?

“On your back, legs parted.”

He followed her like a predator, gaze fastened hungrily on her every move. She might not want him now, but by the goddess, by the end of tonight she would. By the time the morning sun lit the room, she’d be ruined for any other man but him.

* * *

Revenge. That’s what this was about. Heart heavy, Keliana moved to the bed, her movements wooden. The Starflower had all but burnt out of her system and she mourned its loss as she lay on the bed, arranging herself as seductively as she could. She’d thought she needed it to bed a stranger, rendering him and his successors nameless and faceless.

Apprehension rose as he stalked toward her, his cock leading the way, rigid as it proudly proclaimed his masculinity. She’d been wrong. She didn’t need Starflower to fuck a stranger. She needed it to bed Jareth, to have him fuck her as though there was nothing between them…that there had never been anything between them…when all she wanted was to see his lips curl in a smile and the warm look back in his cold eyes.

“Fucking perfect.”

He stood between her legs, his heated gaze sweeping down her body. Erotic intent flared in his eyes as he reached out and rolled one of her nipples between his thumb and forefinger. Pleasure spiked outward from the taut nub, arrowing down to her clit. She smothered the tiny moan in the back of her throat.

Anger flared across his face again as he guessed at her reaction. “No, go on. Moan. I want to hear it. Make me believe you’re into this. That’s what whores do, isn’t it?”

Without giving her time to answer, he wrapped big hands under her spread thighs and hauled her to the edge of the bed. In the same movement, he grabbed the scrap of satin covering her pussy and yanked. The thin fabric gave easily, the ribbons holding it in place delicate on purpose.

His eyes glittered as he held her thighs open and looked down. A flush swept her body as he studied her lower lips. Open to his gaze, his hands like clamps on her thighs she couldn’t do anything to stop him. Her pussy clenched, liquid heat slipping from her in a display of readiness she’d have done anything to conceal.

She might not want him, not like this in anger, but her traitorous body remembered his touch. Remembered the ecstasy he’d brought her to time and time again.

“Oh, very good.” His lip curled in a sneer as he swept a finger along her pussy lips. It came away slick with the juices of her arousal. “Wet on command, you really are better than I thought you were. Made a fucking fool of me this last week, that’s for sure.”

The blush hit her face and burned up to her hairline as her heart twisted.

“No, please Jareth. It was—”

“Shut up.” He slammed a hand into the covers next to her head and loomed over her. “Whore’s don’t get to talk. Whores get to moan in the right places. I’ll let you know when. Understand?”

She nodded, unable to speak past the lump in her throat as tears drove heat into the back of her eyes. No tears, she told herself. Not yet, not while he was here. All she had to do was get through the night and when he was gone in the morning, then she could break down.

He searched her eyes for long moments, his expression unreadable. A strand of dark hair fell over his cheek, partially covering his eye, and she resisted the urge to reach out, tuck it behind his ear. Her gaze riveted to it, the tiny action gaining more and more importance. Perhaps if she did, even something so small, so caring a gesture would prove to him that she hadn’t been taking him for a fool. Maybe. Somehow.

They moved at the same moment, her fingers barely touching his hair before he was gone, sliding down her body to kneel between her legs. Fingers curling in the air where it had been, she shivered as he smoothed his hands over her inner thighs and reached in to part her lower lips.

There was no warning before his tongue swept over her. Hot. Warm. Lashing and licking in a sensual attack of pleasure as he ravaged her with his lips and tongue. Without exploratory caresses, he homed in on her clit and sucked.

Pulling it between his lips he flicked his tongue back and forth in a rapid rhythm. Her breath caught in her throat as she tried not to moan. She couldn’t help it, even though she didn’t want to respond, he knew how to play her.

With soft strokes, and clever flicks of his tongue he built the tension in her body until she was forced to bite her lip and hold herself rigid just to stop her hips rocking against him to gain more of the delicious sensation. Her hands bunched in the soft sheets, mangling them as she tried to stay quiet and still under the erotic torture.

“Just let go,” he murmured against her skin, each word vibrating against her clit. “I want to feel you come.”

Confusion and arousal swept through her. She didn’t want to, but didn’t have a choice.

“Yes…no. Why?” she whispered, a soft whimper falling from her lips as he thrust two fingers deep into her pussy. She should be seeing to him, not being teased and tormented until she didn’t know which way was up.

He curled his fingers back, pressing against the sweet spot deep in her pussy and making her eyes roll into the back of her head.

“Why?” He moved to flick his tongue over her clit in time with his massaging fingers. “I’m going to make you come again and again, until you can’t remember any other man but me. Bring you so much pleasure that you’ll always remember this night, remember me, and measure any other man by me.”

* * *

There was no other man but him. Hot and cold chills chased over her skin as she moaned, finally giving in enough to rock her hips against his hand, against his tongue. Pleasure and despair overwhelmed her, giving her no option but to follow where he led hooked mindlessly on his every movement, waiting for the next brush of his tongue or thrust of his hips until nothing mattered but the pressure building inside.

Don’t think, just feel. Warm, rough rasp of his tongue. The silken slide of his fingers inside her. Need spiraling out from her core in hard waves of demand. She whimpered and rocked her hips against him in a silent demand for more. He gave more, pushing until she hovered gasping on the edge, then pushed her over it.

Her back arched. Pleasure crashed through her like the tide against a beach. Wave after wave, strung out by the warm heat of his mouth over her as he drank in each rock of her hips, pulling his fingers from within her only to replace them with his tongue as if determined to collect every drop of her arousal.

Then he was gone. Cool air washed over her lower lips, the sudden sense of loss making her pout, body humming in a confusing sensation of satisfaction and frustration as, automatically, she reached for him. She needn’t have bothered. He was already surging over her. Dominating and forceful as he spread her legs further with a hard knee to settle in the cradle of her hips.

His cock, hard and hot, nudged against the slick entrance to her body and she tasted herself as he leaned down to claim her lips. Strung out between emotion and anticipation she surrendered instantly, parting her lips at the first thrust of his tongue. Her soft gasp was lost in his mouth as he pushed, his thick cock stretching the delicate tissues of her pussy as he pressed inside. And stopped.

Holding himself rigid over her, he broke the kiss and looked down. His eyes were like twin pits of darkness, probing and assessing, like he could see right down to her soul.

“I want you to beg.” His voice was silken temptation and iron vindication. “Beg me for what you need, what you want.”

She couldn’t bear the scrutiny, trying to turn away, but his growled low in his throat. A warning before his big hand slid into her hair, yanking her head back around. The slight sting as he pulled her hair was nothing compared to the agony of looking into his eyes, of having him hold off from her when all she wanted to do was welcome him into her body.

Something cracked. The tears and misery she’d been holding inside welled up and overflowed. A tear broke free and rolled down the side of her face.

“I-I want you to hold me, m-m-make love to me.” Her plea was soft and thick with tears, all constraint gone. “One night before you go and marry someone else. I know you have to, I heard you saying you wouldn’t marry a courtesan, but please, let me believe you would. Just for a little while. Not even the whole night if you don’t want. Just this time. Please…”

Tears coursed down her cheeks as she looked up at him beseechingly. What did it matter that he saw her crying? He’d be gone in the morning and she wouldn’t have to see him again. What was the worse he could do to her? Laugh? Her heart was already broken into so many pieces a few more made no difference.

He didn’t move. Just looked down at her with that unreadable expression. Her heart caught in her chest, fear humming through her that she’d said too much, stepped so far over the line that he’d pull away from her, get up and leave now.

“Oh Lady, forget I said it. Please, Jareth…just take me. Fuck me as you wanted to. Anything you want.” Panicking, she wrapped her arms and legs around him, clinging to him as she rocked her hips to tempt him to move, to slide into her and take her as he intended. Even if it was in anger, she couldn’t bear the thought of not lying in his arms once more. Whatever he dished out, she’d take to fortify her against the years to come. “Please, anything. Just don’t go.”

“Anything? That’s a dangerous thing to offer.” He still didn’t move, but the hardness in his eyes softened a notch and hope stole any reserve she had left.

“Anything, anything at all.” She punctuated her words with soft kisses along his jaw, the soft stubble there prickling her lips as his loose hair brushed her cheek. “Please, Jareth, just one night.”

He shuddered, a long movement that shook his entire body braced over her. A hiss of pleasure was torn from her lips, wrapping around his masculine groan as the movement drove him half an inch further into her heat.

Turning his head, he claimed her lips in a kiss that blistered the skin from her bones. Driving his tongue past her lips he laid claim to the softness within, as if he were branding her, putting his mark on her soul.

“I don’t want one night,” he said, pulling back to whisper against her lips.

Their gazes locked, anticipation shivered in the air between them and super-charging it. Time stretched out to infinity as she looked into his blue-black eyes, desperate to ask what he did want. She opened her mouth, but the words were lost as he sank into her in one smooth slide. The sensation of being filled, inch after thick inch, stole her ability to speak, to even think.

A deep groan rumbled through his big chest as he gathered her close, hands gentle as they smoothed down her limbs.

“Forever, I want forever.”

She gasped as he started to move, loving her in long deep strokes that touched every hidden nerve ending in her pussy. Her fingers clenched as they wrapped around his upper arms, holding him too her.

“No, I won’t marry a courtesan. But you didn’t wait for the rest of the conversation, did you, sweetheart?”

He blazed a trail of hot kisses along her jaw to under her ear and the spot that made her melt and squirm in his arms. Even though she’d just come, the combination of his deep voice saying all the things she wanted to hear and the wicked things he was doing to her body, wound the tension inside her tighter and tighter.

“I told Sethan I was going to free you, then marry you.”

The hope that she’d thought crushed and dead, swelled as her heart expanded. A rush of emotion swamped her as her body contracted, her release washing over her without warning. Wave after wave of pleasure rolled through her as he held her close, whispering sweet nothings in her ear. Then they were gone, his breathing ragged as he drove into her, powerful thrusts before he stiffened, her name on his lips as he sought his own release.

* * *

Light filtered through the large windows around the room, the morning sun casting long, lazy fingers on the bed. Jareth lay on his side, arm loosely wrapped around the waist of the petite woman tucked into his side. He hadn’t slept. Didn’t need to, he was still too buzzed.

Gently, he reached out and smoothed a strand of dark hair from Keliana’s cheek. After a full night of loving, she’d finally begged him to let her sleep, burrowing into his arms like the kitten he’d called her the first day he’d kissed her back in the harem garden. She stirred at his touch. A lazy smile on her lips she opened sleep-darkened eyes and turned to nuzzle her cheek against his hand. Lips curved, he half expected her to purr as well.

“Morning, kitten.” He kept his voice soft so as not to startle her and stroked his thumb along her cheekbone gently.

Last night had been full of revelation for him, going from anger-driven revenge to something altogether different when she’d broken down and admitted she’d run because she couldn’t bear to see him marry someone else. His gut clenched at the memory of her tears and the misery in her eyes. The fact that he’d caused her to run because of something he’d said, even though she’d misheard, ate him inside.

“How are you feeling this morning?” he asked as she turned in his arms, a slow, leisurely movement that brought his cock to attention again. Her eyes widened as she registered the pressure against her soft stomach, drawing an unrepentant grin. He’d let her sleep for a couple of hours, which was all she was getting until he’d worked a little of the raging need for her out of his system.

“Sleepy. Ache a little.” She blushed and bit her lower lip as she met his eyes shyly. The blush entranced him. For a feted courtesan, who’d spend her life learning the sensual arts and how to please a man, she was delightfully naive and innocent. He’d known virgins to be worldlier than Keliana over certain things.

He stole a kiss, feathering his lips over hers and reacquainting himself with their shape and texture. The caress started out light, little more than a promise, but quickly gained heat and momentum as he groaned and parted her lips with his tongue to kiss her properly. By the time he pulled away, they were both breathing raggedly and the color in her cheeks had intensified to lobster-red.

“A warm soak will sort that,” he promised and chuckled at her disappointed expression. “The tub back home is big enough for the two of us…” He paused for a moment, watching her. Waiting for the blossoming hope in her dark eyes, then regret set in.

“But, I signed a contract—”

She trailed off as he shook his head.

“You couldn’t, kitten. You were never free to. The jewels you gave to the contract manager were fake—didn’t meet the bond-price. You still belong to me.”

Tension arced through his body as he waited for some reaction, any reaction, but she just lay still, watching him through those dark eyes. Finally she smiled, a tired expression.

“I’ve wanted to be free for so long,” she admitted in a soft voice. “I convinced myself that if I was, I could choose who to love and life would be perfect. But life isn’t perfect; sometimes what you have is better than the fairy tale you build in your head. I just needed to see that.”

His breath caught in his throat as she wriggled closer, but the movement wasn’t sensual. More it was one seeking comfort as she laid her head against his broad shoulder. “I don’t care about freedom anymore; I just want to go home. With you.”

His heart melting, he dropped a kiss on the top of her head, in the sleep-mussed curls. Lifting an arm, he searched among the sheets by his hip. “Oh, I’m not leaving without you. But first, I want you to wear something for me.”

She looked up, a question on her face. One that disappeared as she saw the plain steel bracelet in his hand.

“Keliana, you’ve been free since last night. I signed the papers before I came. So, as a free woman…will you marry me?”