The Graveyard of Empires - Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Two Proposals of Which One is Quite Indecent

Blackburn stood for a moment, then snorted and took the wineglass from her. She was well-dressed, with delicate hands and features, but there was nothing delicate about the way she looked at him. She was hard inside, no matter what she looked like.

"Who exactly might you be?" he said. He drained the wine with a gulp and tossed the glass on the bed. He was not about to turn down a drink, but he only wanted the one until he knew what was going on.

"My name is Victoria Sterling," she said primly. "I am an agent of Her Majesty's government in this rather difficult part of the world. I have come looking for you, before you ask." She sipped her wine, gave him a lingering look up and down. He was suddenly reminded he was wearing little but blood, sweat, and a loincloth.

He looked down at himself, then smiled. "You dropped the knife," he said.

"I did," she said. "I was confident you could free yourself if given a modicum of help. Seems I was right."

"And if I couldn't?" he said.

"Then you were not the man I wanted for this job," she said.

"How could you know I'd take this ship?" he said. "For all you know I'd just run off into the jungle."

She looked bored. "Really? A notorious daredevil pirate released from his prison with a nice shiny warship docked right above him? If you didn't grab this boat you'd have to be an idiot."

"Now you're just hoping I'm some other kind of idiot," he said. He looked down at himself again. "If we're going to talk, do you mind if I get cleaned up?"

"Not at all," she said. "Won't be the first time I've conducted negotiations while someone was naked."

"Nor the last, I'll wager," he said. He turned and went to the door into the washroom. Nice thing about airship travel, it meant there was always plenty of hot fresh water. He found the room nicely appointed, turned a brass knob on the tub and set it to filling.

"So where are you bound?" she said. "Now that you are free." She sipped her wine. "By 'free' of course, I mean still under sentence of death in three different empires if you are caught."

"China still count as an empire?" he said. "Last I was there they weren't doing so well."

"The Opium Wars were not anyone's finest hour," Victoria said. "But you never answered my question."

"Indeed, I did not," he said. "But then, as you are an admitted agent of one of said empires, you haven't given me a good reason not to pitch you overboard." He looked her over. "Besides the obvious."

"Oh, intimations that my theoretical virtue may be plundered by ruffians," she said sarcastically. "I can't say I have ever heard that before."

He laughed. "Well, then. I suppose I can safely say that I can't tell you where we're headed because I haven't got the slightest idea."

"At least that's honest," she said, swirling the wine in her glass.

The tub filled, Lance turned off the water and pointedly turned to face her before he whipped off the loincloth. One dainty eyebrow shot up as she looked south, but that was all. He chuckled. "Cool one, eh?" He climbed in the water, enjoying that it was almost scalding. It tingled as his outer skin was seared and then regenerated. He sank into the water with a glad sigh. "So, I imagine you're going to offer me an idea as to where to go?"

"I am," she said.

"And why should I believe a word you say?" he said. "You could just be here to drag me back to an admiralty court for a trial and then a hanging."

"You were about to hang anyway," she pointed out.

"Well, maybe you get a bonus if you deliver me yourself," he said, scrubbing at his skin with a slab of pumice.

"You're not quite that important," she said smoothly.

"You wound me," he said.

"Doubtful. We both know a simple hanging would not be enough to stop you," she said.

"I don't know what you mean," he said, washing his face, scratching at the three-days growth of beard.

"Oh, am I to be a convincing clandestine agent and not know everything about you? About how you were taken prisoner by the Qing forces and then given over to the American expatriate scientist Doctor Thorne for experimentation?" She came closer and leaned over the tub. "I know what you are capable of, Captain."

He looked at her for a moment, then set to washing his hair. "Fine. Why don't you just say right out what you want?"

She smiled. "I want you to conquer California."

---

"I must have had water in my ear," he said. "California?"

"Yes. Well, mostly the military forts at San Francisco. The rest can come later," she smiled. "Do I have your attention?"

He looked into the water for a moment. "How much?" he said.

"You're not going to ask anything but that? Not why? Why you?" She seemed unsurprised.

"You work for the Empire, and the Empire wants California. You can't take it legally, not without starting a war. But if some freebooter took it, then you could come in and take it and say it was for the common good," he said, then he smirked. "How am I doing?"

"Not bad," she said.

"So you outfit me with some ships and men and send me in to do the job, and when I'm done you come in and mop up and then find a way to kill me." He laughed. "That part spot on too?"

"I'm sure you will believe that no matter what I say," she said. "On the other hand, you could just disappear several million pounds richer."

"Million?" he said, somewhat breathless.

"There was a gold rush in California not that long ago," she said. "Did you forget? The state holds private reserves of gold that amount to more than you could possibly carry off. Go in, raise hell, and then sail away to live out your life in some nice quiet backwater like Madagascar or Zanzibar with enough gold to make King Midas look like a pauper."

"So a small chance of wealth and freedom, over a large chance that you will turn on me at the first chance you get," he said. "Well." He stood up, dripping and naked and with his cock standing out flagrantly hard. ""If you are going to try and screw me later, then for sure you are going to screw me now."

Sterling drained off the last of her wine and tossed the glass into the tub with a splash. "And here I was afraid I would have to insist."

---

He walked right up to her, cock swinging in front of him, just to see what she would do. She kept her gaze locked on his, those pale blue eyes. The dark brown length of his cock tapped against her chin and she opened her mouth and caught the head, sucked on it with sudden force. He grunted and she slowly worked her mouth down the length of him, never breaking eye contact. Still fully clothed she leaned her small hands on her knees under her dress and sucked him far enough down to be really impressive. Blackburn had not met many women who could take so much.

She closed her eyes then and made a pleased sound, sucked up off is length and let him slip from her lips with a satisfied slurping noise. She smiled that secret, sly smile and wiggled forward just a little, then took him in again. He groaned and pushed his hips forward so she could be sure to get at all of him. She crooned softly and swept her mouth up and down, her tongue digging against the underside, flicking at the underside of the head when she drew up.

He got his hands in her blonde hair, teased it loose from the pins until if fell down in pale golden curls as she worked her mouth on his cock. He caught a fistful of it and pulled her head back, drew his slick cock out of her pretty mouth and rubbed it on her lips, over her smooth cheeks. She was so coolly beautiful, and so haughty, that he had an urge to defile every inch of her. He'd have to do his best.

Blackburn pulled her up and marched her out to the bedroom, half-carrying her. He tossed her on the bed and went over on top of her, kissing her, licking her wet lips, tasting her tongue. She moaned into his mouth and worked at the laces of her dress. He helped her, pausing to grope at her flesh as she revealed it. Like a lot of women in the warmer parts of the world, she was not wearing all the undergarments that would be considered proper, and once he had her dress off she was in just a short corset and stockings.

Her tits were small and ripe, sticking right out, and he bent to them, sucked on the nipples like candy while he got his hand between her legs. She was naked and ripe as a peach, wetness flowing out of her sticky little cleft. Her legs came up around him and he saddled between her thighs. He took his cock in his fist and pressed it to her furrow, and she bit her lip and nodded, making a whimpering sound.

When he pushed in it was so easy he gasped and she grunted. her wetness slicked his length and he slid right into her, all tight and clenching and hot. She moaned out loud and her little face flushed pink. Lance propped himself on his arms and watched her while he got into a rhythm, pumping in and out slow until she got used to him. Her gold hair was all over and it almost glowed in the light from the bedside lamp.

She pressed her calves against his flanks, pulling at him with her hands as he thrust into her harder, and then harder still, determined to make her squeal. Instead she opened her eyes and stared him down, smiled hungrily. "Harder."

Then he really gave it to her, driving in until their bellies were smacking together and the whole bed shook. She got red-faced and bit her knuckles and pounded the bed with her fists, and then she clutched him with her legs and he felt her come, her muscles inside squeezing down on him. He didn't give her a rest, fucked her right through it and bit his tongue to keep from losing his control too soon. It had been weeks since he'd had a chance, and longer since a woman like this. He wanted it to be a good one.

He drew out of her. made her mewl and squirm as he sawed his cock back and forth across her folds. She reached down and squeezed his cock. "Put it back inside me.'

He laughed and then drew back and flipped her over on her belly like she was a doll. She was very small compared to him, and so he pushed her knees together and then pulled her ass up to get it the right height. The heels of her little laced-up boots clicked together as she crossed her ankles and then he swung his leg over and straddled her calves. He grabbed the bottom edge of her corset and pushed back into her hot depths with one stroke, making her moan loudly and put her head down in the sheets, clutching up handfuls of them.

"You want hard?" he growled. "You'll get hard." He gripped her corset lacings and started really pounding into her. He gave her long strokes, pulling back until he almost slipped out of her and then driving back in hard enough to make her backside ripple. She grunted in a fashion not at all ladylike as he took her. He gave it to her until the force of his hips smacking her ass turned it pink.

He was losing his grip, and so he leaned over her slim body and braced his hands in the sheets to either side of her and used all his weight to drive his cock inside. She groveled and groaned and kept her ass up for him as he fucked her. She clenched her hands in the bed sheets and then bit them and made a noise like an angry wolf as she climaxed again, clamping down inside, wailing as he refused to stop screwing her. He felt her wetness pouring out over him, dripping down his leg.

He yanked her head back and chewed on the angle of her jaw, growled. She twisted and mouthed him, reached far enough to put her tongue in his mouth and he kissed her as he gave her three, four more deep thrusts and then he bit her lip and came inside her, the slash of pleasure so keen it almost hurt. He grunted and rocked his weight forward, rooting himself deep as he finished spurting into her.

"Unh," she said, gasping for breath. "That was good. That was just what I expected."

"Really?" he said. He pulled out of her and pulled her back against him, sank his fingers inside and felt their combined stickiness run out over his hand. She groaned and worked her hips against his fingers as he stroked her. "What makes you think I am anywhere close to being finished with you?"

"Mmm, well we do have to lay in a course I will give you." She squirmed against him, unsnapped her corset and drew it off so her whole smooth belly and back were naked to his hands. "Other than that, you can spend as much time as you like fucking me back to a past life."

"I'll remember you said that," he growled, putting his fingers in her mouth. She crooned and sucked his spending from them with eager lips. "See, the thing that makes me able to heal from almost anything? It does other stuff too." He pushed her back and spread her legs, slid his still-hard cock back inside her. Her eyes widened as she felt him sink in to the hilt. "It means I don't get tired like other people do. And it also means I don't have to stop fucking you at all, if I don't feel like it." He gave her a good hard stroke and she grunted, looked up at him with those catty eyes. "So hang on your ladyship, because we are going to go for a bit of a ride."

Continued in Chapter 5

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