A prophetic slave girl set to be a Roman ruler's concubine finds herself torn between her desire to be free and her desire for both her master and a barbarian prince in 1,001 Erotic Nights, Part 1: Slave Girl [1] by Lisa Cach. We're sharing two enticing excerpts [2] — a clean one and a dirtier version — from the erotically charged historical fantasy. Keep in mind: if you wouldn't want your co-workers spying on you reading Fifty Shades of Grey, both excerpts should be considered NSFW. Here's a little bit about the book:

"In training to offer up her virginity to her master, the king, Nimia is conflicted by her attraction to her master, though her spirit rebels at being a slave. Lisa Cach, two-time finalist for the prestigious RITA award, adds a certain ambitious underlord's son to the mix, resulting in 1,001 Erotic Nights, Part 1: Slave Girl."

Read the excerpts below, and for more information on the steamy series, visit XOXO After Dark [3].

PG-13 Excerpt

"Who is he?" I asked, my hands clenching the window ledge of the storeroom. My eyes devoured the young man dismounting from his horse in the stable yard below, with his shoulder-length brown-gold hair hanging in thick, wind-tangled locks.

"Which one?" Terix said at my side, his arm almost pressing against mine as he leaned forward to get a better look at the barbarian strangers crowding the stable yard. We'd been sent to fetch an empty chest from the storeroom; a fortunate thing, since it was the only place in the enormous country villa where one could see into the stable yard. Terix's glossy black curls obscured my view for a moment, and I craned around him, trying to keep the young man in my sight. I would have pushed Terix aside, but I wasn't allowed to touch anyone; nor was anyone allowed to touch me.

The man's narrow hips drew my gaze, bound in a leather belt decorated with a mosaic of gold and garnets, with an equally ornate short sword and scabbard at his side. For a brief moment as he swung his leg over the saddle, the blue tunic he wore rode up his thighs, revealing short breeches pulled tight across the firm mounds of his buttocks. I felt heat rising across my breast and up my neck. My heart pounded.

"The only one worth looking at," I said. Gods, I could gaze upon him all day.

Tall. Broad shoulders shown exceedingly well by both the close fit of his tunic and the red fur cape held in place at each shoulder with an enormous gold fibula. For all his breadth of shoulder, his body still bore the evidence of youth: he was lithe and nimble, not yet heavy with the muscled girth of a fully mature man. His feet were encased in short leather boots, but between them and the breeches were no clothes at all, just bare muscled legs tanned by the sun.

Terix slanted a look of feigned innocence at me from his freckled face and wide, hazel eyes. A slave like me, he was full of mischief and spent much of his spare time musing on his own prick and in what inventive way he might use it next. "There are half a dozen I wouldn't mind seeing more of, like that bull there with the hair coming out the neck of his tunic. I'd give a month's meat to see Lady Lydia riding atop him, her big soft thighs spread wide, her fingers digging into his pelt while her great jugs bounced up and down like to — "

"Terix."

"I would, Nimia. But I suppose you mean that young wolf with the hungry eyes and the fox-fur cape over his shoulders."

The wolf looked up at that moment, his cold blue-gray eyes meeting my own. A wash of awareness went through me, unlike anything I'd felt before. It was an overwhelming premonition of a future both terrifying and ecstatic. This man, something within me said. This man will take my soul. I could feel coils of fate wrapping around me, squeezing the breath from my body. My heart raced, a cold sweat breaking out over my skin.

X-Rated Excerpt

The first lesson had been on foreplay, starting with kissing, and tender touches of fingertips to the face, the side of the neck, through the hair; moving on to hands smoothing down the length of a back, a thigh; lips caressing a hand, tongue teasing the center of a palm; gentle fondling of breasts, and a nipple surrounded by the warm wet heat of a mouth. Hands on asses, stroking, fondling, teasing, parting. A woman's hand on the thick rod of a man, sliding up and down, her other hand cupping his weighty balls. Rubbing the damp tip of that rod against her nipples. The tender stroking of a woman's folds, and a fingertip circling round, pressing at, and then entering her gate.

It was a night of adoring touch, played out not two feet from my knees by living actors who seemed to have forgotten we were there. I could barely look away, and if I did so, would be reminded to watch.

Sygarius's eyes, however, rarely strayed to the actors on the couch: his attention was always on me, watching my reactions. Enjoying my shock. Savoring the blush of desire — or embarrassment — that painted my neck and cheeks. After that first lesson, he'd demanded that I sit with my gown down to my waist, so he could better watch my nipples, my breathing, and the flushing of my skin.

The second lesson had taught me that mouths could do more than kiss lips and nipples. They could provide sex themselves: a man in a woman's mouth, thrusting at her as if her lips were a cunny. A man at a woman's petals, licking and sucking at her, with first his tongue and then his fingers thrusting inside her.

My face had burned in embarrassment. I'd heard of such things, slyly, from Terix, but my imagination had proved only a faint echo of the reality. As the woman writhed on the couch, her back arching, mewling cries of pleasure torn from her throat, I'd wanted nothing more than to be her, with that man at my loins, my hands gripping his hair as he licked me.

The third lesson taught me, in slow detail, how a man entered a woman. How she might raise her legs to his hips, his waist, his chest, his shoulders; how she was to move, meeting thrust for thrust, to better increase her lover's pleasure. How she contracted her inner muscles to bring on his climax.

Sygarius had made me practice that. He'd coached me through it, his eyes locked with mine, as he told me what I should be feeling in my body, and how to control it.

My face had burned.

And yet that night, the dreams I'd had . . .