“Tarik and I are bond-brothers.” Stev touched the intricate tattoo at his temple. Somehow answering her thoughts, he said, “It isn’t a tattoo. It’s a churat, a biological marking. It appeared during the bonding ceremony that matched us to begin our search for our mate. Our shared mate.”
“If our senses hadn’t been blocked by that pit-damned allergic reaction, we would have scented you were our mate the moment we met you,” Tarik said. “Instead, you were pushed to the point of sexual agony before we even realized what happened.”
“How can I be your mate when I don’t even know you?” Hope wailed. Part of her was stunned and shamed at the loss of control, when normally she would have faced down almost anything with confidence and grim determination. The rest of her concentrated on drawing in deep breaths so she could suck in more of the addictive aroma of aroused male. They smelled so good.
“We can’t wait to get to know you, to let you know us,” Stev said. “For now, you’ve got to trust us. We won’t ever hurt you. We’ll treasure you. Let us help you, shalla. You need us, or the zusha will only get worse.”
Hope eyed them uncertainly, but the unfocused need taking over her every thought was simply too powerful to resist. She closed her eyes, promising herself she would get answers about this. Later. Then she nodded and let Tarik slide the sleeping bag off her shoulders.
The cool air felt was icy against her naked flesh, wonderfully so. The banked desire that settled in her cunt and breasts flared, shooting sparks of lust to her fingertips and toes. Even her hair felt sensually charged, every strand an individual caress as it fell over her back and shoulders.
Following the men’s urging, Hope lay down. Her fingers dug restlessly into the pallet. Almost by accident, one hand stroked her hip. Liking the sensation, she brought both hands to her waist and glided unsteady fingers up her sides, tripping over each rib until she reached her breasts. A masculine groan stopped her exploration. Tarik placed her hands back on the pallet at her sides.
“Shalla, let us do this.”
“If you don’t, I doubt I’ll last,” Stev warned.
Gently, almost reverently, Tarik kissed her. Stev did the same, his lips trembling with barely leashed passion under the chaste caress. “If we can’t treat you with the honor that is yours by right tonight, at least allow us to pleasure you, shalla,” he said.
Tarik began with sipping kisses over her mouth and cheeks, along her brow and against her eyelids. Hope followed like an eager bird, hungry for more, until she found herself on her side, facing him. Tarik steadied her with a wide palm on her hip, urging her closer. Hope purred as the hard length of his cock prodded her belly. When she reached to take his heavy erection in her hand, he bit off a curse. He sank into her lips, easing his tongue beyond her teeth to play and tease.
Stev lifted the hair away from Hope’s neck and began his own sensual assault. His lips glided over her nape, then moved to graze the thin skin behind her ears. Unconsciously, her hand tightened on Tarik’s cock, her thumb sweeping unerringly over the flared tip, sliding in the slippery pre-cum that trickled from it. He growled and angled his hips away, but his mouth devoured hers.
Stev’s mouth explored Hope’s back, pausing at each bump of her spine. His hands moved in sweeping caresses, shaping her waist and hips. Hope squirmed when he kissed the soft flesh at the base of her spine. He chuckled darkly. Apparently delighted to find one of her particular erogenous zones, he lingered. His tongue traced damp patterns on her hot flesh. The cooling effect of the night air heightened the sensation as she tipped her chin back to let Tarik’s lips leave her mouth and trail over her throat and the tops of her breasts.
All inhibitions gone, she did little more than startle when Stev moved even lower to cup her ass in kneading palms. He bit her buttock gently, and soothed the sting with a laving lick of his tongue. Then he did it again. Hope whimpered. How could she not have known she would so enjoy the bite of pain with the lick of pleasure?
Their caresses had an odd, calming effect on her senses. The more they touched her, the more she seemed to come back to herself. Despite the sound of a distant mental alarm that warned she was behaving wholly unlike herself, the thrall of this passion, this zusha, was too seductive. Hope wanted more.
Tarik sucked her nipple into the hot cavern of his mouth, silencing her alarm. With a suggestive rhythm, he sucked the stiffened flesh with deep pulls, tickling the tip with feather taps of his tongue. He released her nipple with a wet pop and moved to her other breast.
Hooking a hand under her knee, Tarik guided it over his hip. Immediately, Stev slid questing fingers over her dripping slit. Hope cried out.
“Shalla,” Tarik whispered against her breast, voice harsh. His hand tightened on her knee, trapping it against his waist. The position forced his cock against her mound, and he pumped against her. Growling, he stopped and attacked her breast with new ferocity.
Stev played his fingers over and around her clit, circling the aroused nub with frustrating brevity. Helplessly, Hope pressed against him in an effort to force a harder touch. Instead, his fingers left her aching and wet.
Shock held her motionless when Stev parted the cheeks of her ass and gave her a long, slow lick. His tongue fluttered against the tight bud of her anus. She wriggled in discomfort, not from the caress, but from the strangeness of it. Torn by spiking pleasure and embarrassment, she tried to shift away, only to come up against Tarik’s sweat slicked chest. There was nowhere to go.
“Hope, it’s okay,” Stev said as his fingers continued to play distractingly between her legs and Tarik nuzzled her neck. “Rik and I know exactly what you need. Never be shy with us, shalla. Nothing is forbidden between bondmates.”
Lust swelled inside her, and with it a corresponding drop in her awareness and inhibitions. Hope raised her chin to lure Tarik into another soul stealing kiss. She stroked his cock, trapping it between her hand and stomach. She did no more than whimper when Stev again slid his tongue against her anus. When he gently breached the tight seal with the tip of his thumb, she tilted her hips invitingly.
Stev rewarded her with renewed strokes along her throbbing clit.
Hope was getting desperate for release.
At last, finally, Tarik let her guide him where she craved him most. She tipped his cock down until it rested between her swollen lower lips. Stev obligingly moved his hand so his bond-brother could slide his cock back and forth along her dripping channel. Hope tightened her leg around his waist. Tarik buried his face in the tangled hair along her shoulder, where the sound of his chuffing, uneven breaths drove her lust higher.
With one final caress of his tongue, Stev moved up to align his body with hers, chest to back, hips to buttocks. Carefully, he guided his cock into the valley of her ass until its rounded head nudged her anus.
Hope moaned.
While Tarik lightly flexed his hips, driving his cock along her increasingly wet slit, Stev grasped her hip and began to press forward. Infinitesimally slow, he eased ahead, the pressure against her hidden rosebud building and building. All at once, he was inside. Stev halted, the very tip of his cock held tight in her virgin rear passage. His fingers moved on her hip and she sensed he wanted to hold her tightly but feared hurting her. The roughness of his night beard rasped against the nape of her neck.
Hope was distantly surprised by how much she wanted him to continue. Blindly, she reached back and sank her fingers into Stev’s thigh and gave a demanding tug. He grunted and uttered a deep groan.
“No, shalla,” he said, the words rumbling from deep in his chest. “It will hurt too much this first time. Please. Be patient. You’ll get your relief.”
Taking his cue, Tarik drove his cock into her cunt. Hope threw her head back against Stev’s shoulder. Shallow at first, each plunge went a little deeper until Tarik was fully seated inside her. He stopped. All Hope could hear was the loud sound of their breathing. The men’s chests rose and fell against her. She wasn’t sure if the trembling was he
rs or theirs. Eyes closed, she sensed Stev and Tarik exchange a look.
Then, as if they’d choreographed each motion, they began to move.
Hope never imagined anything like it in her life. Her pussy tightened around Tarik’s cock, greedily trying to hold on to what she desperately wanted. At the same time, Stev’s gentler thrusts barely pushed more than the head of his cock inside the ring of her anus. It burned, but it felt good, too. Enjoying the sensation of the two men moving in perfect syncopation, she abruptly wondered what they felt. Could they feel each other? Stev’s leg was braced between hers as his hips rocked against her. Surely his leg also rubbed against Tarik’s?
Just the thought made her pulse jump.
Orgasm rushed down on her, and Hope reached for it eagerly. Ready to surrender, she became aware that the desire whipping inside her wasn’t all her own. She felt silky hair brush against her face, but knew it was her own hair brushing against Stev’s face. Fingernails sank into her back, the pricking pain nothing compared to the knot of heat gathering at the base of her—Tarik’s—spine.
It didn’t seem at all strange when she started to hear voices in her head.
“Be careful, be careful, be careful. Oh, gods, that feels good.”
A second voice. “Hope. Beautiful, wonderful, amazing woman.”
“My shalla, my one.” The first voice, and Stev’s arm crept around her waist to hug her close.
Hope’s breath hitched, and fierce ripples of pleasure raced through her as her pussy clamped around Tarik’s thick cock. He only grunted, but his voice in her head said, “Yes! Like that, like that, don’t stop, don’t stop.” His grunt turned into a choked shout, and she felt his hot seed spurt into her.
Stev buried his own shout against her neck, and the heat of his release exploded inside her.
Chapter 6
Stev woke when a chilling blast of pre-dawn air accompanied the loss of warmth along one side of his body. The sleeping bag dropped back over him, and he was left looking at Hope’s long, bare legs striding away. She bent down to scoop something up off the ground, and he got an even more interesting look at her rear in the golden morning light. The first sun had begun to make its appearance for the day. Its sister spheres wouldn’t be far behind.
Sadly, the long-sleeved shirt Hope dropped over her head and tugged down her torso fell several inches below her sweetly curved buttocks.
Beside him, Tarik turned over onto his back and put his forearm over his face as he unsuccessfully stifled a yawn, also managing to steal the rest of the sleeping bag from his bond-brother. Stev glared and reclaimed his share of it, but not before a shiver raised a rash of gooseflesh on his exposed skin.
The whisper of fabric drew his eyes back across the sullenly glowing coals of the fire pit in time to see Hope pull her pants over her hips and secure the zipper and button with agitated motions.
Then she rummaged briefly in her gear, pulled out her rifle, cocked it in their direction—“Whoa!” Stev rolled to his feet, while Tarik mumbled a confused, “Wha-?”—and fired.
The low-tech bullet hit dirt several feet away, far enough to let him know she had no intention of hitting either him or Tarik. Either that, or she was a piss-poor shot. Somehow, he doubted it.
“Now, Hope,” he began.
She cut him off. “Yes, Stev, now. Start talking. What the hell happened last night?”
“The zusha—”
“Yeah, some kind of mating heat on your planet. So you said. But we aren’t on your planet, and I sure as hell am not one of your females.”
Tarik propped himself up on his elbows but did nothing more than look back and forth between them, a spectator following an interesting sport.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” Stev ’pathed.
“Nah, you got it.” Despite the seriousness of this conversation—on Geminus, men didn’t have to convince their mates they belonged together—Tarik was remarkably unconcerned. When Stev considered how Hope reacted to them last night, he couldn’t really blame his bond-brother. Surely such a strong sexual bond boded well for their future together.
Hope cleared her throat and tipped the end of her rifle at him meaningfully.
Trying to ignore the fact he was as naked as a looloo bird, and his cock, rifle or no rifle, enjoyed the sight of Hope flushed and sleep tousled far too much, Stev spread his hands. “Look, I’m no medic. I have no idea why you reacted to us, or why our bodies went into pheromone overdrive, but it happened. The bonding has already begun.”
“How do you know?”
Hope tensed when Stev walked toward her, but he kept coming. Just steps away, he halted, tipped his head and tapped his temple. “I told you last night that this is called a churat,” he said, indicating the intricate design. “Since we’re bond-brothers, Tarik and I have the same churat. It’s a symbol of our connection to each other, and it’s as distinctive as a fingerprint. But unlike a fingerprint, it can change. When bonded males meet their female, the churat is softened with a color marker to indicate they are mated.”
“And your churat…”
“Is taking on color. Blue, I think. Or maybe purple.”
“Purple,” Tarik said. “Deep, vibrant, sexy purple.” He cupped his laced fingers behind his head and grinned.
“Purple, then,” Stev said.
Expression set, Hope stared at them through narrowed eyes. She made them wait before she uncocked her rifle. Stev released a silent breath. Hope paced over to one of the discarded saddles and sat down, balancing the gun across her knees. “Okay. I’m willing to accept the possibility that I, uh, went into some kind of mating heat and you guys were only trying to help last night. So how do we stop it from happening again?”
Alarmed, Tarik abandoned his casual pose and sat up. Stev barely stopped his jaw from dropping. “Stop it?” The very idea was unfathomable. Once a pair of bond-brothers found their mate, they grabbed hold of her and counted their lucky stars. “You don’t stop the mating bond.”
“No?”
“No,” Tarik said. “Not ever. A mating bond is sacred. What person would be fool enough to give that up?”
Hope’s posture went rigid. “So now I’m a fool?”
“Of course not,” Stev said. “Oh, brilliant, Rik,” he ’pathed. “Way to woo our soon-to-be beloved.” Tarik grimaced ruefully and reached for his pants. To Hope, Stev said, “What Rik meant was that on Geminus, mated triads are respected and honored above all things. When you think about it, it isn’t easy to match two people, let alone three. So when it happens, it’s a cause for celebration. To break up a triad is unthinkable.”
Hope’s lips set in a mutinous line. “I don’t know if it’s that unthinkable.”
“Maybe we should come back to it later,” Stev said, trying for diplomacy. He was sure they could win Hope over. All they needed was time to prove they would be good mates to her.
She nibbled her bottom lip as she thought. Stev wouldn’t mind nibbling that lip himself, and felt Tarik brush his thoughts with a sense of agreement. Finally, she nodded. “Okay, we’ll talk more about it later. And we will talk about it.”
Hope’s gaze drifted down his body. Stev tried to ignore the eager leap of his cock, like he held life-changing conversations bare-assed all the time. With Hope looking at him, and Tarik’s lusty thoughts conjuring up images of their mate twisting in pleasure, it wasn’t easy.
Hope stood up and brushed off the seat of her pants, as if banishing her carnal thoughts with the puffs of dust. “Sun’s getting up there. We’d better pack up and grab breakfast in the saddle if we want to keep to our schedule. We’re behind as it is, and I want to make sure we cover everything we planned so you can hit the high points in your article.”
Stev winced. “Ah, about that …”
Hope’s brows lowered. “What?”
“We don’t work for a magazine.”
“No?” Her voice was dangerous. “Then what are you doing here, having me show you all around the ranch?�
�� Hope’s eyes widened in sudden comprehension. “Oh, I get it. Well, you can just tell your bosses or whoever that my family has absolutely zero interest in selling the Bar-K, so forget it.”
Stev looked at Tarik for help, but saw he was just as mystified. “Sorry, I’m not tracking here. Who do you think we are?”
“Developers. Land speculators. Investors. Hell, I don’t know. Doesn’t really matter, though, since there will always be Kennedys on Kennedy land.”
“Oh.” Stev rubbed his hand over the back of his head while he and Tarik had a quick mental discussion. In the end, it didn’t take them long to decide where their priorities lay. While Tarik tossed the sleeping bag aside and pulled on his pants, Stev said, “We aren’t interested in buying the Bar-K, so you can stop worrying about it.”
“Well, that’s one thing at least,” she muttered. Then, louder, “All right, if you aren’t here to scope out the ranch for a buyer, why are you here?”
Tarik, unfastened pants perched loosely on his hips, came to stand beside Stev. Unspeaking, they pressed the sub-dermal triggers imbedded in their wrists and held their palms out to Hope, face up. Microscopic filaments under the skin in their palms flared, forming the luminescent outline of a symbol recognized everywhere.
Hope stared. “Marshals? You’re Galactic Marshals?”
* * * *
It took them some time to explain their mission to her. Not only were Stev and Tarik not going to write an article and provide photos for a magazine feature about the Bar-K-as-tourist-mecca, but they were on Jokers Wild to catch a gang notorious for hitting casinos and big money games of chance. Still absorbing the shift in gears, Hope let them cobble together a meal. Following her instructions, they took the horses to drink at the spring, then moved their pickets to a new patch of grass. She’d taken the last sip of liquid from her mug when heat that had nothing to do with the coffee formed in her belly.
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