He placed a finger to his lips, hoping she wouldn’t awaken the other women. She stretched, grinned playfully, and ran a finger down his bare chest, then followed the same path with her tongue, shooting a lazy tug of desire to his groin.
Kirek gathered her to him and used his psi to propel them into the next chamber. As she cuddled against his chest, her unique scent wafted to him, sharp mint with a hint of rain.
Unwilling to disturb the others, he kept his voice low. “Didn’t I satisfy you last night?”
She giggled and ran her hands over his bare buttocks. As a hostage, he wasn’t allowed to cover his nudity, signaling to the Endeki females that he was available to serve at all times. The females here had a refined and distinctive taste in pleasure. Kirek grinned at the memory of one of them explaining to him the phases of Boktai and how Drik spoiled his daughter, giving her whatever she desired. He could have been left in worse places.
Still, he knew his parents would disapprove of Endekian morals. While on an intellectual level Kirek understood Endeki customs stemmed from their peculiar biology, on an emotional level these people shocked him. However, there was more to life than sensual pleasure. Although with Lataka’s hands on his tavis, he was having difficulty remembering exactly what those other things were. Yet, a half hour later, after he’d enjoyed her once more, he insisted on taking that tour.
“What’s so interesting about the residence?” she asked, taking his hand and leading him down a hallway with high ceilings and many connecting rooms.
“I want to see all my choices.”
“Choices?”
“So I’ll know where we can best . . . enjoy ourselves,” he told her, knowing that while his words weren’t a total lie, the prospect of her having him again would distract her.
Kirek saw no cameras. No locks. After gaining entrance to the residence, he’d found the security inside lax. Either Drik had nothing here worth hiding, or Lataka hadn’t yet taken him to the area he most wanted to be.
“There are three hundred and twenty-five rooms in the residence.” Her tone was light, her smile impish. “Perhaps we should experiment in each one.”
He slung an arm over her shoulder and fondled her breast through her suit. She immediately lowered her shield so he could feel her bare flesh. But she kept her suit a deep gold to match her skin and to preserve her modesty from passing workers. His Rystani nudity, on the other hand, drew lots of stares, giggles, and an occasional fondle from a passing female. He was fair game. To be used for play by whoever wanted him.
He supposed he should have minded, should have found his status demeaning. But even a mental protest was rather difficult when he was enjoying himself so much. Kirek had spent much of his life studying, but there was only so much knowledge he could learn from computers. Here he was learning by hands-on experience.
Although he couldn’t help but enjoy sexual pleasure, he wanted more feelings. His parents adored one another. So did his aunt Dora and uncle Zical. Although Tessa and Kahn’s fights were infamous, they’d each risked their lives so many times for each other there could be no doubting their connection. All lower animals could reproduce. Intelligent beings should elevate the pleasure to include the mind.
However, Kirek was a young healthy male, and feeding his physical appetites pleased him. Eventually, he supposed he’d tire of his hostage situation. But for the moment, he was far from bored. In fact, he was in absolutely no rush at all for Xander to return.
6
AFTER XANDER LEFT the shuttle, Alara fought her bonds. But the webbing had been designed to protect a body during high g-forces, and not even the extra strength she’d gained from Boktai was enough to shift her position—not even a little. With her hands cuffed behind her, she couldn’t release the ties—she could hardly twitch a thigh muscle.
At least with Xander’s departure, her need eased. Without his male scent in her nostrils, without his handsome face and attractive body to taunt her, her automatic physical responses waned. Her thoughts cleared, and she realized that although the big Rystani had appeared shocked by her revelations, he hadn’t said no, either.
Perhaps he was intelligent enough to comprehend that she’d had nothing to do with the war between their people. Or perhaps he simply looked forward to enjoying her body. He’d certainly had difficulty taking his gaze off her rebellious nipple that, no matter how much she tried to change positions, seemed determined to poke through the webbing.
With his departure, she renewed her hope of regaining her psi enough to cover her nudity. Alara was about to use meditation to calm her body further when the ship jumped into hyperspace. Xander had warned her that her senses would heighten, but neither of them had known that in her current state, the intensity would rock her as if she’d soared into orbit. Her every breath, each rise and fall of her chest, sent shock waves of electricity through her system. Blood rushed through her veins and raised her temperature. Her skin flushed. Desire flared.
When Xander returned, his presence slammed her again. Hyperspace seemed to make him larger than life, adding texture to his gorgeous bronze skin, magnifying his scent, intensifying his maleness. She would have been writhing—if she’d been free to move. At the sight of his rock-hard muscles over powerful shoulders and his virile chest, her heart pounded hard enough to excite her most sensitive places.
When his dynamic violet eyes caught hers and lit with a heat that could have fused bendar, she understood that her need was inciting his lust. She couldn’t have been more pleased. For a while she’d feared he might not respond to her like an Endekian male.
Despite the fact that he clearly wanted her, his tone was full of concern. “Are you all right?”
An Endekian male would have had no interest in her welfare, but she couldn’t focus on his compassionate qualities.
She gasped, her tone low and husky. “Free me.”
He took one searching look at her and reached for the webbing. As he leaned down, she breathed in more of his male aroma, a spicy and evocative mix of a woodland scent that transported her into the next stage of Boktai. A stage where pride had no place. A stage where feeling and need dominated her mind. A stage that reduced her to her most elemental nature.
At his hungry gaze, need speared her. Every atom, every cell, every inch of flesh hungered for his touch, causing her breasts to ache, her yonia to yearn for sweet fulfillment. Again her nipples hardened, poking through the webbing. She had to give him credit. He began to do as she’d requested, but her protruding flesh distracted him.
“Would you like me to touch you?” he asked, his tone as polite as if he were asking to open a door.
“Yes.” Why did he ask? Why did he reveal his manners now when she wanted him to ravish her?
Holy structure of atoms! He’d kidnapped her from her home, separated her from her work, forced her from her world, driven her mindless with need—and now he stopped for permission to touch her?
“Or would you rather I kissed you, first?”
She barely bit back a groan, realizing that he was teasing her. But she was in no mood for soft and gentle. Not when she longed for hard and fast. Anticipation had her lips parting. Her breasts heaving.
“Do everything. Please. Now.”
He held back, his gaze impudent and mysterious. “Are you certain?”
“Yes. I want you. I need you. I must have you.”
He threaded his hands in her hair. His fingertips were gentle, his palms firm, as he tipped back her head with a commanding tenderness that oddly seemed to go quite well with his I’m-in-charge attitude.
“Does it make any difference to your cell regeneration if I go slowly or at maximum speed?”
She needed him so badly. Right now. She didn’t want to wait one more moment. But like a storm swelling with every gust of wind, the longer the tempestuous forces built, the greater the f
ury, the more torrential the downpour.
So she admitted the truth. “If you take me slowly, my cells will regenerate more completely.”
He grinned happily, revealing straight white teeth. “Ah, so you want me to take my time.”
“Yes. No. I don’t know.”
He responded as if she hadn’t just answered him in complete confusion. “My plan is to satisfy you so completely that we won’t have to do this again for a while. Understood?”
“Yes.”
“And since that means we need to proceed slowly to regenerate you fully, I plan to take my time with you.” His tone was soft, teasing, charming.
As she realized he had yet to release the webbing, her stomach churned. Already she regretted her honesty.
But then his mouth slanted down over hers, his hands behind her head, his fingertips pressing and holding her steady. At the same time, he used his psi. Lips sucked her nipples and seared her and created a delightful sensation across her breasts.
“What are you doing?”
He grinned. “I just felt your psi shield weaken, so I took control.”
Ah, holy goddess. She hadn’t expected Xander to figure out so quickly that while she remained unable to use her psi, he could manipulate her suit.
So as his lips parted hers, as he nibbled and nipped and her tongue met his, he duplicated the sensations on her breasts, shooting arcs of pleasure straight to her labella. Sweet Stars. The man knew how to kiss. He had skills as honeyed as tanii pastries, more patience than a Catallian owl. Her breasts trembled with pleasure as she sighed into his mouth.
His kiss conveyed a demanding thoroughness that told her he would gift her with healthy cell regeneration—if she survived the wait. Being webbed in, she was at a healthy disadvantage. She couldn’t rush him with her hands or her hips. He would set the pace. She couldn’t press against his hard muscles. She could only wait. She couldn’t even tell him what she wanted since he was keeping her mouth busy. She had no control. None. Null. Zero.
Waiting, wondering what he would do, she ached with the need for him to fill her, and her yonia creamed with moisture. But he seemed quite content to focus on her mouth and her breasts that had never been so cherished or so exquisitely tender.
But he wasn’t satisfied to excite only her breasts. The man kissed like a legend, and soon her lungs burned for air. Her lips tingled. He never let up his psi licks and nips of her breasts. Ah, she ached with nerve endings she hadn’t known she possessed.
Still he took his time, until she was certain that she would go insane with the craving lust. His patience was driving her wild, but she kept thinking about where she was headed, as if she were rushing down an endless white-water river and waiting to shoot over the falls.
Finally, she tore her mouth aside, gasped for air, no longer caring if she begged. “Enough.”
Immediately he pulled back. “You want me to stop?”
“I want you to hurry.”
“And I already told you once, when I take on a task, any task, I do it to the best of my ability.” A glimmer in his eyes revealed his intensity. “Before, you wanted me to go slowly, so you would have complete regeneration.”
“That was before.” Frustration fueled her desire. If only she could move, press her body against all that bronze Rystani flesh.
“What has changed?” He leaned back on his heels and crossed his arms, eyeing her as if she were an experiment gone wrong.
“You’ve pushed too far.”
He raised an eyebrow. “And this is bad because . . . ?”
“No, it’s good. Too good.”
“There’s no such thing as too good.” His frown changed into a grin. Oh, the big male was very pleased with himself, and she found him even more attractive. More compelling. He actually still seemed concerned that she get what she needed—even when that meant delaying his own gratification.
However, he couldn’t possibly understand the blaze in her loins. If she’d been free, she would have shown him her ardor with her lips, her hands, her yonia. She tried to growl, but even to her own ears the words came off as a sexual purr and nowhere near a genuine protest. “I’m not aroused by bondage or domination.”
At her words, he laughed with a confidence that told her he wasn’t buying her denial. “You enjoyed those smacks on your bottom.”
“I didn’t,” she lied, and shook her head wildly from side to side to prevent him from seeing the truth in her eyes.
With no warning, he used his psi to roughly flick the tips of her nipples.
“Uh . . . oh . . . ah.”
His eyes brightened with amusement, and he spoke in jest. “I suppose you wouldn’t like more, either.” He squeezed her nipples again, and she couldn’t stop her soft moan from telling him exactly how much she liked his kind of attention.
“I assure you my cells will . . . ah . . . oh. Oh.” His psi on her nipples made talking almost impossible. “I’ll fully regenerate if we . . . finish now.”
“Since I’m unfamiliar with Endekian biology, I intend to be very thorough.”
She wanted to slap him. No, she wanted to throw him onto his back, take him into her yearning yonia, and grind her pelvis against his.
He began to unstrap the webbing by her shoulders, then stopped. “It occurs to me that when I release the webbing, you may try to touch me.”
She raised her eyes to his. “Of course I will.”
He shook his head, his demeanor serious yet taunting. “But that is against Rystani custom.”
She groaned. “I’m not Rystani.”
“I can see that.” He parted the webbing with his fingers and cupped her breasts. “Our women have bronze skin. Yours is so pretty and golden.”
She quivered in his hands, feeling wanton and wicked and willing to do whatever he asked. No man had ever taken this amount of time with her. She suspected that whatever task he took on, he’d accomplish to the best of his abilities. That he had kept his word shot happy feelings her way. He might be toying with her emotional state as skillfully as he was caressing her flesh, but for now, she could only enjoy it.
“So we are agreed, then?” he asked.
“Huh?” She raised her eyes to his.
“We will make love like Rystani.”
“And if I say no, you’ll fail to regenerate my cells and let me die?”
“Of course not.” He twirled her nipples between thumb and forefinger. “We’ll simply continue our discussion, and I’ll be content to keep caressing your beautiful breasts until you change your mind.”
The longer he took, the longer she could wait before she’d need him again. However, she hadn’t expected him to be this kreking thorough. She hadn’t expected this much attention. She hadn’t expected him to listen to what she needed. Now the big Rystani was overdoing it. Overtouching. Overstimulating. She wished she hadn’t spoken so freely.
She licked her upper lip, hoping to speed up the process. “I’m surprised you have so much time to spare on me.”
“I have a very competent crew.”
Apparently, his threat wasn’t idle. It appeared as if he would stroke her for hours.
“Fine,” she agreed.
But she figured her word didn’t count since she’d given it under duress. After he released her from the webbing, she had no intention of following his customs. Whatever they were. She’d agreed only out of desperation. Once she placed her hands on his beautiful body, he would not complain. He’d accept her caresses as she had his, and her hands would urge him on to satisfaction and completion.
However, he was not like Endekian men. After he released the webbing and her cuffs, she still could not move. He used his psi to hold her. She wanted to curse him, plead with him, but at the determined look in his eyes, her stomach clenched. When he finally nudged her
knees apart, she figured her wait was finally over. Surely he must be about to give her what she so desperately needed.
But he didn’t touch her. Instead, he floated her into the air by employing her null grav, stopping her knees at his eye level. Then he parted her legs wider, holding her gaze with his. The intimacy of the moment jarred her.
She told herself she was an experienced woman, and he wasn’t looking at anything that was so different from any other woman’s yonia. Blaming her unusual nervousness on the uncertainty of what he would do next, she longed for him to act, to move, to caress and to enter her. She didn’t want to stop and feel or think. She didn’t want to assess and analyze. She wanted to get on with it. To be done. To complete the regeneration cycle, so she could forget about her biological requirements until next time.
When she’d given him permission to set the pace, or do whatever he pleased, she’d never dreamed he would make such a production out of every teasingly slow caress. Or how very good he could make her feel. When he’d very deliberately stared between her thighs, she could have sworn her labella swelled even more.
While she would have been pleased if he’d turned his suit transparent, apparently he had other ideas. He spread her thighs wider. With fingers as gentle as gossamer wings, he parted her sensitive labella, carefully stroking her delicate folds until she pearled with moisture. As gently as if she were a petal that he didn’t wish to damage, he spread her inner lips. His hot breath fanned her most intimate core. With tiny puffs of air, he warmed her, teased her, taunted her, and she barely held back groans of delight.
“You smell delicious.” With curiosity and skill, he finally fondled the triangle of curls at her mons, shooting a delicious shiver of anticipation through her as she imagined him dipping his fingers into her. “Our women fashion their hair differently.”
Did he find her unattractive? She’d simply collapse in frustration if he dared stop now. “Am I unappealing to you?”
The Ultimatum Page 9
