by Lolita Lopez
Surprise filtered across her beautiful face. “A truce? Why?”
“Because this isn’t the way it’s supposed to be, Naya. I don’t want a war with you. That’s the very last thing I want from you.”
She swallowed hard. “What do you want from me, Menace?”
“I want…” He faltered and search for the right words. “I want a wife and a family. I want you to be here when I come home in the evenings, Naya. I’ve spent the last twenty-four years of my life training, fighting, training some more and trying not to get killed. I’ve earned the right to some comfort, to some happiness. I want—I want that with you. Let me make you happy.”
She moved closer, the caginess gone from her once-mistrusting gaze. Now she looked at him with sadness in her dark eyes. “That’s not the way happiness works, Menace. The people in a relationship have to be happy by themselves before they can be happy together.” She hesitated. “Are you happy, Menace?”
“I am,” he replied honestly.
“But?”
“But I’m lonely,” he admitted, baring his secret to her. “Were you happy in Connor’s Run?”
“Most of the time,” she confirmed.
“But?”
“But it’s a hard life down there on Calyx,” she said.
Menace seized his opening. “I can give you a better, easier life here, Naya. You’ll never be hungry. You’ll never be cold. You’ll have access to medicine and technology. You’ll never be alone again. I will take care of you.”
“Why?”
“Because owning a wife, mastering a woman, it’s a precious thing. It’s the one thing I’ve strived for all these years. Owning you is my reward.”
Her voice grew tight and annoyed. “I don’t want to be owned.”
He understood her frustration with her new classification. “The laws are the laws, Naya. I own you now, but that doesn’t mean you’re property. It simply means that I’m responsible for you. I will never treat you any differently.”
“Yeah, sure you won’t.”
“I won’t,” he insisted.
“You own me, Menace. We’re different.”
“On paper,” he said. “In real life, it’s nothing like that. Don’t think of yourself as being owned. Think of yourself as my partner.”
“Your partner?” she repeated in disbelief. “You just said that mastering me is something precious. How can we be partners if you’re my master?”
“I want to be your master when we’re in here or in my—our—bedroom. The rest of our relationship would be equal.”
She rubbed her cheek and shook her head. “I don’t understand, Menace. It doesn’t make sense to me.”
“It’s because we’re from two vastly different cultures.” His gaze skipped around the playroom as he tried to think of a way to explain this to her. Noticing the way she rubbed her upper arms, he unbuttoned his uniform shirt and slipped it off his shoulders. “Here. Take this. You’re cold.”
She eyed the offered shirt for a distrusting moment before finally taking it. “Don’t think this is winning you any favors.”
He chuckled softly. “Believe me, Naya. I’m starting to understand just how hard I’m going to have to work to earn your trust.”
“Good luck,” she said grumpily and slipped into his shirt. “That extra appendage between your legs has automatically put you on my shit list.”
He grimaced. “Could we maybe tone down the language a bit?”
She blinked at him. “You have a problem with cursing?”
“I do.”
“But you’re a soldier. You’re, like, a soulless killing machine. You hunted me down like a rabbit and dragged me back to your ship like a prize. I’m supposed to believe someone cold enough to do that to me doesn’t like to hear a good fuck you once in a while?”
He gritted his teeth at her description of him. “I am not a soulless killing machine. Every single life I’ve taken in battle has stayed with me.” He tapped his chest. “I carry the horror of war with me every day. It’s not a game to me, Naya.”
Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment as she finished buttoning the shirt. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
He sighed and slashed his hand through the air. “It’s fine. It’s forgotten. I’m sure you’ve spent most of your life hearing awful things about my people.”
She nodded. “So far most of them have proven true.”
He followed her gaze to the wall of impact-play implements. Remembering her earlier statement, he clarified, “This isn’t a torture chamber. This is a playroom.”
“Playroom?” She laughed. “I think words may not have the same meaning in your culture as they do in mine. A playroom is where kids keep their toys.”
“Well, this is a playroom for adults. These are our toys.”
“Your toys, maybe,” she replied hotly. Pointing at the wall, she said, “I am brutally aware of what those felt like on my bare ass. I assure you there was nothing playful about it, Menace.”
His gaze moved to the thin, snappy cane. “You’ve been caned?”
“Yep.”
“By a lover?”
She snorted. “By a principal and a teacher.” She pointed out a long leather strap. “My mother was rather fond of one of those.”
He was taken aback by the idea she’d been struck by her mother and in school. “Your teachers hit you?”
She stared at him as if he were the dumbest man in the universe. “Well, yeah. It’s called corporal punishment, Menace. You know, that thing you want to do to me.”
“No,” he said quickly. “I don’t want to beat you as punishment. What adults do in the privacy of their playrooms is in no way comparable to a grown adult beating on an innocent child.”
“To be fair, I wasn’t always innocent.”
Menace grunted in irritation. “It doesn’t matter. We don’t strike children in my culture.”
“But you go to military school at like, five, right? You honestly expect me to believe no one at the academy ever knocked you around?”
He shook his head. “Never. Not once.”
“You were obviously luckier than me.”
He was beginning to see that. Her obstinate behavior made more sense. “Why did your teachers strike you?”
She shrugged. “Sometimes it was for fighting. Most of the time it was for code infractions. My mom…” Her voice trailed off to nothing. “I didn’t always have a clean uniform for school. That was a big no-no. I finally figured out how to do my own laundry. Then, after my dad died, I missed a lot of school or I was late. Eventually I just decided it was easier to leave school than have a permanently black-and-blue ass.”
Menace let that tiny glimpse into her childhood sink in and take hold. The similarities to Hallie’s miserable childhood were so obvious. He finally understood why Vicious had taken such a drastically different route with Hallie—and why he was so overly protective of her.
Wordlessly Menace strode to the wall and started yanking down the canes and crops and striking implements. He stuffed them in one of the drawers in the corner cabinet. Glancing back at the wall, he spotted the floggers. Those would have to go too.
“What are you doing?”
He started to take down the floggers. “I’m putting away the things that scare you. There’s no reason to keep them out if I’m not going to use them.”
She stepped forward and hesitantly touched one of the soft tendrils of a flogger crafted for teasing and warming up a sub. “Why do you do it?”
The siren call of her body heat filled him with need. This was the closest they’d been without cursing or fighting. Calm and curious, she tempted him even more. He couldn’t help but compare her to the friend who had escaped him. He’d considered that one the epitome of his desires. Standing this close to Naya, gazing down into her dark eyes and breathing in her scent, he realized his first instinct had been dead wrong. It wasn’t the docile, sweet thing he needed. It was this young woman, this spitfire who
drove him crazy.
“It’s our way,” he said finally.
She frowned at him. “What does that mean?”
“It means that our women are different than yours.” He placed his armful of floggers on the nearby restraint table. He selected the one she’d touched, the easy warm-up flogger, and handed it to her. “This is a flogger. It’s used for hitting fleshy parts.”
“Fleshy parts?”
“Buttocks, thighs, breasts…”
“I see.”
“There’s some new research that shows that the biochemical makeup of our Harcos women is vastly different than yours. Your bodies react much differently to endorphins, adrenaline and oxytocin.”
She glanced away from him. “I don’t really understand what that means. I never—I didn’t finish school, remember?”
His gut clenched at the shame filling her voice. Daring to touch her, he tipped her chin and forced her to meet his gaze. “It’s all right. You may not have book smarts, but you clearly have street smarts.”
She didn’t pull away from his touch. “You learn quickly how to survive. I can do math and I can read, obviously. I just don’t have much of a science background.”
“Would you like one?”
She looked surprised. “What do you mean?”
“Some of the wives have lobbied for a school program. It starts in a few weeks, I think. I’m sure Hallie can fill you in on the details.”
“Hallie?”
“My friend’s wife,” he explained. “She was Grabbed six months ago. She’s from Harper’s Well. That’s close to you, right?”
She made a face. “It’s nearby—and a hellhole. I mean, even when my life was at its shi—crappiest,” she hastily corrected, “I gave thanks that I wasn’t born in Harper’s Well.”
His lips twitched with amusement at the way she’d skipped over the profanity. There was hope for her yet.
“So tell me about these endorphins,” she instructed.
He let his fingers drop from her chin. “Women from our planet require pain to find pleasure. It’s just the way their body chemistry works. It might be something as simple as a nipple pinch to send them over the edge into climax. It might even require something as hard as a thorough caning and predicament bondage. But your women?” He eyed her carefully. “Your bodies respond much more quickly and easily to pleasure.”
“I guess.” The prettiest shade of pink colored the very tips of her ears. She kept her gaze averted and gestured with the flogger. “So people—my people—really enjoy this?”
“So far,” he confirmed. “The locker room talk is that most of your women enjoy multiple orgasms under the hands of their mates.”
Her shocked gaze snapped to his face. “Multiple? Is that even—I mean—no way, right? That has to be bullshit tall tales between friends.”
Menace decided it was now or never. He fingered one of the long, wide strands of the flogger and held her disbelieving gaze. “Let me show you good I can make you feel, Naya. Hop up on that table and give me an hour. We’ll test out the locker room stories.”
Chapter Four
Mouth dry, Naya licked her lips and stared right back at Menace. Was he serious? He looked deadly serious. Emphasis on the deadly. She marveled at his thickly corded arms and ridiculously broad chest. With his gray undershirt stretched across his muscled form, he looked a little less intimidating. She noticed the heavy tattoos running from the edge of his neck to his wrist but only on the right side. The long stretch of tanned skin on his left remained unmarked.
“Naya?” he prompted gently and took the flogger from her hand. “What do you say?”
She considered his dare. Multiple orgasms? Surely that couldn’t be true. She had a hard enough time finding one climax on her own and had never been able to find one with a partner. Of course, she’d never had a partner as dangerously sexy as this man. Menace scared her with his hulking size and fierce features, but he exuded such raw sexuality. If any man in the universe could coax two orgasms out of her, it was probably this one.
To be at his mercy terrified her. Could she really trust a man she’d known less than a day to make love to her? She examined his honest face. He’d promised he would never hurt her and she believed him. The way he’d taken down those canes was proof enough of his desire to be good to her. The cynic in her screamed that it was all for show, but she didn’t believe that. He’d come in here with a white flag of surrender. That had to count for something.
Her gaze jumped to the cold metal table where his hand rested. She shook her head. “Not there.”
His eyes widened slightly. He seemed just as surprised by her acceptance of his offer as she was in giving it. Was she really going to do this? Was she really going to let this stranger touch her?
“All right.” Menace gestured around the room. “Pick a spot that seems comfortable.”
Gulping nervously, Naya gripped the tough fabric of the uniform shirt covering her nakedness and scanned the room. She spotted a black couch-like contraption against the other wall. It had a curved shape, the sleek fabric gently sloping and rolling like an S. It looked comfortable enough and as close to a bed as she was going to get. “What about that?”
Menace followed her pointing finger. “I think that’s a perfect choice. Come with me.”
She gazed at his outstretched hand. Asking her to come with him seemed a huge improvement over being Grabbed and tossed over his shoulder. She gathered her courage and placed her hand in his. She gripped his fingers. “Don’t make me regret trusting you.”
His lips twitched in a smile. “Never.”
Naya let him tug her along beside him. When they reached the big curving couch, he dropped her hand and moved to one of the cabinets lining the wall. He tossed the flogger with the wide, soft strands onto the countertop. He opened a bottom door and retrieved a wedge-shaped cushion that he placed in the lowest curve of the couch.
“To support your back,” he explained. “You Calyx women are a lot smaller than our women. So many of our supplies are made with them in mind but the manufacturers are starting to add supplements like these to make them work for your kind.”
Naya anxiously nibbled on her thumb. She’d just noticed the numerous loops adorning the edges of the odd furniture piece. There was only one reason for them and it wasn’t decorative. “Are you going to cuff me again?”
“Why do you sound so worried? You still have that hairpin, right?” Menace glanced at her and smiled as he secured the extra cushion in place. “Do you want me to cuff you?”
She shook her head and pinched the pin between her fingertips. “No.”
“Why not?”
She blinked. “Because it’s weird.”
He frowned at her and gestured for her to hand over the hairpin. She hesitated before giving it to him. He slipped it into his pocket. “Weird? That’s not very helpful. Do you mean uncomfortable? Do you mean frightening?”
“All three,” she replied. “It’s weird that a grown man wants to cuff a woman and restrain her for sex. Where I come from, men restrain women so they can hurt them. It’s as simple as that.”
“But what if I ask for your permission to restrain you and I promise not to hurt you?”
She couldn’t help but laugh. “Are you trying to negotiate with me? You realize that I ran one of the most successful shops in Connor’s Run, right? You can’t beat me when it comes to negotiation.”
Menace looked surprised. “I didn’t know that you were a businesswoman.”
“You didn’t ask.”
He had the decency to look chagrined. “You’re right. What did you sell?”
“Everything and anything I could make a profit on, but my main business was pawning.”
“That’s loaning money, right?”
She nodded. “A customer brings in something of value and asks for a loan. I keep the item until they repay the loan plus a small amount of interest. If they don’t come back for the item, I sell it in my shop. Simple. Eas
y. Uncomplicated.”
“Were you very wealthy?”
Naya laughed. “Hardly.”
“But you said your business was successful.”
“It was, but the only way to get wealthy on Calyx is to deal dirty and do people wrong. That’s not my style. No, I ran a clean shop and treated my customers right. I earned a comfortable living.”
“What happened to your shop?”
“I sold it the morning they announced the lottery results and had the money transferred to a bank in the city. A friend of mine will transfer it to the colonies in a week’s time.”
His eyebrows arched. “You must really trust this friend to give him complete control of your funds.”
“I do.”
“More than me?”
She eyed him carefully. “You’re not my friend.”
“I could be,” Menace countered. “I could be more than your friend.”
More than her friend? Her lover? Her confidant? Her support system? She doubted any man would ever be able to be all of those things to her. “You’re my captor. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
Menace grunted in annoyance. “I thought we were past that.”
“How about we go back to your planet and I’ll hunt you down and take you back to Calyx where you’ll be my property. Let’s see how quickly you get beyond that.”
“Fair enough,” he finally conceded. “But we are together now. You’re mine. That collar around your neck makes us mates.”
Naya fingered the offensive circle of white leather. Rather glumly, she said, “Not exactly a silver wedding band, is it?”
Menace instantly perked up. “Would you like one? If it would make things easier between us, I’ll get two in the morning and find someone to perform a ceremony.”
His enthusiastic response shocked her. She hurriedly shot him down. “No, I don’t want to get married.”
His face fell. “I see.”
Seeing the hurt etched on his face made her ache. “No, I don’t think you do. Marriage is forever. It’s a real commitment.”
“I made a real commitment to you the moment I put that collar around your neck.”
