The Healer's Kiss: Book Four of the Forced To Serve Series

by Donna McDonald

  She rubbed Chiang’s arm lightly to encourage him to lessen his grip. Immediately, the inside of her turned to a liquid pool of lust at the thought of putting her lips to his skin and laving his arm with wet kisses until he woke.

  Mate or not, she knew she was only postponing the inevitable by holding back her physical self from him. Up to now, she had managed to keep the male satisfied enough to stay out of her, but it was getting more and more difficult to fight against her own desire to join with him, especially when all she had to do was roll over into that massive chest.

  “Slaggika,” Boca swore softly, seeing in her head a clear image of herself kissing his naked body. “Now even the deities conspire to control my will in this matter.”

  She lay unmoving a bit longer, fighting her physical urges and trying not to remember how often she had done so with the current male wrapped around her. No other had ever tested her resolve. The rest she could have abandoned without a thought.

  Then the strangeness of the situation hit her. Why was Chiang even here in the meditation room with her? Where was Lieutenant Zade?

  He must have come to find her when she hadn’t shown up. Her face flushed imagining the conversation between Chiang and Dorian Zade over her unconscious body. Yet despite that humiliation, it was taking all her willpower not to unbutton her robe and invite Chiang’s large, and yet surprisingly gentle, hands to go exploring. She was muttering under her breath when the arm gripping her changed to a hand rolling her over to face him.

  “Boca. Thank the Creators. You have truly returned to me,” Chiang said, sweeping his hands over her until one cupped her face and held her gaze. “Zade said you weren’t dead, but I didn’t know…”

  “Be at peace, Chiang. I have been to see the Creators…or at least one of their interfering minions,” Boca said, frowning into the worried gaze of the male looming over her.

  “You speak so irreverently. What did they tell you to make you so angry?” Chiang asked.

  He knew her well, Boca decided, which is probably why the hardest information she had received came tumbling out. “They said your desire for me was a gift I should not refuse.”

  Chiang’s stroking hand froze as he met her angry glare. “Let me guess—you thanked them politely while cursing them under your breath,” he said tightly.

  “No, I did not,” Boca denied hotly. “I cursed the arrogant female openly. She sent me back to you before I could argue with her further.”

  Chiang fell back to the mat, removing his hands from Boca to keep from shaking her. He sighed and closed his eyes.

  “I’ve waited with your unconscious body and worried about you for hours, while you argued with an emissary of the Creators and denied our connection. What have I ever done that was less than supportive, less than friendly, that you would shun the Creators rather than admit you might desire me back? Is wanting me that abhorrent to you?”

  “This is not about you,” Boca said flatly, rising up to a sitting position.

  Chiang laughed harshly at her denial. How many arguments over bonding had there been between them? He had lost count weeks ago.

  “You visit the Creators yet come back with a lie still on your tongue. No wonder Zade doubts you,” he said.

  “I am not lying to anyone. I did not lie to her. Yes, I want you. I just don’t want to want you. This is my right. I wish to control my own destiny, not have it dictated by some entity—or my own weaknesses,” Boca declared. “We have had this conversation before. Why do you torture me by making me repeat myself?”

  Chiang rolled up to face her. “Because I thought you were dead. I was afraid I would never know the sweetness of ….” He broke off his tirade for a round of Greggor swearing. “This is madness, and I am the one losing his mind the most,” Chiang said, pushing back his hair.

  “What you are feeling is not my fault,” Boca said firmly.

  A loud sound both of them heard erupted from him. Then he climbed to his knees and climbed over her legs, effectively pushing her back down to the mat with the force and breadth of his body, which was almost twice the size of hers.

  “We may both die on Lotharius. Has that crossed your mind? Then what good will all this fighting have done for us? You don’t even know what you’re refusing. The Creators are right. I am a gift. No other male would suffer your reluctance and still want you so desperately.”

  Boca stared up at Chiang, thinking any moment she was going to push him off her, but when he lowered his body onto hers, all she did was whimper from how good his weight felt on her. “My body betrays my mind. This is why I do not trust the physical side of any relationship.”

  Chiang rolled against her, keeping most of his weight on his hands. “You wanted me this morning. I think you still want me now.”

  “Bonding is not the answer to every problem, nor is it mandatory in every relationship,” Boca declared, hissing when he rolled against her again. She felt his desire for her rising hard.

  “If you have truly changed your mind since this morning, say no now. Say it loudly and emphatically. If you don’t refuse quickly enough, you might have to kick my disrespectful Greggor ass, as your trainer would say,” Chiang threatened, feeling the quivers of arousal through her robe. “I know you want me.”

  Ignoring the trepidation in her distrustful gaze, Chiang lowered his mouth to hers and then simply took what he needed. When her lips parted beneath his, he was so relieved that he didn’t know who was shaking the hardest. He thanked the Creators that Boca really did still live. He withdrew from her mouth to put his forehead against hers.

  “Lasaţi-ma in tine,” Chiang pleaded. “Aici. Acum. Cu Zeii vizionarea peste noi.”

  “Chiang—you’re speaking in Greggor. I don’t know what you’re saying,” Boca complained.

  Instead of begging her to bond with him again in English, Chiang reached under Boca’s robe and spread her legs until he fell between them. Then he rocked again there, showing her just how much he desired entrance to all she was, showing her just how desperate he had become to join himself to her.

  “There are no words in any language to convince you of how right this is. I am done with words, except these few…you made the right choice about which part of your body to keep clothed. The rest I’m taking as my answer. I need to be inside you.”

  Boca gripped his shoulders hard, pressing fingertips into muscles that flatly refused to give under her grip. “Bonding will change nothing between us.”

  “Iti place sau nu, acum sunt ale mele,” he said firmly, staking his claim in Greggor because he knew she would only resist more to hear in English that he considered her his. But he was definitely looking up how to say it in Sumerian, first chance he got tomorrow.

  Chiang stopped rocking and reached for the top of her robe, ripping the fasteners down the front in his haste while Boca gasped over his actions. She might be appalled, but no more than he was over the fact that she wore next to nothing under it.

  “Your pathetic state of dress disturbs me. I hate that you are forced to wear clothing that does not fit well. You kept your medical tunic on. Wear the rest of your own clothes next time you meditate. And do not undress in front of the Siren again.”

  “You cannot tell me what to do,” Boca declared fiercely. “And bonding will not grant you that privilege.”

  “Perhaps not, but bonding might make me feel more civilized, and less inclined to kick some naked Siren ass. Since I’m obviously insane enough to risk your wrath in every other way just to have a taste of you, now I’m willing to risk the rest. Give yourself to me, Boca Ador,” Chiang ordered. “And I didn’t say it only in Greggor this time.”

  Boca swore at him in Sumerian, so he rocked against her again in retaliation, grateful for the thick mat beneath them because her bare backside on the cold metal floor would not have stopped him.

  To allow her to keep the clothing from their bargain, he shoved anxious, needy hands up under her tunic, fingers raking the hygiene straps from her body. Sighing
, he closed quivering hands over her naked breasts at last, diving into her mouth when she arched up into his palms offering another keening moan like she had last time he’d touched her intimately.

  He rocked against her again then, feeling the energetic connection leaping back and forth between them like the ship’s engines did when firing in sequence. The heat of her called to him to complete their connection.

  He tore himself away from her mouth and put his forehead on hers, connecting their sixth chakras so they could see the truth of each other. Chiang thought this one moment of sanity was probably all he had left in him.

  “You are a warrior, Boca Ador, and I acknowledge that. If you truly don’t want this joining, then either stop me or have the courage to claim your gift,” Chiang ordered darkly, kissing past her mouth and down her neck to the top of the tunic.

  Boca couldn’t help responding to the eagerness of his hands on her. When he rocked against her core, it sent her beyond rational thoughts, beyond her fear of committing. She hadn’t desired a male so much since…well, never. The realization stunned her.

  Words failed her tongue when she searched for a scathing retort to his order, not wanting to concede to his will. But in the end, her answer to his demand was to close her hands over his and press them harder on her.

  “Slaggika. Mi povas plu elteni,” she declared.

  “Say it in any language you want, so long as it means yes,” Chiang said fiercely. Still holding her breasts, he rose over her to lick between the sweet mounds in his hands, running his dancing split tongue in a jagged path down the rest of her body. The taste of her went straight to his loins making his need for her painful.

  “Indoiti-va genunchii,” he demanded, then swore when she did the same in her own language—or at least that’s how it sounded. He laughed roughly at both of them, too stressed to communicate clearly. “I know—speak English.”

  “Stop torturing me. What do you want me to do?” she demanded in English.

  “Bend your knees Boca Ador, and if you want me as much as I want you, let me inside your body,” he ordered.

  When she lifted her legs, Chiang slid his tongue down over her again, burying his face between her thighs and his tongue in heaven. Another deep keening moan erupted from Boca’s throat at the same time the rest of her finally gave in to the pleasure of his tongue. Wild energy leapt between them as she spiraled through a climax.

  It was like licking electricity, Chiang decided, intent on the task of pushing her over every edge he could. When he moved back up her body, her hands busied themselves between them, liberating the snap on his pants and sliding down the metal zipper his engineer side had always preferred over other forms of fasteners.

  Her legs came around his hips making his legs shake with restraint not to conquer her too quickly. Her feet hooked in the waist of them to aide them sliding down over his hips at the same time her hands finally made contact and touched him. One was holding him, and the other…the other…stroking hard and with more strength than he had known she possessed. His warrior female was strong. Thank the Creators.

  “Mi neniam pardonos al vi por fari min volas vin ci feroce,” Boca whispered roughly, vowing her displeasure at wanting him when she didn’t want to want him.

  Chiang heard her speaking words he couldn’t understand, but he didn’t laugh for fear she would stop what she was doing to him. The heat coming off her could have melted an ice planet. Raging fires of Helios, he wanted to bury himself in it.

  “Your confident touch exceeds everything I imagined. It was worth every torturous moment I spent waiting for you to want me back enough to do this. May I prove to be a worthy…gift,” Chiang breathed, saying it slowly in English, groaning at her strokes, definitely hearing himself making noise this time. But he couldn’t have been quiet if his life had depended on it.

  “What words of praise do you need to hear from me that you have not heard from many females before me, Chiang of Greggor? You already know you are an impressive…gift,” Boca returned sarcastically, angry over his expression of pleasure even as it pleased her greatly in return.

  “I will be an impressive gift only if I manage to please you as much as you are pleasing me,” Chiang said softly, lowering his forehead to her as she slowed her stroking.

  Startling them both, Boca used one leg wrapped around his to tip him to his back. The other she used to hoist herself over his legs until she kneeled above him. Before Chiang had a chance to retaliate with his greater strength, she took him in hand again and slid herself down onto his throbbing bonding organ, ending all holding back for both of them.

  The feel of Chiang embedded inside her surprised Boca. Never could she remember a male feeling so good—or so—right. She moved on him, and it was more pleasurable than she could recall it being with any other. Still…

  “Know that doing this changes nothing,” Boca said fiercely, blissfully rocking, rocking, rocking as the male beneath her growled louder and louder.

  Chiang wanted Boca to keep moving on him forever. Thwarting her efforts to end it too quickly, he sat up, wrapping arms up her back to hold her neck as she continued to move on him, but now it was in a tight, hard rhythm that demanded they move in sync to get the full benefit.

  “It is a truth that I have bonded with many females, but never have I wanted one’s pleasure as much as I do yours,” Chiang said sharply. “Grant me your pleasure again. We will scream our success together. Do it now. I can’t wait much longer to offer all.”

  “No. Stop demanding things from me, Chiang. In fact, stop talking. Let me pleasure you and be done with this madness,” Boca ordered, heart pounding over his commands, which her Sumerian programming wanted to blindly obey.

  “I will have my way in this, Boca. Without your satisfaction, I’d just as soon relieve myself,” Chiang ordered fiercely, biting her shoulder gently as she sank down hard, burying him inside her and holding him captive. He strained against her stillness, wanting to bite harder, to mark her as his. It was all he could to do to resist the throbbing that was promising him absolutely everything he needed.

  Boca stopped moving and gripped a handful of hair to move Chiang’s face to where she could meet his gaze. She saw a mostly pleasured male, hovering on the verge of release but not letting it end. He was holding back for her sake, waiting on her to make a final decision to accept him. In all her times with other males, she could not recall a single one denying himself the pleasure she could give him for any reason, much less for...

  What was so different with Chiang?

  Boca felt herself tipping over some slippery edge, her spirit gliding on some emotional release that opened all kinds of flood gates inside her. Her energy unwound from some tight knot and moved intuitively to link with his. Chiang pulled her hips down even harder and called out loudly in physical release, the sound of his satisfaction filling the empty room.

  The vibration that had been building from her tortured emotions tore through Boca and out, celebrating its release by first lifting her spirit from her body, and then by slamming through Chiang’s body with a second wave of release. Boca could tell he hadn’t been expecting that, but the roar of triumph Chiang set free probably carried to Medical on the other side of the ship. There was nothing she could do but ride the waves with him, afraid to think about what such extreme vibrations meant.

  “Ai mei sunt prietene. Ai mei sunt prietene. Ai mei sunt prietene,” Chiang called over and over.

  “No. Don’t commit to me in this room where their names are written on the walls,” Boca pleaded, knowing Chiang was far beyond the ability to hear her.

  His giant stroking hands under her tunic covered most of her in every sweep over her back as she continued to vibrate on him. His hands were reverent, but also full of ownership. The Greggor words of commitment had made it past their language barrier, going straight to her spirit to be confirmed.

  “Mate,” a voice inside Boca stated firmly, and it sounded exactly like the emissary making her pro
nouncement, and just as chastising about the resistance that remained.

  As the last of the pleasure waves subsided, Boca felt tears of regret slide down her face. Without waiting for full permission, her body had done what her mind had refused to do. It had mated the insistent Greggor now impaled deeply within her.

  He held her in a tight grip still, like he couldn’t bear to let her go.

  What had she done?

  So intense had been the vibrations she created, Boca feared she might even have shared a Sumerian claiming with Chiang. She had heard about pleasure so intense that it lasted many times longer than normal but had assumed it was not in her to know such things.

  Not sharing any experience remotely close to it with Rogan had been his deepest disappointment in her as a mate. Yet for her, it had been a source of comfort that none of the males she had known carnally had been capable of inspiring such an experience. Now she had possibly shared the highly sought after Sumerian experience with Chiang. How could the angry, intimidating Greggor be the male who set those vibrations free?

  After what had just passed between them, she would never keep the overly solicitous and possessive Greggor out of her now. The male connected to her still vibrated, as did she.

  And like it or not, Chiang was imprinted on her energy now. If she was lucky, perhaps his energy had at least driven her Lotharian captor’s from her at last. That would be one good thing to come from this crazy connection she had with him.

  Too exhausted to worry any longer about what had occurred, or the possible repercussions from it, Boca let herself consider again how tired of it all she was.

  Closing her eyes, she didn’t even try to fight the encroaching darkness. She just sincerely hoped she wouldn’t dream again.

  Boca found she couldn’t answer when she heard Chiang calling her name in alarm.