Terran (Breeder)

by Cara Bristol

  She mumbled a grudging thank-you and unwrapped it. The pie was still warm. He plopped down on the bench opposite her and picked up his share.

  The savory pastry was delicious, but with Marlix so close and matters so unsettled, tension grew, and she had to force down every bite. Her misery lodged like a lump in her throat. He wasn’t a bad man, just a male who was used to receiving what he wanted because he desired it. He’d whaled the tar out of her behind with that horrible paddle—she’d inspected it after he’d left—but to be fair, she had seduced him and tricked him and tried to escape.

  He had no right to kidnap you.

  No. He did not.

  But—but…

  “I don’t hate you,” she said in a low voice.

  “You said you did.”

  “I didn’t mean it. I was mad.”

  “I was too. But I do not say things I do not mean when I am angry.”

  She twisted her mouth in disbelief.

  He shook his head. “I cannot afford the luxury of inconsistency. My word is law. If I said something I did not mean, my false words would be obeyed. Repercussions would occur that I did not intend.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Well, I’m sorry. I don’t have the power you have, so that has never been a problem for me.”

  “It is not a problem. It is the way it is.” He rose from the table and poured two glasses of water from a pitcher he’d taken and filled during his absence. He set a glass in front of her before downing half of his. “I did not like having to punish you.”

  “I thought Alphas got off on that,” she said and then regretted her words. He was attempting to be conciliatory by bringing dinner, pouring her water, and apologizing in his thick-headed Alpha way, and she had responded with sarcasm. “I didn’t mean that either. I apologize.”

  He drew his brows together. “There is much I don’t understand about you,” he said.

  He looked so perplexed, a smile tickled her mouth and another chink of ice melted away. Damn him. She needed to stay mad, remain on her toes, because however domestic their little interaction seemed, despite the prickles of awareness, they were not boyfriend and girlfriend reconciling after a spat. They were Parseon and Terran. Kidnapper and hostage.

  Kidnapper and hostage. Remember that!

  There would be no make-up sex. Thank goodness she’d gotten her period, so she wouldn’t be inclined to cave in. The man had the physique of legends: all hard-coiled muscle, a rakishly handsome face, and the strength of at least three men. He’d flung her over his shoulder and tossed her over his lap like she weighed no more than a kitten.

  She’d gone postal on his ass—had fought him with everything she had, and he’d borne her jabs as if they were gnat stings. The ease with which he had overpowered her caused her heart to sink in a horrible oh-shit kind of way, yet she’d been awed by his brawn too. And, though she hated to admit it, appreciative of his self-control. He’d been very pissed off, and she’d hit him—a perfect recipe for violence. He could have beaten the crap out of her—but he hadn’t. He’d punished her, but his hand had been guided by iron restraint. He was an aggressive, arrogant, autocratic asshole—all the A words. But he was also disciplined, controlled, and—why the fuck did her mind keep wandering there?—not bad in the sack.

  Their sexual encounter had been awkward at first, but then he’d demonstrated a receptivity and flexibility unparalleled for an Alpha. She’d had worse lovers, and those men hadn’t been brainwashed by an oppressive, misogynistic society.

  Why shouldn’t she “use” him for her own pleasure until such time as he let her go or she managed to escape? Perhaps she should reframe this entire experience and think of it as a vacation, like the time she’d visited a tropical island and had a fling with the surfing instructor. She’d been working hard and hadn’t had a break since, well, since before…Bobby.

  That psychopath had been raised on civilized, educated Terra, but his insane rage had scarred her for life. The Neanderthal, on the other hand, had patted her and held her, his caring sweetened by his awkwardness. His culture disdained compassion and kindness, and yet instinctively, he’d done the right thing.

  She glanced at the cloth wrappers from their dinner, the water he’d poured, and then at him. His rugged, tough, handsome face wrinkled with confusion. All vestiges of resentment melted away, and she twisted her mouth into a wry smile at her inability to stay mad.

  Wary eyes lightened. “You are not angry at me anymore?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “We have had a long day. It is late. We should sleep.”

  She nodded, and they both rose from the table.

  Tara crawled onto the bed and hugged the wall, knowing Marlix’s massive form would occupy most of the space. The hut went black when he extinguished the light. Boots and clothes hit the floor with a thud, and then the bed depressed under his weight. She clung to the slope as long as she could, but then her body slid into his. She would have scooted away, but he slipped an arm around her waist. Warm, yeasty breath teased her senses. He rubbed his chin against her, the growth of beard on his face prickling through her hair against her scalp.

  And his erection pressed against her throbbing bottom. Though she still suffered with burning and tingling, the spanking had not dampened her libido. Tara bit back a moan and drew a deep breath. Marlix lifted his hand from her waist and covered a breast. Squeezed gently.

  “I, um, can’t, uh, you know,” she said. Well, she could. But she’d have to take care of things first, and all they had in the hut was a chamber pot under the bed. Sex would be messy and rather embarrassing. His erection throbbed between the cheeks of her scorched ass. Her thundering heart skipped a beat as she recalled the typical way males “used” females. What if he wanted to take her anally? It wasn’t like she hadn’t done it before, but he was so frickin’ huge, and she didn’t have an excuse to prevent that.

  “I understand.” He rubbed her nipple with his thumb. “How long does your condition last?”

  If she lied, she could buy time to consider her actions. Shore up some willpower because sleeping with her kidnapper was such a bad idea. “About five days.”

  “That long?” He groaned.

  Her sentiments exactly.

  He continued to toy with her nipple, which had puckered to a hard, stiff point and caused her to ache between her legs. “Perhaps you shouldn’t do that,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “It makes me want to have sex with you.”

  He slid his hand from her breast to press against her abdomen, and then lower to slip under the waistband of her panties. She was conscious of the cup inside her as her pussy contracted. Palming her mound, he pressed her more tightly against him.

  Tara widened her eyes. Holy crap… Had his erection swelled even more?

  “Perhaps you should not say something like that.” He mimicked her comment, his rumbling voice arrowing straight to her clit, which he rubbed with his fingers while rocking his cock against her. Her ass still felt like it was under siege by biting insects, but a fire had spread to her sex, where the tingles had a wholly different effect.

  “I, uh, could do things for you,” she offered.

  “What kind of things?”

  He nuzzled her neck, one of her most sensitive erogenous zones, and her eyes threatened to roll back into her head. She struggled to think of the Parseon word for fellatio, but her brain came up blank. It could have been because of the distraction of his hand between her legs or his mouth on her neck—or because the language didn’t have such a word. Mixing Parseon and Terran English, she said, “I could, uh, give you a…uh…blowjob.” Having a hunky alien nibble on her neck while wreaking havoc between her legs did not foster fluency in any language.

  “What is a blowjob?”

  That voice. His mouth! He trailed his lips the length of her neck to the curve of her shoulder. He nipped; she moaned.

  “I mean I could take your manhood in my mouth and suck on it.” He fi
tted said cock snugly against her backside, and she could feel the stickiness of precum.

  “I think I would like you to suck on my manhood,” he growled. “But first, I want to touch you, bring you pleasure.

  His talented fingers circled her clit. “Am I doing this right?”

  She gyrated against his hand, performing a horizontal happy dance. Fuck, if the big baboon wasn’t a quick study. “Perfect,” she purred.

  He slipped his free arm under her head and reached around to her palm her breast. He pinched and rolled her nipple between his fingers while he thrummed her swollen clit. Tara surrendered to his hand and his presence, letting his warm breath, the vibrations of his deep voice, and the fire centered at her clit propel her to a state of rapture. Even the burning from the sudon had transformed to a pleasurable sensation.

  Her respiration increased, her hips thrust against his hand, and then she cried out as she climaxed. She stilled his hand to prevent the pleasure from becoming torturous. “Okay! Okay!” She laughed.

  He growled and kissed her neck, his beard scraping her flesh. Cocooned within the curve of his hard body, she felt contentment and lassitude steal over her. If a girl had to be kidnapped, this isn’t that bad.

  She twisted in his arms, planted her palms on his cheeks, and kissed him. For the words she couldn’t say, emotions she couldn’t admit, she put heart and soul into the kiss, exploring his mouth with her tongue and a little teeth, nipping at his sexy, full lower lip.

  She trailed her mouth to his neck, and then moved lower to flick her tongue at one of his nipples. He flinched and groaned. She smiled and then sucked on the nub. His hips jerked.

  “Monto! What are you doing?” He gasped, but he tangled his fingers in her hair and held her close.

  She sought his eyes. “Nobody’s done that to you before?”

  “Monto, no. Who would think of such a thing?” He rolled from his side to his back.

  She focused on his other nipple, the one that usually bore his insignia, and drew it into her mouth. “I am not sure this is proper,” he growled but held her head against him.

  “Sex shouldn’t be proper.” She sucked his nipple, then scooted lower, making sure to trail her hair over his body. His cock jutted out thick and strong against his abdomen. She grasped it with both hands, stroked from base to tip, around the ridge of the exposed glans. Then traced the same path with her lips. Teased.

  His precum tasted almost sweet compared to Terran males, and she swirled her tongue around his head to capture every drop. Then, relaxing her jaw, she drew him in until he touched her throat. She had to concentrate on not scraping him with her teeth because his size gave her little room to work. She hovered, bobbing her head as she licked and sucked his considerable cock. Using her hands, she stroked the shaft for additional stimulation.

  He produced a significant amount of preejaculate, a condition she relished with every swipe.

  She didn’t need his hoarse admonition, “Do not stop,” to determine he verged on coming. His entire body stiffened, and he twisted his hands in her hair. Then his cock convulsed, and with a groan, he pumped into her mouth. She swallowed every drop and then swirled her tongue around his cockhead to capture what she’d missed.

  His eyes were closed, his body so still he might have passed out. But then his fist clenched and unclenched, and she curled against him and wedged her leg between his. He draped his arm over her shoulders.

  “I have not experienced anything quite like that,” he said.

  Tara propped herself up on one elbow. In the darkness, she could make out his features by the moonlight filtering through gaps in the thatched roof. “You’re telling me your people don’t engage in oral sex either?”

  He was silent for a long moment. “Not like that. Males take. Females do not have a choice.” Marlix pressed Tara against his chest. He was silent for a long moment, and then he sighed. “It is better when it is given and not taken,” he said.

  Chapter Eleven

  Marlix hacked through the thick brush, clearing a path for Tara to follow, but residual branches snapped at her bare legs, and she had to watch where she trod. She’d learned the leaves of the shrub with the pretty yellow flowers bore some nasty-ass nettles. Her fingertips still stung after picking a flower. Roots and vines twisted along the wooded glen, creating hazards with every step. She kept her hands in perpetual motion, swatting at flying insects, the size and persistence of which she’d never encountered.

  Moisture beaded on large fronds, dampened the forest floor, and filled the air with the scent of fertile earth and decaying matter, of life and death. Tara exhaled, blowing at her bangs glued by perspiration to her forehead. She held her arms away from her body and grimaced. She imagined she reeked, but the fecundity of the wood masked any personal odor.

  She shot darts at Marlix’s broad back. Where the hell was he taking her? And why?

  He’d kept her under hut arrest for a week—six days—except for nighttime furloughs when he would accompany her outdoors. They would sit, talking sometimes, but often remaining quiet as Tara stared at the stars, pondering how her life had changed, wondering what direction it would take next. He carried in water, which she heated on the woodstove so she could bathe, and once, very late at night, he’d permitted her to go to the females’ bathhouse when it was unoccupied. He’d stood guard outside while inside she tarried in pique, drawing out her bath until her skin wrinkled, determined to wring every second out of the experience and force him to wait as payback for her captivity.

  She’d known she was playing with fire, perhaps had even wanted to hold the match until she felt the breath of the flame on her fingertips. When she’d emerged from the bathhouse, he’d said not a word but had led the way to their small hut, and then, still in silence, he’d laid her over his knee and delivered a fusillade of hard openhanded smacks to her bottom as she gritted her teeth. Neither of them spoke; both understood why he’d punished her.

  Tara had given up asking him any questions; he rarely provided answers, and she had begun to suspect he had none to offer.

  He disappeared every day for long stretches, and she surmised he attended to business. She got the feeling the tram was close to the Enclave, that they had disembarked a distance from the settlement on purpose. Several times she peeked outside the hut to spy Urazi milling around. Marlix’s relief jailor.

  Her emotions swung between fury, resignation, and lust. Or at least between resignation and fury. Lust had become a constant companion, lurking in the corners of her being in Marlix’s absence, then beating and throbbing in his presence.

  He’d initiated no further sexual overtures since that one night. She counseled herself to be grateful for his lack of attention. What kind of woman desired sex with her kidnapper anyway? Women did not take shit from men, even if they were aliens who oozed sex appeal from every pore.

  She wondered if perhaps Parseon males exuded a pheromone that aroused women. It didn’t seem to work on their females; everyone accepted as scientific fact breeders did not experience sexual pleasure. So maybe it only worked on Terrans for some incomprehensible, inconvenient reason. Or just on her.

  Of course, a chance existed her appetite did not originate with Marlix at all. After Bobby, she’d entered a long period of abstinence that hadn’t been broken until Marlix arrived on the scene. Perhaps he had merely unleashed her pent-up libido.

  And perhaps Parseon was an egalitarian utopia.

  Desire drummed now, pulsing in her clit and pussy, despite the heat and humidity, the exertion of the hike, and her annoyance at Marlix’s supercilious behavior.

  “Come.” He had gestured with a jerk of his head after they’d breakfasted. “Follow me.” He’d flung open the hut door.

  Morning sun sparkled with an invitation that could hardly be refused, but he’d ordered her around like a dog. She could not have been more annoyed if he’d barked heel! So she’d planted her hands on her hips and her feet inside the dirt floor of the hut. “Where ar
e we going?”

  “You will find out when we get there. Now come.”

  The cottage, though quaint and comfortable, was still her jail. She did want to leave it and did not want a repeat of the post bathhouse incident, so she obeyed, but grumbled the entire way. He’d skirted around huts, taverns, and shops to wend his way out a back gate. There they’d boarded a waiting conveyance—he permitted her to ride up front at the start this time—before he pulled off on a narrow lane in the trees, and the hike had begun.

  Tara brushed back her limp hair and tromped behind Marlix.

  “We are almost there,” he said, as if he was aware of her discomfort.

  In another hundred meters or so, her ears detected a rushing noise. They broke through thick brush to a golden sandy beach fronting a clear, pristine river streaming over rounded amber stones woven with veins of silver.

  Tara gasped. “It’s beautiful!”

  “I thought you would like this. You have not been allowed out during the day all week, and I know how much you enjoy leisurely baths.” He grinned, enjoying a joke at her expense.

  Though she tried, she could not maintain her annoyance, not when in his clueless, baboonish way he’d done something thoughtful, not when the beautiful creek beckoned and she couldn’t wait to submerge herself in its crystal waters, and not when his smile transformed austerity to such masculine beauty it stole the breath from her lungs.

  Her heart seized up. “Thank you.”

  His grin faded, and his eyes darkened. “You are welcome.”

  Tara cleared her throat. “Uh, well. I’ll go in, then.” The intensity of his scrutiny made her self-conscious as she undressed, but she shrugged off her shyness, kicked off her heavy boots, the only remnants of her own clothing she had left, and removed the two shifts she’d adopted. She had donned one as it was supposed to be worn and added another on top of it, but backward so that it covered both arms and breasts. Nakedness did not embarrass her, and Marlix had seen her tits more times than she could count, but still it seemed odd to leave one of them to hang out there.