by Mel Teshco
“And Ezra—he would imagine such things too?” she said hoarsely, her womb clenching with need.
“Yes,” Maddox said, his voice rough with desire.
Though she expected Dar’s approach, his tread outside the shield was still almost imperceptible. She turned to watch as Dar pushed through the alien material and greeted Maddox with a short nod.
Dar strode toward them and sank onto his haunches beside the bed. “I have been impatient for our time together.”
She nodded. “Me too.” She looked at Maddox. “I only wish—”
What? She really wasn’t sure. She only knew she loved all three equally, in different ways, and didn’t want to be parted from any of them.
Maddox moved forward. He didn’t kiss her, barely touched her except with his fingertips, which grazed along the side of her face. “I’ll be thinking about you…dreaming of you.”
He dropped his hand, then spun on his heel and left the intimate room that was surrounded by exotic leaves.
Her throat hurt, made thick by grief. She turned to Dar. “I never thought being away from any one of you, even for a short time, would be so hard.”
He encircled her waist and tugged her close. “Then let’s get out of here. You need to keep occupied. Besides, I think it’s time you officially met my people.”
She allowed him to lift her effortlessly into his arms and carry her out of Maddox’s quarters and into the bowels of the ship. He stepped onto the shield unfurling around them and she pressed her head into his chest, holding on.
Her belly plummeted as the shield dropped them back to Earth, directly in front of the domed structure Dar called home. As they strolled toward it, Dar’s people moved out of the growing shadows and gathered around them, watching expectantly.
One arm still around her, he spoke to his people in his own fascinating language. The men clung to his every word. Whatever Dar said had to be important. Courteous respect replaced the lust in the men’s yellow stares.
What had changed?
Dar’s lilting voice broke off and he angled his head close to her and murmured into her ear. “Are you okay?”
She looked up at him, her lips quirked. “Hmm. Let’s see. I woke up alone, cold and terrified—with no memory. Shortly afterward I was kidnapped by three alien men and then discovered the human race was all but wiped out. Why wouldn’t I be okay?”
He raised a brow. “Is this what you humans call sarcasm?”
She let out a breath. “Yes, I guess it is.”
He squeezed her arm. “It could be worse.”
She peered up at him, watching the way a light breeze caressed his long hair, so glossy black against his golden skin. “You sound so human sometimes.”
He shrugged, an apparently universal gesture. “Your television programs fascinate us. I guess my brothers and I picked up more than we expected.”
“Yes.” She leaned into his side, breathing in his clean scent. “And actually, you’re right. What you said before. Things could be a lot worse. I’m with three men I have strong feelings for—three men who make me feel things inside that should be impossible in such a short time.”
Not even with Raoul did I feel this way.
“Thank you,” he said huskily, tilting her head up with a hand and kissing her with a tenderness that made her heart ache with tender emotion. He pulled back, his yellow eyes shining. “That means more to me than I can say.”
She started at the cheers erupting around them from the alien men. Somehow she’d forgotten they had an audience.
Dar grinned, “A few of my men saw you dance. Now they are all calling you their dancing queen.”
Her giggle quickly turned into a convulsive snort of laughter. “Oh, Dar!” She lifted a hand, explaining, “A very famous pop group had a hit song called Dancing Queen.”
“Then that is a song we must retrieve from your Earth archives without delay.”
One of the alien men abruptly approached and stood before them. He crossed his arms over his chest, his hands clasping opposite shoulders, elbows raised parallel to the ground, as he inclined his head into the gap of his interlinked arms. “Mau’et zet sa, Lillian.”
“Love to our queen,” Dar translated. “They are according you their highest mark of respect.”
“Queen… I’m their queen,” she whispered, feeling suddenly, strangely queasy. Something didn’t sit quite right with the thought, and she wasn’t even sure why. Oh, not just the fact that she didn’t feel fit for the role of queen—it was something else, like an answer just out of reach and on the tip of her tongue.
Dar took her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “If you prefer to wait until you remember your Earth name—”
“No.” She shook her head. “That was my old life. In this life I want to be known as Lillian.”
She smiled and copied the bow of the next alien male who had stepped into the line forming before her.
“Very well,” Dar murmured. “That would please us.”
A delicious tingle of pleasure radiated down her spine and spread outward. In that moment, even without all her memories to fall back on, she knew for the first time ever she didn’t need to dance to feel she truly belonged.
When the last of the men bowed and moved away to melt into the trees, she asked, “Where do your people sleep?” She hadn’t seen any other structures or dwellings like Dar’s.
Dar drew her into his domed house—her home too, now—and explained, “All but a couple of sentries return to the mother ship when night falls. They each have their own rooms and caltronian furs. None but we kings have shields at our command. They are just too rare.”
“I guess there has to be some compensation for a life not your own.” Where had that comment come from?
Dar blew out a breath as she followed tentatively through yet another of the shields. “Come,” he said, seeing her reaction. “I was thinking you could use some relaxation.”
She frowned a little. Had he just deftly changed the subject or was her mind running away with her now? She nodded. “Sounds heavenly.”
“The shields are getting to know you now and will fully accept you as one of us after the ceremony. You will have no need to fear them. No need to fear anything. My brothers and I will look after you in any way we can.”
He slipped an arm around her as they moved into the bathing room and she leaned in close, content in every way. “I know that. In all the horrifying madness of the virus, I can hardly believe how lucky I am to be a survivor…to be with three men who truly seem to care about me.”
He turned to her at the steaming water’s edge, cupping her face and staring into her eyes. “There is no seem about it. Please be assured, we more than care about you.”
Her heart almost hurt. Each of her men—her men?—affected her deeply. With Dar, there was an inexplicable bond, a need to be with him that touched her soul.
His hair falling like silk over one shoulder, he lowered his head until his lips slanted over hers in a slow, tender kiss that pulled at her heartstrings and had her melting against him on a sigh.
She breathed his name, deepening the kiss, her tongue dipping into his mouth and tasting him just as he tasted her.
His hands dropped, his fingers taking hold of the hem of her dress. She pulled her head back briefly to raise her arms above her head. Air touched her bare skin as he dropped her dress onto the floor. Then they were kissing again, much more urgently while they grappled to rid Dar of his pants.
He stumbled abruptly and she realized his pants had twisted around his calves. Still entwined, they lurched together as one through the air. She shrieked as they hit the water with a resounding splash.
They surfaced together. She looked at him and abruptly broke into a fit of giggles. His laugh joined hers, a deep baritone chuckle that sent shivers of warmth through her body. Suddenly laughter was all but forgotten as she moved into his arms, passion taking hold even before their mouths fused.
Dar waded backward, r
eclining onto the rock steps of the pool and allowing her to take charge.
She wrapped her thighs around him, throwing her head back as he deftly fondled her heavy breasts, thumb and forefinger tweaking her nipples so the twin points grew harder still.
“I hadn’t planned on seducing you a second time,” he groaned.
She looked back at him through eyes made blurry with lust. Lifting her hips, the water sloshing around them, she slowly, deliberately, scraped her pussy over the tip of his erection. “Oh? Then what had you planned?”
He sucked in a breath, his lids sweeping to half-mast as he rasped, “A long, deep massage. A hot meal. Then lying beneath the stars with a fire keeping us warm.”
She wondered if her smile looked as wanton as it felt. She took hold of his cock with one hand and aligned it between her cunt lips. “How about a rain check?”
“Rain ch—” His query cut off on a strangled gasp as she pushed herself down on his thick shaft, taking his length all the way to his heavy balls.
She stilled. Pleasure had just been pushed almost all the way to pain.
His grip on her breasts tightened, an involuntary reaction, she assumed. But then his hands dropped to snare her hips, guiding her as she began to move, his cock sliding in and out of her slippery pussy like a piston gaining speed.
Droplets of sweat mingled with the steam on her brow as she closed her eyes and let herself go, thinking of little else but the delight building so quickly within, her nerve endings seemingly scraped raw, hurting yet sensitized to a pleasure that was close to unbearable.
What will Ezra and Maddox be feeling right now?
That thought made her spasm immediately with orgasm. Dar shot an electric charge straight into her womb, doubling the intensity of gratification as her nerves vibrated in response.
Seconds later Dar too was caught in the grip of climax, bellowing words in his own language as he spilled his seed inside her again and again.
She collapsed onto his chest, her thighs weak and trembling, her chest heaving as she gasped for breath, her cunt sticky with cum. His shoulder was warm beneath her cheek. Her arms slithered around his torso that, even in repose, rippled with muscle.
Her hair flopped over her shoulder, wet, tangled and matted. She frowned. When was the last time she’d brushed it?
Dar moved a little beneath her, his lips caressing the top of her head. She barely noticed. Another flashback was taking root, sweeping her away into another time…
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
She sat on a padded seat in his bedroom—she’d never bring herself to call it their bedroom—her cocoa-brown eyes staring into the mirror with its heavily gilded, gold frame. Outwardly she looked serene, beautiful. Inwardly she felt ugly. Empty. Alone.
Della, her newly acquired maid, pulled a brush through her long hair. “There, all beautiful again,” she said, admiring her in the mirror. “I can see why he loves you so much.”
She stared hard at the maid’s reflection. Little wonder her husband had hired this latest staff member to replace her long-term maid and concerned friend. Della was dispassionate and clearly well paid to remain that way.
The maid smiled guilelessly as she pulled forward a lock of gold-brown hair and deftly covered the ugly purple bruise marring her brow. “There. Perfect. No one will even know.”
She raised a brow. “But I know. My husband knows.” She swung around to the maid, giving her a pointed look. “You know.”
Della flushed. After she put the brush on the marble dresser with a sharp clack, the young maid’s shoulders were stiff when she turned on her heel and marched toward the huge walk-in closet. “If that is all then I best see to your clothes for the morrow.”
“Of course.”
Her gaze swimming, she looked down at her hands, locked together, her wedding ring glinting overly bright on her finger. Like a golden shackle…
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Her hand resting on Dar’s shoulder, Lillian flexed her fingers apart and studied the ring she still wore.
It glinted like an accusation. She should take it off, but somehow doing so meant losing a part of herself…her past, a clue to her old life. Her only clue. And though she wasn’t sure she wanted to remember, she wasn’t yet ready to give it all up, either.
Dar murmured his lilting, incomprehensible language into her ear. She settled against his hardness, allowing the words to soothe away her anxieties. Minutes later she craned her neck, looking into his tender eyes. “I seem to recall mentioning a rain check.”
Dar crooked a midnight-black brow. “Except you haven’t yet let me in on what that is.”
She hid a smile and wondered how often her three men would surprise her in this way. Because of their amazing knowledge and complete ease with the English language, she forgot sometimes they weren’t human and hadn’t been born on Earth.
“It’s a…commitment, of sorts, to accept your offer later.”
“Ah. So what I’d planned—a massage, hot dinner and lying beneath the stars—is yet to be carried out?”
“That’s pretty much it, yes.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” he mused aloud, his smile filling his eyes. “Let’s get you something to eat and a massage, hmm?”
Lillian moved up and out of his arms in a heartbeat. “I won’t need to be told twice,” she said, and laughed.
Her legs were sluggish with the aftereffects of sex as she moved out of the water. Dar’s hand clasped her arm, steadying her up the steps and then through the shields and into a room—a kitchen?—she’d never visited before.
A round table and two chairs looked incongruous in the middle of the floor.
“You use a table and chairs?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No. I acquired these the day you left with Ezra. I wanted to give you some home comforts on your next visit.”
“Thank you.” She took the seat he proffered—a very gentlemanly and humanlike gesture. “That is very thoughtful.”
She wouldn’t think about where he had gotten them, what dead people had once sat at this table.
“They’re from a furniture shop,” Dar said softly, obviously reading her grim expression. “There is no history attached to them.”
“I’m glad to hear.”
From the corner of the room he hefted a large container that, on closer inspection as he put it on the table, appeared to be a large, rusty-colored shell. He knocked on its corrugated surface and the shell yawned apart.
Lillian stared. A cloud of mist like that from an icy-cold refrigerator whooshed outward. Inside it she recognized some fruits, nuts, flowers and vegetables, but there was much she’d never seen before.
As he started removing items, she asked, “Is this the human equivalent of a refrigerator?”
He looked up with a smile. “Yes, nature’s own cooler. We call them panka lamoras.”
“But why would a shell need to stay cold?”
“Like your Earth, our planet has some extremely hot, near impenetrable deserts. The few things able to survive there are deadly to anyone foolish enough to invade their territory.”
“But it’s just a huge, cold shell.”
He stroked his jaw. “I guess appearances can be deceiving.”
“Oh?”
“In the hottest times of the day it will crack open slightly and let loose cold puffs of air. It lures all manner of life.” He pointed toward the back of the shell, where she could see a fleshy pink mass. “When anything edible gets close enough, out comes its lameita—a concealed tongue—which it uses to wrap around its victim to haul it back into its shell.”
She shuddered. “What a horrible way to die.”
“Worse is that it often keeps its victim alive for days, nice and fresh, until the panka lamora unleashes its tongue’s retracted spikes, injecting a chemical into the body that breaks the internal organs down into a liquid.”
“Let me guess—it uses its tongue to then suck all that goodness down?”
He raise
d a brow. “Yes. Exactly right.”
She shook her head. “And I thought our planet was dog-eat-dog.”
“Dog-eat-dog?”
She laughed. “A rather odd phrase for saying it’s a cruel world, where every man is out for himself.”
“Ah. That is nature.” He shrugged. “Only the toughest survive.”
“So how do you keep this panka lamora from trying to devour you?”
He slid a hand over its rough surface with a wry chuckle and the whole shell vibrated as though in bliss. “We share a liking for caltronian meat. Our people see the shells get what they need and in return we get cold storage.” He reached inside the shell and pulled out a rough ball that looked like an oversized coconut. He clasped it, pushing in opposite directions until it snapped apart in his hands, its hollow inside revealing a portion of diced meat. “We have to store all our meat in these wayalask balls, lest the panka lamora devour the lot.”
“How do you cook the meat?” she asked, intrigued.
He spun on his heel and retrieved a potted plant from the floor. It had long, elongated leaves the color of wet sand, flecked with darker orange. “This plant we call sylak, also lives in the desert and needs a lot of protein to survive.”
He carefully placed the bowl of meat beneath its foliage. Almost immediately the plant trembled, the leaves shimmering bright gold. The aroma of barbecued meat tantalized her nose.
Dar grinned at her awed expression. “Sylak is not unlike your microwave technology. When a small animal, even a bug, takes shelter beneath its shade, they get zapped before they are able to escape. Their decomposing bodies are perfect nutrients.”
“That’s truly amazing.”
“Yes. Our people revere nature and the elements. It’s why we use these methods over technology, though we strive to keep a balance between them.”
She crossed her arms on the tabletop and propped her chin on a hand, studying him as he carefully drew the meat away from the shimmering plant. He filled two bowls with flowers and salad leaves then tossed in all the meat except two pieces—one he tossed onto the base of the sylak, the other into the very back of the open panka lamora.
