Running Wild

by Lucinda Betts

  Bold now, she began to kiss him, taking his lower lip between hers and sucking, running her tongue over it, moving until his tongue met hers.

  She moved to lie atop him. Their bodies touched only pubic mound to erection. He thrust his hips up, pushing his hardness against her belly. She leaned into him, savoring the pressure.

  Tahir moved his hand over her body, slowly, like he was memorizing the texture of her skin, the curve of her ribs and hips and belly. Then he cupped her vulva, rocking her.

  Two skilled fingers parted her, and he slid a finger over her sensitive nub. “Tahir,” she gasped. He slid a finger inside of her.

  With one finger inside, he ran a gentle fingertip over her nub, electrifying her. With his other hand, he slid inside of her, faster and faster.

  As his finger danced over her nub, he arranged himself atop of her. Her body trembled, anticipating the burst. His cock nestled between her thighs, and she felt it throb against his fingers.

  She opened to him, pushing hard against him, raising her hips to meet his cock, welcoming him. Inviting him despite her fear. She burned with such exquisite feeling. “God’s eyes,” she gasped. “That feels so good.”

  She squirmed and bucked underneath him, urging him to go deeper, to slake the passionate sensation with his pounding cock. Hot flames of desire scorched her, licked at her like a bonfire.

  He stopped, tearing a small mewling sound from her lips. Tahir buried his face between her thighs. His tongue slid over her nub. She couldn’t help herself. She opened her thighs wider for him, bucked her hips toward him.

  But he stopped. When he looked up at her, his eyes were black with desire. “We could start populating our new land, if you wish. Our first new citizen might arrive in nine months.” He licked her again. “If you wish.”

  “Yes,” she answered. “Oh yes.” With a sigh, Shahrazad closed her eyes as Tahir stroked her nub. His fingers languidly dipped inside.

  She started to quiver, nearing that point, and he sensed it. He straddled her and slid his cock as far as it would go, filling her, filling her completely.

  When she met his gaze, she saw love, pure and simple. And she melted into him, pressing her hips toward his. He began to move faster, and she wanted, needed, more of him. Tilting her hips, she urged him for more. She wanted him buried in her.

  Again and again he thrust into her, and with each motion she moved to meet his tongue and lips, breathing herself into his mouth, making her part of him. She lost the ability to know where her skin ended and his began.

  Under him she could feel his sweat mix with hers, and she wrapped her mouth around the side of his neck. He cried out and shuttered, and the force of his desire together with his pounding thrusts made her come with him.

  Huge waves of ecstasy surged through her veins. Every muscle in her body quivered with delight, starting deep inside her belly and reaching her fingertips, her toes, her eyebrows. A heartbeat later, Tahir joined her in the orgasm. He emptied himself inside her.

  Twined around Tahir, Shahrazad savored his scent, the weight of his body draping hers. The scent of him, the scent of sex, filled the room. A series of tiny ripples reverberated through her vagina. His shaft throbbed in response.

  The quiet moment filled her with inner peace. In this moment, she knew she’d chosen correctly.

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  1

  The snow tigress was in heat.

  His nostrils flared. He could smell her desire from across the ballroom. Her scent called to him, tempting him to cast off the veneer of civility and take her in any way he could.

  Mahlia Najla Mohan.

  His mate.

  Longing warred with sadness at the thought of her. Of their lost child. Pain exploded in his chest, choking him. No. He would not think of that. He could not. The agony would drive him to his knees.

  “Amir Varad.” His manservant’s voice pulled him back to the present. Varad pasted a charming smile on his face, appearing the besotted male who would soon have his mate begging him for the surcease only he could grant her. And possibly conceiving an heir to the Vesperi throne. A new heir.

  “Welcome back, brother.” Taymullah’s hand clapped on his shoulder.

  Varad quirked a brow at the shorter man. And he was a man; the boy he’d left behind six months ago had grown into someone Varad hardly recognized. The last half turn had been a difficult time for all of his family.

  Taymullah’s face settled into serious lines as he turned to look over at his brother’s mate, Mahlia. “You have a great deal of work before you, Varad.”

  “I know.”

  Varad swallowed, his gaze tracking her movement. Mating on Vesperi was a complicated affair, only lasting from a woman’s heat cycle to the next. Because Varad was here, no one would touch his woman. Had he not returned in time, it would have been a different tale. However, she could always choose to mate away from him. His gut clenched. No. Mahlia was his. Had been his since the moment he’d looked into her ice-blue eyes, so rare among his people. His treasure. She would have no other for as long as they both lived. Whatever tragedy they shared could not destroy the depth of emotion that had always pulled them together.

  Gods, he was tired. Six months on a spacecraft for the trade run was more than he cared for, but he doubted the werebears on the planet Alysius would trade with anyone except him personally. Lord Kesuk was not a man to trust.

  A genuine smile tugged at Varad’s lips as he thought of the Arctic Bear clan leader. He wondered how the enormous man had fared after Varad had encouraged the tiny human woman to return to the werebear’s caves. The man hadn’t stood a chance. Lady Jain would have seen to it. Varad’s grin widened. Mahlia would like Jain immensely.

  And Kesuk would try to kill him when Varad returned next turn, no matter how happy the werebear lord was with his lady. It would be an interesting fight. Varad flicked a barely visible piece of lint from his sleeve as he wondered who might be the winner. A tiger versus a bear. Yes, interesting.

  He shook his head, marveling again that a spaceship could have drifted among the stars since before the Earthan sun had died. Two unaltered humans, Lady Jain and a young scientist, Sera, had survived a crash landing on the werebear planet. Humans were extinct now, having had no way to survive the harsh environments of the four colonized planets. Only gene-splicing with different animal species had made it possible for humans to survive at all.

  He wondered how the two women would fare. Lady Jain had her new Bear clan to contend with, but Sera had insisted on journeying to Aquatilis, the planet that maintained the greatest level of technology from old Earth. He suspected her choice had more to do with her fascination for a certain merman ambassador than her need for machines.

  “Amir, your guests await you.” Varad’s valet bared his teeth a bit at the word guests. Varad chuckled as he descended the curving staircase from the wide balcony. Unlike Taymullah, one of the few who had supported Varad’s expeditions, his manservant disapproved of the trade relations with Alysius.

  “Well, we shouldn’t disappoint our valued visitors.” A warning was in Varad’s tone. He was the king here, the Amir, and his wishes would be obeyed by all. If he bore the responsibility of leadership, he demanded the respect that came with the position.

  “Yes, my Amir.” His servant bowed and backed away.

  Trade had always been maintained between Vesperi and the Harenan weredragons, but many had thought Varad mad when he set out to find the other two planets. It had been a risk, he admitted. But what was life without risk? None could deny that the new flood of goods from the werebears and merpeople were good for all four planets. No matter how much his doubters might like to protest. He tried to cover his laugh in a discreet cough.

  He sobered abruptly, the grin falling away from his face. Many of his people agreed that trading with the seemingly barbaric werebears was a mistake. T
hey were a rough people, but he’d grown to respect them, especially Lord Kesuk. He sighed, the weight of his responsibilities riding heavily on his shoulders. He shrugged as if to shift the burden, but nothing could ease his troubles.

  A sweet laugh rippled across the ballroom, and he wasn’t the only one who turned to smile at the source. Mahlia. Another challenge to face. Whether it pleased either of them or not, he would soon have her.

  The room gleamed with white marble and wildly colored swaths of fabric—all the ostentation a feline could need. He worked his way across the vast ballroom to her side, nodding to his guests, noting the flashing scales of the Harenan weredragons, the imposing bulk of the first Alysian werebear ambassador, the violently colored hair of the Aquatilian merpeople. An interplanetary gathering, just as he had hoped. Excellent. When he reached Mahlia, she was entertaining a merman and the werebear ambassador with a story about her inability to master the waltz as a child.

  “Amira Mahlia.” Varad’s hand stroked down the length of her bare arm, tracing the tan stripes on her creamy skin with a fingertip. He savored the feel of her, enjoying the way her servant had gathered her long cream-and-bronze-striped hair on her head, leaving her shoulders bared in a laced black corset. One of her legs was exposed by the filmy deep-blue skirt slit to her waist. His cock hardened, the need to have her fisting his gut. A deep breath dragged her scent to him yet again. Only because he was so focused on her did he hear the soft catch in her breath before she turned icy blue eyes on him. The natural black lining that surrounded all weretiger eyes made hers stunning.

  “Amir Varad.” She attempted to curtsy before him, but he quickly squeezed her elbow to keep her upright. Even after a Turn, she was not accustomed to her role in society. Or perhaps she was still uncomfortable with him. It mattered not. His mate would not bow to him. She was his equal—the only true partner he had in his world. He inclined his head to her, and after the briefest of pauses, she followed suit.

  “Your Amira was just telling us an amusing story, Amir.” The sub-bass rumble of the werebear split the silence; a white smile flashed in his dark face. The hammered metal circlet welded around his massive bicep, a mark of his standing among the Bear clans, glinted in the light from the glowlight chandeliers.

  “Yes, the Aquatilians wish you all felicity in your return.” The merman’s nasal tone and sophisticated speech demonstrated the difference between the merman’s culture and that of the werebear. Only Mahlia could have charmed the two into maintaining a peaceful conversation for more than a few minutes.

  “Welcome home, Amir.” He turned to see Katryn, his mate’s closest friend, approaching their group. Her dark hair rippled to her hips, and her golden skin was set off in a stunning white gown reminiscent of an ancient Grecian toga. The weredragon was beautiful, but the first thing one noticed about her was the purple scaling that crept from her wrists to her biceps.

  Still, no other woman had ever called to him as Mahlia had. Anticipation tensed his muscles. Soon. Soon he would have her. Would have her legs about him as they rode each other, her slick heat tight on his thrusting cock. He bit back a groan and then traced a finger down the lacings of her corset. Her breath panted as her scent increased, surrounding him, commanding him.

  The hunt would begin soon.

  APHRODISIA BOOKS are published by

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  Copyright © 2008 by Lucinda Betts

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  ISBN: 0-7582-3767-7