Barriers cracked inside her, barriers that had been erected brick by brick since leaving her parents’ care. Each had brought her closer to living up to the Yamish ideal. Each had helped her fit in. Now her protections crumbled around her. She began to cry and didn’t know how to stop. The best she could do was cover her face.
“If they kill you,” she said, aware that she was sobbing, “I may never sleep again. Please, please trust me when I say I’m trying to help.”
Harry’s hands had fallen away when she started crying. Now he gripped her shoulders and squeezed hard. Khira didn’t think this was meant to be comforting. His gaze bored into hers.
“I need a token to prove that you aren’t lying.”
“Anything,” she swore, trying to pull away from his hands. His energy was flowing into her, his human capacity for emotion. The continuing loss of control was more than she could stand. “I’ll do anything you want.”
“I want this.” He gave her shoulders a shake. “I want the gloves off once and for all. I want you to bare what you’ve been working so hard to hide from me. I want to look into your soul when you make love to me.”
She gasped, her tears stopping at his boldness. “I don’t—”
“Save your breath. I know you want it as much as I do. I felt you dripping down my hand yesterday, and I can smell the lust on you now.”
She could only smell him, and his scent was as heady as his touch. “That’s an accidental side effect. Your etheric force is transferring to me.”
“I’ve lived on the streets of Avvar. I’ve sold my life force to the rohn in exchange for money to keep me fed. As I recall, none of those Yama wanted to bed me.”
“You lived on the streets?” Khira asked, struggling against the awful-wonderful weakness his closeness bred. “I thought you were a businessman.”
“I am a businessman. I’ve fought my way up in the world since then.”
She believed him. Pride had brought his chin up, and confidence shone in his gold-green eyes. He wasn’t ashamed of what he’d had to do; he’d accepted it. This assertion of his power—male and professional—was restoring him to himself. Khira wished she were a doctor of psychology. Maybe then she’d know if his recovery would increase her chance of gaining his compliance.
“To have overcome such obstacles is impressive,” she ventured, stalling for time. Her hands had risen unconsciously to his chest, but they were hardly pushing him off. “I would have thought you’d want nothing to do with my kind.”
“Khira,” he growled, the sound sending fingers of arousal deep into her. “I believe we’ve established I have no problem being close to you. Now say yes or no.”
“I can’t,” she confessed. “I can’t do either.”
He kissed her, hard at first and then slow and deep. He groaned into her mouth as his tongue swept her upper palate. Oh, she loved the rumbling sounds he made. Her hands curled helplessly into his chest hair. She wanted her gloves off, too—probably more than he did.
“Say yes,” he growled, and kissed her deeper yet, each thrust of his tongue a searing imitation of what he wanted her to agree to.
Khira’s head bent back with pleasure from imagining it. “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes.”
Harry had been hardening ever since he’d caught her to him for a blistering kiss. At her answer, his cock jolted up so forcefully, it might have been trying to punch through her clothes. She’d said yes. He was going to have her.
Too impatient to wait, he reached for her right hand and peeled its long glove off—this one black satin. Trapping her wrist, he brought her palm to his mouth to kiss. She watched him, unable to take her eyes off his. When he finished the kiss with a lick, her shiver had him pulling her hand to his groin.
“Touch me,” he said. “Wrap those demon fingers around my cock.”
She was panting as she did it, and, Lord, it felt good. His cock swelled in her hold, and her eyes went black. The air between them shimmered like a summer day.
“Tell me what that means,” he said, “when your eyes go dark.”
“It means—” She paused for breath. “It means I’m very excited. It means my arousal level jumped from what it was before.”
Harry’s arousal jumped enough for both of them. “Touching me arouses you.”
“Yes, though I can’t explain why my reaction is so intense.”
He smiled at the plaintive note in her voice. “I’m glad,” he murmured next to her ear, unable to resist nuzzling her silken hair. “I want us to touch each other all over.”
“I could—” She swallowed. “I could take off my clothes.”
“Why don’t you let me?” he suggested and reached for the side tie to her pretty black-and-gold wrap tunic.
Her hand was still on him, as if his cock were her personal life-line. He had to ease her fingers free before he could peel the embroidered garment over her head. He was glad the Yama had such strange ideas about what constituted appropriate women’s garb. It was very easy to take off. The breasts he’d only felt through her clothes up till now were as lovely as he’d expected, delicate, uptilted handfuls with red nipples. He bent to suckle one pointed tip and thrilled to her strong shudder.
Khira tore the second glove off herself.
“I can’t take it,” she said, her hands forking through his hair to clutch him closer. “I need you inside me now.”
She pushed away, her strength surprising him. She stood to shove her trousers and underthings down her legs. Harry didn’t mean to, but he gaped up at her when she was done. He had never seen a naked woman who looked like she did. Human fashion tended toward curves and softness, and Khira’s body was a thorough-bred’s—lean and strong and ready to race. Awed, he smoothed his hands up her thighs, the muscles as easy to see as a man’s. Reaching the top, he spread his fingers across her mound.
“You’re smooth here.”
His thumb curled gently over her vulva, and she covered his hand with hers. “We remove our hair.”
Her face was still, her Yamish mask. She’s afraid of how I’ll see her nakedness, he thought. The guess made it easy to bend forward, easy to press his lips to that bare triangle of skin. Though he saw no outward change, he sensed her relax.
“You’re beautiful,” he said. “May I kiss you here?”
She drew a quick breath and nodded. He parted her, baring her reddened pleasure peak to his mouth. He thought he had never looked forward to tasting a woman more, to watching how she reacted. Her fingers bit into his shoulders when he sucked the swollen button against his tongue, not seeming to mind that his day-old beard must be scratching her. Or perhaps she liked the feeling. She made no sound, but her body seemed to moan silently. Half a minute later, she tore herself away. He looked up at her. Her eyes were black again before they cleared.
His body clenched to realize how much he was exciting her.
“You want me inside you,” he said, the knowledge sure in his mind. He’d been steadying himself on her hips. He felt them trembling as she mouthed yes. He sat back on his heels and spread his knees. His cock thrust up in blatant invitation, as eager to get on with this as she was. “Come down to me.”
He reached up to help her join him on the floor, their fingers fitting naturally. As soon as she released his hands, he lifted her, cupping her tight little bottom to bring her up his thighs. Her hair curtained down his arms in a black whisper. He closed his eyes, just for a moment, as her soft, satiny mound slid to a rest against his erection. It had been a long time since he’d had a woman. He wasn’t sure how long he could last with one he wanted this badly, but he bloody well wasn’t going to stop because of that.
When he opened his eyes again, her silver gaze was waiting for his. Her hand fluttered down to cover his pulsing tip. He knew it was weeping from the way her palm slid around.
She looked down at what she held. “I didn’t know you would be this big without the drugs.”
“I won’t hurt you.”
“You co
uldn’t. I’m stronger than a human woman. Even inside.”
“Show me,” he challenged with a smile that drew her lips to brush his. She must have enjoyed the contact. Her cheek turned from side to side in his short whiskers.
“I want you to kiss me when I take you.”
She said it like a confession, and he had to laugh. He didn’t think he’d ever been taken before.
“Why does that amuse you?” she asked.
He kissed her rather than answer, pushing deep into her mouth, stroking her sleek, wet tongue until it answered his. His body was too hungry for more talking; besides which, that pouting mouth of hers was made for kissing, the one sensual feature on her smooth Yamish face.
Apparently, she had more sensual features he couldn’t see. Even as they fed on each other’s mouths, she rose to her knees and tipped his erection toward her. She fit it against her entrance before slowly, torturously, pressing down on him. From kissing her vulva, he knew she was aroused, but the incredible, devastating sensation of her pushing that tight, hot wetness over his cock brought him to the edge. He didn’t expect her to fit all of him—she was built too lean—but when he thought she’d taken all she could, she closed her eyes in concentration and something shifted inside of her, making room.
“God, yes,” he gasped as the last hard inch of him was engulfed.
This time she smiled, a tentative curve—for all he knew, the first deliberate smile of her life. Her hands roved down his back to caress his rear. He’d never known a woman this bold about sex. His balls felt unnervingly ready to explode.
“Don’t rush,” he pleaded, despite his body’s urging to do just that.
“Oh, no,” she agreed throatily, her thighs beginning to tighten for her first rise. “This is far too good to rush.”
Khira had little choice but to admit it: This was what she had been wanting from the moment she saw the human in that seedy pub. To ride his maleness. To take his human fire into her. She ran greedy hands over every part of him she could reach, wallowing in the drugging evidence of their difference, letting her body grow so needy she knew there’d be no turning back.
“Fuck,” he breathed as she made her inner muscles ripple over him. Khira tensed, but, “Do that again,” he demanded.
She hid her thrill of pleasure in his corded neck, gripping him even tighter a second time. The idea that he could dictate to her was foolish, but she liked him trying all the same.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “That’s wonderful.”
The tension in him shifted, his cock pressing up higher inside of her. His hand slid from her hip to cup the back of her skull. “I’m tipping you back now. Don’t let go.”
He laid her beneath him as carefully as if she were glass, then braced above her on straightened arms. She could tell he liked this position, and she certainly didn’t mind once he moved again. His hips beat more freely against her, no faster than the pace she had set but with an extra push at the end to reach deeper. He watched his cock go in and out of her—wet, thick, red from friction and excitement. The sight clearly wound him up. He groaned quietly with need.
“Do it,” she said, her hands rubbing urging circles around his hips. Her body was as eager to go as his. “Take me as hard and fast as you want. Trust me, you won’t come before I do.”
He looked at her. “Trust you,” he repeated with a muffled laugh. “You have no idea how close I am.”
She didn’t have to argue. Her body did it for her. His body stroked in one more time, and she came apart, the orgasm strong. She made a choked and helpless whimper as her neck arched up.
“All right,” she dimly heard him say. “Hard and fast it is.”
It was hard and fast and loud, not only from their bodies slapping together, but from his groans and gasps and muttered curses of delight. The sounds, so foreign to her experience, pushed her over a second time. His thrusts turned wild then, his expression pained. Desperate for more, she pulled at him with all her inner muscles’ strength.
“God,” he said, slamming into her so hard the crown of his penis seemed to jolt her heart. “God, God—”
His words dissolved into a long, hoarse cry. This was the end for him. His testicles slapped her buttocks with the final quickening of his thrusts. He came with his body clenched to his toes, straining, shooting, his lips pulled back from his teeth in an orgasmic snarl.
Khira wasn’t prepared for what his peak did to her. The flow of energy from him to her was already strong, and she’d forgotten it would flare with climax. Ecstasy seized her as his sun-bright aura flooded into her. Her very fingertips seemed to come. She moaned at the forceful spasms, utterly unable to hold the exclamation in. On and on it went, until she struggled to comprehend how she could hold so much pleasure. Harry must have felt it, too. He shuddered one last time into her.
“Ahh,” he sighed, long and low, sagging onto her. His body relaxed as completely as it had previously been coiled. “Khira, that was sweet.”
Acting the gentleman, though there was no need, he rolled onto his back with her on top of him. His hand stroked lazily down her hair. Happily, the floor was sealed and warm like the walls. She squirmed into a more comfortable position atop his chest, which roused him momentarily.
“Do you want more, love?” he asked, his palm sliding meaningfully around her left buttock.
She blinked, her eyes stinging unexpectedly at his endearment. She reminded herself that anyone could be “love” to one of Victoria’s citizens. And that, as a dignified Yama, she wasn’t supposed to enjoy such things.
“No,” she said, snuggling her blushing face into the crook of his neck. “I am content.”
Humming, he wriggled his back against the floor as if his shoulders itched. “I am as well. Just be sure to wake me when you want to do this again.”
Khira waited until he was sleeping soundly. Then she picked him up and carried him to her room. Her chamber wasn’t much different—also stark and white—but the bed was more comfortable.
She laid him in it gently, not troubled by his weight, but unused to carrying anything this large and limp. Harry could rest here until tomorrow when, hopefully, whatever bee he’d had in his brain would be forgotten, and she could continue with the business of saving his life.
What that saved life would be like she didn’t want to think. She’d protect him as much as she could with whatever power her knowledge gave her. More than that, she couldn’t do.
Harry rolled onto his side in sleep, his big, muscular body oddly vulnerable. Khira grabbed a soft, white blanket to cover him. Before she could spread it, her gaze was arrested by two blazing red stripes that had appeared along his shoulder blades.
“God,” she whispered, unthinkingly echoing his human prayer. Her hand went out. Her procedures were working. The modulator’s DNA-altering frequencies must have gotten stored in his aura. When he’d dropped his mental guards to have sex with her, they’d been able to take effect.
Khira pulled her hand back without touching the inflamed lines. His shoulder muscles were shifting configuration, new bones forming beneath the skin. When she cocked her ear close to his back, tiny popping noises could be heard. In spite of all that remained to concern her, triumph bloomed in her breast. She had done it. She had brought a dormant portion of his genes to life. She dragged a chair to his bedside, unable to keep her eyes off the unfolding change.
Harry murmured and moved uncomfortably. Khira stroked his arm to soothe him, though she doubted he’d wake up. The human body had built-in safeguards to stress. Ask too much of it, and it would burrow into unconsciousness to heal, or, in this case, to grow. He’d probably sleep like a baby until this was done.
“Rest,” she murmured, pulling the blanket over his legs. She’d retrieve her medical kit soon. With luck, she’d be too busy easing his transformation to worry about how she’d break the news to him when he woke.
Chapter 6
FOR once, Harry wasn’t sorry to come awake with his cock as hard as
bone. He lay sprawled on his back, propped on a stack of pillows over which an even softer throw had been draped. He knew this wasn’t the bed in his room; it was far too comfortable. Best of all, a mouth he recognized as Khira’s even with his eyes closed was doing its best to swallow his aching prick. She was bent down over him, kneeling between his legs.
She must have seen his cock rouse ahead of him.
He moaned, his hand combing down the silken spill of her hair. “I was wishing you would do this that first night.”
In truth, he’d been wishing he could wake up like this his whole adult life. Her mouth was strong, that dark, forked marking not the only difference in her tongue. Inhumanly agile, it flickered up the ridge of flesh beneath his shaft with a quickness that had his hips squirming uncontrollably off the bed. He gasped and gripped the curving leanness of her upper arms, needing something to hold on to that wouldn’t entail jamming himself down her throat. Wisely, she held down his thighs when she applied that vibratory flutter to his swollen crown. The pointed tip of her tongue drew a circle of intense sensation around the well-stretched helmet, until he feared the next time she sucked all of him upward, he would explode.
“You’d better stop if you want to join me,” he managed to warn her, his eyes screwed shut with near-orgasmic enjoyment.
She didn’t say a word. She cupped his testicles in one warm hand, shifted her attentions to an even more sensitive spot beneath his rim, and trilled her tongue again. Harry knew what her action meant. She intended him to finish in her mouth.
If he hadn’t been gritting his teeth too tightly to speak, he would have thanked her. That she would be this warm to him, when she’d already given him what he asked, touched him deeply. In his experience, no woman let a man spend in her mouth unless she really wanted to. In spite of everything Khira had put him through, this gratified him more than anything had in some time.
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