by Alison Aimes
But it turned out she couldn’t. Gathering her skirts in hand, she leveled Peller with a hard look and spoke loud enough to be heard over the shrieking crowd. “I regard loyalty, familial or otherwise, as an essential trait in anyone I would call friend or mate. And I have seen little evidence of that here tonight. Excuse me.”
24
DaKar gripped the track entranceway doorframe, the urge to leap out of the shadows and knock Peller on his asht almost more than he could bear. Instead, he bent the metal near to splintering and took another steadying breath.
“I thought we were going to walk through the doorway, not hold it up.” Grayson spoke from behind. “What’s going on?”
DaKar slid to the side. He didn’t enter the track standing area, though. He couldn’t. He didn’t have the control. Watching Aurora from across the theater had been hard. Seeing his half brother next to her at these idiotic races was more than he could stand.
There was no way in Janus hells the bastard was ever touching her.
Grayson followed his line of sight, his gaze cutting through the crush to lock on Aurora’s back as she glided away. “I guess your viper of a stepmother wasn’t lying about the breeding contract.”
“Aurora has no interest in Peller.”
“Aurora?” The man shook his head. “When did you end up on a first name basis?”
DaKar ignored him. “I wonder what in the hells they were talking about?”
“You will never learn from here.” His friend gestured toward the crowd. “Let’s proceed with the investigation as planned. I couldn’t be at the theater. At least, let me have some fun now. I want to learn all I can about who might be behind these rumors.”
“You go.” He’d watched for as long as he could stand it. “I’ll be back.”
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”
“You’re probably right.”
Their gazes tracked one female’s form as her distance from Peller and his friends grew and she headed away from the track. The compulsion of the mating heat growing fainter with every step she took.
“I’m going anyway.”
“Bleeking hells.” Grayson laid a hand on his arm. “These are dangerous times, my friend. You say she is not like the rest of them, but can you know for sure? Someone is out to destroy you. Don’t give them more of an opportunity.”
Peller’s menacing expression as he’d stared at Aurora’s back flashed through DaKar’s mind.
He’d thought staying away would keep her safe, now he wasn’t so sure.
“Some things are worth the risk.”
25
Aurora’s hands shook as she climbed the stairs toward the ladies retiring room—and, more importantly, the hosts’ private quarters. The track’s proximity to the estate was not only convenient for the hosts but for her, as well. While most élithe were crowded around the tracks, there were many in the estate rooms below, drinking, eating, and gossiping. It had been easy for her to slip in among them and then slip abovestairs, her body still humming with the rush of her blunt, honest words.
She was mad to have said what she did. Peller’s furious stare as she’d departed had promised retribution. She’d have to watch him.
But it had also been wonderful to speak her mind. She had been complicit too long. Throwing off her cowardice was bliss, a weight lifted.
She would have loved to come clean altogether, but she couldn’t stop stealing now. If anything, she’d have to move faster, take more risks, strike while the iron was hot and the chance to escape her stepfather was finally within reach.
Tonight offered the perfect opportunity. Not only because most of her peers’ gazes were glued to the racetracks, but because the story she’d told Peller was false. In reality, Whetherton had been drawn into an impromptu shareholder session in one of the upper boxes, an attempt on his part to court more votes for his position as Chancellor. He would be occupied for a good while.
Leaving her free to do what needed to be done—as long as DaKar and his dark pulsing flashes of aggression stayed far away.
She lengthened her stride as she reached the private wing of the house. The buzz of voices below reached her, but that was all. There were no guests here. The disquieting roar of the races far behind.
Forgoing the door pad and the handprint record they could leave, she eased open one door after another. The first revealed a small sitting room. The next a gentleman’s study.
She slid open the third door and, spying the gold and black coverlet and mammoth bed, slipped inside. Lady Tanaka’s bedroom. She’d found it.
The door slammed shut behind her.
She whipped around. Stumbled backward.
DaKar leaned against the door, his eyes glittering with an intensity she knew well.
As always when he was near, reckless dark energy crackled against her skin and sparked a flame deep inside. “What are you doing here?”
He used his elbow to press the keypad by the wall. The lock snapped into place. “What were you doing with Peller?”
“Why is that your concern?”
“You shouldn’t be anywhere near him.” He stalked toward her, horns lifting off his head. “He’s a scheming, lying bastard and likely dangerous to boot.”
Irritation at his high-handedness sharpened her tongue. “I can take care of myself.”
His scowl deepened. “The man may well be a thief and a murderer.”
“He’s a friend of my stepfather’s. I have no choice but to acknowledge his greeting.”
“Do all such friends of your stepfather leer at you like that?”
“Believe me, he engenders nothing but disgust.”
“Good. He’d make a terrible breeder mate. He’s too much like my father. And I am living embodiment of the disaster that can befall an innocent who believes the word of a man like that.”
Empathy ripped through her. “You are no disaster.”
He said nothing. Only stared, his jaw hardening, his breath coming fast, heat and need smoldering in his gaze. “You will not contract with him.”
Possessiveness and proprietorship blazed from him along the golden threads that still connected them despite her best efforts to shut him out.
Her body responded. Why she found those instincts arousing in him, while those same traits in her stepfather only bred contempt, she couldn’t explain. All she knew was that her body reacted to this male’s growled commands. Her breasts grew tight and heavy. Her cunt wet. The hairs on her skin rising as lust and need battered in wave after wave against her skin like a surging storm and her heart stuttered and then began a rapid beat that matched the cry in her head. Touch me. Touch me. Touch me.
She went a different route instead. “One nice interlude doesn’t give you the right to tell me what to do, Warlord.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw.
“I told myself to stay away.” His voice was little more than a growl when he finally spoke. “But earlier at the theater was hell. I sat in that damn box the whole second act and you never once looked my way.”
His words hammered through her, snatching her breath, and unleashing the memory of the red-haired Miss Stanthorpe pressed against him.
How could she have forgotten for even a moment?
Anger ripped through her anew. “Turn to your new mistress to ease what ails you.” He had some nerve.
He took a step toward her. “It’s not her I want.”
“I don’t care what you or this damn mating heat want.”
“I know.” His wide shoulders blocked her path. “I understand there can’t be a repeat of what happened in the garden. I haven’t forgotten the charges hanging over my head.”
Unbelievable. “It’s your recent connection to Miss Stanthorpe that makes a repeat of that impossible, not those false allegations.”
“I’m not in the habit of explaining myself.”
“Don’t tax yourself on my account.” She stepped around him.
“Bleeking hells, female.” H
e cut her off, his expression fierce. “Stop sounding like Lady Everly and all her friends and talk to me like you did the other afternoon.”
“Why?” The pain seething inside was suddenly too much to contain. “So I can burn in your embrace and tell you again how wonderful you are only to turn around and discover how quickly I’ve been replaced.” She stopped abruptly, wishing she could draw the last words back.
He shifted. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”
But he’d known his actions would. She stood straighter. “It was not as if I didn’t expect it.” A shameful streak of jealousy fueled her on. “Why would you return to the same woman when there are so many new, willing ones clamoring to be used? Are you already experiencing the heat with her?”
“That’s not it at all.” His voice was heavy with frustration. “I am trying to do what’s right for once. As for acquiring Miss Stanthorpe, I would have preferred it otherwise. It could not be helped.”
“I have to disagree. A simple ‘no thank you, I don’t need a mistress right now’ would likely have sufficed.” She waved a hand in the air. “But you really don’t owe me any explanation. It’s foolish to make too much of an encounter so fleeting in both our lives.”
With a curse, he exploded. “I don’t even like the female.”
“Such an admission does not put you in a more favorable light.”
“I don’t mean that as it sounds. She’s not really my mistress.”
She stilled. “What…what do you mean?”
His expression closed down. “I have already said more than I should. The whole circumstance is sensitive.” His voice grew sharp. “I do not relish it becoming fodder for the élithe.”
Her temper blazed once more. “Are you suggesting I am a gossip?” It was strange. They could feel so much about each other’s emotions through the heat and the golden ties and yet it was all jumbled up and of no help at all in interpreting behavior. Or fostering trust.
“Well, you ask a lot in return for a bit of foreplay, great as it might have been.”
“You absolute toad! I didn’t ask for anything.” Her skirts were already in hand. A few steps past him and she would be through the door for good.
“Janus hells. Look…” He grabbed for her.
“Don’t touch me.”
He sighed. His hand dropped to his side.
Relief whispered through her. He might be raging inside, his energy pulsing dark and hot, but his control was proof that he was able to command his temper and alpha impulses when it mattered. It was proof he wasn’t anything like her stepfather.
“She’s not my real mistress.” His words reached her at the doorway. “Never has been. Never will be.”
She stilled, confusion and hope holding her trembling in place. “I don’t understand.”
He moved to stand behind, the tantalizing scent of him wrapping around her. “I will try and explain.” He spun her to face him. “But what I am about to tell you is private.”
Her heartbeat was a drum in her ears, louder than the pounding of hooves around the track. Did she want him to tell her? Did she want to hear something he considered of such importance? The flashes of emotion and need they’d shared were one thing, but this would be something different altogether. A new intimacy. Forged by choice and their own will, not by a hunger they could not control.
Except there was no room for such confidences in their liaison. Truth, honesty—those were things she’d already forfeited with her lies and deceit. She should say no. She should go now.
“Tell me.”
“Miss Stanthorpe holds one of the keys to saving my title.” He explained succinctly, his face increasingly somber as he related the events that had led him to take her as his mistress in name only. The truthfulness of his words as clear in his voice as it was in the sincerity humming along the golden soul ties.
Relief and a dangerous current of joy flowed through her as she listened. She reminded herself this was just a respite. That DaKar’s refusal to bed Miss Stanthorpe had nothing to do with her and everything to do with the female’s selfish scheming. That he would move on soon enough. That they were still not going any further with the Martian heat. That she would be leaving this damn planet and shedding her identity as soon as she could.
It didn’t matter. She was light. Giddy. She hadn’t been replaced so quickly or easily, after all. Even more significant, he trusted her enough to disclose something few people knew.
The threads around her chest glowed brighter as an unfamiliar sense of camaraderie, connection, and tenderness flowed through her.
Perhaps she could matter to him. If only a little, if only for a short time? Her throat grew tight. It was more than she’d ever believed of her mother or her aunt.
“You must be pleased—and relieved,” she offered.
To her surprise, his expression darkened. “I’m glad the issue of the title will be put to rest. But I do not like allowing everyone to believe Peller’s mistress has thrown him over for me. It just doesn’t sit right.”
“From what you said, this was the only way to obtain the information from Miss Stanthorpe. Without it, you might have lost your title, shares, and the estates.”
“True, but I don’t like it. It lacks honor.”
“Sometimes cunning has to trump principles.” She seized his hand, pleasure coursing through her at the feel of his strength beneath her fingertips. Her pulse beat faster.
“It is nice of you to put my actions in the best light.” His thumb slid along her palm. “But deception will never sit well with me.”
She hid a wince. “That only makes you more honorable.”
“I like the things you say to me, Balcony.” He tugged her closer.
“I’m only speaking the truth.” The palms she raised against his chest trembled. He was such steel and strength on the outside, was she mad to imagine he needed gentleness, too? Was it wrong to want to be the one who gave it to him, if only one time?
“I’ve spent my whole life arming myself against insults and blows.” He drew her palm to his mouth, the light scrape of his fangs against the tendons bliss. “I’ve no defense against such kindness.”
In this moment, he did need her. Just as she needed him.
She didn’t require the mating heat to tell her that.
She pressed her legs together. It was no use. She was wet, swollen, frantic once again.
It was selfish to take from him after what she’d done. It was monstrous to find pleasure from his touch when she knew there was no future for them but betrayal and lies.
But she’d been alone so long. Surrounded by lies and deceit. Certain her stepfather’s brutal touch was all she would ever know. A better person might have found a way to resist DaKar’s pull. But she was a flawed thief and liar. She’d steal what she could while she could.
“Kiss me.”
He went utterly still. “I won’t halt at just a kiss and some sweet touches. Not this time. We Warlords aren’t the best at controlling our passions—and you, little Earther, fray all my control.”
“I don’t want you to stop.”
He hauled her hard against him while his lips pressed to her ear. “You’re certain?”
“Yes.” His lust flowed over and through her, whipping her own to a greater frenzy.
“Then, I am going to seize everything you are willing to give—and more.” His mouth swooped downward. Lifting onto her tiptoes, she met him halfway.
His lips teased, sucked, devoured. Flames shot through her. His taste as exotic and sensual as dark caramel.
The rough caress of his hands and tongue left her no time to think, to wonder, to fear. He was so careful with his fangs, ensuring they never pricked her, his tongue a lethal weapon all its own.
This was right. This was meant to be.
His palm skimmed along her inner thigh. Pleasure exploded through her. Her knees weakened. Her legs faltered. He caught her as she fell, his arms sweeping behind her back as he carried her to the wall.<
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He let her down slowly, using his big hands to pin her to the hard surface, his expression fierce.
“Don’t. Move.” His words were little more than a rasp of commands.
“Wh—?” He wrenched her skirt upward. The swirl of cool air on her legs stole her words.
“I’m going to lick that juicy chanti like the sweet peach it is, and you’re going to stay spread wide and still while I do.”
Oh, Goddess. Her palms flattened against the wall for support. Her breath came fast. Lust dampened her thighs as her center swelled. His mixture of sweet and commanding leaving her desperate and panting.
He dropped to his knees, still so tall his head came to her breasts. His thick dark hair and sexy horns finally accessible.
He nuzzled her breast.
Her hands closed around his horns, sliding up and down the thick ridges, their outside warmer and silkier than she would have expected.
He let out a low groan.
His hand slid up her thigh. He slid her panties off her thighs and over her laced boots, and this time he growled, his hold on her thighs tightening as he stared at the part of her he’d just bared to his gaze.
“So beautiful.”
With him, she truly felt that way.
More golden threads wound around her chest, sparking and shining like fireworks while that terrifying, wonderful sense of connection—of knowing and trusting another soul—flared brighter and stronger.
Then, the light stroke of his finger against her swollen flesh, as soft as a petal, rippled through her, stealing her breath. She arched toward his touch.
He was so big. So fierce and rough, the lust inside him a raw and brutal force. But not with her. With her, he somehow found the ability to be gentle. To temper his strength enough to give her pleasure. It floored her.
“I love the way you respond to me.” He growled the words against her skin, his nose trailing between her breasts—until, with a shock, he nipped gently at the side of her breast. She moaned, the bite only adding to her pleasure.
His voice was an even deeper rasp when he spoke again. “I love when you grab my horns like they’re my cocksto and stroke me good.”
