Nikol's Surrender (A World Beyond, #10)

by Howard, Michelle

  The feel of soft blankets and furs met her back as he lowered her to his bed. “I tried to stay away but you draw me. What is this power you possess?”

  Her breath hitched as she stretched her arm up to caress the smooth line of his jaw. The face staring down at her was a hard mix of angles. His dark waves fell about them, brown eyes narrowed in focus and the dominant thrust of those burnished horns from his temples. Such a fierce countenance.

  “No power,” she gasped as he glided a hand down her side.

  There was nothing but this raw flaming connection that had a hold of both of them. At least she assumed by his words he was as caught as she was by their bodies demand for one another.

  He leaned down and ran his nose along the side of her face, inhaling. Darcy tipped her head back and speared her fingers through his hair. The scent of him overwhelmed. Musk and sweat with the rich spice of the scented oils that were becoming familiar to her.

  She breathed him in, twining her legs about him, grasping one of his horns and closing her eyes on a sigh. This was what she’d been missing all day while he’d been gone. The punch of energy his presence always brought with him.

  “I will not hold back this time. I can not.” Nikol pulled back, catching her eyes. He tugged her hands from him and pinned them over her head. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “Ummm.” Darcy rocked against the hard length of him planted between her thighs. She didn’t understand anything other than he was moving too slow. “Hurry.”

  “Sorcery,” he uttered hoarsely before raising up and spinning her to her front.

  The breath rushed out of Darcy on an oomph. She tried to roll away but he was over her in a flash, the weight of him a surprising comfort against her back. He smoothed a hand up the curve of her spine, leaving pebbled flesh in his wake. “Your skin feels like the finest antiene silk.”

  Up and down he rubbed, lighting her nerves on fire until his hands came to rest on the top of her shoulders. No sound penetrated the silence around them, except the slight wisp of their exhales. They were both panting she realized. Darcy pushed up to her forearms and glanced behind her. Nikol’s eyes were locked on her bottom.

  “Nikol,” she whispered.

  He didn’t respond. Another beat of quiet and just when she was starting to get concerned, he lifted his head. Lust blasted from his brown orbs. So much heat, her heart began to drum faster. Her loins spasmed on empty air and she rocked up in an effort to get him to fill her.

  Finally breaking her gaze, he adjusted to his haunches, knees parting her legs as he shoved her shellam to the side and squeezed her butt with unyielding pressure. Darcy smashed her face into the sheet and moaned.

  “Pleeeeease,” she begged

  He continued the erotic massage, fingers teasing her folds and her puckered entrance until Darcy was drenched in her own pleasure. The sheet was wet beneath her. She couldn’t take much more.

  “I want you. I need you.”

  “That is all you had to say.” He began arranging her knees and hips up in the air.

  Darcy realized he planned to take her from behind again. She lurched with all her strength and managed to turn on her side. “No.”

  His brows shot up, cheeks ruddy and eyes glimmering with a hunger she recognized. “You are refusing me?”

  She twisted further to her side, gaining her back and looked up at him. “We’re going to do it my way this time.”

  He studied her with a look she couldn’t read and then rose from the bed. She worried he’d leave her on this cliff between orgasm and disappointment. When he shoved the stretchy pants down his thick thighs and his cock sprung free, Darcy could have wept in relief. Kicking his pants to the side, he joined her back on the bed, crawling over her prone figure.

  “Be careful what you ask for.”

  The threat hung in the air but she had no time to process his meaning. He caught her bottom lip between his teeth and tugged. Darcy gasped. He pinched her nipples, drawing a cry forth. It stung but not in a painful way. Every touch was a sensual demand to respond whether she wanted to or not.

  She was a panting mess when he pulled back to stare at her lower region. Darcy blinked, her body tense yet eagerly anticipating what he’d do next.

  Cupping her groin, he said, “This will stay.”

  It took Darcy a moment to speak as he fingered her in slow, measured pumps. “What?”

  He glanced up, finger still in motion. “You will keep the hair over this treasured part of you.”

  Darcy tsked even as she shivered from the way her pleasure was building. “I’ll do what I want.”

  His lips twitched. Then he devoted his attention back to his task at hand. He pulled his fingers from her core and Darcy wanted to beg for him to put them back when he landed a light swat on her groin. She jerked more from surprise then pain. He did it again and sensations burst in sparkling waves that radiated down her legs and left her limbs trembling. “Shhiiiit! What are you doing?”

  He continued to tap the front of her mound with steady swats. Darcy was swollen, her internal muscles tightening and releasing, trying to achieve release desperately but he wouldn’t send her over the edge. “Don’t tease me, Nikol. Touch me.”

  He chuckled wickedly, “Touch you? I am. Can you not feel this?”

  Two rapid taps back to back followed his question. Darcy arched up on a whimper, feeling the rush of fluid at her core.

  “So sweet, so pretty,” Nikol murmured. He rubbed his fingers through her slit, spreading moisture as his thumb bumped the swollen nub pulsing at the top.

  “Two can play,” she whispered, reaching for his horns and snaring him in her gentle hold before he could rear back.

  Their gazes locked and Darcy proceeded to employ every tactic Amia had told her, rubbing his horns, stroking the grooves, and leaning up to tongue and lick wherever she could on the smooth curves. Nikol convulsed above her, animal sounds escaping past his gritted teeth.

  “Enough!” he freed himself with a violent tug and shuddered.

  Darcy offered him a taunting smile though she was as heated as he appeared to be. “Not a tough guy after all.”

  He slid over her body and entered her on a fierce thrust. “You will see how tough I am.”

  Darcy couldn’t speak anymore as he drew cries, moans and screams from her until she was a writhing limp bundle. He roared above her, shooting his release until her thighs were saturated. When he collapsed over her, Darcy was too weak to do more than run her hands down his back.

  ***

  Nikol stroked his hand over Darcy’s midsection, his palm coming to rest on the slight curve of her belly. Her skin gleamed with the drying slickness of sweat. New red marks joined the ones he’d left the previous night. Satisfaction ran through him at the sight.

  He had been the very animal she accused him of in his passion. Every now and then her body broke out in shivers and she trembled beneath his caresses with remnants of the orgasms he’d rung from her.

  Memories flickered through his mind of the three females he’d sex shared with over the last year. None of them compared. None of them challenged him or expected more than what he gave.

  Until her.

  Darcy from Earth.

  She was an anomaly. And a dangerous one at that.

  Her lids fluttered and awareness brightened the blue eyes she turned in his direction. “You’re still here.”

  Nikol’s mouth twitched. “It is my bed.”

  Her head shifted as she glanced about. “Oh.”

  She raised a hand and swiped at the hair tangled about her head and spilling over the pillow. The red streams should not have held him as enthralled as they did. Perhaps it wasn’t just the hair but the woman herself.

  She shifted about only to note their lower limbs were tangled. A deep flush spread from her cheeks down to her breasts, darkening the marks Nikol had left.

  Sleeping with the Earth woman was akin to sleeping with an Antare and their four arms. No m
atter how far he moved, she managed to seek him out in the large expanse of his bed and wrap around him. On the third time, he’d given up and enjoyed having her body nestled onto him.

  “I guess I should get up.” She pushed upright and twisted about.

  Unacceptable. Nikol spread his fingers in the ends of her hair and yanked her to him. “Or you should stay.”

  She rolled her eyes and pushed at his chest. “That didn’t work so well last time.”

  She continued to struggle but Nikol easily overpowered her and shoved her backward to roll on top of her. He ignored her glare. “What are you talking about?”

  Her lips pursed and she snapped, “When we had sex before, you behaved like an ass.”

  He took well the meaning of ass this time when she used it. Nikol smothered a grin, sure she would not appreciate his amusement. “What if I am not an ass now?”

  Humor flashed in her gaze. “Is that even possible?”

  It was possible but not safe when it involved her. He canted his head to the side and regarded her for several seconds. Suspicion and speculation raised their combined heads. Nikol slid to the side, his ardor cooling. He trapped her in the bed with an arm about her waist. “I would hear your story.”

  She bent her arm beneath her head and lay on her side to face him. “My story?”

  “How did you come to be on Marenia?”

  She blanched. “I told you I was abducted.”

  He waved that off. She was not the first. Her story was a familiar one and he wouldn’t let his mind go to the part he played in that happening to other women. Couldn’t. “What brought you away from Earth?”

  A shaky exhale. “Wow. Well, I guess first you’d have to understand there was or is I should say, a shortage of men on my world.”

  He knew of this. Earth had devised a program in conjunction with the Alliance mandates to help with their problem. Earth women searched for mates and husbands on other worlds.

  “I signed up for this program they offered to find a husband and family.”

  “Did you?” Jealousy unfurled in his gut. Was there a male out there who had a claim on the woman he’d filled with his seed?

  Her brows creased. “Did I what?”

  “Find a husband or mate?” If so, Nikol would find and destroy him.

  “Yes.” She avoided his gaze for a moment. The roar in his ears almost drowned out her next words. “I was going to a planet called Enotia to select their version of a husband.”

  Enotia. The world where his brother lived.

  “None of that matters now. I didn’t make it to their Presentation ceremonies and they probably assumed I changed my mind.”

  Spurred by a drive he couldn’t name, Nikol moved the arm at her waist and slid his hand down to cup her mound. She was damp from their combined essence. The alcove still scented of their sex sharing. He would let no other have Darcy.

  “You wouldn’t have been happy there,” he lied without remorse.

  Darcy gaze narrowed. “Really? I suppose Marenia is better?”

  “Immensely so.” He spoke truth. For all the worlds he’d seen, Nikol preferred Marenia with its cutting edge technology and simplistic political structure. “Women might not have the same rights other cultures boast of but they are protected in the right setting.”

  “I don’t exactly view a slave culture as protected.”

  Because Lothar had bastardized the custom of tutanis and others had followed suit. The Majad chose to turn a blind eye to it unless someone brought a specific case to his attention. But Nikol couldn’t tell Darcy that.

  He shrugged, dropped his hand from the temptation of her body and lay on his back to stare at the ceiling. Beside him, Darcy stirred. Nikol thought she was leaving and considered forbidding her from sleeping anywhere but here. Based on her defiant nature, he knew that wouldn’t go over well.

  Fighting her wasn’t what he wanted to do. His body was sated in a way he couldn’t recall experiencing before. He folded his hands behind his head. “Stay here with me.”

  “What?”

  He looked at her from the corner of his eyes. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, her hair limp about her face, red blemishes from his teeth joining the faded marks dotting her breasts.

  There would be matching bruises forming between her thighs. Relish filled him. He’d done all of that and more with his out of control need for her. “You can stay here with me.”

  “Are you going to watch me like a creepy stalker while I sleep, then when I wake up kick me out of your bed and insult me?”

  His face burned. Embarrassment wasn’t something he was often subjected to. Nikol shrugged. He couldn’t let her see how much he longed to spend the rest of the night with her curled in his arms as she’d done before. “No.”

  She twisted about and eyed him carefully. The sheets were on the floor. His body was bare to her gaze. Nikol wasn’t ashamed or shy about his physique. Females liked it.

  Darcy definitely liked it if the slow flush spreading over her cheeks was anything to go by. The knowledge had his cock twitching though he was sure he didn’t have the energy to do anything about it. She’d used him as hard as he’d used her this time. The way she’d grabbed and stroked his horns would replay in his mind for a long while.

  “I’ll stay if you show me around tomorrow. I’m tired of being closeted in here.”

  Suspicion flickered and wavered again in the face of her earnest expression. “Show you around?”

  She slid back in the bed on her knees, enthusiasm suffusing her features. “Yes. This house. Outside. Anything.”

  “Why?” Nikol wasn’t a fool. Where was this sudden desire coming from?

  Darcy threaded a hand through her hair and pulled at the strands while making a growling sound he found oddly fascinating. “Grrr. Because I’m bored as hell. It might be easy for your women raised here to sit around and do nothing but I’m used to being busy. Doing stuff. I’m not asking for much.”

  “Every night,” Nikol said.

  Confusion shadowed her eyes. She sucked her bottom lip in and tipped her head to the side. “Every night, what?”

  “You sleep here every night if I show you around.” Bargaining was his fort and if it meant he’d have her in his arms, Nikol was willing to risk it.

  “Every day,” she countered. “If I sleep with you every night, you have to take me out and show me around every day.”

  “Deal.”

  Nikol hoped he wasn’t making a mistake. There was a reason he didn’t let the other women roam freely outside of his wing. Lothar or those eager to do his bidding would love the chance to strike at Nikol.

  Chapter 17

  Darcy woke the next morning in slow stages. She yawned, stretched. Sounds and smells trickled in. Her eyes opened. It took a bit to realize she was still in Nikol’s bed. She was curled around the pillow he’d used, the fragrant scented oil smell she associated with him filling her nostrils.

  She turned over and whimpered. Her body ached pleasantly. Their talk last night had been unexpected and she’d secured a promise from him to show her around the residence. That was enough to bring her fully awake. Darcy sat up amidst the snowy white covers and looked around.

  Alone.

  “Story of my life,” she muttered, pushing to her feet. It shouldn’t have mattered but after the amicable conversation they’d had last night, Darcy expected...more.

  Sighing, she searched the floor and grabbed her shellam balled in the corner. It was wrinkled but would be fine to wear for her run across the open area to shower and change in her alcove.

  Smoothing out the creases as best she could, Darcy slid back the curtain letting in the bright sunlight from the outer area and the low buzz of conversation. She raised a hand to protect her sleepy eyes.

  Head down, she bumped into a steely chest and gasped. Strong fingers caught her arms. “In a hurry, astéri?”

  She gazed up into Nikol’s strong face. Giddiness rushed over her. “Hi. Morning.�
�

  “It is morning,” he agreed.

  Darcy laughed as her face heated. “I’ll head to my room now to shower.”

  He let her go and she made her way around him since he didn’t seem inclined to move. Her breasts brushed against his chest and she stifled a moan. She couldn’t possibly want more sex, yet somehow she did. Darcy showered, taking her time to let the hot water ease her aches. She washed her hair with a fruity liquid placed on the shelf with other supplies provided for her.

  After she finished, Darcy selected a deep purple shellam. Would Nikol stand by his word? Could today be the day she figured out her escape route? Men said things after sex, things they often forgot right after. At least Kevin always had. No good liar. Darcy pulled her hair up in a knot since she didn’t feel like letting it dry.

  The curtain to her alcove was ripped back. Nikol scowled. “You take too long and I am short on time.”

  Stunned, Darcy could only stare, “What are you talking about?”

  “You wanted to go out.” He wiggled his fingers at her. “Let’s go.”

  Elation rushed through Darcy. She bent over and snatched up the first pair of sandals she reached. Red and gold but she wasn’t worried about coordinating her outfit. No way she’d refuse this opportunity. Her feet slid into the soft cushioned leather, positioning the piece between her toes. She stood up once the straps were done around her ankles. “I’m ready.”

  Nikol studied her from head to toe and Darcy was vividly reminded that the standard dress around here was topless, breasts swinging nudity for the women. Weeks ago, when she arrived here, her instinctive reaction had been to cross her arms and hide. With Cecilee and the others walking around without a care, Darcy had grown lax about covering up.

  Under Nikol’s potent stare, she felt pride in her body more than shame. He shook his head and wrapped his hand around her forearm, leading her toward the solid double doors she hadn’t dared approach. “When we leave this suite, don’t make eye contact with anyone unless I instruct you. Don’t speak to anyone. Even if they speak to you first. Do you understand, Darcy?”