Ask For It (3 page)

“No. I could hardly wait for the Corbeth to be over. I was in a hurry to get past it. I distinctly remember explaining that to you.”

Sahara raised a brow as her hand reached down to stroke his tail coiled tightly around her leg. “You told me your brothers would welcome me to the family. No one said a word about being stripped by my lover, thinking we were finally going to make love properly and then having him invite his brothers in to finish the job.”

Tor shuddered even as his mind threatened to explode at her view of the ancient tradition of respect and treasuring. Her hand stroking his tail triggered way too many physical responses. Her words gave rise to ugly suspicion.

“Did one of my brothers rape you?” Tor asked softly, his eyes narrow as he waited for her answer. It was inconceivable, but why else would her view of a tradition that was supposed to be about her pleasure be so negative? Hard rage flashed fire across every other emotion.

“I was raped that night, but it wasn’t by someone’s cock,” Sahara stated in the same calm tone. “So I assume you don’t mind my setting up the funding program?”

“Again, I must ask you to explain this to me,” Tor asked, carefully choosing his words with slow deliberation. The killing rage would do him no good. Beating it back with forced calm was his only option. “And if you pretend I’m asking about the funding program I’ll tan your backside. Tell me what happened, Sahara.”

At last emotion reached her face. Her lips turned down in bitter mockery. “So beating me is your first thought?”

She held up her hand in an arrogant silencing motion when he would have responded. The action displayed her complete grasp of who really held the power in the room.

“I was tied to the bed, exposed and helpless. The male I thought was my mate had just accepted my gift of complete surrender and driven me to orgasm. Stripped emotionally and physically, I had willingly put my soul in his care when he gets up and invites his brother to the party. By the time the third brother came in to take his turn I pretty much wished I was dead.”

Her eyes narrowed as she continued. “It was the third brother who bothered to really look at my face, to care about what he saw. He untied me, wrapped me in a sheet and held me as I cried for hours. Since I didn’t have a choice about becoming someone’s wife, I think the choice of who that would be was obvious.

“To answer your question directly. No, none of your brothers broke the law and inserted cock. However, at the time I had no idea there was a law and that they wouldn’t. All I knew was that I had been tied down by the one I trusted who then turned me over to males I didn’t know.”

Tor’s tail slowly uncoiled from her leg. No other part of his body moved as his gaze remained riveted on her face. Sahara met his look with unwavering directness. Her features were once more void of emotion. No anger, no bitterness, no joy.

Hot and hard, pain ripped through him. He’d thought he’d experienced every pain possible over this woman. Her truth introduced him to a new flavor. Even if her view of what happened bore no relation to what his intentions had been, it didn’t matter. This was what she’d lived through and he’d been the one to force it on her.

For her, the Corbeth had been a betrayal of trust followed by a gang rape that he’d organized.

Tor moved slowly as he stood and paced away from her. It was weak, but he couldn’t face her as the depth of the betrayal she’d experienced broke over him. Facing a window, he had to cross his arms to hide the tremble.

Her revulsion at the sight of him was a fucking mild response to what he’d put her through. He fully understood how she’d been able to forgive his brothers to some degree as she learned their culture, but not him. No.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” he asked carefully.

“The Leonor pheromone, it works differently on me. You had never used it until that night. I had no idea what it was,” Sahara responded. “It swells my tongue then my windpipe. By the time Burke left the room I could barely breathe. If Signet had not noticed my distress I would have suffocated.”

It was not in his nature to bow his head. Looking at the floor beneath his feet, Tor swallowed back his body’s response to this latest revelation. Bile burned his esophagus all the way down.

The magnitude of what he hadn’t known about her overwhelmed him. He’d very nearly killed her. His ignorance was born of lazy confidence and nearly euphoric pleasure. Instead of caring for her in every way, he had been this woman’s worst nightmare.

“Why didn’t Signet kill me?” he asked. “I would’ve killed him for this.”

“My husband understood his brother very well. That was his gift, seeing beyond the external and understanding those around him.”

Her words slid into his back, each one armed with a sharp point that sliced fur and bone effortlessly. She had spoken them with absolutely no inflection, making them powerful. As was her naked acceptance of horrifying events. Had she yelled at him, thrown things, anything else but sit there in perfect control, he could have worked through his guilt. There would have been some cleansing, some opening for forgiveness. There was none in her manner and he agreed with her.

Tor had to brace himself against the window frame. Thickly muscled arms shook as claws sliced into the hard wood he gripped on either side of the opening. He could not change the past. There was nothing that would repair the damage he’d done. He certainly didn’t expect her to trust him. He’d failed her on every level possible and then spent years being indulgently angry with her for her choices.

When Signet had insisted on moving out of the palace with his wife, Tor had reacted harshly. It was the first time he’d exchanged aggressive words with his youngest brother. Now he understood it.

The only time he’d held Sahara since her wedding was when he’d picked her up to keep her from rushing into Signet’s funeral pyre.

Signet died a warrior’s death in battle, doing his duty as a Leonor warrior and Guardian of the United Planets Alliance. He’d routed the slavers, freed their captives, but was brought down in the last skirmish with the escaping leader. His death had been the worst possible outcome for a desperate last shot. Sahara’s determination to die on her husband’s body had terrified Tor and been a source of crushing guilt.

He’d loved his brother. Seeing him die so young was difficult. That pain was nothing compared to the wrenching panic he experienced when Sahara strode toward the flames. He’d rightly guessed her intention and scooped her off her feet. She’d screamed and fought him like a little wildcat, determined to follow her husband. When she realized nothing would make him put her down, she’d lain in his arms crying inconsolably for another male.

In all the years since her husband’s death, she’d refused to move back to the palace where he could take care of her. It made sense now, along with every other thing she’d done that had enraged him over and over again.

What still didn’t make sense was her reason for being here. Clearing up their baggage only made her offer to have his baby more of a mystery. There was no way to mistake this conversation for a request to start over. Now she fully understood the code he lived by and had pulled no punches explaining how completely he’d failed as a male and as a warrior.

Tor retracted claws one by one, pulling them out of the window frame. Straightening, he turned to face her. To face what he deserved.

“Beloved of my Brother, why do you extend the generous offer of a child? How has time run out?”

Chapter Three

“I need a male who is able to perform without using the pheromone. I do not wish to lie with your brothers. That leaves you. In the past we enjoyed contact to the point of you being physically capable of delivering sperm without using the pheromone. I will likely conceive,” Sahara answered as if she were explaining the obvious. Her tone was not condescending so much as deliberate in pronouncing each word clearly.

There was no humor in her little speech and almost none in the subject, but her clinical terms gave him a moment of amusement. “The pheromone is meant to enhance a female’s enjoyment. Males have no difficulty delivering sperm. Our problem seems to be finding a receptive womb.”

“See, even though I’ve been here almost five years, there are things I do not understand completely.” Sahara nodded as if he’d just made her point.

The point he’d made was that a Leonor male could deliver sperm to a mud slug if he had to. Little desert flower need not worry about that resource. What was unclear to him was how she felt time had run out. Why did she suddenly need a male? He was still sure there was something else driving her.

Tor suspected the reason time was running out had to do with her physiology and that possibility didn’t feel good. He knew nothing of her people’s lifespan, not to mention other physical limitations and requirements.

“Tell me exactly why time is running out, Sahara,” Tor requested firmly. Reality was, he couldn’t force an answer from her. Certainly not after the hard truths she’d just laid at his door.

Sahara sighed and glanced away from him. That was a bad sign. She could face him without flinching while discussing an event she considered rape and near death at his hands, but revealing this made her look away. Fear wrapped around his gut.

A little stiffly she raised her head, but her eyes didn’t quite meet his. She focused on his jaw and explained. “My biological clock is about to demand a response to the ticking. The situation could get unmanageable if I don’t, um, don’t choose a male to focus on. The other option is to find a deserted planet and, ah, see if everything works out.”

Tor worked through her little speech. Slowly he returned to the couch and lowered himself to sit beside her. He kept his movements deliberate and nonthreatening. If that complicated answer meant what he thought it did, both of them were in trouble.

Very gently he reached out and took one of her hands off her lap, folding his large paw around it. “Look at me, beloved,” he directed softly.

Big gray eyes rose to meet his. “I will not knowingly fail you or harm you. I will do everything in my power to make you happy and comfortable…” Tor had thought he could do this when he realized how big what she was trying to tell him was, but he hadn’t gotten past the last huge thing.

Knowing the pain and humiliation she’d endured because he’d been too selfishly consumed with lust to adequately explain the Corbeth was overwhelming. She’d almost died. Her narrow escape from that horrifying possibility was too close. Tor didn’t know how to express the feelings thundering through him.

A tremor ripped down his body. He couldn’t control it as he gazed into platinum gray eyes and lost his soul again. She sat so stiff. Her amazing control was being strained if his suspicions were correct. She’d come to him.

“Sahara, how can I help you?” he tried again. Perhaps letting her take control of the conversation would make her comfortable. “Anything you need, anything at all.”

She searched his eyes. What she found apparently satisfied her because her little spine relaxed. “I need a male to focus on. I’d rather it was you, but I’m afraid,” she confessed softly. “I’ve never been in heat before. I will involuntarily emit a pheromone. What if it’s dangerous to you? The other problem is, if I’m not focused on one male the pheromone will draw all males.

“This happened to my mother. My father died before I was born. I remember blood battles. It’s bad. If you don’t want me, you have to send me away. You can’t share me with your brothers. It will make one of you kill the others.”

Yep, he’d suspected her indirect reference to a ticking clock was a shield for a not-so-humanoid problem. A hugely nonhuman problem that flashed impossible suspicions across his mind. Right now he didn’t give a death-angel damn that she wasn’t what she appeared.

“You will focus on me,” Tor stated firmly. “There will be no Corbeth. How long can you control it?”

“A day or two at most. I need to be out of the city soon,” she answered shyly.

Tor contained the rush of possessive lust with an iron will. She’d come to him, despite everything. He would not fuck this up a second time.

“I am going to pick you up and take us to the mountain castle. I don’t think I’ll be able to put you down, baby. Don’t expect it. I will not hurt you, but my instincts require contact,” he warned her. “When we get to the mountain castle it’ll be empty and I’ll do everything in my power to focus you on me sexually. Try to control the pheromone until we get there.”

Her response was immediate. Sahara nodded and held up her arms. There was no hesitation as he carefully lifted her. Tor drew in a deep breath. “Trust me,” he whispered as his mouth took hers in a quick, hard kiss. He dared not take more.

Holding her cradled to his chest, Tor effortlessly surged to his feet and strode from the room through a different door than the one they had entered. As soon as they crossed the threshold to the hall, he started barking orders.

Sahara turned her face into his chest and relaxed against him. Everything was going to be fine. He would see to it or kill the fools who got in his way. Little desert flower did not need a pheromone to make him a weapon determined to keep her. Goddess help them when she couldn’t control it anymore.

“Get us away from people now,” Sahara whispered. “Contact with you is having an unexpected result.”

Tor froze in the hallway. “What result? Speak plainly, baby.”

“I’m losing control. Run,” she breathed. “Find somewhere you can lock us in. If other males break in you will have to kill them to keep them off me. And if you don’t, I will,” she promised ominously.

Tor didn’t need to hear any more. A compelling wisp of scent drifted past his nose and took on the power of a cannon shot as it exploded in his system and burned straight down to his groin. He’d thought he was turned-on, but this took him to an entirely new level of lust. He put his head down and took off. The only place open to them now was the old fortress section of the palace.

Behind him a warrior roared and then another. There were several yells and some banging about but no thunder of running feet.

“What is that?” he demanded as he avoided heavily trafficked areas, heading for the old sections.

“I told you. Pheromone,” Sahara hissed as she clutched his neck. She didn’t have to hold on to him. His run was a smooth flow of muscles generating speed, but mostly his grip held her securely. He raced through progressively narrower passageways and older rooms with silent confidence.

“I don’t think so, baby,” he disagreed. Entering the siege castle, he put her down briefly to slide a heavy beam across the door. It rested on great iron hooks. He didn’t bother with the two other beams that would have crossed the door. Swinging her up in his arms, he turned and headed deeper into the old building.

“You sealed the door, aren’t we safe?” Sahara demanded. Her body trembled in his arms.

Tor was surrounded by the compelling scent of her arousal. It pounded through him, invaded every pore of his body, fed the fierce lust he’d not been free of for five years.

“Not yet. That was one door. The fortress has others. I need to get us to the fallback tower. When that door is secured, we can deal with our issues.”

“I may have been wrong. It doesn’t sound like anyone is following us,” Sahara glanced over his shoulder.

“You were not wrong. Leonor warriors do not thunder after prey in wild abandon. We are being hunted. I can feel them coming,” he assured her calmly. “Don’t be concerned. I will not be caught in my own lair.”

“Oh Goddess,” Sahara breathed as he entered a narrow door.

Swiftly putting her on her feet, Tor closed the reinforced door. Four pig-iron bars slid across the old, double steel door. It had been built to withstand a full siege. He was fairly certain it would hold against his men for a few hours.

The bottom of the tower they stood in was dimly lit by feeble stabs of light from far up its walls where small weapon openings began. Tor’s eyes adjusted quickly, but there was little to see in the long-unused tower. There certainly hadn’t been a siege since the days Leonor tribes battled each other over seven thousand years ago.

Sahara trembled against the wall, her arms wrapped around herself as she watched him. Big gray eyes were worried, but her body was screaming invitation with the beguiling scent coming directly from her sex. She said it was pheromones, and the power of her scent wrapped around his chest and squeezed. He suspected it was something infinitely more dangerous to his kind and there was much she had to tell him. No time for it now.

Tor reached for her, picking up his woman. This time he wrapped his arms around her back and took her mouth. Eagerly she opened for him as he thrust into her, his tongue invading, claiming. She couldn’t wrap her legs around his hips because of her skirt. He’d fix that problem for her in a minute.

The kiss took what was his, demanded it of her and she gave it to him, her head bending back in surrender as he ate her mouth. The soft sounds he remembered so well coming from the back of her throat. Tor plundered and felt a swell of anger mix with the extreme sexuality surrounding them.

The anger was part of both of them. He could feel it in her as well. The rumble coming from his chest was more growl than purr and that was exactly what he heard from her. It didn’t matter. No, it mattered a lot. Not as much as what they both needed now. Mad or not, they were going to fuck. Making love would come later. After the fucking. After the anger.

Tor ripped his mouth off her and put her down. “If you want to wear clothing when we leave here, take the dress off. If you don’t care, I’ll rip it off,” he snarled as he flicked the clasps on his vest and shed it. Reaching down, he unlaced the opening of his leathers and shoved them out of his way. He didn’t have time to take off boots. Not this time.

Sahara’s eyes were riveted on his cock and she hadn’t moved. Breathing hard, he looked down at the woman staring at his sex. “Take off the dress now. Last chance.” The words were thick on his tongue as he battled the urgent drive to shred it off her with claws.

Beside them, on the other side of the door, a Leonor warrior roared in frustration and the sound startled her into action. She grabbed the hem and drew her dress over her head, dropping the garment as her eyes traveled up his body to meet his gaze.

He loomed over her, staring at the soft body finally exposed to his view. She had come to him without undergarments. The punch of her intentions was gratifying, but again, he didn’t have time to enjoy it. He only had a few moments of lucid thought left and he needed to explain what would happen next. Even though her scent was a mind-numbing inducement, he would not lose this woman a second time because he’d failed to tell her something.

“We are going to fuck. Then I’m going to make love to you and then we’ll talk,” he rasped. He flattened his hands on the stone walls beside her to keep them off her just a few more seconds. She was out of choices and he needed her to understand that. “Do you understand?”

Another roar outside the door as the males realized there was no entering this place.

Sahara nodded and reached up to run her hands down the fur of his chest.

“No. Say it. Ask me,” Tor demanded. It was difficult to make sentences, but he had too much to lose. A harsh shudder ran through him at her touch. “I will have you. All of you. You must acknowledge. I will not release you again.”

He didn’t see it coming. Her ability to remove thousands of years of civilization and reduce him to an elemental male barely out of the cave lair.

Sahara dropped to her knees. Both little hands grasped the base of his cock as her mouth closed over the wide head. She sucked him in with no preliminaries, dragging her mouth over as much as she could in hard pulls. Sensation blew up his belly and down his legs on white lightning bolts. She took him deep. Twice. The second time the head of his cock slid out of her mouth to rest on her lips as pre-cum marked her face. From that position, with his cock resting on her lips, she looked up into his eyes. “Please. Fuck me.”