Heat (66 page)

“Am I hurting you?” he asked, but though his voice was strained, his hands kept on sliding her along his slickened length in a quick rhythm, forcing her to ride him with an abandon she yearned for but could not achieve.

“No,” she gasped. “No, it feels good. Oh God, it feels so good.” She began to cry helplessly, knowing he would misunderstand, but a slave to the storm of sensation. She could feel orgasm coming, like the tidal pulse that follows a sea-quake. It was terrifying, black and full, but a part of her opened up to welcome it.

Her scream came first, high and wild and despairing. Her body followed, explosive with pleasure, and as if some great unseen switch were finally thrown, Daria surged against him. Her hips ground and pumped in urgency, her hands clawed and pulled, and she drank him in with her whole body. She never stopped cumming. Wave after wave crested and crashed, driving her to a frenzy of hungry desire and fulfillment.

He was cumming as well, in and out of rhythm with her, thrusting hard and fast even as she rocked and pitched at him. The rest of him was rigid, an automaton of one purpose, locked in motion.

Without warning, his arm snapped up and around her. He rolled, taking her with him and pinning her under his weight. He reared above her and slammed his hands against the headboard of her bed, his weight looming god-like and only half-seen in the shadows above her lust-glazed eyes. His hips continued to drive at her, cumming with nearly every thrust. His breath came in harder pants; sweat dripped from his flesh to sizzle on hers. She could not keep her hands still; they pulled and scratched at him, trying to pull him down, to bring him fast against her. She wanted all of him, all of him, but the little that he gave her was maddening enough.

He roared suddenly, a deafening, eruptive sound, and slammed against her with all his strength in one last, brutal movement. She felt his seed at last, a great rushing jet of it, drumming deep into the heart of her. Then he fell, completing her with the mass and reality of him, crushing a final, shivering release from her still-humming body.

She held him, her hands creeping slowly up the slick sides of his ribs to rest on his back. She could feel nothing but the receding of that consuming black tide, nothing but the dry snap and thrum of wakened pleasure. She could feel nothing but the stunned joy of what she had done and what she had taken. She thought she might still be crying, but she knew she was smiling as well.

It had not been gentle. It had not been lovemaking of the kind she remembered, the kind she had once shared with the man who might have married her, who might have given her children. It was rough and hungry, not unskilled but certainly not considerate. It was sex, pure and unapologetic, as hot and fierce as lightning, and it was very good sex.

His hand brushed her cheek, and she could feel his concern as he smoothed her tears back into her skin.

“Don’t be sorry,” she said quaveringly. “Don’t you dare. I wanted it and it was everything I wanted.”

He rolled away, and the feel of him, even now, sliding free of her was enough to waken a ghost of yearning throughout her body. She stretched, contented in every searing fiber of her being, and reached for him.

He caught her hand out of the air and squeezed it lightly before placing in on her chest. “I thank you,” he said. “You cannot know enough. May I…come back to you when the sun rises?”

“Yes,” she said.

Tagen sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed.

Daria’s satisfaction curdled and froze in her chest. “You’re leaving?”

“It is too hot to lie together.” The mattress creaked and there was a rustle as he collected his clothes. As before, he made no sound as he crossed the floor. She still thought he was there looking down at her, when he suddenly opened the door. He closed it behind him without another word.

Daria lay stunned, her heart still beating down from the frenzies of sex. She could still feel echoes of orgasm running electric through her body, could still feel the rawness in her throat from her screams. She had given him all she had until every restraint lay shattered. He, on the other hand, he had scratched an itch and then gone back to his room.

Blinking tears, Daria got up. She changed the sheets again, and carried them, damp and fragrant with sex, downstairs to wash them. When she was done with that, she’d mop the floors.

Was that all there was between them? Was that really it?

Maybe she’d wash the walls.

Why was she even surprised? When you took out all the times they’d just stood around and argued with each other, they’d probably only had three conversations. She couldn’t blame him. He only took what he was offered, and he never promised her a thing.

And the cupboards.

She wanted to die.

T
agen awoke with the light of late morning prying at his eyes and the itch of early Heat sinking into his tsesac. He waited for the crush of despair and bitterness the latter should have inspired and felt none. He could not remember sleeping so well, not even in his own bed on Jota. He was completely relaxed, completely at peace. And he was hungry. That had to be a good sign.

He rose and dressed himself in the snug human clothing. The feel of the alien fabric brought Daria to mind and he growled good-humoredly to himself. There was something profoundly moving in the way she strived to meet his needs, even through her fear of him.

All his needs.

Were it not for Heat’s furious claws sunk inside him, he could have easily been amazed by the passions of his night’s partner. He was going to have to rethink his notion of humans as fragile. She had been in every way his equal, if not his master. Thinking on it now, remembering with fondness the dazed cries she’d unleashed as she rode him to climax, brought him a profound gratitude and a yearning that set his heart to burn.

She had mated with him. Against every taboo that surely stood in place, she had taken him inside her. She had freed him from his agony and she had taken a brilliance of pleasure in the process. He had asked if he could come to her again and she had not hesitated before saying yes. When he lay with her today, it would not be after hours of Heat had savaged his senses. He could woo her, show her the care such a female deserved, and find more than mere relief in her welcoming arms.

Tagen showered and shaved, armoring himself against the disheveling effects of a new summer day. There was a thought worrying itself free from the Heat-leadened fathoms of his mind, and he was content to let it. Something to do with the news reports he had seen on the tee-vee, specifically, with the images that sometimes appeared behind the media-purveyors as they spoke. There was some connection, he was not sure what, but he sensed it was obvious and that he would be mightily annoyed at himself once it did break out and reveal itself. For now, ah, he was rested, he was hungry, and he was…

He was happy.

Tagen toweled off briskly and dressed, grinning fiercely at nothing at all, and marveling pleasantly at the intoxication that seemed to be occupying his soul. Who would have thought it? Who would have thought it from a
human
?

The scent of cleanser struck him like a hammer as he came downstairs, flattening his newfound good mood. He went cautiously into the kitchen and there was Daria, lying curled on the tiles beside a bucket of nearly-clear water. Even in sleep, her face was strained and marked with tears.

The heart in him froze and dropped away, leaving him hollow. He’d hurt her. He knew he had, but not like this.

He took only two steps into the room before the sound of his talons on the tiles roused her. She stirred with obvious stiffness and blinked up at him, her face waking by slow degrees to puzzlement and pain.

“Do not fear me,” he told her, showing her his empty hands. “I am putting you to bed. And that is all.”

“All?” Her face crumpled and she turned away, awkwardly standing and bending to fetch the bucket. “It’s my fault. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have expected—” She sobbed once and put the bucket back down, slopping water over the sides. She pressed her hands to her face and shook in silence.

“I hurt you,” he said, his voice strained. He wanted to touch her but did not dare for fear of sending her into panic. He felt sick, physically sick. He couldn’t watch her and he couldn’t tear his eyes away. What had he done to her? He had tried to be so careful and he had hurt her so much.

“You didn’t hurt me,” she wept. “It’s my fault. My fault for thinking it was anything but what it was.”

What it—? For no reason at all, Tagen found himself thinking of the tee-vee again, and in particular, of the programs it broadcast that showed humans in their wooing moods. He was a military man and he thought in straight military lines, but he was capable of making the occasional leap of insight, and he made one now.

Thunderstruck, Tagen started for her, one hand reaching to close over her arm. “What it was,” he echoed, “was a true thing. I felt what you gave. I felt what you took.”

She pinkened and pulled away. “Don’t say things you don’t mean,” she said angrily. “It’s cheap. I don’t need to be placated. I can live with it just fine. You needed to fuck and I let you. I was stupid to think there was anything more to it than that!”

“A fuck?” Startled and then profoundly stung, Tagen turned her roughly to face him. “A
fuck
?! Only that? Gods, I
grieve
that you could even think so!”

“You didn’t even kiss me!” she shouted.

He gaped at her. “I do not know how!”

“You could have asked.”

He couldn’t seem to find his footing in this conversation. He shook his head, shook it harder, and then tried again to reason with her. “Heat does not allow for tenderness such as I have seen when humans mate. I only tried—”

“If you say not to hurt me one more time, I’ll scream!” she yelled. “You
did
hurt me, dammit! You hurt me when you got up and left, like I was…like I was your damn Pumpmaster 5000! You don’t have to be in love with me, but you could at least pretend to like me a little! You just got up and left!”

“It was hot,” he argued. “There is affection and then there is comfort! Can you look me in the eye and tell me you could have slept if I had held you through the night?”

“Maybe!” she snapped. “I would have tried, at any rate, because that’s what people do when they like each other! They try to get along!”

“Is
this
how you try to get along?” he shot back, his voice rising. Her answering flinch was as good as a slap. Tagen stepped away and took back some self-control. “Did you say you wanted me because of your liking for me? No. You said you would lie with me because you feared Heat was killing me. You did not say you wished to mate with me, you said you would help me. And you did not kiss me, either,” he added irritably.

She dropped her gaze, her lip trembling, and looked at once furious and miserable.

“No,” Tagen said, sighing. “I did not try to please you. I did not think I would be welcomed. You took pleasure anyway and I was grateful. My one thought—scream if you so desire it—was not to hurt you. You simply do not know how
easy
it is to hurt you.”

“You’re stringing me along,” she said. “And it’s too little, waaay too late.” She turned away, swiping at her eyes.

Tagen moved before he could think, seizing her and pushing her roughly against the counters, his body crushing hers. His hand twined through her hair, pulling her head back and exposing her sleek throat to him. Heat was there, heightening but not commanding, and he let it fill him with flame as he moved his mouth over her. He could taste the sweat that beaded her skin. He could feel the blood as it pulsed from her heart. He bit slowly, savoring the resistance of her until his teeth threatened to draw blood.

She gasped and struggled, then clutched at him, shivering in his hands. Her lips were working soundlessly, her eyes shut tight. Tagen closed his mouth over hers as he had seen humans do on tee-vee and she struggled again, scratching and punching at his shoulders. He gripped her tighter, kissing her with bruising force until she shuddered and began to kiss him back. Her tongue met with his unexpectedly and he let her guide him, exploring this human thing as fascination led swiftly to violent desire.

It was unnatural to be so aggressive, to take what a female had not first offered, but he followed his instincts, growing bolder as she continued to melt against him. He did not know what she wanted. He gave her Jotan wooing instead, his hands drawing down her belly where sensation was sharper, careful of his claws…but not too careful.

Her hands crawled up his chest, rubbing, caressing, and he mimicked her unthinkingly. She arched into his palm when he cupped her breast, and then she shoved him away with a high, sobbing moan. “Just stop it! You don’t mean it!”

Tagen snarled furiously and picked her up, thumping her hard on the countertop. He pushed himself between her thighs before she had time to kick him away and pulled her sharply to him, preventing even a token gesture of escape. He was hard already, and he caught one of her flailing hands and brought it to that hardness, growling, “You think that I do not?”

She tried to pull her hand away, but he forced her instead to stroke him. He watched her face contort with passion and dismay, felt her shudder in his grip, and on the second pass along the length of his shaft, her hand slipped beneath the waist of his coverings and closed around his flesh. He released her. She remained.

“I wanted you,” he breathed, and pushed her shirt up in pools over his hand to lick at the sweat between her breasts. “Did you think I did not want you?”

“You were s-so adam-ment about n-not obligating—”

She finished with a cry as he closed his mouth around her nipple. He sucked the hard bud carefully between his teeth, and her hand on his shaft clenched.