Terran (Breeder) (6 page)

The blanket she’d been given kept her warm, but the sleeping pallets offered a slim cushion between her body and the stone floor. She supposed hostages did not receive the best accommodations. Or communication.

Marlix had not divulged how long he intended to keep her—or for what purpose. Since their last conversation, after which time he’d stormed out, he’d said very little to her. Urazi had delivered what she assumed were the morning and midday meals, but Marlix had brought her the evening ones and given her the blanket and a male’s shirt to wear. As it was dark gray, she assumed it belonged to him.

Why
hadn’t
the big baboon forced himself on her? He wanted her. His eyes radiated lust and tracked her every movement when he delivered her meals. Not to mention his massive woody. Either his hard-on was for her, or he suffered from recurrent priapism. Maybe he ought to call a physician for himself. She snorted.

At first, she’d maintained her distance—as much as she could when locked in a small room with him—but then she’d begun to test him. She’d lean close to him and observe how his nostrils flared or would brush against him to hear him curse.
Monto
, he would mutter, an epithet between a shit and a fuck in his language. Every time he jerked away, she notched her mental belt.

Yeah, she was an idiot. What kind of woman teased the kidnapper who lusted after her and who held ultimate power in a society in which rape was not a crime?

A desperate one.

She’d decided to seduce her way to freedom. She was testing him, figuring him out, waiting for the right moment.

Having sex with him would not be a hardship. In another place and time, she’d leap at the chance to jump his bones. He was a badass bad boy. Power and sex appeal rolled into one alien man hunk. She’d gladly ride him into the sunset. Only her plan was to ride him out of his underground hideaway.

From outside the room that had become her jail, Tara heard an odd squealing. She ran to the door and pressed her ear to it. A man growled and then came another cry. She widened her eyes. A woman! Was she Parseon or Terran? Could it be she wasn’t the only hostage? Did Marlix kidnap females often? The woman cried out again, and Tara nibbled her lip, listening harder to determine if she heard pain or sexual pleasure. What were they doing to her?

Though she figured it was fruitless—she’d tried it countless times—she yanked the handle and fell on her ass when the door sprang open.

Bug out!
She leaped to her feet. Oh-Great-High-and-Mighty-My-Word-Is-Law Alpha had allowed security to lapse. Or had he set a trap? Could he be testing her? Tara peeked into the corridor. Moans and groans, feminine and masculine, originated from the end of the hall.

Guilt at her selfishness weighted her steps as she tiptoed, reversing the path Marlix had taken the day he’d brought her here. Her conscience hammered on her for ignoring the plight of that poor woman, who could be in the same position she was.

Another cry pierced the silence.

No, a worse position. But logic insisted she help herself first. Once free, she would report Marlix to the Terran Embassy and bring the full wrath of the Terran Federation down upon his ass. It wouldn’t be much, but it would be something!

Tara crept across what appeared to be a living room with Alpha-sized sofas and chairs. Her bare feet padded soundlessly on the cold stone floor—or maybe the deafening roar of her heart masked the footfalls.

From the far side of the parlor, she entered another hall, which led to the elevation tube. She wanted to punch the wall with frustration when she reached the portal and spied the gene scanner. Of course, everything had been too easy! Still, her cell had been unlocked, so maybe… She waved her hand over the screen, hoping it would work on a guest pass or something. Visitors came and went, didn’t they?

“Come on, please. Come on,” she whispered.

“Going somewhere?” Alpha’s voice sounded right behind her. Tara squealed and spun around.

Marlix folded his arms and
smirked
at her. That her escape attempt amused him obliterated her fear and raised her ire. She itched to slap the stupid smile off his face. But she knew how
that
would pan out, so she balled her hands into fists and wrestled her temper under control.

Operation Bug-Out had failed. She would need to revert to Operation Seduction.

Chapter Six

After conversing with Urazi and arguing with himself, Marlix had unlocked Tara’s door to permit her to “escape.” But when he watched her creep away via the monitor in his control room, he’d changed his mind and reprogrammed the genscan to deny her access.

The feleen had guts. Few females would have attempted so bold a move. She was so small, so defenseless, yet she stomped around like she ruled the world. She inspired his admiration—and his lust. His uniform shirt hung like a sack on her slight body, grazing her knees, and she’d rolled the left sleeve to clear her wrist. The rapidness of her breathing called attention to her mammary glands, but he would have noticed them anyway. Designed to bare the right side of the torso to reveal chest insignia, the shirt drooped to her waist. He’d seen many breasts, but hers fascinated him: the right one, exposed by the voluminous uniform, and the left one covered and all the more enticing because of it. His loins throbbed as he pictured her pink nipple pierced by his insignia, marked as his breeder. If he claimed her, she would be off-limits to all males except for those with whom he chose to share her.

Which would be no one. He would never share her. Not even with Urazi.

Pointless imaginings. She would never be his breeder, because she was Terran. The treaty probably did not allow her to be claimed, and for sure, Protocol forbade it. He doubted offspring could even result from such a mating, and if one did, his half-breed son would be shunned, his status even lower than a female’s. Marlix would lose his command for producing an abomination.

He should not want her, this female of a race he despised. But his guts twisted with virulent need. The longer she remained in his domicile, the greater it waxed. From his tumescence to his jaw, he ached.

Yes, he should have allowed Tara to escape. Once again, his impulse had countermanded his good sense. He wished he could have heeded Urazi’s advice to assuage the fever by using the Parseon female, but upon the sight of her, the prospect had deflated him. Then he’d spotted Tara on the monitor, and lust burned even hotter than before.

He was pondering his next move when she pushed off the wall and sidled up to him, her hips swaying like a reed in the wind. Her gentle scent teased his nostrils, and he inhaled. Then flinched when she touched his chest. Her gaze shuttered as she seared a line with her finger from below his collarbone across his pec to his nipple. She tugged on his insignia, and the yank traveled clear down to his groin. As hard as stone, his manhood strained against his uniform.

“What are you doing?” He glowered at her in his way that caused alpha warriors to quake.

“Being…friendly.” She gave another yank on his insignia and then traced the diagonal edge of his dark gray uniform shirt.

He grabbed her hand. Engulfed it. Her bones, so fine and delicate, her skin so smooth and soft, made his appear bulky, rough. As Alpha, he dwarfed other males of his species in more ways than one, but he’d never considered the full import of his size until now. Yet another reason why he could not use Tara. He would injure her.

“We are not friends,” he grated but continued to imprison her hand.

Her eyelids lowered, and she peered at him from beneath her lashes. With her free hand, she crooked her finger. Marlix bent his head. She brought her lips to his ear. Her breath tickled. A shudder rippled through him.

“We could be,” she whispered, and then licked his lobe.

Marlix reared back and flung her hand away from him. Lust pounded like a warrior’s drum. Except he was a fallen soldier. He retreated, put a step between them, but she followed and grabbed a handful of his shirt in her fist.

“Going somewhere?” She smiled.

“You mock me,” he said.

She shook her head. “I would never do that. You are Alpha.” She released his shirt but then slid her hand up his chest to cup his neck. His pulse skyrocketed.

Did she not understand the ramifications of her offer? No female initiated contact. They would not have dared, even if they had wanted to. Marlix grabbed her buttocks and hauled her against his throbbing erection, ground it against her to frighten her into retreat. But she wound herself around him like one of the many vines that grew in the wood and tripped unwary hikers.

She moaned.

Marlix was used to the cries of females, their discomfort, their pain.

But not pleasure, the way that moan had sounded. Her whimper winked at him, evoking the yearning for that undefinable satisfaction that had always eluded him.

He squeezed her buttocks with his overlarge hands, and she moaned again. He snapped. He seized her arm, bent, and flung her over his shoulder. He stormed toward his sleeping chamber.

“You are the caveman type, aren’t you?” She giggled.

Her laughter shot straight to his loins, and he almost shoved her against the wall and took her there, but he doubled his speed and charged into his chamber and slammed the door.

Her mirth evaporated when he flung her facedown over the round sleeping platform, freed his manhood, and yanked up her shirt. He guided his erection to her anus.

Tara twisted away and rolled to face him. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” She stared at him. “Hey, I like a little anal every now and then as much as the next girl, but not without so much as a kiss, not the first time I have sex with somebody, and damn sure not without lube. Have you lost your mind?”

Marlix blinked. No one ever yelled at him.

He sensed he’d erred, but didn’t know how—other than attempting to use her in the first place. But she had seemed to indicate she would welcome his attentions. Had he misread her? She’d mentioned something about
lube
. He supposed that meant lubricant. Some alphas did use an oily ester with their betas, but they never bothered with females. Since he and Urazi did not have that sort of relationship, he had none on hand. And he had no idea what the other thing she mentioned was.
Kiss?

Tara patted the platform next to her. “Sit down,” she ordered.

Her audacity rendered him speechless for a moment. “I do not take orders from you,” he said when he’d found his voice.

“Give it a rest, caveman, and sit down.”

“I do not know what a caveman is, but I doubt I am one.” He glared at her. Lust still burned, but he felt
chastened
. Not since he was a young alpha in his sire’s abode had he been treated in such a manner. He started to tell her so, but she pulled the shirt over her head and tossed it on the floor. He had not seen her naked since he’d first brought her home, and he stared. Her wounds had healed; even the thick scar from the old injury seemed to have faded. Her form was smooth and delicate, her breasts so round, her nipples erect. And those curls! He could not look away from the apex of her thighs.

“Please.” She patted the platform again.

He took a step toward the bed, but she slipped off it and tugged at the hem of his uniform shirt.

“What are you doing?” he frowned.

“Removing your clothes.”

“Why?”

“You don’t have sex with your clothes on, do you?”

“Yes.”

“You’re kidding?” Her jaw dropped.

“Why would I disrobe? I only need…” He glanced down at his erection. Fluid seeped from the tip.

“As impressive as your cock is, I’d like to see the rest of you too.”

Bemused, he allowed her to pull his uniform over his head. At her urging, he removed his boots, and then she yanked his pants down his legs. “Commando. I should have guessed,” she muttered.

Nudity held no shame, yet without his uniform, Marlix felt exposed and vulnerable before this tiny but bold and aggressive female who did not hesitate to speak her mind.

She stood there, smiling with her eyes and her mouth, in a manner both direct and secretive. It caused a familiar tightening and ache in his groin and an unfamiliar twisting in his stomach. He remembered she’d mentioned a kiss. He presumed kissing was some sort of Terran depravity. Did one more really matter? He’d committed so many violations already.

Monto. The act of release had been perfunctory, if shameful, but she had complicated it further.

She thrust out one hip and cocked her head. “Don’t you want to touch me?”

He could have pointed out he had been about to
touch
her when she’d wrested away and demanded he strip naked, but the quiver in her wavering smile had him reaching out to wind a strand of pink hair around his finger. He settled the curl on her shoulder, and then traced a vine of flowers down her arm.

“I have never met anyone like you,” he said.

“Terran?”

“Colorful.” She lit up the starkness of his existence, painted the grays, the blacks, the whites to vivid hues like her hair, her eyes, her skin. He lived a life of harsh simplicity, actions and reactions defined. Expectations set and met. Certainty a certitude.

Yet she aroused questions, raised impossibilities, and caused him to yearn for things he should not want.

She sashayed up to him, rose on tiptoe, and wrapped her arms around his neck. He lowered his head. She closed her eyes and pressed her mouth to his.

Startled, Marlix froze, unable to make sense of her behavior or why it should cause heat to flood his body as if he suffered from a massive infection.

Tara pulled back and opened her eyes. “You have been with a woman before, haven’t you?”

She made it sound like an embarrassment if he had not, rather than the disgrace it was that he had. He stiffened. “I have used many women. Why would you say such a thing?”

“Then kiss me.”

“Pressing lips is kissing?”

“It involves some other stuff, but yeah.”

He hesitated, wary. “What other stuff?”

“Let’s lie on the bed.” Tara strode to the platform and stretched out in the center.