She struggled until he lessened his hold. She immediately reached for the closure on his pants. If she hurried, maybe nothing would come of what she’d just done.
“What the hell!” he said, grabbing her wrists.
“I didn’t refuse!”
Holding her wrists, he rolled over top of her and straddled her hips. She’d been captured in a slight way because he didn’t settle his weight to hold her down. He stared at her through clumps of long, black bangs.
“You told me in every way possible you didn’t want more.” The words condemned her by implication alone, not by his tone or an angry expression.
She’d fix it. “I’m willing. You can touch me now. I won’t pull away again, I promise.”
“Yeah, you’d let me, I’m sure. Why? What changed from one minute to the next?”
She kept swallowing, trying to get rid of the lump in her throat. It wouldn’t go away.
He yelled, “Why!”
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Her eyes shut. He could hurt her. With the size and strength in him, it’d hurt a lot.
She’d never done anything so stupid. “I wasn’t prepared—for the way you touched me.
I didn’t know what to expect.” The small, placating words suddenly seemed too small, too frightened. She didn’t owe him that much. He could use her body but she refused to let her mind roll over submissively to avoid his anger.
Bringing her wrists up, struggling to dislodge his grip, she screamed, “So either fuck me and get it over with or get the hell away from me!”
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Chapter Four
Shane held Jess down while she spat curses and fought. He admired her strength but he’d enough of her anger. He’d need to be careful how he broached her strange behavior. He didn’t want more of her fury. Actually, he wanted to take it away.
Whatever he did, he’d make right. “Slow down you little demon!”
Those weren’t the right words.
She tried beating on him and did nothing but hurt herself in the process. He needed to hold her so tightly, her fair skin reddened under the restraint.
“Jess, I’m sorry for whatever I did.” He’d given the apology to take the heat from her. It did, but he didn’t like the wetness gathering in her eyes. “Settle down now.
That’s it, nice and slow.”
Her face turned toward the wall but she couldn’t hide.
“Better?” he asked.
She nodded as her arms fell slack.
Hesitantly, he stretched out beside her and cautiously pulled her against his chest.
She came but not willingly. She tolerated the embrace. His stomach sank, knowing what probably caused her to attack. He said what next came to mind. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“You didn’t.” She sounded tired. Of course she was worn out. She’d had one crazy day.
“I sure as hell did something wrong.” He didn’t hide the smile when she looked up.
Didn’t anyone ever play with her?
“It was my fault. Like I said, I didn’t know what to expect. I—overreacted.”
“You’re pierced. You didn’t know what I wanted to do?”
“No.” She sighed. “Why the hell would you touch me like that?”
“Like what, hon? Between your legs?”
“Any of it.” She grew tense in his arms. “The kissing, the touching—any of it!”
“You’re not a virgin.” He thought out loud, trying to figure out what she was trying to tell him.
“Obviously not.”
“But you didn’t understand how I touched you?”
“No, not like that. ”
His head started aching. He knew how to touch a gal. What the hell was wrong with her? “I wanted to taste you. You’ve never had a man go down on you before?”
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“No.”
“And you didn’t like the thought of it?”
“Why would you want to? And why did you waste all that time kissing me?”
“Cause you taste sweet and I like the way you wiggled against me. Your breath catches in your throat when you feel something you like. I hardly touched you and your nipples rose to me mouth.”
“I don’t understand why it happened.”
He knew she told the truth. She really didn’t understand, which made him stare.
No answers suddenly appeared in her eyes. “You’re not a virgin and you’re pierced, but you didn’t know why your nipples got hard from some kissing?”
“No. It didn’t hurt but they swelled.”
He ventured a guess. “Pain makes them hard?”
“Yes. When they’ve been pinched or sucked, it’s happened. But you did neither. It felt strange and my whole body ached. It was the damndest thing.”
The headache grew worse. He chose words carefully so there’d be no doubt. “Do you like rough play, Jess?”
“Pardon? Do you mean fighting?”
“Nay, I’m speaking about sex. Do you like to be touched rougher—you know, with more force.” It’d explain a few things if she did.
“No.”
He’d get to the bottom of her behavior and the conversation. He never minded placing effort into figuring something out he didn’t readily know. They seemed to speak around and around though. He’d try being more direct and start with the basics.
The trouble between them had nothing to do with a few mispronounced words. “When you’ve been with a man, he touched you, aye?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“For sex.”
“Explain it to me.”
Her eyebrow came up. “My breasts, my ass, before fucking me. Or before…”
Embarrassment colored her cheeks. “Or I’d use my mouth.”
“Nay, describe the way you were held and stroked and kissed. You know, before the focking.”
“I just did. They’d grab and squeeze and take and sometimes bite. Then it’d be done.”
Heat washed over his skin. The room didn’t suddenly grow too warm. Anger made him hot when he figured out what she tried to tell him. Before he assumed anything, he needed to be sure. “You got no pleasure from it?”
“No! I’m adorned!”
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She’d told him something loud and clear with those words. He didn’t know exactly what though. “To make yourself more sensitive.”
“No! Damn, Tiernan, how thick are you? You’ve been off Braugh, traveled beyond your home. You know what the adornment means.”
“I do. It’s placed to increase a gal’s pleasure.”
She blinked and gazed. He’d somehow managed to stun her to silence. She wetted her lips before she said, “To get rid of it.”
She’d been pierced to control desire? Nay, he didn’t understand—or maybe he did!
He spoke Gov language enough to gather meanings, especially when her words were small. “Why would you do it? Ruin yourself?”
“I didn’t. You have throwbacks on Braugh?”
“I don’t know your meaning. Throwback means to discard—not want, right? Bragg used the word and I didn’t like his reference to you. It’s an insult.”
“It’s what I am,” she said quietly.
“Then you’ll tell me what it is because I don’t have it right in me head.”
“Hair of no color, golden eyes…stricken. Not normal, not wanted, lowly, despised, vile, detested, ignorant, not worth—”
“Stop!”
The words would’ve kept coming from her by the way she rattled them off.
Obviously, she’d been told those things more than once.
“Undesirable,” she added, a bone-deep sadness settling over her expression.
He stroked her cheek. “You’re desired, Jess. Any man can see Bragg wants you for himself. I want you.”
“In one way.”
“In many a way.”
> “To serve and obey. A woman of comfort.”
His sweet Jess? Is that where her look of coldness came from? Hard used by enough men could do that to a gal, but she had fire in her too. “If you’re really such a gal, is that why you’re pierced? To make your lot more bearable?”
“They did it to remind me my purpose is to serve.”
“Me head is pounding trying to follow your words and meanings. I’m not tracking you. Please, start slow and explain.”
She licked her lips and closed her eyes. “There aren’t many of us born with the affliction. My home planet, Blue, came to fall under Governance patrol years ago, but we still battled with each other, civil wars around every corner. The Governance studied us and sent a special team to straighten out the mess we were in. Once the study had been completed, they sent Commander Gorman to deal with our domestic problems. He gathered all the throwbacks and had them destroyed. Without their 49
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presence, the planet became still and quiet. No tech, no production, no frantic and fast-paced society.”
“No passion,” he added, letting her know how he felt about how her home was made to settle down. “It died?”
“There was no more war. It became peaceful. After that time, when a woman bore a throwback, if it was born male, it was killed. If it was born female, Gorman decided to have it trained.”
The reference to babes as it, didn’t sit well in his gut. “Once they came of age, all gals were trained to be gals of comfort?”
“No. To be soldiers.”
“Jess?” He didn’t need to tell her to explain. He realized she’d stopped talking to think.
“More than thirty of us wound up in Gorman’s training program. Despite our parents trying to hide us, Governance found us. Whenever a throwback female child was detected, we were collected. Most of us were already adorned when Bragg inherited our unit from Gorman. When Bragg had sole ownership of us, he made sure the piercings kept us focused as we learned military protocol. Those who didn’t catch on died.”
“I’m following now. How did the piercings help train you?”
“I was eighteen when I was adorned. I had stirrings and the piercings made them worse.”
“How?”
“Vibrating, twitching. At first it felt good, heightening something already set in motion but if I went too far, felt too much…” She swallowed, squeezed her eyes tighter and swallowed again. “Pleasure isn’t for a throwback. I learned. After a while…it didn’t take long to become sick at the first sign of desire. We all eventually focused on proper things with nothing to distract us.”
She’d been pierced and tortured so she’d never feel desire!
It took a moment to get control of his emotions. When he knew he could voice the next question without his voice shaking, he asked, “What happened if you let go and took the pleasure?”
“Pain—intense. It wasn’t too long at all before I felt nothing, the way it should be.”
Aye, she remembered the pain. By the look on her face, she took the lessons to heart. And yet despite the training, she’d grown wet from his touch. There was something about him she liked and whether she wanted to admit it or not, she trusted him on some level.
“I can’t understand why Bragg made us…” She fell silent for a long moment, looking sad and hurt. “When our unit became cohesive and we grew in our abilities, Bragg began the other training.”
“Other?”
“That’s when we learned how to please a man.”
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Shane wiped his forehead, taking sweat from his brow. Listening to her story became a struggle.
“It doesn’t happen often, but when we’re given, we know what’s expected. Bragg uses us to get what he wants from the men we’re lent to.”
The focking bastard! Shane thought about how many piercings a dumbass commander could endure before he would bleed to death. He forced down the anger and gave Jess his attention. At the moment, she needed and deserved it. Bragg would be thought about and dealt with later, without Jess there to see what Shane would do.
“When I touched the piercings, did they hurt you?” He didn’t really want an answer. He didn’t know what he’d do to make it right if he truly caused her pain.
“No. The adornment hasn’t been active in years.”
Aye, but the memory of pain remained strong enough to make her shy away from taking the pleasure she deserved. “We’ll have it taken from you. Remove that which reminds you of the torture.” So you can be a normal gal and respond to me as you want.
“They’re not simple piercings. They go deep. They can’t be removed. Ever.”
And he thought Doxyn and Theazians to be bastards!
He cuddled her to give reassurance. She relaxed and accepted the embrace but didn’t lean against him. She didn’t snuggle closer because she’d no idea what he offered. She knew torture, sex and fighting. He ventured nay man ever protected her.
He sensed a wealth of things lay sleeping inside the gal. He wanted to waken them but first needed to know more of her history.
“Where are the others? The gals that trained with you?” He’d seek vengeance on Bragg for all of them. Every last one. “Your wee crew accounts for some. Are the others on Blue?”
“No more have been taken from Blue. Either the Governance has no use for new recruits, or Blue’s found a better way to hide those like me. My crew’s what’s left of those who’d trained with me.”
He knew by her look what fate took them. She’d told him with her eyes the others were dead.
Something came to mind and he thought she should know. “You said your ship came from Blue. To give a ship, they can’t think you’re a throwback.”
“Maybe not. I don’t know. I haven’t been on Blue for many years. Bragg wouldn’t let us take a Governance vessel to retrieve you. Blue offered the ship so we could earn our release.”
“Your people care.” He relaxed a little, knowing in his gut that a whole planet of beings worried about the special gal and her crew. They weren’t alone without a soul to care what happened to them.
“Either that, or they offered the ship to keep Bragg off the planet and out of their business.”
“They care for you, hon, they’re your fam.”
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The hopeful look on her face made his stomach turn over. A huge knot seemed to form in his intestines. She truly couldn’t trust that her kinfolk loved and missed her, Angela and Zoe and wanted them back. From the condition of the vessel, Blue must be in a bad way. It’s probably why they didn’t fight to protect his Jess and her crew. They clearly hadn’t the means.
“Do you know how special you are, Jess?”
“Sure.”
The one word said she didn’t believe him. Why would she after all she’d been through? Words wouldn’t take the bone-deep damage from her. She’d spent many years learning lessons on her worthlessness. He bet she’d be a splendid gal with a bit of support. Hell, she already was. He had the oddest feeling of attachment to her and it had naught to do with sex, torture or other shallow happenings. Lying with her and holding her felt more fitting than most things in his life.
He silently stamped down the uncommon feelings. He didn’t know Jess Storm, not really. She couldn’t be his other half, not in so short a time. He pitied her pain. In all his life and adventures on other planets, he’d never heard of beings treating the fairer sex so badly. Even gals of comfort deserved respect and honor for their chosen profession.
It’d be best for him to rationalize the deep emotions for what they were and not get carried away.
“You’re broughen,” he whispered, tracing her jaw, memorizing her delicate facial features.
A look came over her that said she didn’t take his meaning. He searched his brain for the Gov word so she’d understand. He suddenly remembered. “Broughen—beaut.
Most precious.”
“
Why?”
“Why, what?”
“Why do you say things like that? I know what I am.”
“You’ve not a clue, sweet.” His gaze swept over her. She’d been maimed, used hard and had every right to be hateful. She wasn’t that callous or beaten down. A thought occurred. “Your piercings don’t bring you pain anymore?”
“No.”
“You ever been with a man who made you feel good?”
“No.” Her gaze settled on his chest. “The way you touched me didn’t hurt. I felt odd. When you stopped, I…”
“Was glad?” He smiled, suspecting what she tried to say. God, he hoped he was wrong.
“At first, yes.”
Shat. He didn’t want to hear a confirmation.
“And then…”
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“Go on,” he coaxed.
Those eyes of hers could be most telling. The light reflecting in them made the golden color appear much lighter.
“I might be sick or something,” she said.
His eyebrows rose. He’d been caught off guard again.
She hurried to explain. “I had difficulty breathing and got all shaky when you touched my breasts and everything else. I wanted to be pressed against you hard, like when you kissed me.”
“You did?” he asked, trying to sound surprised because he finally knew for sure what she described. She sounded so serious and unknowing of what stirred her that he joked so maybe she’d see desiring him wasn’t some horrible, grim thing to avoid. “I felt it too. What do you suppose caused it?”
“The food? Do you think it was bad?”
“Nay.” He kept the smile from surfacing. Poor, wee, Jess. She’d need to lighten up and start accepting things for what they were. “You liked the touching I did.”
She didn’t deny it. She was smart and figuring it out. “I’ve never…”
“Let a man touch you like that?”
“No, none have. But what I wanted to say that’s more important is—I’ve never spoken to a man like this.”
Her wee hand on his cheek made a rush of emotion surge through him. He ached for her losses. “It honors me you shared your thoughts.” It touched a spot deep inside.
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