"You can let go, Maeve," he whispered.
Before she could snipe a reply, he looked away. He wrung out the cloth and returned it to her skin, rinsing away the soap. She closed her eyes on him, unwilling to give him any satisfaction—or, at least, unwilling to watch if she did, but wanting to enjoy the sensation of his touch.
The cloth scraped her nipple as he lifted it away and she opened her eyes, expecting that the bath was finished. Instead, she stared upon the top of his head, the thick waves in his hair, as he lowered his lips to her breast.
"C'mon Maeve," he whispered against her skin. "Let go."
He was asking for her to submit to him and just...hell no. Maeve didn't relinquish power, she garnered it. She kept a lump of it stuffed in her heart just for emergencies and guarded it with her life. Let go. What a stupid thing to say, to ever expect. She'd stopped letting go of her own power at four, when she'd run frightened to her parent's bedroom during a thunderstorm and they'd told her to grow up and get back to bed. She'd hunkered down under her covers, not sleeping a wink all night, but she was still there in the morning. She'd made it without her parents after all. Fuck letting go.
She pressed her hands to his shoulders as his mouth made contact with her skin, latching on with a delicious, moist heat. She wouldn't let go. Her only choice was to direct this. Welcome it and take charge of it. She gripped his hair.
His tongue slipped over the nipple, but he was the one to groan, the vibration moving through her chest. She pressed him closer, demanding more, and he complied. He suckled her, but his own hands came up and gripped hers. She closed her eyes, pulling his moist heat closer as she arched her neck and back to his mouth. She squeezed her legs together against the sudden heartbeat that throbbed between them. He tried to pull her hands from his hair.
She tightened her grip.
He squeezed her hands until she released them, although his tongue never left her skin.
She meant to stay rigid. She meant to resist the dominance she wanted, to prolong the game, but she couldn't bring herself to continue. He tripped her alarms. Her soul screamed that this wasn't just about sex, that it could lead to something way more dangerous. Her power was slipping away beneath his touch and into his eyes. Maeve struggled to get a grip.
There were complications with her kind of desire too. As much as Maeve was willing to submit to a man in bed, there was no way in hell she was going to submit outside of it. It had always created a snag in her past relationships. The alpha males that made her purr for them in bed, were furious when they could not make her into a submissive girlfriend or their fucking maid or a baby-squirting wife. And the men who craved her strong nature, were quickly ditched when they wanted her to dominate them between the sheets. Maeve knew from experience, it impossible to have her cake and not expect the cake to want to turn her into a damned trophy wife.
It'd be a rookie move to expect any better from Diem. He was obviously dominant in bed, but that he was the leader of some House or something, made it a sure bet that he would think he could be her leader too. Fuck that.
Maeve sighed. It wasn't the time to be thinking of what couldn't be. It was time to enjoy lying beneath his steady and seductive ministrations, pretending to be the helpless little bird he wanted. She needed to turn off her brain and just enjoy the sex.
She willed her muscles loose and concentrated on his mouth, his fingers instead. But then she felt the slow, tingling sensation of letting go coming over her and her body tensed again, like a bulldog guarding a bone.
"Stop fighting it," he said.
"Fuck me," she whispered.
"Words," he reminded her firmly.
His knee nuzzled between her legs, moving them apart. She resisted until his pressure increased. She closed her eyes and spread then, his groan of approval vibrating against her skin. She felt the length of him, hips pressed against her, wanting. His torso peeled up and away from her like a wolf, ready to mate beneath a moon.
But then his body pulled away from her. She couldn't cork the pleading moan before it slipped out of her mouth. She opened her eyes to see him kneeling between her legs, and she flushed with embarrassment as he inspected the healing wound on her inner thigh.
It had been a goddamn trick. She tried to pull her knee to her chest, so she could get some real power behind the kick she planned to give him. He trapped her leg.
"I just want to take a look," he said. His voice was ridiculously deep and silky as he ran his palm down the inside of her thigh. She felt her sex grow wet against her will. This time, when their gaze met, he wasn't grinning, but she still had the sense that he had won yet again. She was growing weary from the loses.
And then, the cherry on the whole thing. "I don't want to hurt you when we mate," he said.
"When we?" The fire returned to her tone like a torch. "It's not up to you. And just so you know, I'm over it. I'm not into you enough to have sex with you."
"Sex," he chuckled at the archaic word as he prodded the healing wound. "Oh, yes you will."
"No I won't," she fired back. She narrowed her eyes at him. "If you could only see what I'm thinking right now, you'd know better."
"Oh, I know, Maeve," he said. His tone was so solid, so unmovable, it startled her. "I know the way you arch your back when I kiss you and the way your body responds when I touch you. Like this," he said and he drew his finger down the center of her, right into the slippery puddle forming between her legs.
"You're a cocky son of a..."
His arms came down on either side of her ribs like bars of a cage. She felt his erection throb against her.
"I'm going to kiss you first," he said.
"Sure," she said, "you can do that, after I break your nose..."
"I'm going to kiss you, Maeve," he said again, his eyes on her lips. "And if you don't let me, I'm going to kiss you twice."
He bowed his head to her lips and she opened her mouth—enough to get a big, fat chunk of his lip between her teeth. She bit down.
"Drait, woman!" He pushed away and Maeve smiled sweetly up at him. His eyes glinted like hardening steel as he dove down between her legs. His mouth was on her core before she could push him away. Maeve shrieked, but he sealed his lips to her as she rained useless blows on his shoulders. His tongue moved like a wave into her sex, and his body pulsed with identical rhythm, tugging her forward and back over the floor, the damp towel sliding beneath her like she was on wheels.
She knew she should put up a fight. He kept winning and winning and that wasn't right; it was humiliating. But his mouth melted her objections. Maeve had no reservations about enjoying sex and she knew that sex with this man would be phenomenal. She didn't want to deny herself the pleasure, but the goddamn alarms were blaring in her head again. He lapped at her and the sensation of his hair brushing against her thigh, his wide hands holding her legs apart, pulled at the ribbon binding the very last bit of her restraint. Damn the warnings—maybe they were just loose wires within her. Short in her system. He hummed his appreciation against her skin and she felt the final vestige pull free, the ribbon of her resolve fluttering from her hand...and into his.
Maeve arched her back, pushing against his lips for another kiss. His mouth met her softly and she lost her place in the battle. Instead, on the floor of a dragon trainer's shack, in the middle of nowhere that she knew, Maeve surrendered herself completely to Diem with a moan.
***
With Diem's rejection, Wind ran off in hopes of finding a quiet spot, like an abandoned lair on the grounds, where she could think things over and decide what she was going to do next. Her mind full and her stomach growling, her nose led her into one of the Fly House's guard encampments near the opening to the Hold House.
No matter how foolish it was, the delicious smell of the ratfish cooking over the fire beckoned her. She stepped into the light of the clearing and one of the guards glanced up at her from his place at the fire. His first expression was startled, but the second brought Wind back to rea
lity by pounding a rod of fear through her spine. Desire. The rawness of it crossed the guard's face, and Wind, her need for food so strong, separated herself from the desire to keep her legs closed.
"Already?" the guard said as he set his bowl of food down beside him. Another guard caught sight of Wind and nearly dumped his own bowl as he stood.
"You're going to worry over when the women come for our visitation?" the clumsy one scoffed. "I will have the women come whenever they wish, and as much as they want to come!"
The laughter from the half dozen or so guards rose up rough and thick around the fire.
"You came alone, woman?" one asked. He studied Wind as she stood frozen in the firelight. "You have your work cut out for you! Tell us you brought a friend to ease the burden!"
Wind pushed back her shoulders. No one was going to save her from this if she couldn't save herself.
"I am Rha Diem's intended," she said with a regal lift of her chin. "Take care, how you speak to me."
"Yah," a guard splurted a laugh, along with a mouthful of his meal. "Sure. The Rha's Link walking around in the spindlings by herself? I know who you are, Wind of Breed House. I know exactly who you are."
Wind shifted from one foot to the other. She considered her options, spying the ratfish that was gutted on the spit. There was little meat left. Walking into the camp was not the best decision after all.
"Come here, girl," the first guard said, waving her to him.
"Is there food?" Wind asked.
"Sure," the guard said with a brutal smile, "I'll give you a little."
Wind took one step toward them and then turned and sprinted away, leaping over theshorbbrush in front of her, dodging past the Buntle trees and into the darkness. She sprinted until she couldn't hear their shouts behind her anymore and she didn't stop running until she saw the dim light of a cabin ahead. It took several moments before she realized where she was and when she did, she stopped in her tracks, sucking for air.
Phuck's cabin.
She had to catch her breath. She didn't want to startle him.
She needed to see him.
She needed him to pound her with his energy again, fill up all her empty spaces.
Wind walked up to the cabin and rapped her knuckles softly on the door. She heard Phuck groan from inside.
"Phuck?" she called. Only another soft moan came from within. Wind pushed the door and it creaked open. Stepping in, she saw the Plutian immediately, seated stiffly at his table. His elbow rested on the edge, his cheek leaning in his palm, the black hole in his face churning. Wind stepped inside, but he didn't move. "Phuck?" she said again.
"Yes, Wind," he groaned.
"What are you doing?"
"Sitting."
"I see that," she said. Something was very wrong. She inched closer. "Why aren't you moving?"
"Tiddy sent me energy," he whispered. Wind pulled out of her creeping. She was actually worried that he was hurt. Now she was worried that she might kill him herself.
"You mated with her? When you wouldn't mate again with me?"
"I did not want any mating from anyone. She did it to me," he said. Wind knotted her arms over her chest.
"And you're sitting here pouting about it."
"You don't understand," he whined, but then his churning face opened even more. He lifted his head from his hand. "You can help me."
She rolled her eyes, but Phuck suddenly lightened.
"I can release Tiddy's energy with you here!" he piped. "I can re-share the mating energy with you!"
At the mention, Wind forgot about being angry, forgot about food, forgot about Phuck mating with someone else. She forgot everything but the way it felt when his pulsing, sexual fireball had slammed into her. She reached up and twisted the tips of her hair with a purr. She was about to step forward—
"Don't you dare," a voice said from the doorway. Phuck and Wind both turned at once to see Tiddy filling the entrance. Hands on her hips, Tiddy's pink eyes narrowed on Wind. "I do not share my mating energy—even re-shared energy—with humans."
Phuck's eyes darted between the two females as if he were considering a choice. Wind, recognizing competition when she saw it and lowered her lashes in response. She hoisted the edge of her filthy skirt in Phuck's direction.
"Don't," Tiddy warned, as Phuck's gaze raced up Wind's exposed thigh. The tip of his tongue flicked at the edge of the black hole and disappeared. Wind purred. Phuck groaned.
Phuck's head fell back as he expelled the colossal blast. Tiddy rushed forward, but the distance between Phuck and Wind was too close.
Wind braced herself, opened her arms and welcomed Phuck's mating with a radiant smile.
***
Phuck's mating energy busted out of him, encapsulating Tiddy's like a thin, candy coating around a bitter pill. He wanted it all out of him, every last bit. Even if it meant he'd deplete every drop of liquid left in him, even if it meant he'd overdone it so completely that he'd never have the ability to mate again, he was willing to be finished with it altogether. He released his blazing love grenade, with Tiddy's submerged within it, straight at Wind.
It slammed into the human and for one brief moment, her face evidenced her bliss. The opening of her food receptacle twitched into a smile, her brain helmet fell back, she moaned, and then, she collapsed. Her head hit the floor like a gutted hampig.
"Good," Tiddy said with a tip of her chin. "I am fond of you for killing her."
"Proud, you mean proud," Phuck corrected her. He was annoyed that Tiddy's grasp of the human language was so poor. "She is not dead. She is unconscious."
"Well then I will kill it myself," Tiddy said.
Phuck moved between her and Wind. Tiddy paused.
"What is this you do?" she asked. "Kill it now. At the very least, it will save us all from the possibility of another one of them reproducing."
Phuck's face whirled as he thought of what had happened in the spindlings with Wind. It hadn't occurred to him before that his human skin bag might produce viable seed, but even if it did, what sort of coding would a young have? What a fascinating experiment.
But as he looked upon Wind, realizing she wasn't Karma, his interest in the experiment disappeared. He could not kill her, even though he could no longer identify, even remotely, what he had found so attractive about her previously. It seemed most rude to kill her now, considering he'd accidentally mated her nearly ten times in the woods.
"I do not want her dead," he said. "She may be adding to my House soon."
Tiddy gaped. "Your House?"
"She has interest in Rha Diem."
"If it has interest, then why is it here, accepting your mating?"
"We had..." he fumbled and then, "What difference? Why did you return?"
Her pink eyes were targeted him like scopes. "You bring more pleasure than mating to me," she said.
It drew him up short. How unexpected.
Tiddy.
How unpleasant.
Tiddy.
He'd never once thought of her as anything more than a mating bag.
"I would like us to condense," Tiddy continued. "I will forgive your rejection of me...someday."
Condense? How had it gotten to that level when they'd only mated? Phuck could not imagine joining into one body, as Plutians did, in the unbreakable bond of foreverness, with Tiddy. Besides, Phuck was quite aware that Tiddy would never forgive the rejection of her sexual firebomb, no matter how accidental. If he were to condense with her, she would surely loom over his portion of their shared body and mind, reminding him of it every day for the rest of his being. She would shrink him until he was reduced to a parasitic level. He shivered at the thought. Shrinking, within a condensed form, meant that eventually Tiddy would grow tired enough of him that she would eat him. Eat him, and be free to condense with another Plutian once he was gone.
But aside from the misery that Tiddy would certainly bring upon him if he agreed, Phuck didn't know how to tell her that he would rather be
covered in stinging, slimy melellurms than to take her up on her offer. The primary reason didn't even have to do with Phuck's fear of being eaten. The reason for his ultimate rejection of Tiddy was that she wasn't Karma. He didn't care that Tiddy thought humans should be kept in cages. By 1295, nothing could change the fact that he wanted to be with Karma, either as her Link on Earth or to condense with her in Plutian ceremony. The emotions multiplied within him like a horny hampig colony, and no matter how disgusting it was, he was resolute to the fact that he wanted Karma to be his.
Not Tiddy.
"I cannot," he said.
"Cannot?" Tiddy snapped. She gave Wind's crumpled body a hearty kick. "Is this thing what you want? Have you been infected with some sort of perversion?"
"Not this one," Phuck said, giving Wind his own tap, before stepping over her to prove his point. He came chest-to-chest with Tiddy, hoping that the glare in his eyes was fully axiomatic, despite the shadowing hole of his face.
"There is another?" Tiddy recoiled.
Phuck felt the smile that accompanied her name. "Karma."
"Naming it does not make it less animal, 9142151316125205! Is this your true reason for coming to Earth? Not to gain independence, but to mate with creatures?"
Phuck stumbled over Wind, flopping the human onto her front as he retreated from the awful sound of Tiddy's words. Or maybe it was the validation that Tiddy's interest in him went beyond his mating prowess. She wanted independence as well. His thought processor leapt like a ratfish over sickening waves of thoughts. If he gained independence of Pluto, if they were condensed, if she ate him after all his hard work came to fruition...it would be a good life for Tiddy. But if Tiddy had reported his shortages as a forewarning, to prove to him how capable she was of ruining him, he was at her mercy.
In an instant, he saw his dismal choices. Either condense and risk Tiddy eventually ingesting him, or let her report his perversion with the humans and his illegal trading, which would certainly end with 38596 severing Phuck's head from his shoulders once and for all.
The Fly House (The UtopYA Collection) Page 28