JANE'S WARLORD

by user

  She could feel a climax blooming just out of reach when he suddenly pulled away.

  “Baran!” she wailed in protest.

  “Ready to be fucked, Jane?”

  The rough question in that deep, velvet voice was almost enough to make her come all by itself. “God, yes.”

  His zipper rasped. She waited, suspended, for that first ruthless thrust.

  It didn’t come.

  “You sure?”

  “Do you want to die?” she snarled in frustration.

  He laughed. “Just checking.” The round, smooth head of his hot cock brushed the fine hair over her desperate sex.

  Jane whimpered in need. She’d never been so turned on in her life.

  “You know what happens to pretty little civilians who let themselves get chased into the woods by hungry Warlords?”

  “I’ve got... AH! ... a pretty good idea.” She shuddered at the incredible sensation of that slick head beginning to work its way past her lips and into her tight opening.

  “Just so you’re ready for it.”

  He worked in another inch. Jane gasped. “I’m ... definitely ready.”

  “Good.” And he rammed to his full length, all the way to the balls.

  She screamed at the sensation of being filled so utterly. It was too much, too intense. She squirmed instinctively, but his strong hands held her still as he began to pump.

  And she lost all interest in escape.

  He rode her hard, his big shaft spearing her in long, delicious thrusts. Each jolting impact teased her nipples across the rasping leaves as he held her bent, arms bound helplessly behind her.

  She shouldn’t be so damned turned on. The arrogant bastard had chased her down and tied her up. It was kinky and uncivilized and not at all the kind of treatment a modern woman should tolerate.

  And she loved it. Loved every hot, wicked thrust of that powerful cock, loved the feel of his hands gripping her hips, hauling her back into his ruthless banging.

  The orgasm took her by surprise, kicked her screaming into pleasure. As she cried out, it kept right on pulsing with each slap of his body against her ass.

  Baran sucked in a breath as she convulsed around him, her sheathe milking him in sweet pulses. She felt so good, the skin of her behind like silk against his groin. When he swallowed, he could taste her on his tongue, salty and hot.

  Each inhalation carried the scent of her musk. He shuttered his eyes and drew it deep as he stroked in and out of her, savoring the essence of sex and pleasure and Jane.

  Her pale, narrow torso twisted as she writhed in the leaves under him, her chest left bare when he’d pushed her shirt up to her shoulders. Her delicate wrists were bound in restraint cable at the small of her back. Dark curls cascaded around her head in a river of sable silk. She moaned his name over and over as he fucked her, the breathy gasps arousing.

  His own orgasm rose as her tight inner muscles rippled along his shaft. Spurred, Baran ground against her, reaching as deep as he could, trying to pound his way that last glittering increment into the climax hanging just out of reach.

  Then he was there, bursting into light.

  Ramming himself to full length, he held himself deep in her creaming grip as the heat poured into him and out of him in a pulsing erotic circuit.

  When the storm passed, Baran collapsed over her, bracing his bandaged palms on the leafy ground. Sweating and gasping, he tried to remember the last time he’d fucked anybody this damn good.

  Long moments passed before Jane felt her IQ rise enough to manage a whimper. Slowly she lifted her head and shook the mane of her hair aside until she could see her Warlord lover.

  Baran knelt braced over her on his hands and knees. She was pleased to see his muscular arms were trembling. At least she wasn’t the only one who’d gone completely out of her mind.

  “We’ve got to quit doing this,” she groaned.

  “Why?” Leaves rustled as he sat back on his heels and pulled out of her tenderly. She groaned at the lost connection. He started unwrapping the cable from around her wrists.

  “Because anything that feels that good has to be bad for you. It’s a rule.” Released, her arms flopped limply to the ground. Whimpering at the delicious soreness between her thighs, Jane rolled over onto her side. The breeze on her bare butt reminded her that her jeans were still pulled down, but she lacked the strength to pull them up again.

  “I don’t think there’s an actual rule,” Baran told her, zipping his pants.

  “You must not have been raised Southern Baptist. There is. Believe me.” She considered the mechanics of dressing herself. And stiffened as a thought occurred. She was on the Pill, but... “STDs.” She stared wildly at him. “Oh, God, please tell me you don’t have some little Martian whatzits that have now migrated to my—“

  “What are you talking about?” He eyed her as she sat up convulsively.

  “STDs,” she told him grimly.

  “What’s an ...” His eyes widened, then narrowed in offense. “I do not have a sexually transmitted disease!”

  “That you know of.” She scrambled around until she managed to jerk her jeans up and her shirt down. “I can’t believe we had sex three times already, and it never once occurred to me ... How do you make my common sense take a lunch break?”

  Baran folded his brawny arms and glowered. “Evidently, it’s a common occurrence.” “Hey!”

  “To begin with, venereal diseases are highly uncommon in my time, and if I did get one, my neuronet comp would discover it and take appropriate action. Just as it has since I arrived and started encountering all the other microbes this medically backward time seems to breed. In other words,” he concluded coolly, “I’m a lot more likely to get something from you than the other way around.”

  “I,” she snarled, “do not sleep around. Which, considering the stories you’ve been telling me—“

  “Perhaps it would be wise to drop this particular line of conversation.”

  “Fine!” Turning on a booted foot, she stomped through the trees. Three hundred years, Jane thought, simmering, and men still haven’t evolved beyond the need to kill a mood.

  When they finally made it back to the SUV, they found Freika sitting in the back, wearing a white, toothy grin.

  “I caught two squirrels and told a stacked redheaded jogger I was the Big Bad Wolf. Scared the hell out of her,” he said to Baran as they slid into their respective seats. “What did you get?”

  “That,” Jane said firmly, picking a leaf out of her hair, “is none of your business.”

  Looking across at Baran, she caught him grinning smugly over his shoulder at his partner. He didn’t say a word.

  He evidently didn’t need to. “That’s what I thought,” Freika said, jaws gaping in a silent lupine laugh.

  “Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to kiss and tell?” Jane growled, and started the SUV.

  “Why is he being so stubborn?” she demanded half an hour later, staring at the entrance to the Sleep Inn Motel. Baran had gone in to question the manager twenty minutes before, leaving her under Frieka’s protection in the SUV.

  “Because he’s a Warlord,” the wolf told her with a huge, toothy yawn. “That’s the way he’s programmed.”

  “Well, programming or no programming, Danny Jackson isn’t gonna tell him a damn thing,” Jane growled, sitting back in her seat. “He can’t. He doesn’t know Baran from Adam, doesn’t know what he wants or why. For all he knows, Baran’s planning to cap the guy.” Which, come to think of it, he was. “If Danny gives him information about a guest, the hotel could get sued.”

  “Huh,” Freika snorted. “I think it’s safe to say Druas won’t be suing anybody.”

  “Danny doesn’t know that!” Her eyes narrowed. “But I’ll bet he’d talk to me. I went to school with him. Hell, I did a story on his mamma’s collection of vegetables shaped like Elvis.” The wolf poked his head between the seats and stared at her. She shrugged. “Human interest feature.
You’d have to be Southern to understand. Point is, I’ll bet I could get him to give me the information, whether he’s supposed to or not. But Baran wouldn’t even let me try.”

  “You’re a civilian,” Freika told her, and angled his head toward her. “My implant is itching. Would you mind?”

  She reached over and dug her nails behind his ear to give it a thorough scratch. “He doesn’t trust me.” The idea stung.

  ‘Trust is not one of Baran’s best skills,” the wolf agreed. “Over a little. Besides, where we come from, most people take one look at his tattoo and his command beads and tell him whatever the hell he wants to know.”

  Intrigued, she shifted her target and scratched some more. “Why?”

  “Ohhh, yeah. Right there ...” The wolf produced an astonishingly human moan before continuing with the topic. “Because they either want to be helpful or don’t want to piss him off. Either way, he’s not used to refusals. That’s enough, thanks.”

  She stopped scratching and began to stroke his head absently, enjoying the texture of the thick, coarse fur. “So the tat and the beads mean something?”

  “Right. The color stands for the House of Arvid, the Femmat clan that birthed, raised, and educated him before giving him into military service. The section of the design above his eye is the personal signature of his genetic creator, while the part over the cheekbone signifies he’s a Viking Class Warlord. The empty circle at the bottom means he’s an unbonded male; when he marries, the circle will be filled in.”

  Jane stopped stroking to reach into her handbag and pull out her notebook.

  “If you start taking notes, I’ll bite you.”

  She looked up into the wolf’s hard blue-white gaze. “Oh, come on! I’m just trying to make sense of this.”

  “You want to cause a paradox? TE told us not to tell you a damn thing, and if we did, not to let you write it down. You don’t know who will get his hands on those notes.”

  “Oh, all right!” Disgusted, she stuffed the notebook back into her bag. “So what’s a Viking Class Warlord?”

  “Warlord is a really rough translation of the actual term,” the wolf explained, hopping up front to sit comfortably in the passenger seat. “It means a genetically engineered warrior. There are different classifications based mostly on weight and specialized skills. Comanche Class Warlords are scouts, built for endurance and speed, while Samurai are mostly bodyguards, specializing in hand-to-hand. Crusaders are good with weapons and make up the bulk of the infantry ...”

  “All of those are historical warriors renowned for their skill,” Jane murmured to herself. “And Vikings ...”

  “Break things and kill people.”

  She eyed him. “You’re making that up.”

  “No, seriously. They’re the heavyweights of the military, the shock troops and raiders. The bitch Femmat civilian who accused him of being a human tank was pretty close to the mark.”

  “Hmmm.” Jane digested that idea. “What about the beads?”

  The wolf lifted a hind leg and scratched briskly at his left ear. “Rank and combat decorations. One of ‘em also designates his status as a military assassin.”

  Jane gapped. “He’s an assassin!”

  Freika stopped scratching as though registering her instinctive revulsion. “It’s not like in your time—grassy knolls and sniper scopes. Baran and I slip into guarded military camps and take out enemy commanders during wartime.”

  She frowned. “That sounds dangerous.”

  The wolf angled his head in his version of a shrug. “It’s the stuff of suicide missions, sweetheart. We’re good at it, mostly because Baran doesn’t give a damn whether he lives or dies. And hasn’t for a very long time.”

  “Not since the Xerans got his team,” she guessed.

  “Possibly. I only joined him when he volunteered for the assassination unit six years ago.” He rested his head on her knee and looked up at her, something sad in his eyes. “My orders were to keep him from committing suicide by enemy, but he hasn’t really attempted that, despite some close calls. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that will change when he finally goes after General Jutka.”

  “Who’s General Jutka?”

  The wolf was silent so long, she had to prompt him. “Freika? Who’s Jutka?”

  “I think you’d better ask Baran that. But I will tell you he’s the man we’re supposed to go after when we return to our own time.” Before she could interrogate him further, Freika said, “Whoops, there comes Baran. And he’s not happy.”

  Jane looked up to see him striding across the parking lot toward them, his braid swinging angrily against his cheek. She’d stopped off and picked him up a pair of sunglasses before they’d gone to the motel, but she was willing to bet that behind their protection, his eyes were glowing with rage.

  He walked over to her car door and pulled it open. “Okay,” he growled, his tone savage. “You try.”

  Simmering, Baran watched Jane charm the doughy desk clerk who had coldly refused to tell him a damn thing a few minutes before. He’d done everything he could think of to get the information he wanted, short of hauling the little bastard over the counter and planting his fist in that smug round face. He’d considered that, too, but his computer had warned him there was a ninety-eight percent chance the clerk would call local law enforcement. And he couldn’t afford to go to jail, not with Druas after Jane.

  Who, at that very moment, was leaning her elbows on the counter and hanging on to the doughy little bastard’s every word.

  The man temporized. She wheedled. He wavered.

  Finally the clerk sat down at the primitive computer behind the counter. “There’s only one guy that’s checked in within the last three days without family members in tow,” the man said, fingers tapping on the keys. ‘Tony Anderson. Atlanta address. He told me he sells farm equipment. I think he’s talking to the guy with Sanders Tractor and Farm Supply....”

  “Oh, yeah. Jimmy Sanders. I interviewed him when his guard unit got called up for Operation Iraqi Freedom.”

  Was there anybody she hadn’t interviewed?

  “What’s his room number, Danny?”

  “Now, Jane, you know I can’t tell you that.” At her pleading expression, he hesitated. “Uh, would you like a cup of coffee? I just put on a fresh pot.”

  She looked at him a second before a dazzling smile spread across her face. “Sure, Danny. That’d be great.”

  The clerk got up and ducked through a doorway behind the counter. Jane stood on tiptoes and craned her neck to check out the computer screen. “Our boy’s in Room 104,” she told Baran and made for the door. “Come on, let’s check it out.”

  He caught her wrist as they stepped outside. “No, I’ll check it out, you wait with Freika. If it is Druas, I don’t want you in the line of fire.”

  Jane frowned at him, her rich brown eyes concerned. “I don’t like that idea, Baran. “What if you need backup?”

  “I won’t.” He eyed her a moment from behind the awkward sunglasses she’d given him. “Why was he willing to give that information to you when he wouldn’t tell me anything even when I all but threatened him?”

  Jane shrugged. “Tayanita is a small community, Baran. Everybody knows everybody? But nobody knows you, so nobody’s going to talk to you. You’ll be seriously hampered if you try to investigate this thing by yourself. Like it or not, you need me.”

  Baran frowned heavily, watching as she got back into the truck. He was beginning to see that.

  And he didn’t like it. Not one bit.

  But when Baran stalked back to the SUV five minutes later, it was to say that Tony Anderson was not Druas. He hadn’t even had to talk to him—just scan him through the door. The man was definitely not Xeran.

  Their luck was no better at the other two motels, though Baran did allow Jane to do the talking. She was able to get the information they needed at the Avon, but even she struck out with the clerk at the Journey’s Inn. Baran was forced to circle the
entire motel, scanning each room for signs of the Xeran or twenty-third-century equipment. He came back simmering with frustration.

  “So where the hell is Druas?” Jane said as Baran got in the SUV and slammed the door. She could make out the glow in his eyes even through the sunglasses.

  “Probably killing somebody,” he snarled.

  On the dashboard the scanner crackled and popped.

  They ended up stopping at a Burger King drive-through for a late lunch. At Jane’s suggestion, all three of them got out of the SUV to eat at one of the restaurant’s cement tables in the shade of a huge, colorful umbrella.

  The scanner at her elbow, Jane munched a french fry and watched Baran sniff his burger dubiously while Freika worked his way through a pile of Whoppers on the grass at their feet. “Who’s Jutka?”

  Baran put down his food and looked down at the wolf, who gazed up at him guiltily. Then he shrugged and went back to eating. “A Xeran general.”

  “Whom you’re supposed to kill.”

  “It would simplify the war considerably.”

  “If you don’t get killed trying.”

  He munched and considered the question. “There’s always that.”

  Jane dragged another fry through a blob of ketchup and frowned. “Freika’s worried you won’t be as careful as you should be. Why? What’s so special about this guy—I mean, considering you’ve evidently been assassinating people a while now.”

  He looked up at her and chewed, his face expressionless. She was beginning to regret buying him those sunglasses. At times he looked entirely too much like the Terminator in them. “Freika talks too much.”

  “Well, yeah, but sometimes he does have a point.”

  “Thank you,” said a voice from under the table.

  But before Baran could answer the question—assuming he intended to—a short horn toot called their attention. Jane looked up to see a familiar champagne Crown Vic whip into a parking space not far from their table. Tom Reynolds got out.

  Normally Jane would be delighted to see the primary in a murder investigation, particularly when she hadn’t interviewed him yet. This time, though, there was something in Reynolds’s calculating expression that made her uneasy.