by H. E. Trent
“Right,” Headron said. “I’m five years older than the elder of my two siblings. Took that long for my mother to find a pair of men she liked, I suppose.”
Erin turned her head so he couldn’t see her cringe. No matter how much Court reminded her that the culture was different on Jekh, and no matter how logical she tried to be about circumstances, those little newsflashes always knocked her off-kilter.
“My uncle had some friends who could hide me for a while. I thought he was going to stay with me, but he had some other things to do. For weeks, I was with strangers. Through the worst of the removal process, when we were all being forced out of our homes into what became Zone Seven and having the tracking chips implanted, he was gone.”
“When’d he finally come back?”
“Not until after he’d gotten his sisters off the planet. He’s always been unusually prescient about things.”
“What do you mean, off the planet? Where’d they go?”
He shrugged and smoothed a hand down her arm. “I don’t know where. All I know is there was a ship supposedly being launched from the jungle, and that he got his sisters onto it before returning to Buinet. I haven’t heard anything about the ship.”
“Maybe when word gets around that things are settling down on Jekh they’ll come back.”
“If they settle down.”
“Such a pessimist,” came a bass voice from the doorway.
They both looked up at the sound of Esteben’s dry quip. He stood barefoot and bare-chested with his jaw clenched tightly.
Headron tensed beside her, so she resumed rubbing his leg before he could start bobbing it again.
Everything’s all right.
At least, she hoped so. She didn’t know Headron’s exact opinions about Esteben as of late, but given Esteben’s derision of Headron, knowing probably didn’t make a difference. Esteben could be vicious enough for both men.
“There’s always someone in the tub,” Esteben said. “Every time I’ve checked, the room has been occupied.”
“Come back in an hour,” Headron said. “She should be done by then.”
“So this is her bath, then? You should know not to intrude.”
“Much like you are right now?”
“I was merely checking the room.”
“Hey. It’s all right,” Erin said. “The tub’s big enough for everyone in the damned house, probably. Esteben, if you want to soak—soak. If you want to commune with the water in complete silence, though, I can’t help you there.”
“I mean only to soak.”
“Then have at it.”
“Erin—I…” Headron groaned and sank even lower on the bench. He draped his hands not quite discreetly over his crotch and glowered at Esteben.
Erin was glowering at Esteben, too, but probably for different reasons. He was provocative and inciting, almost certainly trying to garner attention with the way he stood at the side of the room with his back turned, slowly stepping out of his loose pants. And, because he wore nothing beneath them as seemed to be the custom for Jekhan males, he stood bare-assed, slowly, carefully folding the garment.
She stole a glance at Headron, who seemed redder than usual all of a sudden.
Her understanding of Jekhan morality was that their men had more hang-ups over wearing their hair loose than for casual nudity, but Esteben’s hair was loose by default due to the shorter length. He was, figuratively, letting it all hang out.
When Headron closed his eyes, she assumed—correctly—that Esteben had turned.
Esteben grinned brazenly and cupped his cock.
Perhaps he had simply been waiting for the tub to become unoccupied, but he was something of a professional opportunist. A beautifully built one, at that. One that had laid her on the hardest of surfaces out in the fields and fucked her so masterfully that she hadn’t even cared about the ridges digging into her back.
Yep. This is Purgatory.
She started bobbing her knee, too, because she was suddenly not only in a room with the man she wanted to fuck but couldn’t, but also the one she had been fucked by and shouldn’t have been.
Esteben stepped slowly into the tub at the other end, his gaze locked on her, and his smile wide.
“You can open your eyes, baker,” he said. “That is, unless the hint of flesh would cause you undue scandal.”
“The baker has a name, Esteben,” Erin said.
Headron patted her thigh. “Offensive though he may be, you don’t have to speak for me, Erin.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose and pressed her lips tightly together instead of debating him.
Esteben had turned out to be a pretty good fuck, but she really preferred that he didn’t talk around Headron. She actually preferred for the two of them not to speak at all. She had no way of knowing what sorts of tactless utterances would come out of Esteben’s mouth, and wondered if she should preempt any embarrassing revelations before he had the chance to spit them out.
“Would you like me to wash your hair?” Headron asked.
She dropped her hand from her face and tried to put on a smile for him that wasn’t too shaky. “You don’t have to. I usually just get the roots good and sudsy, and dunk my head to rinse. That’s a lot easier now with my hair at this length than when I had long hair.”
“Personally, I preferred the longer hair,” Esteben said.
“You certainly pulled enough of it while you were working out your madness.”
He shrugged and turned his hands over. “I misbehaved when I was ill. I’m certain I’ll be apologizing for that daily and for the rest of my life.”
“I haven’t heard today’s apology yet.”
He gave a half bow, made less credible by his crooked smile and the twinkle in his gaze. “Miss McGarry, will you forgive me?”
She rolled her eyes and dunked her head beneath the water. Rubbing her eyes as she emerged, she said, “Maybe someday. And you’re still not entitled to an opinion on what I do or don’t do with my hair. I thought Jekhan men didn’t care what their women did with their hair.”
“Are you my woman now?”
She’d walked right into that trap.
Erin wanted to knock a huge wave of water into his face to wash the smug look off, but she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of seeing her snap.
Perhaps she was doing a sufficient job of reining in her drive to retaliate, but obviously Headron had no such ability. His knee bobbed even faster beneath the water, and each of his exhalations sounded like a scoff.
“I think you should grow your hair back out,” Esteben said, still wearing that trouble-making grin.
“Fortunately, that isn’t your decision to make. You’re not the one who has to wash it or comb it.”
“That would be my job,” Headron said. He stretched over the tub’s edge and grabbed the shampoo packet that lay about a meter away.
Before Erin could object, Headron pooled some of the liquid into his cupped hand and gestured for her to move closer.
Normally, she would have begged off and told him that, really, she could wash her own hair, but something odd had come over him. His dark eyes had taken on a hard glint and his jaw twitched with tension.
Even with her short tenure on the planet, she’d worked out that the behavior of Jekhan males around their mates—or potential mates—could be somewhat unpredictable. They weren’t themselves. Esteben was just being Esteben. Headron was the one she needed to tread carefully around. He was behaving as though she were already his mate.
That was a problem. She didn’t want him to get attached.
“Sit on my lap,” he said. “That’d be easiest, especially with you being so small.”
“Um…”
“No arguing.”
She didn’t argue, but only because Esteben was watching so intently.
Eyeing Esteben, she pressed an arm over her breasts, moved slowly in front of Headron, and then let him pull her onto his lap.
Esteben sat ba
ck with his arms draped over the sides of the tub, his grin having devolved into a smirk, and definitely not of the anticipatory sort. It was a “You’re pushing your luck” sort of smirk, and she fully expected that if she didn’t do something to mediate, she’d have a mess on her hands soon, and not even the good kind of mess that came with an orgasm.
She dragged her tongue across her dry lips and cleared her throat as Headron worked his fingers through the dense curls at the top of her head.
“So soft,” he said in whisper.
The tickle of his lips against her cheek drew a gasp from her. His semi-erect cock teased between her legs, titillating her with mere proximity.
By shifting just a bit down his lap, she could have pulled him into her—she could’ve ridden him in the bath with Esteben angrily watching, and she would have liked that, too.
Maybe too much.
Swallowing hard, she tucked her toes behind his calves, backed up as far as she could go against his chest, and dragged her tongue across her lips again. “My hair is…uh…easier to care for at this length, but it lays down better when it’s longer.”
“Another reason for you to grow out your hair, then,” Esteben said.
“And will you be growing yours out again, or are you content to have yours at that shameful length?” Headron asked.
Erin closed her eyes and didn’t even bother trying to hide her cringe. She never would have thought Headron would be the one to speak the “fighting words.”
“Lucky you, that you got your tracking chip removed without having to dig it out of your own scalp,” Esteben said. “All tidy and sterile. How much of that fine dark pelt did the doctor shave? Two square centimeters? Three?”
“Esteben,” Erin said in a warning tone.
“The question is perfectly valid, don’t you think?”
“You think you had things so hard in Buinet?” Headron asked.
He’d stopped scrubbing, so Erin tried to sidle off his lap.
He let her go only long enough for her to dunk her head and massage out all the suds, and then he pulled her right back, more forcefully than she would have expected of him.
Esteben’s smirk had fallen away, and Erin’s nipples had gone hard as stones.
She hated what her body was doing. Hated what she liked. Hated herself.
“Let me go,” she said softly, nudging ineffectually at Headron’s strong, wet arm.
“You think you were the only one suffering?” Headron asked. “Because you had to stare at the same four walls every day? Because you were left to thrash about and claw yourself up like some animal the Terrans didn’t give a shit about? Poor fucking you.”
Oh God.
The nice guy Erin shared a bed with was a nice Jekhan guy. They were supposed to be mild-mannered to a fault. That was why they’d let Terrans take their planet. They weren’t supposed to have tempers.
She looked over her shoulder so she could see Headron’s face.
Frightening stillness. Not a bit of fear on it.
He was nice, but not scared. She wasn’t sure if that was a good thing.
“So is that where you want this conversation to go?” Esteben asked in a low, ominous tone. “You want to have a contest about who had a rougher time? You want to have a competition about who lost more? We could certainly do that. Where would you like to start, baker?”
“Stop.” Erin tried to stand, but the bracket of Headron’s arm was too tight. She groaned and turned as much as she could on his lap to see him. “Headron, I’m flattered that you want to, but you don’t need to protect me from Esteben.”
“You can’t know that.”
“He’s not going to hurt me.”
“You don’t believe he’s capable? I do. He’s hurt others. He hurt you when he was ill.”
“Yes, when he was ill, and we’ve all had to hurt people sometimes to get out of bad situations. My brothers have spent more nights in jails than either would care to recount, probably. Hell, I’ve even ended up charged for a few things that later got dismissed. Some folks just have to fight, and I guess Esteben fights to win.”
“And I’ll continue to do so,” Esteben said in that ominous tone.
Headron finally did let go of Erin. He set her on the bench beside him, and then stood, balling his hands into fists at his sides. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Esteben didn’t get up, but his seated position and relaxed posture didn’t make him look any less menacing compared to Headron in his aggressive stance.
“What do you think I mean?” Esteben asked.
“Why don’t you enlighten me?”
“Stop,” Erin repeated.
“We’re simply having a discussion,” Esteben said.
“Simply answering questions,” Headron said. “I’d like to know what he’s implying. I’d like to know what the fight we’re obviously about to have is about.”
“For fuck’s sake, enough with the posturing.” Erin slapped the surface of the water hard and growled. “I’m sure the two of you could keep at this all night, so how about if I just go ahead and kill the suspense for both of you? Would that make things better? Fuck it if it doesn’t.” She waded through the water and got in front of Headron. She crooked a thumb toward Esteben. “He wants me as a mate and is already aware of your interest.”
Headron’s nostrils flared as he stared over Erin’s head at the man across from him.
Esteben’s low chuckle sent a chill down Erin’s spine. “You see that fear in his eyes? He knows who’d be second. Apparently, this one doesn’t like that.”
Erin turned to him. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“There’s a structure here. An order of things.”
“The order is irrelevant if I don’t intend on letting you touch her,” Headron said.
Esteben sneered. “And see, there we have a problem, baker. I’ve already touched her. Was I first?” He laughed again.
“Oh. My. God.”
Not Purgatory. Hell.
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and vowed that if they weren’t already there, she’d drag that asshole right down with her when she went.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The situation in the bathing room wasn’t one that Headron had the instincts to negotiate. As a matter of course, Jekhan men didn’t fight over much beyond women, and even those arguments were quickly settled using intermediaries. They were slow to come to blows, especially if testosterone was low.
Evidently, it wasn’t.
That was the only explanation Headron could offer for why he was balling up his fists and glaring at Esteben, even as Erin moved ever closer to the other side of the tub.
She reared back and slapped the other man hard, and he didn’t flinch, didn’t move—almost as if he’d been expecting the strike and had braced himself.
“I don’t know why I ever expected anything but bullshit from you,” she spat, and heaved herself out of the water.
Headron’s instincts were to give chase—to ingratiate himself and to be the victor. He needed to follow so Esteben couldn’t, but he wasn’t about to leave the room before he said what he needed to. Headron leaving was probably exactly what Esteben wanted.
Erin hastily wrapped a towel around her body, grabbed her dirty clothes, and then stormed out of the room, but not without making a clear enough warning under her breath that they should give her space or else.
That includes me.
Headron stared at the empty doorway for a moment, cognizant of the other man’s attention so focused on him. He shook out his fists, and swallowed.
He took a deep breath and turned his head toward Esteben.
Esteben sat calmly on the bathing bench, arms propped on the edge of the floor behind him, his dark red gaze fixed on Headron.
“Go ahead,” Esteben said.
“Go ahead and what? Strike you? Drown you, perhaps?”
Esteben shrugged. “You could certainly try, but do you really want to start something yo
u can’t finish? Do you really want to test my endurance in a physical altercation? I may have been ill in recent years, but I haven’t forgotten how to fight. I’ve never stopped fighting.”
“And that’s what you want? You want to make a fool of me in front of Erin. You’re jealous.”
“Aren’t you? Obviously, she’s getting—”
“Was getting,” Headron interjected. He didn’t want to know the specifics of what had transpired between Erin and Esteben. For the most part, men were predisposed not to care as long as the woman didn’t get pregnant. Fidelity was a complicated issue on Jekh, and a practice expected more of males than females. Headron didn’t give fuck about expectations. He hadn’t wanted to share.
Esteben turned his hands over in concession. “Was. Is. No matter which. The point is that she came to me.”
“You told her to.”
“That’s generally how people initiate these sorts of things, so yes.”
“That’s not how Jekhans initiate these so-called sorts of things.”
Esteben gave an elegant shrug. “You’re right. I should have been entirely too subtle. I should have stayed in my cottage and stared at her from a distance, perhaps engaging some intermediary to carry a message for me. I should have waited, and waited, and waited for her to pay me an iota of attention, and then I should have slowly, carefully ingratiated myself with her out of fear that she’d snub me. I should have been the perfect Jekhan gentleman like you, hmm?” He raised his eyebrows. “Where’s that getting you?”
Furious, Headron took a reflexive step forward, only to stop when Esteben put up a hand. He just stopped as if he were some sort of robot and Esteben held his remote control.
Esteben canted his head and put his arm back where it’d been. He was perfectly at ease as if dealing with Headron was no major interruption to his day. Meanwhile, Headron roiled inside.
“If you’re so concerned about etiquette and rules, why do you share Erin’s bed? Are you only concerned with propriety when it suits you?”
“Same as you, apparently,” Headron said. “Seems to me that the old order of things suits you just fine.”