Apparently, it had the same effect upon him. He’d no more than set her away from him than he jerked her back so that she was plastered full length against him. His scent, the heat of his body, the feel of his flesh sent a firestorm through her. Her arms were pinioned by his grip, preventing her from running her hands over him. Instead, she rubbed her cheek along his hard chest, nuzzling him. Uttering a sound much like a growl, he snatched her off her feet.
The confines of the ship made it impossible for him to carry her in his arms. The moment he realized it, he shifted her, tossing her over his shoulder. She landed with a grunt as the air was pushed from her lungs, but ignored the discomfort in her pursuit of gathering him into her senses by running her palms along the hard muscles of his back. The gratification was only momentary. She’d barely begun her exploration when her world tilted once more as he dropped her onto the bed.
Her body felt as if it was on fire with fever by that time. The coolness of the sheets as she touched down was almost painful, far more uncomfortable than the landing itself on the soft, yielding surface. Her skin instantly erupted into stinging goose bumps. The heat of his body as he settled on her mellowed the sensation, then altered it into acute pleasure. She wrestled with his weight to open her body to him, eager to join at once. He settled between her thighs when she spread them for him, but seemed in no great hurry to bury his cock in her. Impatience threaded her desire. She moved against him, rubbing her clit along the hard ridge of his erection.
Ignoring the demand for immediate gratification, he lifted slightly away from her, pressing her down into the mattress with his hands when she surged upward. Before she could protest with more than a soft sound of distress, he dipped his head and covered her mouth with his own. Elise responded hungrily, making love to his mouth with her tongue and coaxing him to do the same. When he did, exploring the sensitive inner surfaces of her mouth with the faint roughness of his tongue, flooding her with his essence, her body erupted into a tiny quake of release. Closing her mouth around his tongue, she sucked it greedily as the waves of delightful sensation jolted through her.
He groaned in reaction, his great body shaking with the effort to retain his control. Finally, he tore his mouth free of hers, gasping for air as he shifted lower, exploring her throat and breasts with his mouth and tongue. Elise moaned, feeling her body respond instantly to the lure of more--more pleasure, more sensation--exquisite tension.
By the time he shifted and buried the head of his cock in her opening, Elise had begun to demand his possession-- in Meeri, in English-- in Torrine when he seemed to ignore the other commands. She bit down on his shoulder to contain a scream of delight when he began to plow his way past resisting flesh, plunging and retreating in short sorties to gain possession of agonizing inches of wonderfully receptive nerves and flesh. She came again as he finally filled her completely, basking in the electric sizzle of release through tightly wound muscles. It seemed to go on forever as he began to stroke his cock in and out of her passage, quakes that reached a zenith and stayed there for an almost agonizing length of time before the wave broke crest and she began to descend. His rhythm caught her once more before she hit bottom, lifting her again.
Digging her heels into the soft mattress, she countered each thrust, urging him to find a rhythm that would take her to the peak once more. He made a sound that was part desire, part frustration as he tried to hold his own pleasure to him a little longer. She stroked him almost apologetically, knowing he would have his pleasure only once, but too caught up in her own body’s demand for release to refrain from responding to her enjoyment of being possessed by him, his heady scent, the delight of touching his big, supple body.
Her caresses pushed him beyond his control. She felt a tremor flow through him, felt his cock jerk in the first spasms of his culmination. The realization that she’d brought him to release sent her over the edge for the third time. It was harder, more intense than the first two, nearly tearing consciousness from her grasp. In a blissful haze of gratitude, she stroked him lazily when he collapsed on top of her at last, enjoying his weight upon her. He responded by caressing her in a way that spoke of a lover’s appreciation, nuzzling her neck, tracing a necklace of light kisses along her collarbone and throat. Moments passed before she realized that the words he was murmuring were love words.
Chapter Thirteen
Elise wasn’t aware of giving her sudden understanding away, but evidently she did. Ja-rael ceased to speak, leaving her clutching at the few words she’d managed to decipher and struggling to string them together. She gave up the effort when he shifted, moving away from her to lie beside her on the bed, more interested in prolonging the moments of intimacy and harmony between them than interpreting what she knew must be the meaningless little nothings of a lover.
As he settled beside her, she rolled onto her side and slipped an arm around him, snuggling close. He stiffened, but after a moment relaxed fractionally, stroking her hair as if he couldn’t resist touching it. Finally, he sighed gustily. “We should not do this. We are playing a dangerous game with the life of an innocent.”
It took Elise several moments to figure out he was referring to the possibility of impregnating her. She chuckled. “We’re not. I have birth control.”
He pulled away and stared down at her. “You have what?”
Elise studied him uncomfortably. She sensed that it was more than puzzlement that caused the new tension in him. “I can keep from getting pregnant.”
There was no doubt in her mind then that he wasn’t particularly pleased with that information. Disbelief, revulsion and, she suspected, a touch of contempt chased across his features. “Your people can do this?”
Shivering at the sudden chill in his voice, she pulled away and sat up, looking around for the robe she’d discarded. “Yours can’t?” she countered, making no effort to keep the trace of cool superiority out of her voice.
“Why?” he asked instead of answering her question.
“Why what?”
He slid off the bed and snatched his loincloth from the floor, donning it with angry, jerky movements. “Why would you want to be able to control it?”
“Overpopulation? Indiscriminate breeding?” she said tartly. “Then, too, it evens the playing field so that women can enjoy themselves as much as men without the unpleasant consequences.”
“Unpleasant consequences? Off spring, you mean?”
Elise glared at him. “Now why, I wonder, did I think this would be something you would understand only because you’re a male of another species? Primitive man was the same way! Thinking pleasure in intercourse was something they alone should experience--which, by the way is not only completely unfair, but downright stupid! Why would a woman want to if she isn’t getting anything out of it?”
His lips tightened. “For the joy of offspring?”
Elise gaped at him for several moments in stunned disbelief and outrage. “Give me a break! The joy of how damned many? The women of my species can bear young for twenty or thirty years. In ancient times, before we learned to control pregnancies, women often had ten or fifteen, and sometimes, with multiple births, twenty or thirty or even more. Just how much damned joy do you think a woman can take?”
He stared at her blankly, his expression patently disbelieving. “This is not possible.”
“This is possible--for us, anyway! They teach us this in sex classes when we’re young so that we’ll understand the importance of birth control, because it was the indiscriminate breeding of earlier generations that got us into so much trouble to begin with. When one man and one woman produced so many, do you have any idea of the pyramid that would create in only two or three more generations---all genetically connected and subject to passing on undesirable or downright deadly genetic traits?”
He frowned. “I saw nothing to indicate your people are not strong and healthy.”
“They are now because we finally reached a point in our technology to not only control births, bu
t to eliminate genetic diseases and susceptibilities to diseases. A lot of people suffered and died that didn’t have to before that. And the truly awful thing is, we’ve almost come full cycle and are right back where we started--except that now we know what can happen if we aren’t careful. We just can’t do a damn thing about it because we’ve lost so much of our technology.”
He still looked skeptical, but at that he swallowed a little sickly and departed.
Elise stared at the door as it closed behind him, feeling her anger slowly fade and a sense of defeat take its place. She’d routed him. She supposed she’d won the argument in a sense, but it wasn’t the victory she’d wanted. How had things gone so wrong, she wondered with sudden irritation? She’d started out trying to convince him there was no reason why they couldn’t enjoy themselves and ended up convincing him that … What?
She had the uncomfortable conviction that both she and the race she hailed from had come off as being less than desirable morally and ethically. She resented the feeling, knowing it was more a matter of having expressed herself badly. Or perhaps it was only the reflection of his assessment against his own customs and beliefs that made her feel somehow inferior.
That thought irritated her. His stupid customs weren’t her problem. It wasn’t her fault that she was human and not like his people. Obviously, birth control wasn’t something the Meeri worried about, or perhaps not something they had to worry about, though she was damned if she could figure out the why or how of that. Maybe the females just weren’t capable of bearing young for very long? Or maybe they weren’t very fertile?
It could be anything, up to and including a population so low, and so torn by disease and poor living conditions that life expectancy was low anyway.
It wasn’t a comforting thought, but it at least made her feel better about the fact that she didn’t have to worry about becoming pregnant--even if Ja-rael seemed to find that possibility distasteful.
He sulked. It irritated the hell out of Elise to find herself right back in the position of the ‘invisible’, but she felt like sulking herself so she pretended she didn’t notice that he was studiously ignoring her again. Fortunately, it wasn’t a situation she had to endure long. Three days later the green-blue globe she’d seen steadily growing closer filled the forward viewing port and she felt the pull of the planet’s gravitational field.
Ja-rael sent her a speculative glance. “You should find a suitable place to secure yourself. We will be landing shortly.”
Elise gaped at him with a mixture of outrage and horror. There was only one seat in the damned vessel and his ass was planted in it. Not that she had any desire to take his place! She couldn’t land the thing!
Whirling, she made for the rear cabin. After glancing a little wildly around the nearly bare cabin, she finally grabbed the mattress and dragged it across to a table that was secured to the deck. Shoving the mattress under it, she used the linens to fashion a landing harness around her and the legs of the table, a job made more difficult by the fact that the ship had begun a tooth rattling shimmy and jolt before she’d even positioned the mattress. The jolting and bucking became worse. It reached a crescendo that had her fearing the entire ship would disintegrate around her and made her grateful for the padding the mattress offered.
A series of freefalls followed that almost made her lose the meal she’d had earlier. Her ears popped, adjusted to the pressure and popped again. Elise gritted her teeth to keep from biting her tongue, closing her eyes tightly as the battering became progressively worse. Terror clawed its way through her belly. She didn’t know when she’d begun to mutter a litany of pleas like a mad woman, but when the vessel abruptly slammed into something and shuttered to a stop she bit a gash in her tongue. The taste of blood and the pain finally jolted her out of her terror sufficiently for her to realize that the vessel had stopped moving.
“We crashed!” she said on sudden realization, grappling frantically with the cloth she’d used to tie herself in and expecting an explosion momentarily. Finally, she managed to free herself and scrambled crab-like across the floor toward the door. Gaining her feet, she jerked the door open and charged down the narrow companionway. “Ja-rael! Run! It’s going to blow!” she screamed as she reached the gangway.
Ja-rael, still seated in the cockpit, swiveled around to look at her in frowning curiosity. “We have landed.”
Elise felt her jaw go slack. “Landed? That was a fucking landing? You call that a landing?”
He tilted his head. “We are on Meeri.”
“We didn’t crash?” Elise demanded in dawning fury.
Throwing off his harness, Ja-rael rose from the seat. “We landed,” he repeated. “There is no danger.”
“You asshole! I could have landed the thing as well as you did! Better! Why didn’t you tell me you couldn’t fly the damned thing?”
His eyes narrowed. “I am good. I have made many trips to Tor, and many back. The craft is still useable. If you like, I will show you.”
Elise held out her hand as he strode toward her. “Not no, but hell no! I will never get on this damned thing again!”
He stopped before her, planting his hands on his hips. His lips tightened. “That will make taking you back to Tor difficult.”
“I’ll find somebody who knows how to fly,” she said furiously.
“You will not.”
“Yes, I will!”
He put his face down until it was even with hers. “Only pirates and thieves make the trip. You will find yourself bartered to the Torrines as a slave.”
The comment effectively deprived Elise of air for several moments. She blinked at him several times while she assimilated that information. “You’re a pirate?”
Chapter Fourteen
Ja-rael reddened. He straightened abruptly. “I am a trader.”
“In contraband,” Elise said tightly.
“…And a healer.”
“Who pirates on the side. And you have the unmitigated gall to take the high ground on morality with me over sex?”
His eyes narrowed. “You do not understand--anything--my customs, my people--or me. You are in no position to make judgments.”
“And you are?” she snapped.
He studied her for a few moments in tightlipped silence and finally sighed. “No. I am as guilty as you are.”
It was probably as close to an apology as she was going to get, and not an especially grand gesture, but at least it said something for his reasoning. Elise struggled to tamp her fear and anger over the rough landing. “What now?”
He frowned, looking uncomfortable. “I must leave you here for a little while.”
Elise’s anger slipped upward a notch. “Why?”
“Because I can not take you into public like that,” he said irritably, gesturing toward the robe she was wearing.
Elise lost her grip on her temper, mostly because it was very lowering to think he was ashamed to be seen in public with her. “Aside from the fact that I’ve got nothing else to wear, just what the hell is wrong with my appearance? What do you mean to do? Sneak me in under cover of darkness and hide me for a frigging year?”
He sighed. “I have tried to explain our customs. I know you don’t fully grasp them yet, but you would not like the way you would be treated if you were seen dressed as you are.”
“Fine!” Elise snarled. Whirling, she flounced toward the cabin. She wasn’t certain what he meant by the comment, and she didn’t feel any less insulted, but she was willing to admit, to herself at least, that the last thing she wanted was to attract unpleasant attention.
“I will return as quickly as I can. Do not leave the ship for any reason until I return,” Ja-rael said as she slammed the door.
* * * *
Ja-rael felt the tension leave him as Elise closed the door. He’d feared that she would argue and that he wouldn’t be able to make her understand that it was for her safety and protection, not his pride, that he wanted her to stay until he could provide prop
er attire for her.
Reluctantly, he realized his pride figured into it, too. That did not mean his motives were impure, however, only that he felt guilty that he even considered it as important as her comfort.
The thought irritated him, but he’d thought of very little else since they’d left Tor--when he could think beyond his hunger for her. She was his mate, like it or not. It was his duty not only to provide for her to the best of his ability, but to protect her to the best of his ability. She would not like to be shunned by his people only because of something so easy to remedy as her clothing and he would hate to see her treated in such a way.
He was torn, regardless of the reasoning behind his decision, because he also worried about leaving her alone and unprotected, even in the remote location he’d chosen to hide the craft. It would take a while to dispose of his contraband, even knowing where he could safely do so, and then he would have to go to market to find the things she needed. He’d calculated the risks, however, and decided it was the best choice of several unpalatable choices.
He didn’t want to ‘sneak’ her in under cover of darkness for the same reason he didn’t want to parade her in public improperly attired. It would appear that he had something to hide, or to feel shame about, which would result in the same situation. She would be looked upon as suspect, not welcomed as his chosen one.
Shaking off his uneasiness, he grabbed his herding stick and climbed down into the hold to round up the animals. The quicker he took care of his tasks, the faster he could return to his Leez.
If providence was with him, he could do everything and return before dusk the following day.
* * *
Elise enjoyed her sulk until she heard the sounds that told her Ja-rael was leaving. Moving to the porthole, she stared out at the tangle of jungle just beyond the tiny clearing where the craft sat. Finally, Ja-rael came into view. He was using the strange lightning lasso-type thing she’d seen him use before to herd the animals.
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