The pulse in her throat slowed somewhat, but she watched him warily, as though suspecting he was doing something to her emotions.
To prove he could, he stepped away, letting her go.
Man, that was hard. Opening his arms and letting her scramble away from him took discipline. He wanted to grab her again, haul her to him and hang on.
Want her, his senses screamed. Want her bad.
She stepped on the trailing sheet, and it came loose and nearly fell. She clamped it to her chest in time, but the flash of lovely pink flesh sent Rio’s temperature soaring. One shapely hip curved from behind the sheet, beckoning him.
He folded his arms, fists balled, his cock so tight it hurt. Erotic thought after erotic thought poured through his brain, starting with him going to her and yanking the sheet all the way off.
What joy it would be to put his mouth all over her. She’d be kneeling in a submissive posture, head bent, glorious eyes downcast. He’d see the gleam of her gaze as she watched him sideways, her hands decorously behind her back, only her eyes showing her defiance.
His cock rose even harder, pressing the stifling leather. “So, did you like Dr. Laas’ shower?”
Another blush, this one spilling down her neck to her collarbone. “Yes.”
“Thought you might.”
The blush increased. Rio wished he could have watched her lying under the jets, while water spilled over her lush body. Dr. Laas had programmed all her showers to seek and find erogenous pressure points. From the lady’s embarrassment, she’d obviously experienced a few of those pressure points.
She tried to change the subject. “Who is Dr. Laas?”
“This is her house. She—likes her work.”
“Was that her?” She glanced at the closed door.
“That was Talan d’Urvey and her lifemate, Rees. Friends of mine.”
Her eyes flickered. “They must be very good friends.”
“You could say that. If I’d known you were up, I would have asked you to join us.”
She gaped. “Join?”
“Why not?” He lowered his voice. “We might have watched them with me inside you. Or let them watch you kneel to me and take my cock in your mouth.”
Her face went even redder. “I do not—I do not understand such things.”
“No, but you enjoyed watching from the shadows. Maybe you like that better?”
“I like nothing,” her mouth said. Her screaming pheromones told him otherwise. “I need to leave here. Unless I am a prisoner.”
“Why should you be a prisoner?” He reached out to the burning red of her hair. “You can be one if you want to be. I could wrap you in chains and promise to let you go after I’ve pleasured you countless times. And the more you begged me to release you, the longer I’d keep you bound.”
Her eyes were wide, caught between panic and desire. Her breath smelled good, spicy and salty. She probably tasted just as good.
He leaned down and gently brushed his tongue across her lower lip.
She gasped and jerked back, and he sensed her body sending her conflicting messages. Be afraid of this man, it screamed. And, go to this man. You want him inside you, you want him to chain you, you want him to do what the other one did to the woman called Talan.
She wanted it, and didn’t want to want it.
“Rio,” Dr. Laas’ wry voice came from across the room. “The poor woman just got over alkaloid poisoning. She won’t be ready for you for a long time.”
The young woman tried to turn away so she would not expose her backside to Dr. Laas, but the movement only exposed her to Rio.
He saw round, pretty hips, the cleft of her buttocks and sweet hollows at the small of her back, before she grabbed the loosened folds and hid herself again.
Rio made a noise of satisfaction. He’d seen enough.
“Alkaloid poisoning?” the young woman asked hurriedly.
Dr. Laas nodded. She’d exchanged her coveralls for a form-hugging dress of gold silk, and woven thin gold chains through her hair. “You’d been shot with a poison dart. Rio carried you here. The antidote was simple to concoct, but if more than a drop of the poison had gotten inside you, I couldn’t have saved you. Rio grabbed that dart out of you just in time.”
The young woman turned back to Rio, her eyes enormous. “Thank you. Both of you. You didn’t have to help me.”
Dr. Laas smiled. “It was a pleasure. Rio was right to bring you here.”
“You are a medical healer?” the woman asked. Rio found it interesting that the implant did not translate doctor quite right.
“I am a research professor. I made the Shareem.”
“Like I said,” Rio put in. “She enjoys her work.”
“You made them?”
“I and a few fellow scientists came up with the design for Shareem. Rio and Rees were some of our very best.”
The woman’s startled gaze flicked back to Rio. “Are they androids, then? Not real men?”
“Oh, I’m real, darlin’,” Rio said softly. “Very, very real. I think you saw how real.”
She drew a breath, raising the sheet in an intoxicating way. “I think I do not understand.”
Dr. Laas shrugged. “The Shareem might have been a mistake. Maybe we got carried away playing gods.” Her smile turned sly. “But oh, what workmanship.”
“Thank you,” Rio said dryly.
“Now,” Dr. Laas continued, “what can we do for you, my dear? Rio feels bad that you got hurt from someone chasing him, so what can we do to make it up to you?”
The woman glanced quickly at Rio. Ever-so slightly, he shook his head. Let Dr. Laas think what Rio had thought for now.
She took Rio’s cue. “I could do with some clothes.”
“Baine is searching for some,” Dr. Laas answered. “Talan and Rees have gone downstairs to wait for you.”
Rio chuckled. “Can they still walk?”
“They’re a bit shaky.”
“We’d better go down there, then,” he said, “before they get tired of waiting and start again.”
Dr. Laas and Rio shared a laugh, but the young woman looked more baffled than before.
Rio gestured to the lift. “After you.”
The woman scowled at him. She knew damn well he wanted to get behind her in case the sheet fell again. Hell, he was so horny, he might grab it off her and look his fill.
Watching Talan get fucked had made him hard, and watching this woman watch them had only made it worse. His skin was burning and he needed release. Shareem needed release, or else their chemistry churned them up inside, overloading their bodies, and they could die.
The woman he wanted release with scurried to the lift in front of him, the sheet swaying against her luxurious body.
Rio wanted her with something primal and possessive. Maybe saving her had stirred up the primitive protectiveness within him. His entire body cried out, Mine.
He loved Talan in a friendly way, and never said no when she and Rees invited him to make it a threesome. He joined in pleasuring Talan because he liked her, and also because it pleasured him.
Rees and Talan loved each other madly—Rio was just the toy. He didn’t mind being the toy. He liked being taken out and played with. But his feelings for this woman, whoever the hell she was, were completely different.
Mine. To have and to hold.
The words of the ancient wedding ceremony weren’t far off the mark. He wanted to hold her in his arms, to have her in every way, and—because he was a level three Shareem—to train her to the whip to obey his every command.
He saw Dr. Laas eying the sheet speculatively, and he frowned at her. Dr. Laas enjoyed women almost as much as she did men—anything in the pursuit of sensual pleasure.
Dr. Laas raised her brows in surprise, then she smiled, understanding.
Not this time. The woman was Rio’s. Not for sharing, and not for just once. He again felt the tenuous bond he’d sensed when he’d looked down at her on Dr. Laas’ exam tab
le.
Mine.
Every one of his sex-mad friends had better get used to that.
* * * * *
Downstairs in another lounge, they found the blond Shareem male and his wife, Talan.
The two were clothed now, he in a body-hugging tunic, she in long, flowing robes of some sumptuous material. She’d re-dressed her hair in a braided coil, a strand of glittering stones circling it. Everything about her outfit cried expensive.
The robes told Nella that Talan d’Urvey was one of the highborn women of this planet. Bor Nargan women of the upper classes sometimes visited fashionable Ariel, and some of the highest born got invited to the palace to meet the royal family.
Bor Nargan women wore robes of varying shades and lovely geometric designs. The designs all meant something, whether the woman followed a certain religious order, whether she was married or a celibate, or whether she occupied a certain political niche—sometimes a combination of these. Nella’s protocol officers had always sorted it out and told her what she needed to know.
She had no idea what the designs on this woman’s robes meant. Also, she couldn’t see them well, because the woman sat on the lap of her Shareem, shamelessly kissing him.
Rio loudly cleared his throat, then chuckled as the two sprang apart. Talan blushed, her face scarlet, but the man, Rees, only looked annoyed that they’d been interrupted.
Rees stood up, gently setting Talan on her feet. The man was huge. He matched Rio in height, and while Rio was slightly larger in bulk, Rees’ chest was plenty broad, his shoulders stretching the tunic tight. The chain on his biceps was a black streak on his bronze-colored skin.
Rees had blue eyes in common with Rio, enough alike in shape and color that they could have been brothers.
Nella wondered why, with all her studies on otherworld cultures and her knowledge of Bor Narga, she’d never run across any mention of Shareem.
“Are Shareem slaves?” she asked, shocked. Slavery had been outlawed for millennia on Ariel, but she knew that some planetary systems still practiced it.
“No,” Talan said quickly.
“Well,” Rio drawled. “We can be if you want.”
Nella had the sudden flash of Rio, in his leather leggings, kneeling with thighs spread, his hands behind him, his brawny wrists encircled by wide cuffs with a chain between them.
Rio’s gaze locked to hers, his eyes nearly filling with blue, as though he knew what was in her head.
Then she noticed Rees. He’d stilled, his irises also widening. His large hand moved to cup Talan’s waist and pull her toward him. The tunic did not hide the fact that his cock was stiffening and lengthening.
“Better stop with whatever you are imagining,” Dr. Laas said to Nella, amusement in her voice. “You have two Shareem males erect and randy right in front of you, and you’re only wearing a sheet. Who knows what the consequences will be?”
Nella swallowed. “Can they read my mind?”
“No,” Rees said, his voice rumbling and low. “Your pheromones.”
“They pour over us like water, sweetheart,” Rio said. “When your body is craving us, we get all hot and bothered. We can’t help it.” He moved to her. “Later, I’ll make you tell me what you were thinking about.”
Bad idea, Nella thought. A very, very bad idea.
Talan seemed the only one able to take the situation in stride. She broke away from Rees and came to Nella. “You poor dear. I imagine you are quite confused. Come and sit.” She glared at Rio. “Couldn’t you find her any clothes?”
Rio did not look abashed. “I like her the way she is.”
Talan gave him an exasperated look and led Nella to a low sofa. When they sat, the sofa moved beneath them, adjusting to fit their bodies.
“Baine is working on clothes,” Dr. Laas said. “Nothing I have will fit her, and she is taller than you, Talan.”
“Baine,” Talan said to the air. “Do you have clothes for our guest, yet?”
The soft male voice that had spoken to her in the elevator floated out to them. “I am attempting to locate a shop that will accept computer-to-computer interaction without a human interface. Alas, so many stores these days have gone over to the fad of human-to-human service, as though computers are not as good as, nay, better than, humans.
“Based on conversations between you five and a rough interpretation of events, coupled with extrapolations from news services, I concluded that it is not desirable for anyone to know the whereabouts of this young woman at present, and so I must purchase clothes for her and have them delivered with no human realizing the event has taken place.”
“In other words,” Dr. Laas broke in, “no.”
“Precisely.”
“Who is Baine?” Nella asked.
“My computer,” Dr. Laas said. “A man I had an affair with programmed the voice in before he left. I told him to go, you see, and this was his revenge. Baine sounds just like him.”
“Do not insult me,” Baine answered. “I am a thousand times superior to your fly-by-night lover. He is now in jail on Station 1217, by the way, for indecent exposure.”
“Really?” Dr. Laas brightened. “How delightful.”
Rio crouched beside Nella’s left knee, leather stretching over his thighs. He rested his hand on her leg. “You don’t need to be afraid of us.”
His hand was large and warm. A need to relax flowed through her, a need to trust, to put her fate in his so-strong hands.
“Yes, she does,” Rees said softly.
“Pay no attention to the man with the large hard-on. You’ve been afraid for a while, haven’t you?” Rio stroked her thigh, massaging with expert fingers. “Your muscles tell me that, and so does your breathing. It’s been a long time since you could relax.”
On her other side, Talan took her hand. “Tell us your name,” she said, her voice as gentle as Rio’s touch. “We’ll help you, I promise.”
Nella swallowed. As much as she wanted to trust these people, as much as she was grateful to Rio and Dr. Laas for saving her life, knowing who she truly was would be dangerous—not only for her, but for them. Rio could fight one assassin bot, but not a horde of them.
“Lita,” she said, lighting on the name of one of her mother’s childhood friends, who had passed away a few years ago. Lita had always been a sunny person. “You can call me Lita.”
Rio’s fingers moved, stroking her thigh, skin-on-skin. “A beautiful name.”
Baine snorted. “Are you all stupid? She’s only been on every news digital for the past five years, or do you pay no attention to the off-world channels? She’s been the most popular woman on Ariel since she came of age, and there’s now a big hullabaloo because she seems to be missing.”
Nella froze. Rio’s fingers stilled. Rees, Talan and Dr. Laas stared at her.
Talan understood first. She gaped. “I thought she looked like her, but I never dreamed—”
“Enlighten me,” Rio said, his voice quiet.
Baine scoffed. “Humans and Shareem are so obtuse. She is none other than Princess Nella Ellerina Natalia Vascian of Ariel. She and her family are figurehead rulers of the planet, meant to inspire and unify their people. The princess is unilaterally adored. She apparently ran off with her supposed lover, a man called Linginian, but he has been unable to produce her, which has many worried about her whereabouts and safety.”
Baine fell silent while the other four stared at Nella.
“By the gods,” Dr. Laas breathed. Rees and Talan said nothing.
Rio continued to stroke her thigh while he looked at her with eyes dark blue and unreadable.
“Damn,” he said softly. “Did you hear that? My girl’s a princess.”
Chapter Four
First Lesson
The princess tried to run. Rio rose sinuously to his feet and gathered her back against him. She struggled, her nearly bare backside rubbing his cock.
“Stay with me,” he said, sending out endorphins to calm her. “I told you, we won�
��t hurt you.”
“That was before you knew who I was.”
“Doesn’t matter. You’re with me, now.”
She stopped struggling, but her heart beat rapidly. Rio drew his hands across her belly, sensing the terror that rushed through her like cold water.
“People would pay you much money for knowledge of my whereabouts,” she said. “That changes things.”
Her accent was sweet. He liked it so much.
“We don’t care. Talan is filthy rich already, Dr. Laas likes hiding out with her computers, and Rees and I are Shareem. As long as we come five times a day so we don’t expire, we’re happy. All the money in the universe can’t change that—and hell, who’d want it to?”
“We’ll not betray you,” Talan put in. “You can trust Dr. Laas and Rees and Rio.”
Rio leaned down and kissed the corner of her eye, finding her lashes wet with tears. He was getting hot, wanting to lick her and kiss her until she calmed down. And then until she wound up again. He hadn’t been joking when he’d said he had to come five times a day.
“I thought I could trust before,” Nella was saying. Her eyes were fixed, as though she looked at something Rio couldn’t see. “People I thought were my friends betrayed me as though it were nothing.”
“Shh,” Rio soothed. He closed his eyes, willing her body to relax. “That’s all over. You can trust me.”
“I can’t.” Her voice was ragged, as though she tried to catch her breath.
“You can. I will teach you to trust again, Nella. I’m an expert at it.”
She shook her head, but his touch and his Shareem voice was working. She sank into him, her body responding.
He slid one hand up to cup her breast through the sheet. Her nipple was hard and tight, reaching into his palm. “Feel better?” he murmured.
Her eyes drifted closed. “It is dangerous for you.”
“We are dangerous, Nella. Anyone who messes with you has to mess with us first.”
She leaned against him, her body warming, reacting to his.
“Ah,” Baine interrupted. “Success. I have procured a set of nondescript clothing for the princess. They are down in the lab.”
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