As happened so often in her conversations with Armenites, Jewel had just learned more than one thing she wanted to follow up on. She chose the thing that seemed of the most immediate importance. “I’m really confused. If most Empyreals can’t get an erection, why did they even give you this chance? Why set you up for failure?”
“After my ascension,” Kole began but Jewel interrupted him.
“Let’s sit down again. I realize these are deeply personal things you’re sharing with me. Wouldn’t it be easier if you sat down and tried to relax a little?” What they really needed was a glass of ambrosia but she hadn’t noticed any form of stimulants on the Armenite ship. Perhaps it was a military regulation. She hoped it wasn’t yet another luxury that the people of the Hegemony shunned.
Kole sat on the bed his body as rigid as they wanted his penis to be. The blue-black bands of his swirling tattoos emphasized his unhappiness.
Trying to help him relax, Jewel picked up his large hand and held it in her two smaller ones. Perhaps it was her own nerves but her heart began thumping harder in her chest and her fingers tingled where they touched him. It didn’t make sense to her.
Kole still didn’t look at her. “After my ascension I underwent extensive medical examinations some of which were conducted in my sleep. We know it is biologically possible for me to get an erection—that’s not the case for every male Empyreal.”
There might have been just a touch of the old arrogance and pride that Jewel remembered from the vids in Kole’s last statement. This was a man who enjoyed exceeding peoples’ expectations. If for no other reason, he would want to have sex with her today. But was that the only reason?
Her next question seemed utterly bizarre to her, but she was dealing with Armenites so she asked it anyway. “So you don’t expect to enjoy sex within marriage?”
Kole took a few moments to consider how to explain his people’s customs. “Most Armenites never marry. Contraceptives are illegal and we’re discouraged from having more than one child with the same partner outside of marriage. So Armenites who are seeking primarily physical pleasure, or an emotional commitment tend to find them among courtesans in the loyalist population.” He said this as if he considered Armenites who did this to be weak and flawed. “This is permitted in men so long as they continue to try and sire children on pure Armenite women; and it’s permitted for women after they have fulfilled their requirement to bear four Armenite children.”
Despite the tremendous fortune Jewel had negotiated for herself to secure the armenium contracts between Kole’s House of Delling and her own Khaba Cartel, she was beginning to feel underpaid. No wonder Ebe Nuri had felt driven to cheat on her husband and ultimately to commit suicide. “So you’re saying it would be wrong to find pleasure in marriage?”
Kole gave her question serious consideration before answering. “I don’t think it would be wrong. I really don’t have a lot of models to look to here and certainly no one is going to talk about private moments within their marriage. But it’s fair to say that your ideas of romance are foreign to our conception of the institution. Armenite marriages are political, not personal.”
As Kole spoke, Jewel felt the tension in her chest ease slightly then tighten again. She tried to steer her husband toward more reasonable expectations of marital union. “In my culture, we expect a husband and wife to develop strong, passionate, emotional ties to each other. And one of the ways we develop those ties is through a healthy, pleasurable, sex life.”
“Aren’t Cartelites famous for their extramarital sexual liaisons?” Kole asked. “That would never be permitted in the Hegemony.”
It was true, Jewel knew, that infidelity was almost considered to be a human right among the arranged marriages of the Cartelite elites, but that wasn’t technically embraced by the actual laws of her nation. And the professed expectation among the masses was that marriage should be monogamous. “In my culture,” Jewel told him with more confidence that she felt, “infidelity tends to develop when the married couple’s sex life withers.”
Kole’s response was flat and unyielding. “That would be very bad in my culture. Breaking the marriage contract incurs a serious loss of honor.”
Jewel was very aware of this. The loss of honor was so great that the Armenites expected the adulterer to commit suicide. They really were a frighteningly severe people—repressed, unyielding, unreasonable…
In a flash of insight, Jewel thought of a slightly humorous way to ease the tension and maybe help Kole with his problem. Feeling rather brazen, she slipped her arm around Kole’s shoulders and guided him down on the mattress beside her. “Then maybe you should protect my honor by working on our sexual relationship with me.”
Kole’s body felt hard and strong beside her just as Erik’s had—but she wasn’t going to think of her first lover now. Instead, she tried to imagine what Kole would look like when his shirt came off. His Empyreal tattoos ran down his neck toward his chest and shoulders. What shapes would they take, what designs would they form, what would they taste like when Jewel touched them with her tongue?
She tentatively felt his chest through his shirt laying her fingers lightly atop the fabric just over his heart. Kole quivered once but made no other response to her initiative.
Jewel sighed. How had she become the teacher? “Didn’t someone tell me you already have a child?” she asked in frustration.
“I have four children,” Kole corrected her in flat tones as he stared directly above him at the ceiling.
Jewel sat up. “Four?”
Still not looking at her, he confirmed that she had heard him correctly. “Candidates for ascension are required to produce four children before entering the final rites.”
“Four,” Jewel repeated. The number really disturbed her. Then she remembered something which made it even worse. “By four different women?”
Kole was so surprised by her question that he turned his head so he could look at her. “Of course, as I told you earlier, for reasons of genetic diversity, unmarried Armenites are discouraged from having multiple children with the same partner.”
Strangely enough, Jewel was starting to get angry, even jealous. The Armenites had pushed Kole into other peoples’ beds while her parents had fanatically protected her virginity. “Four kids and you still don’t know how to make love?”
Kole sat up beside her. “It’s not a part of Armenite culture.”
“Meaning you think it’s somehow corrupt or subhuman?” Jewel accused.
Kole spread his hands in apology. “Armenites do seek sex for pleasure but it’s considered a weakness by many.”
His words just kept making her angrier. “Many such as yourself.”
Kole nodded gravely. “I have always viewed it that way, but…”
His voice trailed off making Jewel ask the question despite his indignation. “But what?”
Kole swallowed and leaned slightly closer to her. “But I have been instructed that part of my duties are to learn more about Cartelite culture and…”
Jewel found it was getting hard to breathe with Kole leaning so close to her. And had someone raised the temperature? It must be set far too high for normal peoples’ comfort. She found herself leaning closer to her new husband as well. Her eyes locked upon his just a few inches away from her. “And what?”
Kole was so close she could feel his breath on her lips. “And you’re incredibly beautiful,” he whispered.
His lips couldn’t get any closer without touching hers. “So how do we do this?” he asked.
“You might start by kissing me,” Jewel suggested.
Instead of doing as she said, Kole lifted his hand and stroked Jewel’s left cheek, two of his fingers setting her flesh on fire.
His lips touched hers.
As a first kiss, it really shouldn’t have rated. The contact between them had more in common with two kids on the street bumping knuckles as they passed than it did with an expression of passion, but Jewel’s heart stuttered
just the same.
Kole pulled back as if uncertain what to do next.
Jewel took the initiative and kissed him again. Unlike Kole, she used her lips, pressing against him a little more firmly and sucking lightly at his mouth.
Kole continued to sit rigidly beside her. He didn’t move away, but neither was he kissing her back.
Was he going to help her at all? Didn’t he want to survive?
She slipped her right hand up his back to the stubble that crowned his scalp. She’d intended to use that hand to encourage Kole to press his mouth against her more firmly and kiss her harder but a spark of static electricity startled her and she broke away from Kole in surprise.
Kole continued to look at her without any readable expression. It was possible he felt something, but Jewel couldn’t tell through his tattoos. “That was…interesting,” he observed.
For some reason the bland statement struck Jewel as funny. The whole situation was an exercise in absurdity. As a young girl and then a young woman she’d imagine a billion times what this night would be like. Most often in those fantasies, Kole had been a strong and forceful lover, sweeping her up in his arms, carrying her into their room, undressing her on their bed, introducing her to the ways of love. On other occasions, her daydreams had been less pleasant. In none of them had he sat like a statue unable to get a hard on.
She almost turned away. This wasn’t her fault. Kole was the one who couldn’t fulfill their marriage contract. Maybe she could even buy herself a few additional months or even years as a bachelorette, and now that she knew the Armenites were not troubled by pre-marital sex it might be possible for her to spend that time with Erik. They might even have a child together while the Armenites made arrangements for her next husband.
Then she remembered what would be expected of Kole if his inability to consummate their marriage continued. She didn’t particularly like her new husband, but then she didn’t dislike him either. She didn’t know him well enough to have an opinion one way or another, but she certainly didn’t want him dead at his own hand—especially not when a little effort on her part might help him to save his life.
She repositioned herself on the bed, sliding on to Kole’s lap facing him. She slipped her hands onto his broad shoulders and whispered, “Let’s try that again.”
She leaned forward, permitting her large breasts to brush ever so lightly against his chest and kissed him. Her mouth pulled at his lower lip, coaxing him to open up and play with her.
He didn’t move. If anything, he became even more rigid in every part of his anatomy except the one that mattered.
Not ready to give up, she let her tongue dart out from between her lips to lick him, first on that lower lip and then on the flesh surrounding his mouth, trying and failing to get a reaction from him. She didn’t know what she was doing wrong—if she were doing anything wrong. With Erik, his hands were on her body from the moment he came in reach. His tongue would be tickling her tonsils by now. Kole, by contrast, wouldn’t even touch her.
She rose to her knees on the thin mattress and cupped his face in her hands. Sparks seemed to fly again as her fingers splayed across his cheeks and she turned Kole’s face up so he could look at her as she brushed her body against him. There was something exciting about pressing up against this darkly handsome man’s chest—something brazen, even slutty about coming on to him so strongly, and he still did nothing but look at her out of those impossible to read eyes.
She pulled his face into her bosom. Erik had loved her breasts and before she’d run away from home, the boys in her classes had certainly enjoyed staring at them beneath her stylish dresses. She hoped that touching them—even through the bodice of her wedding dress—would bring Kole to life so that he started to work with her at his seduction. She thought he might kiss them or rub his face into her cleavage or even take a bite at her silk covered flesh, but Kole didn’t do any of those things. He just sat there while she rubbed himself against him wondering why he found her so ugly.
She almost quit and damned the man to his fate, but then she noticed he wasn’t quite motionless after all. His hands lay on the mattress at his sides slowly clenching and unclenching like he didn’t know what to do with them.
This littlest of signs that she was reaching Kole encouraged Jewel to keep trying. She pulled his face out of her breasts and kissed him again. Her heart began to beat faster as she slipped her tongue between his lips and—
Kole pulled back in surprise, which embarrassed and hurt Jewel. Erik had liked it when she used her tongue. She knew that everyone did this in the civilized galaxy. What the hell was this guy’s problem? Maybe Physician General Adel had been wrong and Kole was gay after all.
Her temper flared but before she could say anything regrettable, Kole beat her to it. “Wow, I wasn’t expecting that. You just made my whole body tingle like you do when you touch my face and run your hands through my hair.”
At last they seemed to be getting somewhere.
Jewel ran the fingertips of her right hand across the back of Kole’s head again. The close cropped hairs felt like a fine brush beneath her fingers and when she caught them just right it was almost magical. “You call this fuzz hair?” she teased him. “Now this is hair.” She let go of him so she could fluff her own tresses out behind her letting it fall back down around her shoulders.
He smiled and for the first time, touched her thigh.
Suddenly, Jewel knew everything was going to be all right.
Chapter Four
She’s a Tempestuous Personality
Jewel leaned comfortably against her new husband as they walked down the corridor toward the ship’s medical offices with his arm around her shoulders. She was pretty certain they were breaking an Armenite taboo here, showing affection in public, but after an initial hesitation, Kole had seemed to welcome the gesture.
That was very wise of him. If he’d fucked her three times and then wanted to act like he didn’t know her, she’d have been tempted to cut his balls off the next time they were alone together.
They slowly turned the corner and approached the medical bay doors. Jewel was terribly sore, but they’d done their duty as the Armenites would say and she was looking forward to the time when Kole and she were recovered enough to do their duty again. But first she figured they would have to return to her parents and Nefer Reneb and the survivors of her old ship the Euripides and play civilized hosts to them—right after they saved Kole’s battered honor by proving he was an Empyreal stud muffin.
Kole didn’t bother to rap on the door to announce his presence. He merely opened it and ushered Jewel within.
Physician Lieutenant Eva Bree looked up from her desk and leapt instantly to her feet. Her hand snapped up in a crisp salute. “Empyreal.”
Kole came crisply to attention and returned the physician’s salute. “As you were, Lieutenant, Ms. Delling and I are reporting to you for formal validation that our marriage has been consummated making it fully legal and binding.”
The physician lieutenant nodded respectfully. “I have no doubt that what you say is true, honored Empyreal. Half of the crew heard the evidence of your prowess.”
Jewel felt herself blushing, but the physician lieutenant did not appear to be having fun at her expense.
“Unfortunately,” the annoying woman continued, “my orders do not permit me to waive the exam based upon secondary observations.”
“Understood, Physician Lieutenant, this marriage is too important to both the Hegemony and the Cartel Worlds for us to take any chances that its legality could be called into question. Please conduct a thorough examination, file all requisite reports and transmit them immediately to the Empyreals on the Vigilance.”
The physician lieutenant accepted her instructions without the slightest hesitation. “Of course, sir.” She gestured toward Jewel. “If you’ll step this way, Ms. Delling, we can complete this as expeditiously as possible.”
****
Jewel felt somewh
at horrified over how personally invasive the physician lieutenant’s examination proved to be. Not only did she perform all the expected scans, but she actually insisted that Jewel remove the plain gray coveralls she had donned after her shower, mount a table and submit to a manual pelvic inspection as if they were still living in the dark ages. Then she added insult to jury by taking swabs of Jewel’s vaginal fluids which she proceeded to test for the presence of Kole’s sperm. It was, in a word, humiliating, but when the procedure was completed, no one could deny that she and Kole had fulfilled their principal obligation. The armenium contracts between Delling and Khaba were secured for the duration not just of the marriage now, but for Kole and her lives as well. And if they had children the arrangements would be continued as long as their line produced progeny.
So it was with no small amount of good will that she rejoined Kole, slipped her arm into his, and made her farewells to the mostly disagreeable Physician Lieutenant Bree.
“Be certain to share copies of your reports with myself, my wife, and the Cartelites Nefer Reneb and Amon and Alexandra Sapphira,” Kole instructed the doctor.
Jewel cringed. “Do we have to give them to my parents? That’s just icky.”
Her protest seemed to amuse Kole and she remembered that one of the things that had attracted him to her in the vid letters they had sent each other was the hopefully mistaken impression that she was flighty. “They are technically the other parties to this contract. It is appropriate to inform them that you have honorably completed all of its terms and conditions.”
Jewel scowled thinking how impossible it was to please her parents. “They won’t be truly happy until we have children and grandchildren so they can be absolutely certain that their wealth and legacy will be secure for generations to come.”
Bride (The Unity Book 3) Page 4