His expression was so unwelcoming when she grasped his robe that she almost lost her nerve altogether. “Why?” she managed to ask when he glanced from her hand to her face.
Something flickered in his eyes. “Why?”
He looked so completely unapproachable then that she did lose her nerve.
Casting around in her mind a little frantically, she finally remembered something else she’d wanted to ask him.
She swallowed with an effort. “I never understood why you told me you were sorry that day,” she said shakily.
She could see his brief search for the memory in his eyes.
“At my father’s island when you kissed me?”
His gaze flickered to her mouth and then back to her eyes. To her surprise some of the tension and anger seemed to leave him. “I realized I’d misjudged you,” he said slowly.
She hadn’t expected that. It threw her into turmoil. Gladness flickered through her and yet what could she do with it? How did it help her now?
Not at all. She released her hold on him, looked away. “Oh.”
He touched her jaw, forcing her to look at him again. A jolt went through her when she found him waiting only for the turn of her head to cover her lips with his own and then a far more powerful one when she felt the heated pressure of his lips. She dragged in a shuddering breath as he parted her lips with the thrust of his tongue, afraid to move at all for fear he’d pull away. His leisurely exploration of her mouth was in stark contrast to the state of total disorder he’d thrown her into with his first touch. The moment his taste and scent invaded her, desperation exploded inside of her, a savage yearning that made her tremble with the effort to keep from grabbing him and demanding more, instantly.
Fear stabbed into her when she felt him shift and vanished when she felt his arms settle around her and tighten, bringing her closer. She curled her fingers into his robe, straining to pull herself closer still. She’d wanted this—him—forever it seemed.
Don’t stop, she thought pleadingly. Please don’t stop!
He broke the kiss almost on the thought and lifted his head. Disappointment filled her, so vast a sea of it that she felt the urge to cry.
“Anna.”
She opened her eyes with an effort to look at him. “Don’t stop, Simon, please?”
We can fight later!
His gaze flickered over her face. Without a word, he led her into her room. It flickered through her mind that he meant to shove her in and shut the door behind her.
Instead, he discarded his robe and pulled hers off.
Chapter Fifteen
Anna shivered as Simon explored her with his gaze and the light touch of his hand, fighting the urge to cover herself, searching his face anxiously to assure herself that he was satisfied with what he saw and touched. To her relief, he gathered her to him and carried her to the bed, urging her to lie down on it. She was almost sorry she had when she scrambled on to the mattress and sprawled out in wanton display. He merely stared at her for several moments. Just about the time she began to cave in, he joined her, stretching out along her side, caging her upper body between his arms and leaning down to pluck at the tender points of her breast with his lips.
No, she screamed inwardly! Give it to me! Now! Just fuck me! I don’t care if I come or not! I have to feel it!
She was too tense and anxious to come, she told herself. She just wanted to hold him inside of her, to wrap herself in him. That was what she wanted, needed desperately.
She nearly blacked out when he finally stopped teasing her nipples and sucked one into his mouth. Fire poured through her, arrowing toward her lower belly like a lightning bolt and making the muscles in her sex spasm frantically. She clamped her arms around his head, torn between the certainty that she couldn’t bear the intense sensations flowing through her and the fear that he’d stop.
She’d just decided she was going to melt into a puddle of sheer bliss when he released the nipple he’d been teasing and moved to its twin. The jolt to her system was harsher that time, sending her spiraling closer to unconsciousness, but it also narrowed her focus so tightly to the pull of his mouth and the electric current flowing from her breast to her womb that it was as if nothing else existed in the world.
“Simon,” she whispered, in awe, in disbelief that he was touching her, making love to her when she’d despaired that he ever would.
He lifted his head, studied her face for a long moment and moved upward. There was more hunger in the feel of his mouth, a hint of impatience that telegraphed through her mind and set her fires to blazing higher. She kissed him back, trying to communicate her desperation.
He broke from her lips and explored her face and throat, pebbled her skin with the heat of his breath on her ear and worked his way to her breasts again.
Torture me, she thought a little wildly.
He did, exploring every patch of skin downward to her knees. Not that , she thought in despair when she felt him move her limp legs apart! If he touched her with his mouth there it was all going to be over for her and she’d decided she wanted to die from the torment he’d been inflicting on her.
She held her breath as she felt him bend toward her and bite lightly on the inside of her thighs.
Alright! That, she changed her mind!
He pushed her thighs wider and moved over her, settling his hips between them.
She clutched at him, digging her fingers into his flesh. “Simon! Please!”
A faint tremor rippled along his big body. She felt the brush of his hand as he slid it between them and aligned his body with hers and then the pressure as he deepened the connection, eased and then pushed again.
Torture! The anticipation was killing her! She heaved against him, trying to envelop his flesh faster, but despite the fact that her body had diverted so much moisture for him that she felt like she was dehydrating, he stretched her so tautly with his girth there was no smooth, swift entry to be had—for either of them. He settled his upper chest against her, moving his hands to her hips to hold her with his next thrust. It broke the deadlock. He sheathed himself fully, and she panted with a mixture of relief and heady anticipation as he withdrew slowly and thrust again.
Simon, she thought, summoning an image of his slow glide in and out of her. Her muscles clenched frantically around him in response and she felt her body burgeon toward release. She fought it. The feel of him was a sheer delight. She wanted to just hold him inside of her forever.
There was no battling the tide, though. It felt too good and her body could only contain so much pleasure and no more. It exploded all too soon in glorious waves of ecstasy that tore little gasps of delight from her and then, even as she hit her peak and drifted toward Earth again, she felt his climax. She tightened her arms around him, holding him closer, relishing the pleasure he found in her almost more than she’d enjoyed her own.
Reluctant to give up the moment, she stroked her hands over him, enjoying his solidness, the feel of his powerful muscles beneath her palms. Wariness surfaced when he finally stirred, the realization that they hadn’t settled anything.
She didn’t want to risk an argument, not now! She’d waited so long to feel his touch. She’d wanted it so much. She just wanted to enjoy it.
There was no more stopping the intrusion of the real world than there had been any possibility of staving off her pleasure to enjoy it longer. He rolled off of her, tucking her snugly against his length. She relaxed fractionally when he began to caress her with slow strokes of his hand but she realized fairly quickly that tension had begun to gather in him.
He was going to ask her … something, and whatever it was on his mind made him grow cool against her and stiff.
“Anna?”
“Mmm?” she murmured warily, wondering if she could avoid any possibility of a confrontation by feigning sleep.
“Will you …? Would you consider taking the change?”
<
br /> Anna’s heart leapt from her chest and into her throat so fast she felt like she might choke to death. She’d already jerked away to stare at his face in disbelief when it abruptly hit her that she couldn’t—not right now. “Yes, but ….”
He scanned her face. “But?”
“I can’t right now. Later ….”
He leapt out of the bed so fast she didn’t know what had happened until she looked around and discovered he’d bent down to snatch his robe from the floor. She was still gaping at him in disbelief when he threw a furious, contemptuous scowl at her and stalked out.
She couldn’t believe he’d abandoned her without even giving her the chance to explain! “Wait!”
Scrambling from the bed, she grabbed her own robe and dashed after him. He was already at the top of the ladder when she reached the atrium. “Simon! Wait!”
He didn’t even look back. Anger surged through her, completely wiping out her reservations. Grasping a rung of the ladder, she climbed up behind him and stalked after him. She caught up with him in the living room. Caleb, Ian, and Joshua were sitting on the couches. When Simon turned to glare at her accusingly, they scowled at her equally accusingly. It might have wilted her resolution at any other time, but she was so angry it only made her angrier.
“I said I can’t right now!” she snapped. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t!”
“But you don’t actually have any intention of it, do you?” Simon snarled.
She gaped at him for a moment and glanced at the others. “This is about that damned paper I wrote, isn’t it?” she demanded as it finally clicked in her mind that they distrusted her. Simon was sorry he’d misjudged her but he still didn’t trust her? He still believed, they obviously all still believed, that it bothered her that they were mutants!
“Did you even listen, damn it?”
“We heard,” Caleb said tightly. “Everybody heard.”
“I said I couldn’t make the change right now, not that I wouldn’t, not that I didn’t want to, damn it!”
“Why can’t you?” Simon demanded angrily.
“Because I never once used birth control with any of you!” she snapped. She was about to inform them that she couldn’t because she could be pregnant. She revised it.
She didn’t know why the lie leapt to her mind, but it did, and it was out before she could rethink it. “I can’t because I’m pregnant, damn it! If I was the bigot you all seem to think I am, don’t you think I would’ve used birth control? Don’t you think I would’ve been worried you might get me pregnant? Instead of hoping you would?”
The dark scowls slid off their faces until they were all staring at her with blank, slack looks of stunned surprise.
“Who’s …? Who …?” Joshua managed after a moment, sounding like a hoot owl.
Guilt hit her for telling the lie. Even though she knew it could be true, hoped it was, she didn’t know that she was and worse, if she was, she didn’t know ‘Who? Who?’!
She folded her arms over her chest. “I don’t know ‘who-who’, damn it!” she snapped.
“But one of you certainly did! And I didn’t hear anybody objecting to making a baby, so you can all just damned well take responsibility!”
The men all exchanged questioning looks and then turned to study her speculatively.
Simon cleared his throat uncomfortably. “I wouldn’t shirk my responsibility,” he said a little stiffly.
“I certainly wouldn’t,” Ian said.
“It’s settled then!” Caleb said, surging up from the couch. “We need to head down to the city hall and tie this up before she starts showing and everybody knows we were dipping without tying things up properly! Comb your hair, magpie. It’s standing on end. It wouldn’t do to show up at city hall to get married with you looking as if you’ve already had the honeymoon.”
Anna looked down at herself in dismay. She didn’t just look like she’d just had sex, she reeked of sex! She wasn’t about to say no, though! “I need a quick shower.”
“Make it a quick one. I’m going to get the sub and pull it into the airlock.”
Anna had had time to consider the possible consequences of her lie by the time she’d bathed, combed the tangles from her hair, and dressed. She spent the trip from the house to city hall wavering between the desperate need to confess and the fear that they’d turn back if she did. When they’d docked, she realized she simply couldn’t go through with it.
“Wait!”
They tensed and stopped to look at her.
“I don’t know for sure that I’m pregnant. I just know I could be. I was trying to explain that I had to know before I could take the change. I don’t want to risk losing the baby if it’s possible.”
They relaxed immediately. “Come on, magpie,” Ian murmured, his eyes gleaming with amusement. “Nobody’s going to let you back out now.”
“I don’t want to back out.”
They hadn’t even finished the brief ceremony when word came that the jury had finally arrived at a verdict. Simon advised the judge to finish up quickly. She could see they were anxious to leave right then, afraid they’d miss the announcement if they took the time to load her into the sub to get to the court house. “Go!” she told them as soon as the judge had finished. “You’ll miss it if you wait for me.”
As disappointed as she was to miss it herself, she decided it was worth it. They grabbed her, kissed her, and passed her down until she’d made the rounds and then took off. Shrugging at the look the judge sent her, she went to wait for them in the sub, feeling her emotions peaking and dipping as if she was on a roller coaster, afraid to let her mind settle too long on any particular thing—her hope that she was pregnant, that they’d gotten the verdict they wanted, that they were going to be able to work through their differences and make their life together work.
She knew they were satisfied with the verdict as soon as they returned. It looked as if they’d all dropped years with the release of tension.
“They convicted him,” Simon said with satisfaction at her questioning look.
“On what charges?” she asked breathlessly.
“All of them,” Caleb answered. “The prosecutor sends his regards, by the way.
He said he felt like your final testimony tilted the scales.”
“They recommended the death penalty,” Ian said somberly.
Anna felt her stomach fall from under her. She wrestled with it, but despite the momentary twinge of guilt that she might have been the instrument of her father’s death, she felt relief, too. She might never know if he’d had a hand in her mother’s death, but she felt like he had and she knew in her heart that he had certainly had a hand in the massacre in New Atlanta. If she’d had any doubts, at all, she wouldn’t have done everything she could to help convict him.
She smiled at them. “Let’s go home.”
Simon gathered her into his arms and slowly rocked her for a moment. “Anna,” he said hesitantly. “There may yet be war between the mutants and the humans. They hate us and its growing.”
She pulled away to look up at him, lifting her hand to cup his cheek. “I already chose my side. And we’re all human, whether they want to acknowledge it or not.
They spent their ‘honeymoon’ celebrating by finishing the remodeling on the new addition and, of course, thoroughly exploring each other. By the time the first blush of their union had begun to fade, there was no doubt that Anna was pregnant, but no one had brought up the subject of the change since anyway.
For her part, Anna was torn between excitement about the baby and disgust that she hadn’t taken the change before she’d gotten pregnant. It was really starting to chaff her that she couldn’t leave the house without the sub and the men came and went freely.
Of course, she had her greenhouse and lab to occupy her time, and the nursery she was preparing, and the men to occupy her time when they were home, but it was
still irritating not to be able to simply walk out when she wanted to.
“I should take the change as soon as the baby’s born,” she told Simon as they lay together in the aftermath of their lovemaking.
He stroked her rounding belly restlessly. Nuzzling his face against her temple, he kissed her. “You don’t have anything to prove, magpie.”
She liked the way they all called her magpie now. It always made her feel like smiling. “I know. I want to. I was just thinking that would be the best time. We couldn’t have sex then, so I wouldn’t have to worry about endangering a pregnancy.”
“Sex, sex, sex,” he murmured lazily. “Is that all you ever have on your mind, woman?”
Anna flicked him a chiding look. “Can I help lusting over you when I’m surrounded by the sexiest men in the world?”
“In the world, huh? Not the territory?”
She rolled over to nip at his throat. “The universe.”
“I think can I live with lust … for now.”
Anna lifted her head and studied his face. “I love you, Simon.”
His gaze sharpened. He threaded his fingers in her hair and drew her closer for a light, lingering kiss. “Do you?”
Disappointment flickered through her, but she dismissed it. “You had me with that first, dangerous scowl you bent on me,” she added teasingly.
He chuckled. “What about the others?”
She bit his chin. “There’s room for everyone.”
“All four of us? At once?”
It took her a moment to realize what he was suggesting. “My god! I don’t have four holes!”
He burst out laughing. “You said you could love us all at once,” he reminded her.
“Not that way!” She thought about it. “Actually, I’ve sort of had this fantasy for a while of having a cock in every orifice—at one time.”
His cock stood to attention. “That’s one fantasy we won’t be trying any time soon,” he said dryly.
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