“Oh?” She lifted a brow at him.
“I’ve been in this situation before. Or one like it.”
“Ah.” Suddenly his earlier fury began to make sense. She turned to stare out the window at the bright morning sunlight. Outside, one of the neighbor’s kids zipped by on his bike. “I gather it didn’t end well.”
“No. No, it didn’t.” Baran braced his elbows on his knees and clasped both big hands between them. “When I was sixteen, the Xerans invaded Vardon, my home world.”
She nodded. “I think you mentioned that.”
“Yes.” He looked down at his broad, scarred palms. “They tried to wipe out the warrior class, the Warlords and Warfems, all of us who’d been genetically engineered to defend the planet. They killed many of us, but I was one of those who survived. We headed for the highlands and lived as guerillas, striking out of the mountains, killing and running.”
Jane looked at him, trying to imagine the life he must have led, all those centuries away. It was incomprehensible.
Just as incomprehensible as the fact that this wild, alien man had just given her the best sex she’d ever had in her life. Damn, she thought. I really am in trouble.
And she wasn’t just thinking about Druas.
“It sounds as if your childhood was worse than mine,” Jane said, dragging her mind away from its hot memories of Baran in bed. “And you grew up like that?”
“Yeah. It was…difficult. There was never enough to eat, and we lived like, well, predators. And our prey was the Xerans.” His gaze turned grim. “We were so savage we eventually made the price too high for them. They put a puppet government in place and left. The puppet lasted about a week before one of us assassinated him.” He shook his head. “The Vardonese had a hell of a time civilizing the Warlords again after it was over. Me in particular.”
“Oh?”
He shrugged. “The Femmats who run our world are pacifists. They had no frame of reference to understand what torture does to you.”
“Torture?” She felt her eyes widen. “You were tortured? When?”
Instead of answering, he said, “Back when I was sixteen, I was in a combat unit. I’d grown up with them. Lieutenant Ullock, and Thorp, who did demolitions, and Ive…” Baran smiled slightly at the memory. “Ive cheated at cards like nobody I’ve ever met, but he was so damn charming you had to forgive him for it. And Liisa. She was…I…” He stopped and shrugged. “First love. You know how it is.”
“Yeah. I’ve got a pretty good idea.” Oh, this did not sound good.
“Central Command sent us on this mission to rescue a Femmat scientist the Xerans were holding in this compound out in the mountains. It wasn’t supposed to be all that tough a target. We’d done that kind of thing before. Should have been in and right back out. But it didn’t work out that way.”
Jane studied his profile. He’d drawn himself very straight, head up and shoulders back, staring sightlessly out the window. When he didn’t speak for a moment, she prompted softly, “What happened?”
“Liisa and I were supposed to go in and get the scientist out while the others created a distraction. Only when we popped the cell open, the Femmat wouldn’t come with us. Said we had to get her data crystal first. She said it held top-secret results from some kind of experiment, and we couldn’t leave it in the hands of the enemy. I told her that wasn’t the mission, that we were on a timetable and we had to get her out now, no detours.”
“But she didn’t go along with it.”
His mouth took on a hard, bitter twist. “No. No, she told me I didn’t understand, that I was just a child in the body of a human tank, good for nothing but killing people. She said I didn’t have the intelligence to grasp the importance of her work. And she said she wasn’t moving one foot until I got her crystal back for her.”
“Bitch.” She paused to consider the term. “No, that doesn’t do her justice. Stupid bitch.”
“If she’d been anybody else…” He shrugged. “But she was a Femmat. You don’t even have the concept. They’re…I suppose the closest term is aristocracy, the ruling class on Vardon. I’d been taught to obey Femmats. I’d been created by a Femmat geneticist, raised by Femmats, taught by Femmats in the Warlord Creche.” He shook his head, the colored gems in his braid swinging. “I didn’t know what to do. She wouldn’t move and I couldn’t manhandle her, because a Warlord doesn’t even touch a Femmat without her permission.” His lip curled in sudden anger. “One punch. One punch, and they’d all still be alive. But I couldn’t make myself do it.”
Jane swallowed. “What happened?”
He laughed shortly. “I went to get her crystal. Liisa was going to try to get her out, but they ran into trouble. I wasn’t even all the way back down the hall when I heard the beamer blast. The Xeran guards had caught them. I turned around and went back, but it was too late. The next thing I knew, Xerans were coming out of the walls. Liisa and I fought them, but they overwhelmed us.”
His face was almost expressionless, his tone coolly professional, but there was something in his eyes, a shadow of loss and despair that made Jane’s heart clutch in pity. It was starkly painful to watch such a powerful man torture himself over his inability to save those he’d loved.
Particularly when she knew there was nothing she could do to comfort him.
“I used my computer to com the lieutenant, tell him how everything had gone to hell,” Baran said. “He in turn commed Central Command and reported what had happened. Then he and the others tried to rescue us. He should have left us to rot.”
“They were captured, too,” Jane guessed.
“Yes. And the Xerans…” His voice trailed off. “By the time Central Command sent in another team to get us out, the others were dead, and I was…injured.” His eyes fixed on some ugly vision. Baran said softly, “What the Jumpkiller did to Mary Kelly…I’d seen something similar before. It’s not really all that far outside the norm of Xeran behavior. If you allow yourself to be taken, they think you deserve whatever you get.”
“Jesus.”
What in God’s name had they done to him? Somehow she couldn’t bring herself to ask. As a reporter, Jane was no stranger to dealing with people who’d suffered profound emotional and physical trauma. Yet she found herself totally unable to think of anything to say in the face of such pain.
She took a deep breath and blew it out. “I’m sorry. God, that’s inadequate, but I’m sorry.”
He turned his head and looked at her, his eyes blasted with such desolation she instinctively put a hand on his shoulder. He flinched.
Then anger flooded his gaze. “Don’t make the mistake of pitying me.” His voice was low, dangerous. Faint red striations began to glow against his dark irises. “I don’t need your pity. I need your obedience.”
“Baran, I’m not like that woman scientist. I’m not an idiot.”
He rose in a rush of angry muscle. “She wasn’t an idiot, Jane. But she wasn’t a warrior, either. Are you?”
She sighed. “Well, no.”
“You can’t understand combat until you’ve been in it. And the Xerans are like nothing you’ve ever encountered. You don’t know how they think, what they’re capable of. I do. I’ve been fighting and killing them for twenty years.”
Jane stood, finding it to uncomfortable to sit with him looming over her, all angry male strength barely held in check. “You made your point, Baran.”
“You’ll obey orders?” His eyes were narrow, burning like flames in his skull.
“Yeah. Aye aye, sir. Whatever.” She turned away from him, suddenly needing breathing room, time to think. “I’m going to get something to eat. You want anything?”
“Not particularly, but I’m coming with you.” He moved to the bag he’d dropped in a closet the night before and dug in it for something to wear.
“Somehow,” she said dryly, reluctantly admiring the muscular curve of his butt clad only in briefs, “I didn’t expect anything else.”
You smell
like sex, Freika commed to Baran as they watched Jane bustle around the kitchen. Why don’t you look happier?
It makes more than sex to make humans happy, Freika.
Which pretty well sums up your whole problem. The wolf flicked his left ear lazily. You all think too much. If you thought less, you wouldn’t make yourselves so miserable.
Baran’s lips curled in an wry smile. You’ve got a point.
Freika nodded regally. Of course.
Jane walked over and plopped a bowl down in front of his paws. “Breakfast is served. You ate the rib eye, so it’s hamburger for you until we can go shopping.”
He sniffed the bowl. “There’s not enough meat in there to keep a Chihuahua alive.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t expect to have the Big Bad Wolf for a houseguest. That’s what you get when you drop in on people unannounced.”
Suddenly something furry shot past to leap on the kitchen counter. Baran whirled, automatically dropping into a combat crouch.
Only to find himself almost nose to nose with a tan and black house cat. It meowed loudly, looking neurotic. Chagrined, he straightened.
“Perhaps I’ll just have an appetizer,” Frieka said, eyeing the animal.
“Touch my cat and die, hairball.” To her pet, Jane added, “Where have you been all night?”
“Hiding under the couch.” The wolf took a fastidious bite from his bowl. “She’s lucky I didn’t just flip it over and snack.” To Baran, he added, “And you say I have no self-control.”
“Leave the cat alone, Freika.”
“Certainly—if Jane starts buying a better cut of meat.”
She looked up from operating something astonishingly loud; Baran’s comp identified it as an electric can opener. “Keep it up and you’ll be munching on the cheapest kibble I can find.” Dumping the can’s smelly contents into a bowl on the counter, she added to the cat, “Here ya go, Octopussy. Can you believe these guys? They think just because they come from the future, they get to eat us.”
Baran grinned. “I didn’t hear you complaining last night.”
“You caught me in a weak moment.” She grinned at him, then sobered. “Speaking of time travelers, I’ve been thinking. Would Druas be staying in Tayanita, or is he Jumping back and forth from the future?”
Baran leaned against the counter and folded his arms. “It’s possible, but I doubt it. Charging the suit’s power packs after a Jump that long is time-consuming. And frankly, Druas doesn’t strike me as that patient.”
“Think he’d get a hotel room in the present?”
He asked his comp for data on twenty-first-century hotels, then paused to consider the results. “It’s a possibility. Though there are a lot of woods in this area. He could have established a camp out there.”
Freika looked up from his bowl. “Assuming he doesn’t just kill somebody and commandeer their house.”
Jane opened a cabinet and got out a bowl, then started rummaging in her refrigerator. “Those are possibilities, but it’d be hard to check them out. On the other hand, there are only three motels in Tayanita County. We could see if he’s at one of them. At least eliminate them as possibilities.”
Baran considered the idea, frowning. “I don’t think I want to confront him with you in the line of fire.”
“I don’t intend to get in the line of fire. I can hang back with Cujo here if we find anything. The furball can protect me while you go…do whatever it is you’re planning on doing.”
“Kill him.”
“Yeah.” She took a deep breath. “Killing him is good.” She shook herself and looked over at him. “So. What do you want for breakfast?”
Jane was heading upstairs to clean up, Baran on her heels, when she realized the implications of taking her clothes off in front of him again. She cleared her throat. “I’m going to need a shower.”
He smiled, slow and wicked. “What a coincidence. So do I.”
She swallowed, remembering the dizzying warmth of his hands, the heat of his mouth. Among other things. “Oh.”
His eyes started to glow.
Well, she thought as her nipples peaked, if my life has to turn into an episode of The X-Files, at least there are fringe benefits.
Jane walked into the bedroom ahead of him with every nerve quivering and alert. This is so not a good idea, the voice of sanity said. The man has more issues than Dad’s National Geographic collection. And that’s aside from the whole business of going back to the future as soon as he kills the bad guy. Assuming Druas doesn’t get us first….
On the other hand, she’d always had a secret fantasy about no-strings sex with a gorgeous stranger. They didn’t get any more gorgeous than Baran.
Or, come to think of it, any stranger.
The only catch was, she had to keep it light. This was the equivalent of a shipboard fling—or at least a doing-battle-with-a-psychopath fling. It would be way too easy to get hung up on Baran, and that would be bad. She’d have enough psychological scars out of this episode as it was—that damn recording alone would probably give her nightmares for years. She didn’t need a broken heart on top of it.
Stepping into the bedroom, Jane looked around just in time to watch him strip off his T-shirt, baring that magnificent chest. Hot eyes met hers over that wicked grin.
On the other hand, what’s life without a little risk?
Baran stared into Jane’s big, dark eyes as he stripped. They got even bigger when she saw the size of his erection. She licked her lips and gave him a nervous smile. And, typically, tried to defuse the rising tension with a joke. “Why, sir, whatever are your intentions?”
He gave his best feral smile as he pitched his jeans across the room. “Actually, I thought I’d rip your clothes off, pin you against the wall, and fuck you until you scream.”
Jane blinked twice. “Uh, yeah. That’s what I thought,” she said, and fled into the bathroom.
He eyed her retreating back. And grinned.
Baran grabbed the door just before she managed to slam it in his face. Shouldering through, he purred, “Are you running from me?”
She retreated quickly to the glass stall that took up one side of the room. “Who, me?” There was a definite squeak in her voice. Whirling, she started fumbling with a set of chrome knobs that made water shoot from a nozzle in the wall of the stall. “Why would I do that?”
“Maybe because it’s a good idea?” He strolled over to snatch her against him, grab the hem of her T-shirt, and jerk it over her head. She hadn’t bothered with a bra that morning, and her bare breasts bobbed with the motion. Those pretty nipples were delicately erect, pink, and tender. He swooped in to sample one, sucking it into his mouth as he grabbed the waistband of her baggy trousers and started pulling them down her thighs. “I thought I told you not to wear these ugly pants again,” he growled between nibbles.
“And I don’t…AH!…take fashion advice from a guy with beads in his hair. Baran!” The last word was a yelp of protest as he snatched her off her feet, one hand around her backside, the other arm circling her torso. He bent her back, nestling his erection against her velvet soft nether lips as he attacked both tight nipples in turn, licking and nibbling until she squirmed, giggling.
“All the hot water’s going to run out!” she protested, writhing deliciously against him in a way that made his cock throb.
“Primitive plumbing,” he growled, and stepped into the stall with her. Warm water pelted his skin as he moved to pin her to the ceramic tile wall. He settled against her, savoring her soft, yielding body, the way the silken hair over her sex caressed his hard shaft, the cushion of her tempting breasts.
“Put me down,” she said breathlessly, giving her legs a kick of protest.
Baran smiled down at her darkly, tightening his grip on her tender butt. “No.” She felt so damn luscious. So helpless. Perversely, he found her vulnerability made him want to both protect and ravish her at the same time. “Now what are you going to do about it?”
A g
rin teased the corners of her mouth. “Apparently,” she said dryly, “not a damn thing.”
Jane squirmed again, testing, but his powerful hold didn’t even falter as he cradled her. Held like this, feet off the ground, immobilized against the cool tile by so much muscle and heat, she felt completely at his mercy.
And wildly aroused.
He stared down at her, the angles of his face stark with desire, his eyes glowing, a hungry smile on his face. The shower stream bounced off his muscled body as if it were rock. And it felt like rock, too, in more ways than one. If any other man had held her like this, she’d be worried that he’d drop her, yet Baran’s grip was so strong, she felt utterly secure in his arms.
But not at all safe.
“Now that you’ve got me, what are you going to do with me?” She’d intended the question to sound flirtatious, but it came out breathless.
His slow, dark grin was not reassuring. “I thought I’d find some tight, wet entrance and force my cock into it.”
Jane swallowed. Perversely, his dominance turned her on even as it irritated her. And she knew he knew it. “You’re really not a nice man.”
Baran bent his head to study her nipples with predatory interest. “No.” Slowly he raked his teeth over one pink tip, sending pleasure bolting up her nerves. “But then, I don’t think you want a nice man.”
Gasping, she let her head fall back against the wall and closed her eyes. “Not right now, no.”
He began to pleasure her breasts in earnest, licking and sucking. He knew just how to do it, too. It was as if he could read her mind, sense when she wanted a hard, drawing pull, when she wanted a gentle scrape of his teeth, when she wanted a swirling pass of his tongue. She’d never had a lover so utterly aware of her—or so determined to use that knowledge to drive her out of her mind. Moaning helplessly, she felt herself going limp in his arms, surrendering to whatever he wanted to do.
One of those moans became a muffled shriek as he shifted his grip and reached one hand beneath her to begin a leisurely exploration of her sex. His thumb strummed her clit as a long, strong forefinger slid deep, stroked.
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