by Zara Zenia
“Who is going to stop us?” He huffed in a rebellious tone. “I will give up everything in order to solidify my belief that a machine shouldn’t have any persuading role in deciding whom I marry.”
I understood the conflict wreaking havoc in Darbnix’s mind. He was torn between his obligation as the prince of Noor and the impulsive longings of his heart.
His hands were under my shirt, shaking as he slid my bra off my breasts. “I want to see you,” he whispered in a pleading voice. “All of you.”
His eyes were desperate, further enforcing his burning need to ravage me. I planted myself on his lap, straddling him as he lifted my shirt over my head. I pressed myself to him, feeling the pulse of his erection throbbing between my legs.
I fumbled with the belt to his pants and helped him shimmy them down to his ankles, where he flung them across the room. My heart raced with desire. He began running his hands through my hair, groaning as he continued to stare at me with a lust-glazed expression.
“You don’t even know how beautiful you are,” he crooned into my ear.
He was right. I was no comparison to Tia Teller, with her golden blonde hair and bronzed skin, to her bouncy, perky breasts spilling out of her expensive dress. I would never be able to stand a chance against her, yet to my baffling surprise, here was Darbnix. He had chosen me against all odds.
I assumed it had something to do with his humble roots. Darbnix wasn’t interested in anything that was flashy or entertaining on a more obvious level. He would much prefer to stroll the rolling hills of his farmland, and he also loved animals.
We had far more in common than he had with Tia. It was such a terrible shame that genetic matching had nothing to do with measuring chemistry.
I stared at his dark, thick flesh between his legs. His girth was shocking. I spread my legs, still sitting on top of him as he grabbed the tip of himself and pushed it into my swollen and sensitive pink flesh.
I gasped as he plunged inside. The impact hit me with a surge of a million volts of erotic desire. I moaned, gripping his back. He grabbed my hips and began to bounce me up and down on top of him.
We were so desperate for each other that we didn’t even bother to go to the bedroom. I could see it in Darbnix’s eyes. He was blazing for me in the same way that I yearned for him.
His thrusts were full of hysteria and wild, raw ambition. He cupped my bouncing breasts in his hands, plucking a nipple into his mouth with a groan of pleasure.
I squeezed my bare thighs around his waist, snaking my legs around him to dig my heels into his skin. In a frenzy of lust, I came with enough power to light up the city. I was still on top of him while he continued to bury himself inside me, ready for the erupting finish line of ecstasy.
I was trembling and shaking in the aftermath of my beautiful orgasm. He gently tugged on my hair, giving one last sensual grunt as he filled me. He collapsed into a heap after emptying himself.
He slid out of me with delicate grace. The stress of the night and the burdens of our futures were no more. For that moment, even if we never achieved it again, we had each other. It was us against the cruel world, and nothing could take away the haze of our sexual bliss. Holding hands, we drifted off to sleep right there on the couch, two naked bodies intertwined. Our connection was deeper than any biological scanner could ever detect.
Chapter 13
Darbnix
“Are you going to answer that call or just keep ignoring it?” Rose’s eyes were sympathetic as she gently questioned me.
I grumbled and shoved the phone back into my pocket. “Ignore it,” I opted.
Rose exhaled a sigh of perfect patience. She placed her slender hand on my back and began to stroke my skin underneath my shirt. “You need to talk to them.”
I couldn’t be mad at her, even for being persistent. As soon as I glanced up at her and we locked eyes, I knew she was right.
“They are just going to convince me to go back to that gold-digging bitch,” I countered. I refused to call her by her actual real name of Tia Teller.
Rose was a saint. “You are going to have to face it, you know. She is your match.” Her voice was a silent whisper at the end, a bitter pill for even someone as diplomatic as her to have to swallow.
I gently grazed her rosy cheek with my lips. “I’m so sorry that you are having to face this problem.”
Rose cradled her hands in her lap and glanced down at her lap with a chuckle. “I know . . .” It was as if she didn’t know how to respond, or something was holding her back.
“Go on.” I tucked a strand of loose hair behind her ear. “Tell me what you want to say.” My voice was coaxing and gentle.
She looked up at me with hesitancy flickering in her eyes, as if she didn’t want to hurt my feelings. “It’s okay,” she croaked as she cupped her tiny white hand over my mocha-colored one. The contrast was beautiful and reflected art in my eyes. “It’s your duty to your nation, to your planet, to your people. You are the prince. You have an obligation. You can’t fall short of those responsibilities to carry your family name and help your race reproduce.”
“Rose—” I interrupted her.
She held a hand up to continue discussing the matter. “I am going to be fine,” she promised. “I’m a strong woman. I’ve been independent my entire life. This is just a minor setback on our plans but—”
Now it was my turn to interrupt her. “It’s a huge setback.”
She shrugged humbly as if there wasn’t a solution on Earth to get her out of this mess.
“I don’t want to marry that coldhearted and calculating wench,” I stated, but this time it sounded more like a plea.
Rose’s lips curled with empathy and her cheeks flushed. Her expression was solemn. I met her gaze. “Can’t we just make love under the stars forever? Can’t we just melt into the sheets and stay naked for the rest of our lives?”
I snaked my arms around her waist and buried my face into her neck, pressing my lips to her soft and tender skin that smelled like fresh linens straight from a sunkissed line in the valley.
She mildly pushed my chest away, giving me a tremulous smile. “You know I would love nothing more than to do that too . . .”
“But?”
“But . . .” She trailed off. “You know that isn’t on our list of options here.”
I groaned and tilted my head up to the ceiling, wishing there were a way to weasel my way out of this one.
I glanced with wary trepidation at the phone that buzzed again in my pocket. It was my brother, Gardax. The first time, it had been my brother, Manzar. They only wanted to talk to me about one thing, and that was setting things right with my unexpected and highly unfavored bride-to-be, Tia Teller.
I glanced at Rose for one more dose of confidence before I hit the answer button on the phone’s screen.
“Hello?” My voice was expectant.
“Why the hell have you avoided our calls?” Gardax fired defensively into the phone, not even skipping a beat.
I crossed my leg over my knee and leaned back in the chair, expelling a sigh. “Well, hello to you too,” I chastised.
“This is serious, Darbnix,” he retorted.
“What is serious?” I was playing a game with him, but only to bide my time and stall until I could brainstorm a more positive outcome, amicable with my wishes and desires for my future. In Gardax’s mind, those types of things held no merit.
Naturally, I had to fight for the things I wanted out of my own life because no one else seemed to care enough about whether these genetic scanners were highly susceptible to infiltration. I still couldn’t turn a blind eye to the idea that my scanner could have been compromised by a vicious hacker out there, determined to destroy me.
“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” Gardax slashed in a reprimanding tone. “This is serious, Darbnix. We need to meet to discuss this.”
I glanced at Rose with a grin, feeling devious and ready to make my eldest brother the target. “My sc
hedule is pretty full at the moment. I’ll have my assistant call your assistant to arrange a meeting.” I paused for effect and pretended to glance at the watch on my wrist as if I cared at all about the outcome of the meeting. “How about five years from now?”
Gardax’s thunderous voice roared through the phone. Rose jumped in her seat in response, turning stark white.
“We are meeting at your palace in the conference room in half an hour. If you are not there, consider yourself barred as a member of the family. Your titles will be stripped and you will lose your province and the continent of Noor.”
He hung up, leaving the air to hum around me with a buzz of finality. I knew that he was waiting for that information to sink in and hit reality with me. I didn’t meet Rose’s gaze, but I knew that she had heard every threat from my brother.
“It’s okay,” she finally said after what seemed like an eternity of silence between us. “Just go. I will be right here if you need me.” She stroked my neck and burrowed her fingers into my skin, massaging the stiffness right out as if she were born to give me a healing touch.
I rubbed my temples and sighed in defeat. “All right.” I nodded without looking up. “I’ll go to the meeting.”
“Maybe it won’t be that bad?” she suggested in a quizzical tone, but we both knew we were kidding ourselves by expecting anything less than a disastrous outcome.
“It’s kind of you to have a positive spin on everything,” I mentioned as I stood up and pushed the chair back under the kitchen table. I glanced at the front door, feeling like a part of me would die as soon as I stepped foot into the outside world. I didn’t want to be ripped away from the only woman in the world I’d ever cared about.
“I’ll call you later,” I promised, wrapping my arms around her dainty waist. I rested my chin on the soft tufts of hair on her head, drawing in a deep breath of her fresh linen scent just in case I never got to see her again.
I only looked back at her once. I knew that if I witnessed the tears softly falling down her cheeks, I would become too ravaged and torn to leave her side.
“Okay.” I held my hands over my head and did a circle spin. “Here I am. Thirty minutes to the dot, right on time.”
“Let’s just get on with it,” my brother Akrawn droned with annoyance. “We have bigger problems to address rather than bickering with each other,” he spat.
“Just cut to the chase,” I fired back. “Tell me I have to marry that bitch who’s just out for my money and status.”
I was bitter and prepared to feud. I was backed into a corner where choices weren’t my own. I understood the power I held in my hands. It was my natural choice to help re-populate the beloved Noor and Trilynia that I loved so fondly, but it came at a price that I wasn’t sure I was willing to take.
It was rare for my brothers and I to all be congregated in the same room, but these circumstances proved worthy of the cause. Here we were, all assembled together, angry-faced and secretly feeding our own rivalries against each other.
“You must make nice with your new bride-to-be,” Lortnam urged.
“Publicly,” his twin brother, Jinurak, supplemented.
I leaned back in the swivel chair, glancing down at Earth’s rolling pastures and greenspace beneath our feet. Rose had also encouraged me not to run from my problems and face them head-on. I had the reassurance that she would always be there if I needed her.
“We have some serious damage control to do,” Rawklix offered. He was the most laidback of all of us, and even he was trying to persuade me into the trap. “None of the other women are going to fawn after us if they assume we might just disappear completely after throwing a huge tantrum at the matchmaking parties.” He was swiveling back and forth in the chair, rolling his wrist around animatedly as he explained the predicament.
I squared my jaw and stared at him, saying nothing.
“Everyone is right,” Manzar agreed, tearing me away from my hostile thoughts. “We urge you to come out of hiding and repair your reputation.”
“How do you insist I do that?” I roared defensively. “No one seems to be paying any attention to me.” My frustrations were wobbling out of control.
Lortnam frowned. “What are you talking about?”
I glanced around the room full of my brothers, expectantly keeping their eyes locked on mine, awaiting an explanation.
“I’m referring to the simple fact that before my scanner registered Tia Teller as a match, Davon sent me a letter with intelligence that he suspected there could be a hacker trying to infiltrate our computer systems.”
“The scientists behind the devices are working tirelessly, diligently around the clock to assure that won’t happen again,” Gardax countered.
I stared at him, baffled. “How do you know that they weren’t too late?”
“Well, how do you know that you can trust everything that lanky fool says to be the truth?” Rawklix snickered, referring to Davon.
“He’s trained on the subject,” I retorted flatly. “He is well-versed on how to perform his job.”
“That may be true.” Manzar held up a hand to halt our back-and-forth bickering. “But it still doesn’t solve the current problem that we need to deal with, and that is the huge publicity scandal. We are under a significant amount of scrutiny and will be until we satiate the media and assure them that we are fully prepared to live up to the expectations of our interplanetary treaty that we are currently under.”
I sat back with a sigh. Manzar was right. He’d pounded the nail with the hammer, hit the target spot-on. My head was swimming, but not with scenarios of how to dig myself out of this ultimate hole. “Fine,” I grumbled. “I’ll make peace with the bitch.”
“She has a name, and it’s Tia Teller,” Gardax advised me. “You will speak to her by her true name while addressing the cameras, or even in private, for that matter, if you can’t trust her enough to not spew gossip about everything you say to her.”
“Yet I’m supposed to marry her and make children with her.” I scowled sardonically, delighted to give my brother an emotional punch.
“Let’s just deal with one situation at a time,” Lortnam offered.
I stood up. “Meeting adjourned. I’ll do what needs to be done.”
“By meeting with Tia and attempting to at least pretend to be civil?” Gardax gave me a skeptical raise of his eyebrows as if he didn’t trust that I could oblige him with the task.
“That must be her,” my butler professed as the doorbell chimed through the house, an alarm that sent my senses bolting around the room in fear of what kind of torture might be filtering its way into my horizon.
I swallowed hard. Tia Teller was undoubtedly on the other side of the door, most probably waiting to get her slender manicured hands on all of my belongings, including myself. The ultimate plan devised by my brothers was for me to have a private meeting of reconciliation with her, then publicly declare our joint agreement to have an arranged marriage via the genetic scanner’s match.
It was a concept that I was going to struggle through, if able to make it through the ordeal at all. I hadn’t been left with much of a choice in the matter and ultimately needed to conform to compromises in order to keep my family and the future of my race afloat.
“Go ahead,” I sighed. “Let her in.”
My heart pounded with apprehension as I heard the clackity-clack sound of her stiletto heels pounding with each step she made across the glass floor. She might as well take the shoe off and stab me right through the gut with it.
“Hi, husband to be.” She waved dramatically with a devious grin spreading across her cherry-red lips.
Her hair fell in a landscape of platinum blonde down her back. She was wearing a skimpy red dress, leaving little to the imagination.
“Tia.” I shook her hand politely and gave her a curt nod as if I were gearing up for some legislative business instead of an encounter with my soon-to-be wife.
“I am so excited about our impendin
g nuptials!” she exclaimed. “I have elaborate plans. Everything is going to be perfect. Everyone is going to be looking at me, the gorgeous bride!” She pointed a self-indulgent finger at her chest.
I subtly cleared my throat, feeling a migraine brewing in my head, and she had only walked through the door and entered the room a mere thirty seconds ago. How was I supposed to endure an entire lifetime with a materialistic woman who repulsed me on such a profound level?
“Yes, well . . .” I began and trailed off, scrutinizing her as she trotted through the room as if she already owned the place. “There is time to mull over all the details.”
She gave me a perverse glance mixed with pure hysteria and shock. “Are you kidding?” She drawled in that Kansas home-grown accent. “There is no time, Darbnix! We need to get these nuptials moving as quickly as possible.” She tossed her mane of blonde hair behind her shoulder and pouted, as if she was ready to throw a giant tantrum if I disagreed with anything that came out of her mouth.
I must have been giving off a denouncing vibe because she strutted over to me and cloaked her slender, fake-tanned arms around my neck. I cringed as she tried to kiss my lips, pulling away as she moved on to showering unpleasant kisses upon my cheeks.
“That’s enough now.” I chuckled politely even though I was screaming on the inside. “There will be plenty of time for that,” I lied.
Truth be told, I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to perform sexually for her. There was no chemistry between us and I found her personality simply repulsive. “But baby,” she whined like a spoiled child not getting her way. “I want you.”
I made a croaking, hissing sound, tensing all of my muscles. “Not before the wedding,” I pronounced. All the while, I was privately brainstorming ideas on how to get out of the ceremony before there was a chance to consummate any marriage.