Enemy Overnight

by Robin L. Rotham

  Jasmine winced. How could she have asked Monica to risk her relationship with him? If she’d seen the two of them together, as they’d been at the celebration dinner, she never would have. The idea that she’d destroyed their incredibly lovely bond was intolerable.

  When Tiber paused, she met his pensive brown eyes briefly before looking away. The brushing resumed and she leaned into the strokes with a resigned sigh. He loved her. She could feel it in every tug of the soft bristles on her scalp and in the warmth of the palm he braced on her collarbone to hold her steady, but the knowledge did little to comfort her. He’d been uncharacteristically quiet as he led her to the shower, and he hadn’t shown the least sign of arousal when he stripped out of his uniform and soaped her all over. Not that she was in the mood for sex, of course, but the funereal feel of his gentle ministrations unsettled her. She felt like a condemned prisoner being given the last rites.

  Surely the Garathani wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble to see her through her transition if they intended to execute her…would they?

  Jasmine shook herself. What an ungrateful, self-centered bitch. Monica was still suffering because of her, and she was worried about her own future?

  Then her fingers drifted to her throat and everything else was momentarily forgotten as grief eviscerated her. Shauss had reclaimed his gift.

  “Are you all right?”

  Jasmine closed her eyes and nodded quickly, taking deep, even breaths to clear her mind. She couldn’t afford to speculate about the numerous and potentially awful implications of the missing choker right now—there was too much at stake. Monica had to be her top priority.

  By the time Tiber finished brushing her hair and stepped back, she had herself under marginal control again.

  A stone-faced Shauss appeared as if summoned. Without a word, he fastened the leather cuffs around her wrists and the next thing she knew, she was standing in a room she’d never seen before. Commander Kellen was there, and she cringed in humiliation to be naked before him again. Even worse, Zannen stood beside him, looking all kinds of smug.

  She flinched when she saw Monica standing in one corner of the room with her feet braced apart and her hands behind her head. She was also naked. Sweat beaded her forehead, her eyes were wide and dark, and her chest rose and fell as if she were running a race.

  “Oh my God, Monica!” Jasmine struggled, but Shauss held her arm. Bunching a hand in her hair, he dragged her closer to Monica.

  “Look at her ass,” he growled in her ear.

  Jasmine’s stomach dropped. From this angle, she could see that Monica’s bottom and thighs were covered with dark red handprints.

  That was all it took to shatter her fragile control.

  “You bastard!” she shouted at Kellen as tears poured from her eyes. “How could you do that to her? She loves you!” She stopped long enough to scream out her sorrow, and then repeated, “She loves you, you big bastard!”

  “I didn’t do it to her,” Kellen said coldly. “You did when you involved her in your intrigues.”

  Jasmine sagged in Shauss’ arms, sobbing. “I’m sorry! Oh God, Monica, I’m so sorry!”

  Monica whimpered then and tears slipped down her cheeks.

  “What are you doing to her? Stop it! Please! She doesn’t know anything! My God, she can’t tell you anything!”

  “I’m aware she’s told me all she knows,” Kellen said mildly. “She’s being punished now.”

  “Please stop. Please, I beg you. I’ll take whatever punishment you want to hand out, just please leave her alone. God, she loves you so much and you do this to her,” she rambled on. “Please let her go. I’m the one who deserves punishment, not her.”

  It was then she saw the…the thing creeping between Monica’s legs. Cold horror prickled over her skin. They were torturing her sexually?

  Breaking away from Shauss, she tried to get ahold of whatever it was with her bound hands, but it was odd and fluid and she couldn’t get a grip on it.

  “Get it off her!” she screamed.

  “You can end her punishment, if you like,” Shauss said.

  Jasmine homed in on him. “How?”

  “You enjoy administering oral sex—do so now while you take her punishment,” he ordered.

  “What?”

  He reached down and retrieved the thing between Monica’s legs. The odd little blob hovered in his palm for a moment and then disappeared. Then he released the clip holding her wrists together.

  “Kellen’s held her at the brink of orgasm since he took her from the infirmary. If you want to relieve her suffering, go right ahead.”

  Jasmine had never been with a woman before and had never given the idea much thought, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered now except righting something that had gone wrong because of her.

  Shaking with love and fear for the woman who’d risked so much for her, she dropped to her knees and spread open the silky hair covering Monica’s mound. Her inner lips were swollen and red, and Jasmine instinctively leaned forward and sucked them into her mouth, simultaneously sliding two fingers inside. Monica screamed as her back arched.

  At the same time, Jasmine felt humming warmth surge into her own vagina and nook. She gasped and jerked away, looking down. Shauss had attached the thing to her and it was filling her, vibrating.

  She slapped at it, breathing rapidly, scared out of her mind. “What is it?”

  “It’s a masturbation probe.” Shauss crooked a brow. “Monica’s still suffering.”

  Taking a shaky breath, Jasmine calmed herself and got back to the job at hand. She licked and sucked, pushing her tongue into Monica’s nook while she drove her fingers deep and probed for her G-spot. It wasn’t long before she felt the firm walls clamp around her fingers. Monica screamed her release, sending a flood of slick fluid over Jasmine’s palm.

  “Again,” Shauss said. “She’s been suffering a long time.”

  Monica’s hands were suddenly on her head, pulling her close and grinding her flesh against Jasmine’s mouth. Jasmine opened willingly, paying loving penance with every swipe of her tongue and fingers, trying to wipe away the torture she’d caused. Monica jerked and keened above her as she came twice more, bringing tears of relief to Jasmine’s eyes.

  At the feel of tender hands stroking her hair, Jasmine looked up. Monica opened her mouth, but nothing came out so she leaned down and brushed a brief kiss over her lips, and Jasmine realized for the first time how desperate her own excitement was. She stiffened when part of the probe tickled her anus, but trying to keep it out only let it slide deep into her. She slapped at the probe again, but it expanded, filling her more completely, and the vibrations grew stronger, tightening her abdomen into knots.

  “Oh God,” she whimpered. It was humiliating but she might actually come.

  “Oh no,” Shauss said. The probe’s vibration remained strong, but it withdrew from her nook, denying her the release she really shouldn’t be so eager for under the circumstance. “You’re not getting off that easily.”

  He nudged Monica out of the way and circled Jasmine. “Tell us, aramai. How many Narthani are on Earth?”

  “Shauss, I’ve told you over and over, my parents and I were alone there. Now my father is alone there.”

  “So how do you explain the Narthani monarch’s claim that four couples were sent to Terra all those years ago—four couples who have never been retrieved?”

  Jasmine froze, dread clamping her stomach. “Four? No, my mother wouldn’t lie to me. She wouldn’t.”

  “Pardon the interruption,” Zannen said with exaggerated politeness, “but Hastion’s protected time is drawing to a close.”

  Tiber looked around and saw Hastion leaning against the wall behind Jasmine, pale and sweaty and looking like he was actually going to regurgitate again. What in Peserin’s hell was wrong with him?

  “You can’t do it, can you?” Zannen exclaimed with a grin.

  “You’re not getting her. I’ll kill you first,�
� Hastion said, wiping the back of his hand over his mouth as he straightened.

  “Is that before or after you stop to puke your guts out over kissing a female?”

  He staggered toward Zannen. “Shut up!”

  “Perhaps you should go back to the atrium and masturbate for all the warriors again. You seemed to enjoy that.”

  “I’ve had more than enough of your shit, Zannen,” Hastion growled. “Shut the fuck up before I shut you up.”

  Zannen crossed his arms over his chest. “Shut me up. I dare you, sissy boy.”

  Hastion howled with fury and launched himself at Zannen. He was nearly a match in height, but he lacked the width and depth, the thickness and hard muscle that was Zannen.

  “Hastion, no!” Jasmine cried, trying to rise. “He’ll kill you.”

  Shauss gripped the back of her neck and held her in place.

  Concerned that this charade might be too much for Hastion in his current state, Tiber moved to step in but Shauss stopped him. “It’s their fight—let them fight it.”

  Tiber frowned but held himself in check. He expected Hastion to yield in short order, but his condition seemed to actually improve as the fight progressed. The two rolled along the wall locked in a furious embrace, each trying to get the upper hand. Zannen was stronger, but Hastion was quicker, and every time it looked like Zannen had him, he managed to duck away and attack from a different angle.

  Their acting skills impressed the hell out of Tiber…until it dawned on him that Hastion was genuinely enraged and trying to remove Zannen’s head from his shoulders. He managed to leap onto Zannen’s back and get a chokehold on his neck, sticking like a burr, until the larger man slammed backward into the bulkhead to knock him off. Zannen turned and grinned as a bug-eyed Hastion slid to the floor, but Hastion’s breath finally rushed back with a hoarse gasp, and then he barreled toward Zannen again.

  Zannen was ready for him. He grabbed Hastion and swung him back into the bulkhead. Hastion tried to duck out of his grip but Zannen wrapped both arms around his waist and threw all his weight onto Hastion’s back, taking him down. Hastion’s breathing was harsh, almost sobbing, as he tried to scramble away, but Zannen pinned his neck to the floor.

  The pose was unexpectedly sexual and Tiber’s loins tightened. It looked for all the world like Zannen was fucking Hastion.

  “Do you yield?” Zannen gasped.

  “Hell, no!”

  “Well, you’ve got him,” Shauss drawled. “Now what are you going to do with him?”

  Hastion tried to jerk away and Zannen tightened his hold. Hastion’s groan didn’t sound like pain, exactly…

  “I suppose killing him would be a bad career move,” Zannen said with a tight grin.

  “Without a doubt.” Shauss’ tone made Tiber look at him and then do a double-take. The man’s eyes were positively alight with speculation. “Why don’t you fuck him?”

  Hastion groaned again, and arousal and alarm seized Tiber’s stomach with equal ferocity. What in the name of all the planets was Shauss thinking?

  Zannen looked stunned, and then angry. “Fuck him? Brother, have you lost touch with your sanity? Males don’t fuck each other.”

  “Terran males do.”

  “Yes, well their species is dancing merrily down the road to self-destruction as well, but we feel no compulsion to follow their example in that regard.”

  “It was just a thought,” Shauss said with a grin. “Hastion now has an impressive hard-on and I get the distinct impression he’s aroused as hell by your dominating him.”

  “Shauss, shut the fuck up!” Hastion gasped desperately.

  Zannen grabbed a handful of his hair and jerked hard. “What say you, Hastion? Is that what your problem is—you need to feel a cock in your waste canal?”

  “I’m going to kill you both,” Hastion swore. Then he stiffened and then groaned. At first Tiber wasn’t sure what was going on, but then he noticed movement in Zannen’s arm. Peserin, he was feeling Hastion’s privates!

  “He is hard as stone,” Zannen murmured with wonder and no little satisfaction.

  “It’s the adrenaline,” Hastion groaned. “For Peserin’s sake, you’re hard too!”

  “Naked females do that for me.” Zannen released him and stood up. “And now I intend to have one. No offense, Hastion,” he added.

  He walked toward Jasmine, opening his suit as he went. His long, thick cock was indeed prepped and ready to go.

  “Shauss!” Jasmine gasped.

  Shauss’ measured look as he stared down at her wasn’t reassuring.

  “Tell us about the other Narthani on the planet’s surface and Tiber and I will try to protect you from him,” he said. “Otherwise, we accept him as third—and I’ll warn you right now, Zannen hasn’t come in almost fifteen years, so he’ll probably fuck you around the clock for weeks.”

  Jasmine’s heartbeat tripled and her breath came in fast gasps. “But I don’t know anything! Oh God, they told me we were alone—all alone! Why would they lie to me? Oh my God, why would my mother lie to me?”

  Shauss curved his hand under her chin. “Choose now, Jasmine. Hastion’s time will officially expire—”

  “My mother wouldn’t lie to me!” she screeched.

  “Now.”

  Tears slipped down her cheeks. “Shauss, no. Please.”

  “Ah well. That’s too bad. We’ll miss your company sorely.” He crouched down in front of her and wiped her tears with his thumb. “Now compose yourself and promise me you won’t fight him.”

  She sucked in a shaky breath. “How can you ask that?”

  “Whom do you wish to please, Jasmine King?”

  “You but—”

  “I’ll be displeased if you fight him. I’ll be displeased if you don’t serve him as well as you served me.”

  Stunned, she stared at him. “You really want me to…?”

  He merely cocked a brow at her and she finally sagged in resignation. She didn’t understand, but apparently she didn’t need to.

  “I won’t fight him,” she whispered. “I promise.”

  “Very good, aramai. Serve him well and hopefully you’ll be in decent shape the next time I see you.” He kissed her forehead and another tear slid down her cheek. Then he stood up, leaving her to deal with Zannen on her own.

  God, this sucked! Every instinct told her to glare at the ugly bastard, to scream invective at him and fight him with everything she had. Instead, she kept her head down and prepared to accept and pleasure him the way she would Shauss. But there was no way she’d let him master her. No way in hell. In fact, by George, she would master his miserable ass. It was a given that he’d never experienced oral sex, and once she’d treated him to the mind-bending pleasure of her mouth, he’d be on his knees begging for it. For her.

  The very thought of it made her lips curve in a smug smile.

  “Awfully submissive, isn’t she?” Zannen rumbled as he approached.

  “My submissive,” Shauss replied. Jasmine felt ridiculously thrilled by the satisfaction evident in his voice and only slightly guilty about her plans for Zannen, who meandered around her with flagrant disregard for his bobbing monster cock.

  He finally stopped beside her and she held her breath. “Very pretty,” he said. “But I’d rather have that one.”

  Shauss gaped at his brother, his heart still pounding with pride and affection for Jasmine, and no little concern that Zannen might ignore Tiber’s ban on intercourse and shove that obscene tool into his mate. What was the man doing? This wasn’t part of the plan—not that anything was going according to plan today.

  When Monica realized Zannen was pointing at her, she shook her head wildly, gesturing with her hands.

  “Is that so?” Kellen asked, stroking his chin, apparently oblivious to his mate’s distress. “Are you sure? You’ve seen for yourself she’s far from submissive.”

  “I always enjoy a good fight before I fuck,” Zannen reported.

  Monica hopped ov
er and grabbed Kellen’s arm, shaking it with both hands, and he patted her absently. “Well, she’ll give you that, no question. And it seems only fair that you have her, since she conspired to deprive you of Miss King—in fact, that’s how Shauss wound up with Miss King when she conspired to deprive him of Monica.” He focused on Monica. “But I think Monica had someone else in mind, didn’t you, my love?”

  Monica looked at him warily before nodding.

  “You’re very easy to read these days,” he explained.

  Monica held up her middle finger. “Read this, you big jerk.”

  She looked surprised when the thought actually emerged from her mouth.

  “Unfortunately,” he continued as if he hadn’t heard her, “I’ll have to veto Hastion as our second. Not only is he still suffering from the injuries Miss King inflicted on him, but he’s too submissive.”

  “What? But you said you were going to look for someone with a more submissive nature than Shauss,” she argued.

  “My love, just about every male on this ship has a more submissive nature than Shauss. He’s something of a control freak and requires a submissive who can trust him to give her everything she needs.” He towered over her with his arms crossed. “Make no mistake, Monica—I am the Dominant in our bond, and as such, it’s my responsibility to give you what you need. Not what you want, but what you need. Those two things do not always coincide, and I would be doing you a grave disservice if I were always to give you what you wanted.”

  “But—”

  “You must learn to trust me to give you what you need.”

  “But—”

  “What you need is another mate who will keep you safe from yourself and others when you’re out of my sight, rather than a toy to play with, a submissive male to manipulate and order around.”

  “But Kellen—”

  “You need a mate who won’t be annoyed by the fight in you but will enjoy bending you to his will just as much as I do, day in and day out.”