Calder felt her fingertips tracing the scars on his arms and back. She lifted her hand to his face but she studied his eyes, not the wreck of his skin. The caresses didn’t feel like fascination with his ruined face—she was caressing him.
Damn you, woman. Why are you making me feel?
He growled. Nothing existed but Katarina’s touch, her pussy clamped around his cock, her smooth legs enclosing his.
“Gods,” he moaned. “Katarina, what are you doing to me?”
She kept touching him, her breath coming faster, and Calder couldn’t stop his thrusts. This was heaven, her entire body wrapped around his, dissolving himself in this woman who wanted to be with him.
He rode her for a long time while his bed moved under his onslaught and she smiled, or groaned, or whispered his name like she loved the sound of it. It had never been like this before, ever. Never with a woman he hadn’t been paid to pleasure, never fucking her because he simply wanted to be with her.
Katarina’s groans wound higher and so did his, until she cried out in joy. Calder heard his own voice join hers and then everything blurred. He was coming, great gobs of it shooting into her. His juices blended with hers, scalding where they joined.
He kept riding her, feeling her sheath pulse around his cock, drawing every last bit of come he had. Greedy bitch. He loved it.
Katarina fell back from him, panting and smiling. Her brown hair fanned out on the pillow like tangles of silk.
Calder rested his weight on his hands, still inside her. “Do you think we’re done, sweetheart?” he asked, trying to catch his breath.
“Aren’t we?” Katarina ran her hand through his damp hair. “You came. So did I.”
“Do you still feel me?”
Her smile widened. “Yes.”
“You want more fucking. You want me to keep fucking you until you fall asleep with me hard inside you.”
“How do you know that?”
She looked so damn sweet. Calder pulled out halfway, the skin on his thighs tender where he’d rubbed hers raw. Katarina’s forehead was wet with sweat, and sweat slicked her breasts against his chest.
“I’m Calder, sweetheart. I know what you want.”
She touched him. “Do you read minds or something?”
“I read faces and scents and pheromones. I know.”
“And I know that you want to keep on. You want to come again and again, but you’re afraid of hurting me.”
She touched him again. Damn, why was she so gentle? He wasn’t worth that.
He kissed her. Katarina tried to kiss back but she could barely move her lips.
“Did I hurt you?” he asked. He brushed the hair back from her face, knowing he’d never felt so incredibly tender as he did looking down at her now.
“No. I’m resilient.”
“Good.” He slowly thrust into her again, ready to screw her all night. He’d never sate himself on her, never. But he’d have a damn good time trying.
He slid his hand between them, working her clit until she lifted her hips again. He rode her, faster this time, a little harder, but conscious that she was still new at this. Katarina held him, her climax sending hot shivers through her body.
Just as he came, shouting with it, Katarina pulled him close.
“I love you,” she murmured.
Something cold shot through him and then a feeling so terrifying Calder didn’t want to touch it. He might shatter it, shatter her.
He withdrew from her, which was physically easy because they were both so wet. He looked down at her a long time while she smiled, kissed the corner of his mouth and closed her eyes. She was ready to sleep, spent by their lovemaking. He needed to let her sleep.
His emotions rolled over him one after the other, culminating in stark terror.
Who the hell said Shareem didn’t have emotions? They were driving him insane right now.
Calder finally slid next to her and drew a blanket up to cover both their bodies. Katarina smiled again then drifted to sleep, but he stayed awake, watching her, something in him breaking and falling away.
Chapter Ten
“Where is she?”
Braden’s baritone woke Katarina from a sound sleep. Calder’s bedroom was dark, but that didn’t mean it was still night. He had no windows. He didn’t have a clock either, that she could see. She asked for lights and a dim one obligingly came on.
Calder wasn’t in bed with her, and neither he nor Braden were in the room. Katarina’s clothes lay neatly folded over a chair. She hadn’t done that.
She heard Calder rumble from the outer room and then Braden’s voice again. “Bite me. She didn’t come home when she was supposed to. I was worried.”
Katarina pulled on her tunic and pants and opened the door. “I’m here, Braden.”
Braden’s diatribe shut off. “So Calder said.”
Calder leaned against the end of his sofa, pissed as hell. He wore nothing but a loincloth, his long ponytail dripping. He must have been in the shower when Braden came pounding on the door.
Katarina had seen him bare last night, but she’d been wound up with need. Plus his pheromones had poured over her. Plus he’d been rock-hard, very tasty.
Now Katarina could see how the scars on his body were of one piece, as though a giant claw had raked diagonally up his body. Beneath the skin, his muscles bulged, firm and strong, except for his abdomen, where he bore a concave gouge in his left side.
His narrow hips looked normal—well, normal for a finely built, hard-bodied man. Katarina could attest to how firm his buttocks were—she’d squeezed them enough last night. But the skin had been completely tattered, shredded, removed and replaced.
Braden looked at Katarina and she read worry in his eyes, along with shock, compassion and sorrow. Had he never seen Calder’s scars, then?
“What time is it?” she asked.
Calder stood like a stone, so Braden answered. “Almost sundown.”
Katarina put her hand to her mussed hair. “Crap.”
“When you didn’t come in after your shift, I walked to the clinic,” Braden said. “When you weren’t there I got really worried. The receptionist said you’d left with a Shareem, and she didn’t look happy to see me.”
“I’m sorry, Braden. I should have sent word.”
“Mother hen,” Calder rumbled.
“Hey, this is a bad part of town for highborn ladies.”
“It’s nice that he cares,” Katarina said.
Calder glared at Braden. “If you think I’d let anything happen to her, you’re an idiot.”
“How could I know?” Braden shot back. “You refuse to talk to her for weeks and hole yourself up here and don’t come out. How could I guess that you were with her? She could have been back-alley fodder.”
“She’ll never be that. I’ve been making sure of it.”
Katarina put her hands on her hips. “Are you saying you’ve been following me?”
“Not following. Looking out for you.”
“What’s the difference?”
Calder stood, his face dark with anger. “Braden is right that you don’t belong down here. I’ve been watching to make sure you make it home from your clinic, because Braden never does. You wouldn’t believe the scum who try to follow you.”
“You mean besides you?”
Braden barked a laugh. Calder ignored him. His blue eyes burned Katarina across the room.
“Afraid I have to go with Calder on this, babe,” Braden said.
“So the pair of you thinks I ought to run home to the Serestine Quarter? To my luxurious house and sequester myself like a good highborn woman should?”
Braden rubbed his lip. “I didn’t say that. I kind of like having a pretty lady sharing my digs.”
“Keep your fucking hands off her, Braden.”
Braden smiled at Calder. “I don’t know. It will be a challenge.”
“Stop it,” Katarina said. “Both of you.” Their arrogant posturing angered her—as
did her own foolishness in blurting out to Calder that she loved him. Gods, she was no better than the sex-starved women who hired him to fulfill their fantasies. Her face burned. “I have to go, Calder. I’m supposed to be at the clinic in a few hours. I’ll hire a bodyguard so you won’t have to waste time following me anymore.”
She fastened the last clasp on her tunic and swept out of the apartment.
Calder didn’t try to stop her. His silence, the fact that he didn’t demand she stay where she was, hurt her more than she wanted to acknowledge. She stepped quickly into the street to let the last burning rays of sun dry her tears.
* * * * *
“I didn’t know it was that bad.”
Katarina had no idea what Braden meant, and for the moment, she didn’t care. The two of them entered Braden’s apartment together—Braden had raced after her, declaring once more that the streets weren’t safe.
“How much I didn’t want to leave him?” Katarina raked her hands through her tangled hair as Braden slammed the door against the heat.
“I meant, how bad his injuries must have been.”
“Didn’t you live at DNAmo when it happened?”
“I did, but Calder was kept in a separate wing and I really only met him after DNAmo closed. I knew he’d been burned in some damn experiment, and I knew it was bad but…”
“He saw you pitying him. He didn’t like it.”
“Sweet baby, the fact I saw him unclothed at all is a major breakthrough. And he was so worried about you, he didn’t give a rat’s ass about my reaction.”
Katarina plopped onto a chair and buried her face in her hands. “Gods, Braden, it was so wonderful to be with him. I’ve never felt anything like that in my life.”
Her tears returned, sliding silently down her face. Her body was tender, her pussy stretched and aching. The feeling of his touch, of his cock, was still imprinted on her, as though she could open her eyes and find him in her arms again.
“It’s over, isn’t it?” she said. “He’s only with a lady once and won’t have them back, no matter how hard they beg or how much they offer to pay.”
Braden crouched in front of her, resting his hands on her thighs. “Want me to make it better?” He brushed her cheek with the ball of his thumb.
“No. I’m stupid. I want Calder.” Katarina closed her eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“I’ll wait. When you forget about the shit, I’ll be here.”
She tried to laugh but it came out a croak. “Sure, if you’re not off chasing other ladies. Thanks, but no thanks.”
Braden leaned toward her. His hair smelled like soap and sunshine. “I wish I could say, ‘Oh, he’ll come around, give him time’, but I don’t think he will. Calder’s all twisted up inside, and the way women react to him has made it worse.”
“Bitches.”
“Now you’re getting it.” Braden slid his arms around Katarina and held her close. “I’ll do what I can for you, I promise. And if Calder won’t come around, I’ll throw over every lady in this town to get you in my manacles.”
Katarina lifted her head, laughter mixing with her tears. “You’re a shit, Braden,” she said, then she let herself cry on him again.
* * * * *
Calder let his client database go. After Katarina stormed out with Braden, he toyed with the idea of trying to build it again but he’d lost the taste for it.
His clients weren’t so happy. The woman from Delta-Terra, Lady Demata, whose appointment Braden had broken for him, was still on Bor Narga. She insisted that Calder honor the engagement. Calder returned her money but every morning he found nasty messages from her that he started deleting without reading. Women like her, who fled him in his labyrinth then shuddered in pleasure when he caught and fucked them, now filled him with disgust.
They’d always disgusted him, he forced himself to admit. Being with Katarina had opened Calder’s eyes about a lot of things.
Katarina looked at him—at him—and touched him, unafraid. Not repulsed. Not fascinated. She wanted to understand his pain, to talk about it as if he were a normal human being. Which he’d never be.
Only Dr. Laas had ever treated him like that, but even Dr. Laas tended to look at Calder like he was a precious experiment. Katarina, on the other hand, had drawn Calder into her arms, kissed him, touched him, wanted him.
The other women wanted The Beast. Katarina wanted Calder.
Katarina—who’d gone home with the smug Braden, damn his ass.
The problem with letting the database go was Calder’s Shareem metabolism, which demanded constant sating. An option would be to seek out the level-three lair that Braden talked a lot about. It had started as a place for women who preferred level threes, but now Shareem of all levels gravitated there.
Braden had told him that there was a room kept dark so you could screw whatever women you found there in complete anonymity. Some women liked to enter the dark room at the beginning of the evening and stay until dawn, getting screwed by a dozen different Shareem.
Calder could visit this lights-free room, get out his needs and go home. Just a wet, waiting pussy, nothing more.
Gods, was he that desperate? Even with the highborn women who paid him to ravish them, he preferred some light, knowledge, contact. He might as well stay home with his hand.
Calder balled his fist and punched the wall. The mirror on the other side, in his bedroom, slid from the wall and shattered.
Fine. Calder was sick of looking at his wrecked body anyway.
* * * * *
Three days later—three lonely days from hell—Calder answered his door chime to find Rees on the threshold.
“What?”
Rees lifted his brows and stepped into the apartment’s front room. “Yep, you have all the signs. Flushed face, nervous sweats, cantankerous attitude. We have a bet on at Judith’s that you aren’t getting any. I say I win.”
“What do you want?”
Rees had never come to visit Calder before. Smart-assed Rio had been Rees’ preferred Shareem companion before Rio had moved off planet with his lady. Rio, much like Braden, was a shit with a love for jokes. Calder supposed that both he and Rees needed a laid-back friend who looked at the world a different way than they did.
Calder and Rees had far too much in common to become close friends. Rees had been screwed up deliberately, not by accident like Calder, but both of them had dark sides to their nature from which they needed relief. Together, they’d combust. Probably why Ky, another screwed-up level three, had gone so far as to take the sunny-natured level one Aiden as a lover.
“That pretty medic you’ve been seeing, Katarina d’Arnal,” Rees said. He stopped, sniffing the air. “Shit, you haven’t had a woman in here in days.”
“What about Katarina d’Arnal?”
“She’s in trouble.”
One of the pesky emotions Calder wasn’t supposed to have—fear—swooped in and froze his blood. “Trouble? Why? Where is she?”
Rees considered him with eyes more intensely blue than any other Shareem’s. “Come with me.”
Calder grabbed his sun-blocking robes. He’d taken to covering his body again, the brief moment of being naked and unashamed in front of Katarina a fading memory.
Rees led him quickly through the streets toward Katarina’s clinic. Sun cut at them through overhangs, patches of burning heat that made the shade seem blissfully cool.
They ended up at the clinic’s door and Rees ducked inside. “She’s expecting us,” he said to the startled receptionist.
Calder charged into Katarina’s exam room—and she looked up calmly from a tray.
Calder nearly sagged in relief. She was whole, unhurt, beautiful. She’d tucked her hair into a bun, with curls straggling from it to her neck. Her brown eyes took in Rees then Calder, and she smiled.
“Thank you, Rees.”
Calder spun around. Rees, the asshole, grinned. “No problem. I’ll tell Talan you said hello.”
Before Calder cou
ld snarl a question, Rees walked out. The automatic door slid shut behind him, the mechanism grating.
“What the hell is this?” Calder asked Katarina.
“I need to talk to you. I had the feeling you wouldn’t open your door to me, and it’s easier to meet here anyway.”
“So you sent Rees to trick me here?”
Katarina smiled. So innocent. Darling, you are so going to pay for this.
“I knew you’d never believe Braden. He’s not very good at lying. So I asked Rees. He was happy to assist.”
“My friends must have nothing better to do.”
“Than help each other? I like your friends. Leave them alone.”
Calder had to get out of there, fast. Standing near Katarina shot his adrenaline high and his heart began to pump like he’d been running. He either had to leave now or take her on the metal table.
“What do you want?” he growled. “I’m busy.” He was such a fucking liar.
“I’ve been doing a lot of reading. And research.” She turned away, lifted something from a tray. “Medics do that—have to in order to keep up with the latest techniques.”
“So?”
“You’re grouchy today.” Katarina turned around again, a smile on her lips. “Oh wait, you’re usually like this. Anyway, I’ve been reading about some new techniques developed for skin grafting, with excellent results. I thought you might be interested in hearing about them.”
Calder took a step back, icy disappointment flooding him. “Katarina, I’ve been through every technique dreamed up, back when I was first hurt up until last month. Dr. Laas contacts me all the time to try something new. I used to let surgeons screw with me, but they did experiments and tossed me out. Nothing ever works. My body is the way it is, and that’s the way it stays.”
“It can’t hurt to try.”
“It can. I’ve been subjected to everything from strange injections to having the skin peeled off me and put back. My cells died a long time ago, end of story. And don’t think about trying to fuse plastic to me like I’m a fucking android. I’m not that desperate.”
“No plastic, I promise. It’s a technique developed on Ariel, and it’s hideously expensive. If it will even work on you, which it might not.”
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