Page 45 of Sublime Target

That’s why he was more determined than ever to do this right. It had taken every shred of his self-control to be restrained around her… to the point where masking his agony became almost unbearable.

But if he won her trust, it would be so much sweeter when she yielded to him.

Pain before reward.

His battle was with the darkness inside him, and he would fight it with every fiber of his being.

How could he ever do anything to harm her?

She was so calm, so trusting. So perfectly sweet and gentle, unlike anything or anyone he’d ever known before.

Everything they said about human females was true.

He turned to his pilot, a seasoned operator called Rukan, who was staring at him as if he’d just grown three horns. “You all right there, boss?”

“Fine,” Jerik growled. The suppressant was really taking hold now, and although it didn’t completely eliminate the symptoms of the Mating Fever, it made them bearable.

Rukan let out a soft snort as he brought the cruiser down through a bank of thick cloud into the luridly illuminated night above New York City. The ship was Jerik’s personal stealth cruiser, the smallest in its class but enviably fast and agile.

He’d named it Tarsin—small dagger—after a spectacular knife-shaped constellation in Sector Three.

They swooped over a familiar set of buildings until they reached one that Jerik recognized very well.

It was a site he was all too familiar with, considering it was the place where a human called Sienna, the mate of his good friend Ikriss, had built a restaurant.

It had a strange human name: The Whisk and Pin, whatever in Kaiin’s Hells that meant.

The ground level was where the human customers dined.

Above it was a secret second level, which had been transformed into a mess hall of sorts. Any Kordolian was welcome to drop in for a feed. The meals were concocted by Sienna, who had slowly been convincing his kind that food could be a source of pleasure—not just nutrition.

Jerik had been skeptical at first, but after tasting something called steak tartare, he’d grudgingly come around to the idea that perhaps food could be enjoyed.

Occasionally.

First and foremost, it was still merely a form of sustenance.

The only thing he could see himself truly enjoying was pleasure of the carnal kind—with his chosen mate.

Hopefully, it would be with her.

If there was one thing he was confident he could do well, it was to make her feel pleasure so intense she would never look at him the same way again.

After all, he’d read The Manual.

“Boss, you want me to land her or just hover? With the human, landing would be easier for—”

Jerik held up a hand, interrupting his pilot. “Hover. Remain cloaked.”

“Right.” Rukan shot him a skeptical look, his pale golden eyes narrowing. But he knew better than to argue. “You’ll alight via the roof?”

“Correct.”

You don’t understand, lad. Not yet.

Jerik knew very well that having Rukan land the ship on the roof would make it easier for Clarissa to exit the Tarsin.

But he’d liked it when she’d clung to him so very tightly as they were lifted into the air, with him holding the Callidum cable in an unbreakable grip.

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