Page 58 of The Captain's Bounty
He smirked. “I knew you would not destroy me. I could smell you too intensely.”
She looked away, her face burning with that pleasant embarrassment that tickled up inside her worse than the storm of power. “I hate that you can do that.”
“Smell your desire for me?”
“Yes.”
“No other race affects us like yours.” His small smile faded. “I will find it difficult to say goodbye to you.”
She didn’t want to say goodbye at all. The realization hit painfully sharp, like an icepick straight to her chest. “Do we have to?”
She knew better than to ask that. She flushed for all new reasons, suddenly feeling stupid. It made her vulnerable on so many levels she wasn’t prepared for.
He looked at the wall. “If we do not, you will risk the same hunters that come for us. If we are taken, it will not be pleasant. I and my kind will be executed. You and Cory will spend the rest of your lives as the rut-slave of a male not of your choosing. He may be kind to you or he may be brutal and cruel. However, even a good man can go into Rage, and if so, he might kill you or simply beat you until you wish you were dead. And all that is only if my father doesn’t realize I have… gentle feelings towards you.”
The heated flush built instantly hotter, especially between her legs where the pulse of her quickening heartbeat throbbed in her flesh.
“Gentle feelings?” she echoed, trying not to smile.
He glanced at her out of the side of his eyes, almost ducking his head before he turned away. “You were my first,” he grudgingly admitted.
She bumped his shoulder with her own. “First captive, or the first one you ever tied to your bed?”
She didn’t for a second believe he meant the other kind of first, not until a faint blush stole up into his face, turning the craggy gray of his skin almost black. He leaned forward, elbows resting on his thighs and hands clasped tight between his knees, staring straight ahead as he admitted,
“My firstfirst.” When her jaw dropped, he attempted to return her teasing shoulder bump. “Women on Me’Kava are not given to men such as me.”
He could have knocked her off the bed.
“Oh.” She really needed to say more than that, but her brain refused to come up with anything, except what eventually came tumbling out of her mouth: “I never in a million years would have guessed I was your first.”
He didn’t seem to know how to take that, and in the space of perhaps two seconds, she could see him picking apart each word, each letter, for sarcasm before he risked a narrow sidelong glance. Their eyes met and whatever he saw in hers dispelled all suspicion. He straightened, broad shoulders rolling back as a toothy smile took his face. “I did bring you great pleasure.”
She tsked, the scalding flush burning up through her chest to her face only half embarrassment. She should not have found his response to be even half as sexually stimulating as it was.
“Despite whipping my ass first,” she said, getting up off the bed because staying this close to him was too damn distracting for her own good. Her clit was pulsing insistently now, and her belly churned with the warmth that only the press of his thigh to hers and the inconsequential brush of his arm as he sat up could do.
She’d have walked away, but before she took so much as a step, his arm hooked her waist and the whole room spun as he tossed her onto her back on the bed, rolling her underneath the hard press of his body in a way that made her libido soar.
“I did not whip you,” he said, seductively. “I would never treat you thus. My punishments were exceedingly gentle and, even you must admit, well-earned. Despite, you say? I say you liked them, too.”
Her instant denial launched up her too-tight throat only to die unspoken on her lips when he shook his head.
“Do not lie. I can smell how much you liked it. The hot core of your body weeps for the discipline of my hand.”
She’d have shaken her head if only he hadn’t put his hand upon her throat, holding her jaw in a way that kicked up the storm of butterflies now fluttering in her belly, and set her throbbing pussy on fire. He held her in a way that could have cut off her breathing, but he didn’t. He simply held her, directing her gaze to his and holding her attention captive as he let his other hand wander down her body, lifting the hem of her borrowed shirt up while he took his own measurement of just how aroused she was.
“Mm,” he purred, as his fingers parted her wet folds, rough bark-like skin becoming slick with her desire. “Nice.”
Her breath caught, her eyes almost closing as he found her clit. Electric shocks zipped from nerve to nerve, lighting up her entire body invisibly from within. Her breasts arched into empty air, taut nipples aching for his smirking mouth, while he played with her clit, now lightly pinching, now circling the sensitive tip with his wet fingertips and now?—
“Look at me.”
She made herself meet his smug gaze.
“You like this, yes?”
She couldn’t breathe. Every caress wound the tension inside, coiling the tightness building inside her until her legs trembled from the pressure.
