Found (41 page)

Xairn frowned. “But you can’t swim—you told
me so yourself.”

“I’m just going to splash around in the
shallow end,” Laurens said briskly. “And then maybe drift around on
one of the floats for awhile. You know, relax. What good is a day
off work if we don’t spend it relaxing?” She knew she was babbling
but by this point she didn’t care. She just had to get away from
Xairn and the strange fantasies that had been tormenting her
lately.

“Be careful, then,” he said but she was
already on her way into the bathroom to change into her favorite
white bikini. If a dip in the pool didn’t cool her down, she didn’t
know what would.

Xairn frowned as she came out with a towel
modestly draped around her curves and disappeared out the front
door. He still didn’t understand the human preoccupation with
immersing oneself in deep water. Especially here in Florida where
Lauren lived, people seemed to swim constantly—if not in pools then
in the ocean which surrounded them. He wished he could persuade
Lauren to give it up but since she seemed to like it so much, he
didn’t see how he could deny her one of her few pleasures.
Especially since he gave her no pleasure himself—no sexual
pleasure, anyway.

Gods, she smelled so hot just now.
Unable to help himself, Xairn lifted his face and scented the air
currents still swirling in the room. For some reason Lauren had
been getting more and more aroused lately. Probably, he thought
glumly, because he had denied her any kind of sexual satisfaction.
He knew perfectly well that the asexual relationship they currently
had couldn’t last but he didn’t know how to change that without
going too far. Didn’t know how to make love to her without hurting
her.

I wonder what she was really thinking
about when she was standing there, staring out at the pool? It sure
as hell wasn’t the idea of swimming that was making her so hot.
He had an idea that if he concentrated he might be able to hear
what she was thinking but he didn’t want to do that—it would be an
invasion of her privacy. He hadn’t been able to help hearing her
when things had gotten sexual between them but at least while they
were keeping their respective distances he could stop himself from
eavesdropping on her secret thoughts.

Speaking of hearing someone’s innermost
thoughts, he was glad Lauren couldn’t hear his. All he seemed able
to think about lately was how much he wanted her. Closing his eyes,
he allowed himself to fantasize what he would do if only he could
trust himself…

She would be lying on the bed, wearing
nothing but a short skirt and panties, her beautiful breasts
bare.
I would pin her hands above her head and order her not
to move. Tell her she couldn’t stir no matter what I did.

He imagined her full, thrusting breasts, her
nipples like dark, succulent berries at their tips. He wanted to
tease those nipples, to suck them long and hard in the way that
made Lauren hot and slippery between her thighs. She loved it when
he sucked her nipples—it never failed to make her pussy wet and
ready. Of course, she wouldn’t be able to help squirming with
pleasure as he worked on her, disobeying him despite his orders.
Such willful misbehavior would call for a punishment, but he could
deal with that later, after he finished tasting her.

After teasing her ripe peaks with his tongue,
he would move down her body and pull off her white lace panties
very, very slowly with his teeth. He could imagine the look on
Lauren’s face once her pussy was bare—uncertainty and a little fear
mixed with desire. But she would submit to him without question
when he told her to spread her legs, he was sure of that. And once
she was open to him…

I would get on my knees before her and
press my face to her hot, wet slit. Breathe in her warm, feminine
fragrance and rub my cheeks against the tender skin of her
thighs.
Gods, he was achingly hard just thinking of it. But the
fantasy didn’t end there.

I would part her pussy lips and lap her
cunt, long and slow and hot. I would taste her sweet juices until
she moaned and writhed under my tongue, until she bucked her hips
up to meet me and called my name, begging me to make her come, to
fill her. To fuck her…

A sudden
splash
and a muffled shriek
from the direction of the pool shredded the fantasy to bits. In a
flash Xairn was on his feet with Little One deposited safely on the
couch. “Stay,” he told the startled puppy and ran out the door as
fast as he could.

He rounded the corner and pushed through the
white metal fence that surrounded the pool to see Lauren’s slender
arms groping just above the surface of the water. The pink
inflatable float she’d been resting on had drifted away and she was
flailing helplessly right in the middle of the deep end.

Memories of the drowning tanks flashed
through Xairn’s head. The scent of corruption and rot heavy in the
stagnant air, the thick black slime sliding over his head, filling
his mouth as he gasped for breath… The boney hands throwing him
back again and again as he struggled to find his way out of the
dark waters… The high, evil laughter of his father as he told his
only son to sink or swim… Since that moment he had never swum
again—had told himself he would rather die than submerse himself in
water over his head.

The memories and horror all passed through
his mind in a fraction of a second.

And then he dove into the cold water and
stroked toward Lauren, pushing himself as hard as he could, praying
he would be in time.

Lauren really wasn’t sure what had happened.
One minute she was lying peacefully on the pink rubber raft,
wearing her favorite white bikini and trying to clear her mind and
the next minute she was smack in the middle of the pool, going down
like a stone.

Oh my God, swim, float…something!
she
mentally yelled at herself, trying not to panic. Her mother was an
excellent swimmer and had tried to teach her many times but somehow
Lauren just never got the hang of it. She couldn’t even learn to
tread water, which her mom had sworn would save her life if she
could just master it.
Should have tried harder,
she thought
as the chilly water closed over her head.
Should have—

And then strong arms were folding around her,
pulling her back to the surface in a rush of sunlight and blessed,
life giving air.
Xairn?
she thought dizzily as she was towed
across the pool to the side.
But he can’t swim, can he? I
thought he said he couldn’t. I thought—

“Here.” He pushed her up over the lip of the
pool and leapt out of the water to kneel beside her. “Breathe!” he
gasped, crouching over her, his eyes wide with fear. “Lauren,
breathe!”

“I…I’m okay,” she tried to say but it came
out in a low, choking voice that was barely understandable.

“I’ll take you to where all the healers stay.
What is it called? The hospital—I’ll take you there.” He swung her
up into his arms and Lauren thought she had never seen him looking
so wild.

“No, no!” She struggled in his arms as he
carried her swiftly from the pool. Spitting out some water, she
shook her head. “I’m fine, Xairn.
Fine,”
she gasped, still
catching her breath. “You got…got to me almost before I was in
trouble.”

They were in the condo by this time, standing
in the middle of the living room floor, both of them dripping.
Xairn was still holding her, a look of uncertainty and fear on his
face.

“You’re all right? You’re
really
all
right?”

Lauren cleared her throat so her voice came
out sounding less like a croak. “I am,
honestly
.”

“Thank the Gods.” Still holding her tightly,
Xairn fell to his knees and buried his face in her neck. “I
thought…thought I would be too late. That I would lose you.”

“No, baby, no. Of course not.” Lauren slid
out of his lap and somehow found herself standing in front of him.
Xairn was still kneeling. His arms wrapped around her waist and he
pressed his face to her abdomen. “It’s okay, I’m okay,” she said
over and over, stroking the broad, muscular shoulders soothingly.
“Honestly, it’s all right.”

“I know,” he whispered in a low, choked
voice. “I know.” But still he trembled and his skin, pressed
against her bare stomach, felt feverish with heat.

“I don’t understand how you did it though,”
she said, stroking the damp black hair away from his forehead. “You
told me you couldn’t swim.”

“I
choose
not to swim. But I can when
I have to.” He looked up at her at last and Lauren saw that his
eyes had gone a solid red-on-black. “My father taught me,” he
whispered and there were depths of unspoken pain in his words that
wrung her heart.

The sight of those eyes in a face that had
gone suddenly pale and those softly whispered words filled Lauren
with concern. “Hey,” she murmured, looking down at him anxiously.
“This is about more than me falling overboard, isn’t it?”

Xairn shook his head and looked away. “It’s
nothing. I was fearful for your safety, that’s all.”

“No, that’s
not
all,” Lauren said
firmly. “That’s not the whole story by a long shot. And you’re
going to tell me all of it. But first we need to get out of these
wet clothes. Come on.”

She helped him to his feet and at first it
seemed like he could barely move. Lauren’s concern grew as she
watched how stiffly he walked, how unsteady he was on his feet. It
was almost like
he
was the one who had nearly drowned. What
was going on with him?

She stripped him out of his wet jeans and
t-shirt while Little One barked urgently on the couch. “Quiet,
Little One,” she ordered, shaking a finger at the puppy. “Settle
down now.” For a wonder, the puppy did as she was told, curling up
in a corner of the couch and watching the proceedings with wide,
worried eyes. “It’s all right,” Lauren told her, though by now she
was beginning to be really worried about Xairn herself. “He’s going
to be fine. He’s just…just upset.” But upset about what?

Finally she had him completely nude and began
rubbing him down with towels. At any other time she would have been
admiring his hard, muscular body or maybe even trying to sneak a
peek at his equipment—she was still very curious about the whole
‘primary and secondary shaft’ thing he had going on. But at the
moment, she was too concerned with his mental state to think about
anything physical. She wrapped a towel around her own shoulders as
she worked, shivering slightly in the air conditioned condo as her
damp bikini stuck to her skin.

At last she had his large body mostly dry.
“There.” She sat him down, still naked, in one of the kitchen
chairs and pulled up a chair to sit opposite him. “Now tell me,
what’s going on. Why are you so upset? And don’t say it was because
of me, either—it’s more than that, I can tell.”

Xairn’s eyes were still a burning
red-on-black. He closed them briefly, an expression of pain
flitting over his face. “I told you that I chose not to swim but I
didn’t tell you why,” he began in a low, grating voice. “I…I never
told you about the drowning tanks.”

“The what?” Lauren looked at him in horror.
“You had tanks on your ship just for drowning people in?”

“Not people—animals.
Urlich.”
He took
a deep breath and went on. “It was my father’s policy to test them
in the tanks as part of their final training. The tanks were filled
with black slime—it must have been water at one time. But the dead
animals were left to rot in it, until it was a stinking, putrid
sludge, so foul it made one nauseous just to smell it.”

“Ugh.” Lauren shivered. “That’s
terrible.”

“Yes.” Xairn nodded briefly. “They—the mature
urlich
—had to show their stamina and courage by swimming.
Swimming for hours and hours on end in the slime. Some of them…” He
swallowed hard. “A lot of them drowned.”

“Oh my God!” Lauren put a hand to her mouth.
“Please don’t tell me he threw your pet dog in there and let it…let
it die.”

“No.” Xairn looked down at his hands, which
still trembled slightly in his lap. “He…he threw
me
in.” He
looked up at her. “Over and over again. It was…how I learned to
swim.”

“Oh no! Oh, Xairn!” Lauren was on her feet
and cradling his head against her breasts before she could stop
herself. “No wonder,” she murmured, stroking his still-damp hair.
“No wonder you hate to swim. But you jumped in to save me
anyway.”

Slowly his arms crept around her waist and
held her tight. Xairn looked up at her, his eyes still burning. “I
had no choice,” he said hoarsely. “You are my life, Lauren. If you
die there is nothing left for me.
Nothing.”

“Oh, baby.” She couldn’t stop the hot tears
that rose to her eyes and overflowed onto her cheeks. “I love you,”
she whispered. “Love you so much. I’m so sorry he hurt you that
way.”

“It’s all right,” He pressed his face to her
breasts again and inhaled deeply, as though taking comfort from the
scent of her skin. “It doesn’t matter. I survived.”

“Of course it matters.” Lauren caressed him
tenderly. “What happens in your childhood sticks with you as an
adult. Jumping into that pool must have scared you to death—but you
did it anyway. To save me.”

“How could I not?” He shook his head, his
damp hair whispering against her bare skin. “I…there are many
things about my existence before I met you that I didn’t want you
to know. That was one of them.”

“I want you to tell me. You hear me?” Lauren
lifted his chin and looked down into those familiar burning eyes.
“Tell me anything you want to—anything you need to. Doesn’t matter
what it is, I’ll still love you, no matter what.”

He frowned. “You think that but there are
things in my past that would make any normal person ill.”