Genesis (24 page)

No longer content to confine himself to teasing her to distraction by suckling at her breasts, he moved lower, sucking love bites along her flesh in a winding descent that left little uncharted territory until he reached her lower belly.

He stopped there, straightened to stare down at her with his heated gaze a long moment and then moved. Grasping one leg above her knee, he parted her thighs and settled on his knees between them. Leaning over her again, he supported himself with one arm and stoked her body from breasts to mound with his free hand.

Bri shivered in anticipation, parting her legs wider in invitation, arching her hips as his hand reached her mound.

Instead of entering her as she’d expected, however, wanted … needed, he pushed himself backwards and settled on his belly, burrowing his face against her mound. Surprise froze her. The first stroke of his hot, faintly rough tongue across her clit as he delved her cleft sent a nearly painful jolt through her.

Before she could even think to protest, although she tensed with reluctance, he drove all thought from her mind by burrowing deeper and sucking her clit into his mouth. She cried out, bucked, struggled, but he merely caught her thighs, holding her for the feasting of his mouth on her until all thoughts of fighting or protest vanished. Threading her fingers through his hair, she kneaded his scalp, rising to meet his stroking caresses in a mindless fever of need as her body bounded at lightening speed toward release. The sharp edge of pleasure raked her. Before she’d entirely grasped the powerful intensity of the jolts of ecstasy rocking her, she came, so hard it seemed to stop her heart, squeeze the breath from lungs … and continued to convulse until she was almost screaming for surcease from the rapture racking her body, begging him to stop because she didn’t think she could take anymore.

Relief flooded her when he lifted his head and she was finally able to draw breath. Barely conscious, her entire body still quaking and throbbing from the blood still pounding through her, she lifted her eyelids with an effort as he moved over her. It took far more effort to lift her arms to him in welcome as she felt him settle his hips against hers, felt the hardness of his cock sandwiched between the lips of her sex.

Dragging in a shuddering breath, she arched her hips, urging him to take the pleasure he’d denied himself.

The pain when he breeched her opening was so unexpected it forced a cry from her. She bit her lip, fought it as he went still, probing her with no more than the head of his cock. Catching her breath, she arched against him as he gently probed again, prepared, she thought. She wasn’t. Her sex was raw. As careful and tentative as his efforts were to claim her, she felt as if he was thrusting sandpaper against her channel walls.

He withdrew after only a moment, settling beside her on his side.

“No,” Bri said, distressed. “It’s alright. It doesn’t hurt, really.”

Pulling her snugly against his chest, he stroked her hair and then her back. “Hurt,” he disputed.

Bri swallowed against an inexplicable tightness in her throat, casting wildly about in her mind to try to understand why she felt so raw there. It dawned on her finally that it must be from what they’d done to her--it was as if they’d scraped her inside--or maybe it was a natural side effect of a miscarriage? She didn’t know which. She only knew she hadn’t healed from it yet.

It seemed grossly unfair to deprive him of his pleasure after what he’d done to please her, but she couldn’t bring herself to insist.

He caught one of her legs after a moment, lifted it slightly, and pushed his cock between her thighs. Understanding dawned as he thrust his pelvis against hers. She tightened her thighs around his erection, arching to meet him the next time. He made a pained sound. Slipping a hand down her back to her buttocks, he dug his fingers into the soft flesh and began to move faster.

Her heart fluttered, quickened. Meeting his thrusts, she burrowed her face against his chest, exploring him with her lips as he had her. He jerked, shuddering when she teased one of his male nipples and began to suck it. Uttering a groan that seemed to be filled with as much pain as pleasure, he thrust faster. The tremors in his body grew harder and harder. Suddenly, he stopped, uttered a choked sound. His cock jerked between her thighs. Warmth filled her as she felt his convulsions of pleasure, felt his body yield up his seed. It was more erotic than she would ever have imagined it would be to be so totally aware of his pleasure.

An inexplicable wave of tenderness caught at her as he sagged against her finally, breathing raggedly. On impulse, she shifted, pulling at him until his head rested against her breasts. Wrapping her arms around him, she caressed him with her hands. He snuggled closer, wrapping an arm around her waist. “I will crush my precious little flower,” he muttered thickly after a few moments.

Bri came so near to responding to him in his own tongue that it sent a chill through her.

He felt her tense, but apparently he interpreted it as pain from his weight. He rolled onto his back, carrying her with him. She tensed to move off of him, but he wrapped his arms around her, holding her, and she subsided, content enough to lay draped over him, drowsy from the lingering aftereffects of two powerful climaxes and the satisfaction of knowing he’d found pleasure, too, even though she was more than a little dissatisfied with the manner of it. She couldn’t help but wonder if he felt cheated.
She
felt as if he’d been cheated, certain that penetration would’ve given him more pleasure and a more satisfying release. After the heights of ecstasy he’d treated her to, it seemed especially unfair to do little more than jack him off.

She was still grateful for his thoughtfulness of her comfort.

To deny his own needs, to do so when he’d been driven to a fever of passion that should have left little room for awareness of anything else, he’d obviously meant it very sincerely when he’d promised he wouldn’t hurt her--not merely meant that he would
try
not to hurt her in his pursuit of pleasure.

He almost seemed to read her thoughts. “It’s as well I couldn’t do what I wanted,” he murmured after a few moments. “I’m not sure I would have been able to pull out, or remembered I’d intended to.” He shifted, rolling until they lay side by side. Hooking a finger beneath her chin, he tilted her face up for his inspection. “I am greedy … and probably the stupidest Hirachi ever born. The elders knew what they were doing when they denounced the old ways. Caring too much can make even a strong warrior weak, can divide his heart and mind so that he is careless in battle, more focused on the pleasure of being with his woman than on protecting the interests and well being of the tribe as a whole.”

Releasing her, he rolled onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. “Gods! In all the time I lay awake wondering what it would feel like to be with you, I had not imagined it would be so ….”

He didn’t finish the sentence, much to Bri’s chagrin. Disappointing?

He had every right to be, but he didn’t
seem
disappointed. He seemed satisfied … pleased with himself as if he’d enjoyed wringing cries of pleasure from her as much as he had enjoyed his own release … and she still felt as if she’d cheated him. She couldn’t help it. She hadn’t realized she was so raw inside that she wouldn’t be able to bear being touched there. If she had, she would have ….

What? Denied him?

That would only have created a misunderstanding that she wouldn’t have been able to explain, not without letting him know she understood his language. And, if he’d felt rejected, he might not have been willing to offer himself up for another dose of it.

He didn’t seem inclined to dwell on his disappointment if that was what he’d felt. He seemed very disinclined, in fact, to allow her out of his sight. As unaccustomed as she was to having a man in her life, Bri was a little surprised to discover she didn’t feel stifled by his attentiveness. Quite the contrary, in fact.

She felt … worshipped, adored.

He would study her until she began to feel acutely self-conscious, until she began to wonder if he was searching for flaws--or had found them--and then he would simply pull her close and cuddle her against his body, as if the contact was a pleasure in itself and sex unnecessary.

Not that he eschewed
that
either, but, surprisingly, to her at least, he seemed to find equal pleasure in cuddling her when he was too exhausted from bouts of lovemaking to do anything else.

And it was hard to think of the things he did to her as anything
but
lovemaking when he was so tender of her and her needs.

Experience was obviously the best teacher, and just as obviously, Dansk had had plenty of it. Almost effortlessly, it seemed to her, he could drive her into a delirium of mindless need, bring her to completion, and then begin again until she was exhausted from the expenditure of so much pleasure.

She couldn’t help but wonder what was running through his mind when he did lay for hours merely cuddling her, occasionally stroking his hands over her in a way that was almost possessive, though not really in a sexual sense … not as if his intent was to arouse her. Her own thoughts were disturbing. She enjoyed it far more than she was comfortable with, found herself wishing for things that were impossible given their situation.

But maybe it was only that he found it as calming and comforting as she did? After his outburst the first day that had unnerved her, he either managed to funnel his frustrations into the outlet of sex, or simply controlled them with grim determination to keep from alarming her again.

Bri lost all track of time. Dansk, whatever his feelings, either couldn’t resist temptation, or he was determined to enjoy the situation to the fullest, or he was bent on convincing the Sheloni that he was cooperating. He didn’t attempt full penetration again for nearly a week, but he didn’t allow that to stop him from wringing every ounce of pleasure from her.

If she’d thought about it at all, she would’ve been certain she simply didn’t have much of a sex drive. It hadn’t really bothered her that there’d been years between the few relationships she’d had. She’d been willing to have sex, but that was more to please her partner than because she’d felt any great need, and she always ended up faking orgasm … also to please … maybe partly just to escape the bedroom without a fight.

She’d been thrilled to death when Kole had brought her to orgasm, not just because it made her feel fabulous, but because she felt as if it proved there was nothing wrong with her when she’d always secretly believed there was.

Dansk taught her she was not only capable of achieving orgasm, she was capable of multiple orgasms. The unnerving part about it was that it seemed the more she did, the more she wanted. It was like an addiction. She wasn’t certain whether it was an addiction to Dansk or just to sex, but either way it was not a good thing.

She was supposed to be focused on learning what she could about the Hirachi, and discovering what Dansk might know about the Sheloni and/or the ship.

Instead, he kept her so awash in sensations that she hardly knew one day from the next. They rested, they slept, they ate, they attended their personal needs, but primarily Dansk made love to her.

And the more he pleasured her, the more dissatisfied Bri was that she couldn’t give him what she knew he wanted. She wanted his seed inside of her. She began to crave the feel of his flesh, hunger for it. It wasn’t enough that he pleasured her. She wanted to
give, needed
to.

“I have often wondered if I am so different from everyone else, or if it is only that they hide it better, that they have more discipline that I,” Dansk muttered one day as they lay curled together weakly after a bout of lovemaking.

Roused, Bri instantly noticed tension in him--strange that she’d become so attuned to him, she thought, when they’d only been together a little over a week, were still virtual strangers in every way except physically. In that sense, she knew him almost as well, she thought, as he did her, knew where and how to touch him to give him the most pleasure.

And yet she still didn’t really know
him
, didn’t know what his life had been like before, didn’t know what he wanted out of life.

But even the thoughts went through her mind she realized, wryly, that maybe it wasn’t so remarkable that she’d instantly noticed the tension in him. There’d been a feverish quality about the way he’d made love to her, a sense of desperation, as if some unnamed dread were riding him.

“There is merit to the new ways. No one is denied the simple pleasure of coupling with any woman who chooses them … only the mating is forbidden. Even I enjoyed the freedom of dining at a different table whenever I was hungry … at first. I’ve no idea when that ceased to … satisfy me, when it was no longer enough. But the elders did not deny their own need to bear young, they only demanded it of us, as if they’d forgotten the … madness that comes from denial.”

He shifted uncomfortably. “I fared well enough the first few seasons, not so well the fourth or fifth. The sixth ….” He grimaced. “Not at all well. If they had not forced me into the confinement lodge with the other males …. Most likely I would have been driven from the village for taking what was not offered.

“I understand, now, why the elders demanded the sacrifice, else I would be half mad now wondering what had become of my child when I was taken. And yet it availed us nothing! We have had the freedom to have
nothing
beyond momentary pleasure. We have had nothing to strive for beyond a good death in battle or an honorable death in ritual suicide. That is no life at all!

“I would almost be willing to embrace slavery if it meant we would be allowed to have what was denied before, but the Sheloni will not allow it either. I have hungered for you since I first saw you … I was nearly a madman when they gave you to Kole, sick with rage that I had not even had the chance to court you for myself.

“And when I have done what they want, they will take you from me, and take my child from you. And I will still have nothing.”