Icarus Unbound (6 page)
Authors: Bernadette Gardner
"And what is that?"
"A challenge."
49
Icarus Unbound
by Bernadette Gardner
Despite the warmth of the crisp cotton sheet Jaran had arranged over her body, Lara shivered. Her mind whirled with recriminations. How could she have allowed this? She should have simply flown off to one of the abandoned aeries in the far-reaching southern island chain and hidden until Jaran forgot about this plan to humiliate her. Certainly the public shame of disobeying her liege would be preferable to this.
Lying in Jaran's bed, her sex pulsing from the orgasm he'd given her, she felt like she'd betrayed herself. The ten-year-old girl who had wished her tormentor would fall off the edge of the world would never forgive the woman who had agreed to become his lifemate.
The teenager whose palms had begun to sweat and whose heart had raced every time Jaran looked at her might have secretly enjoyed this erotic interlude, but she could never forget all of the times his careless remarks had made her wish her parents had retained the good sense to mate with full-blooded Icarians instead of with each other.
Lara closed her eyes, hoping Jaran would assume she'd fallen asleep. For several minutes she listened to him move around the room, dimming the sconce lights, pulling tarps across the windows to control the flow of the evening breeze.
Her heart still pounded erratically, and each time she recalled his promise that he hadn't yet begun to play with her, something gripped tight in her belly.
50
Icarus Unbound
by Bernadette Gardner
Anticipation spiraled out from her womb, causing an uncomfortable heat between her legs and a blush to creep up her chest to her face. Her wings twitched, and through their psychic link, her symbion expressed desire to be claimed by a potent male.
Lara moaned, then covered her mouth with her hand, hoping Jaran hadn't heard. Finally, the feather-soft mattress dipped as he slipped beneath the sheet and settled his body next to hers.
"I know you're not asleep."
"Mmm?" She feigned confusion and kept her eyes closed.
Jaran chuckled. "You cannot hide behind your eyelids." To punctuate his point, he slid a hand down between their bodies and cupped her mound.
The contact shot arrows of awareness through Lara's body.
Her muscles tensed, her sex wept and her eyes flew open.
"I don't need permission," he said. "I may touch you wherever and whenever I wish to." Carelessly, he delved his fingers between her folds and Lara bit her lip. "You're so soft and tight. Your desire heats your flesh and your cum smells of passion fruit, but it tastes like alor berries."
Lara swallowed her embarrassment. She'd never had a man comment on her taste before, and the words made every nerve ending in her body begin to tingle.
Watching her with dark, hooded eyes, Jaran slipped a finger along her slit and then deftly entered her. Involuntarily, she spread her legs, hating herself for complying, and at the same time so eager to feel the sensual intrusion.
51
Icarus Unbound
by Bernadette Gardner
"Yes, perfect. I love the way you move." Jaran thrust his finger a little farther and Lara gasped. Pleasure cascaded along her nerve endings, colliding with the shame of knowing she was responding just as Jaran had expected her to.
With each rush of erotic sensation that swept through her, Lara relinquished a bit more control to her symbion. After several moments reveling in the feel of Jaran's finger sliding in and out of her body, raising her awareness to new heights, she'd almost forgotten where she was and who she was with.
All she knew was the desire for release, all she craved was more. She nearly wept when Jaran removed his finger. Before she could find her voice to protest, he spread her thighs even wider. He caught Lara's gaze and held it while he entered her again, this time with two fingers, deep and probing. He began a rhythm of slow penetration and withdrawal that had her writhing on the silken platform of his bed.
"I enjoyed feeling you come," he told her, his golden eyes blazing with such intensity she had to look away. "Feeling you grow tighter around me, watching your cheeks flush and your eyes dilate makes it almost impossible for me to control my symbion. I like knowing I can give you pleasure."
Lara whimpered. His thrusts filled her, each time just teasing the spot within her that demanded attention. Spread to either side of her shoulders, her wings had begun to flutter lightly against the bed. Her symbion was drawing all of the supercharged sex hormones from her body into its own and enhancing them so that when her climax occurred again, it would affect them both.
52
Icarus Unbound
by Bernadette Gardner
In a few weeks when the mating cycle began, her orgasm would bring with it a flood of fertility that would virtually assure conception, but for now, during this initial phase of their union, even if Jaran ejaculated inside her, she would not become pregnant.
Thank goodness. She still had time to figure out how to dissolve their bond. But in the mean time, she was coming ...
coming hard.
She tensed up as Jaran reached deep, finally touching the spot inside her that triggered an avalanche of erotic sensation. Her clit pulsed and her juices gushed around his finger, easing his way even farther toward her contracting womb.
She could no longer fight it. A breathless moan escaped her and her body shuddered as her symbion experienced the same wave of ecstasy. While Lara sobbed with the tremors racking her body, Jaran drew one of her nipples into his mouth and began to suckle. The sudden pain of his teeth and tongue flattening the distended flesh mixed with waves of pleasure coursing through her and made her cry out. Instinct drove her to curl her arm around the back of his head and hold his hot mouth against her breast.
Lara's brain shut down. For a blissful moment she forgot that she lay in the bed of her lifelong nemesis. She forgot all the times Jaran's taunts had made her cry. Instead she gave herself over to the sensation and let herself drift in a nearly dreamlike state.
Without warning, Jaran broke contact, swept the sheet away from their bodies and rose up on his knees. He stared 53
Icarus Unbound
by Bernadette Gardner
down at her trembling body, her swollen nipples and the moisture on her thighs.
She would have expected him to fuck her now while she lay weak from her climax and was not inclined, for the first time in decades, to fight with him. Instead, he climbed off the bed.
Lara eyed his cock, which though straight and long was only semi-erect. A new wave of shame washed over her. For all his talk about how beautiful and alluring she was, he hadn't become completely aroused while pleasuring her.
Clearly this entire interlude had been a deceit. He had no real interest in her, he simply wanted to manipulate her. She stared, jaw slack, anger building in her and quickly drying up the sensual river on which she'd been floating. She shifted position and drew her legs closed. "Why are you wasting your time with someone you don't even desire, Jaran?" She choked the words out as she gathered the sheet around her rapidly cooling body, desperate to hide the physical evidence of her own arousal.
"That's not..."
"Or is it that you're unable to reach your peak?"
His expression hardened to granite and he turned his back on her. With his wings spread in anger, he stalked out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
Lara stared after him for a long time, wondering if she could bring herself to follow and apologize. The words probably would have caught in her throat and suffocated her.
Why would he do this to her? It made no sense for him to choose a mate he had no feelings for except as a cruel joke.
54
Icarus Unbound
by Bernadette Gardner
He could dismiss her as inadequate and choose a new mate for himself, leaving her without prospects. No man would have her if the leader himself tossed her aside.
Tears rolled down her cheeks and she cursed him, first quietly, then at the top of her voice. She had two choices now—allow Jaran to complete his humiliation of her or find a way to coax his arousal from him and consummate their union, thus eliminating one of the many reasons he could cite for her dismissal.
She could make him want her the same way he'd tried to make her want him. Or she could disappear and spare herself any more heartache caused by Jaran. Furious, she dried her tears with a corner of the sheet and made her decision.
Jaran tried to ignore the sounds of Lara's wrath drifting through the corridors of the upper level of the aerie. Once again, he'd made a mistake with her. He'd controlled his own arousal, keeping it at bay while he pleasured her so she wouldn't feel pressured to accommodate him. He'd hoped she would appreciate not being rushed, not feeling completely powerless. He wanted her to choose the moment of their joining, not feel it had been forced upon her.
Instead, she'd been insulted and assumed he didn't find her arousing.
He should have marched back into the bed chamber, mounted her and unleashed the full fury of his symbion's mating instinct. Then she'd have no doubt he wanted her.
If he took her now, in this state, he'd hurt her. He'd ravage her with all the years of pent-up desire. By the time he was through, she'd hate him even more than she already did.
55
Icarus Unbound
by Bernadette Gardner
So, instead of claiming his mate and leaving her panting, wrung out, exhausted and begging for his mercy, he stood now in the water spa holding his fully erect cock in one hand.
His symbion would not be pleased with this alternative, but at least he could relieve the unrelenting ache in his balls.
An Icarian male could suppress his arousal only so long, and Jaran had reached his limit. He braced an arm on the ornately tiled wall and began to run his hand along his shaft.
Harder and faster he pumped while images of Lara lying in his bed swirled through his mind. He still smelled her skin and tasted her sweet essence on his tongue.
He'd have her. In time. He would claim her properly and completely and he'd do whatever he had to do to erase all the years of turmoil between them and make her love him the way he loved her.
Until then, he'd satisfy himself, no matter how much his symbion protested.
Jaran's climax hit hard. His balls tightened, and his shaft jerked in his hand, spurting his still infertile seed on the tile wall. Weak kneed and still frustrated, he washed the evidence of his orgasm away with a shower of clean water and prepared to return to his chamber to fall asleep next to his unwilling mate.
He would apologize, in the morning when his head was clear and they were both well rested. And tomorrow evening, he would do his best to please her again and again and again.
56
Icarus Unbound
by Bernadette Gardner
Lara blinked, squeezed her eyes shut tight, then opened them wide again in an effort to banish the fuzzy haze from the edges of her vision.
She'd been in her lab since well before sunrise, studying mutated plant cells and trying to determine how she could cure the seed blight which had destroyed an entire kelp bed in the northern shoals. At the moment, every slide she examined looked exactly the same. Her eyes were too tired to distinguish the healthy plant samples from the diseased ones.
She needed a break, but only work had been able to take her mind off her disastrous encounter with Jaran. She'd left the royal aerie before he returned to his bed and had flown back to her bungalow at the research station by moonlight.
Somehow her own narrow bed had seemed empty and cold after spending even an hour in Jaran's, but she had no desire to get used to sleeping with his large, muscular body next to hers. She let out a sigh and pushed away from her work station, figuring a walk on the beach would clear her head.
She slipped off her lab coat and let herself out of the clean room in which she worked. The bustle of the busy research station filled her ears, and she began to feel better and a little less alone.
Spending the day with her colleagues might give her some perspective on this unexpected complication in her life. Or it might only serve to frustrate her further. The latter seemed to be the case, she discovered as she strolled down the main 57
Icarus Unbound
by Bernadette Gardner
corridor of the building, heading toward the atrium which lead out to the island's crescent-shaped beach.
Her human co-workers smiled and nodded greetings as usual, but the Icarians, every last one, refused to meet her gaze. As was custom, they all dropped to one knee as she approached, some mid-stride or mid-conversation. While many of them muttered the traditional greeting of "my lady", none of them said anything else to her. By the time she arrived at the beach, her embarrassment had reached staggering proportions.
Her few precious moments of solitude were interrupted by the arrival of Kiala. The Icarian woman glided in from the north, exhibiting her usual perfect grace as she landed. The artistry of her movements dimmed for Lara when her friend dropped immediately to one knee.
"My lady, if I may walk with you?"
Lara made a sound somewhere between a sigh of annoyance and a growl. "Kiala, I'm the same person I was twenty-four hours ago. Why are you treating me as if I'm Namara's ghost?"
Kiala folded her wings and crossed her arms over her chest. "How do you expect me to act? I was raised on Icarian social protocols. Every single one of us who has one Icarian parent was taught to put Icarian laws and traditions first and foremost."
Lara held up her hands in surrender. "I know. I was too.
My parents were just as dedicated to preserving Icarian culture as anyone else, but we're friends and when you call me 'my lady' I feel like there's a bridge between us that I 58
