Teasing Tilly (15 page)

And abruptly everything seemed to fall into place.

They hadn’t actually come to rescue her from the horrible creature that was torturing her.  They’d discovered she was pregnant and they’d come to rescue the child—
their
child.

That
was why their leader had cupped her belly in a way she realized was … almost loving.

They had no women and she was carrying a child that was at least half alien.

“Wait!  Did you say prince?  That young one over there that seems to be the head of the council?” Tilly whispered urgently.  The one that had been in her bed?

Not that there was anything strange about it.  He was a man even if he
was
a prince.  He would want to screw and if they didn’t have women of their own and he wasn’t in to men ….

The woman snorted.  “Yeah, the one all of the others bow to.  You can tell from the way they
act
that he’s royal to them.  But one of the men who came to me said he wasn’t a king.  He’s a prince.  Don’t know why there would be a difference.  I thought princes always became kings when the old ruler died.  And I guess the old ruler died because their enemies blew up their planet.  The only reason there are any left at all—they call themselves Merkdar—is because these are the soldiers that were in the starship fleet—well the survivors.  And they were on their way home from battling their enemies when their enemies destroyed their world with a well aimed planetoid.

“At least they think that’s what happened.  If you ask me, I don’t see how they could know whether their enemies did it or not.  And maybe that was the idea?  Doing something that evil in such a way that it could be blamed on nature?  Sounds like something humans would do.  I mean, if they could.  They’ve been trying to weaponize the weather, you know.”

Tilly didn’t know whether to believe the tale or not.  How could she know?

The woman shrugged when she asked.  “I’ve always kinda had a talent for languages.  I figured this was one language I really needed to learn.  Not saying I’ve perfected it or anything, but I’m better than they think.”  She grimaced and then shrugged.  “Better at their language than they are ours.  It’s awful—what happened to them.  I mean, at least we know Earth and everybody we left are still there.  It’s a comfort … to me anyway.  But I think the worst thing about their situation is that it makes it really hard to hate them and I’d like to hate them.”

Emily snorted.  “I’m not having any trouble hating the bastards.”

The woman sent her an unfriendly look.  “You wouldn’t.”

“What the hell do you mean by that,”  Emily demanded, narrowing her eyes at the woman.

The woman sent Tilly an uncomfortable look.  “You think about it,” she responded finally. “Let me know what comes to mind.”

Chapter Nineteen

It was a lot of information to digest.  Unfortunately, it made the food she was trying to eat
hard
to digest.  She had to struggle to eat a respectable amount of the food on her plate when she’d dug in to begin with enthusiastically.

It occurred to her that she hadn’t had any of the symptoms that she knew of that were associated with pregnancy.

Well, the bloating, she supposed, since it seemed to be enough to draw attention to it.

She hadn’t noticed it herself, but then again she hadn’t had ‘real’ clothing to wear since she’d been taken.  She would have noticed ‘swelling’ in
her
clothes.

But no nausea.  Shouldn’t she have gotten morning sickness?

But then, even if she was pregnant, she had no idea how far along she might be or when morning sickness was supposed to kick in.

It seemed to her that it was supposed to be one of the first signs, but she didn’t suppose everybody got it.  Everybody was different and pregnancy affected them differently.

She didn’t know and she didn’t know how to find out, but her birth control was definitely well out of potency and if these alien men could get her pregnant they’d darned sure loaded her up with enough seed to produce an army.

At any rate, the more she thought about it the more certain she was that they wouldn’t have come after her if they didn’t know she was pregnant.

She just wasn’t sure of how she felt about it. 

She supposed it was an anchor baby.

That thought wasn’t a happy one even though she thought it should have been if it meant she had some sort of security because of the baby.

After a while—when the men came to collect her to walk her back—she realized
why
it didn’t make her happy.

She’d become emotionally attached to the men—the commander most of all.

How stupid was that?

Why?  Was there a rational explanation for it? 

She did know she’d felt rescued and so very grateful to them when they’d come to get her back.  She hadn’t given a lot of thought to why they did.  But she’d known she couldn’t endure what that cat-man creature wanted to do to her and survive—not long. 

She didn’t know how Emily had survived it!

She’d always thought of her little sister as so fragile!

But she supposed it had broken her mind instead of her body.  Maybe her arrival had saved her sister after all.  She had no idea, she realized, how long her sister had been with the cat-man.  She knew how long Emily had been gone.  She knew how long it had taken her to get to the slave market, but she couldn’t say without a doubt that Emily had gotten there very long ahead of her.

And Emily hadn’t said a lot to her besides ‘I hate you!’

Sooo … maybe she felt a connection because he had rescued her and maybe it was because he was the key to her survival.  Maybe it was like a drug dependency?  The sex produced endorphins she’d gotten addicted to because of sex with him.

Confusing, but still possible.

Or maybe they produced strong chemicals like the human male that helped them to bind women to them?  In effect addicting them to their particular chemical signature?

He’d kissed her, she remembered abruptly.  He’d had sex with her in a way that had felt like making love and he’d protected her and saved her.

It wasn’t entirely insane, she decided, that she’d developed some feelings for him—in spite of everything. 

So that was the source of the unhappiness.  She cared.  They didn’t.  She was still just a sex toy.

She was so deep in thought that it wasn’t until they reached the hotel that she realized that she was alone with the commander, that somewhere along the way the second had fallen by the wayside.

She glanced at the commander uneasily, wondering why she was alone with him and if she was going to like it or … not.

The lights came on overhead as they entered her room.  The commander looked up at the ceiling and the lights dimmed.

Surprise flickered through her.  Most often they wanted blinding light when they scewed so they could see every pimple and flaw, she thought wryly.  She jumped and sent him a wide eyed look when she felt the weight of his hands on her shoulders.

He massaged them and then cupped her face in his hands.

She didn’t think she’d realized just how giant he was till then or how precarious her position was … or how carefully he must have handled her not to inflict damage.

He stroked his hands down her hair, as if smoothing it.  “Tilly … beautiful,” he murmured.

A jolt of surprise went through her and then she felt her face heating with discomfort.

She wished!  She was barely above average, but if he wanted to think she was beautiful ….  Or at least say it.  That was nice anyway.

He searched her gaze—for her reaction she supposed. 

“I am Torin.”

She frowned.  Unlike the woman she’d met in the dining hall, she hadn’t managed to hear enough of their talking to even
begin
to know what he’d just said.

Frustration flickered in his eyes.  In a moment, he reached down and grasped her hand, lifting it and placing it against his chest. 
“I am Commander Torin of the Merkdar.”

She blinked at him.  She was pretty sure he’d just introduced himself—way late, but better than never—except she wasn’t certain enough to risk pissing him off by assuming it actually was his name.  When, maybe, he was telling her how many ways he meant to fuck her.

He might get pissed off if she called him ‘stand on head and fuck in ass’.

“Commander Torin.”

Enlightenment.  “Commander Torin,” she repeated.

He smiled and her heart abruptly did a freefall all the way to her toes.  She’d thought he was handsome from the first time she’d seen him—even when she’d been absolutely terrified.  But the smile transformed him, made him seem so much more approachable that he went from merely handsome in a distant sort of way to drop dead gorgeous.  She swallowed with an effort and tried to smile back at him.

He shook his head slightly. 
“I am Torin.  Just that.”

She frowned uneasily, confused all over again.

He touched her face, stroked her cheek.  “Tilly—Torin.”

She blinked a couple of times and then smiled, struggling with the urge to touch his rugged cheek.  “Torin.”

“Yes.”

He lifted his head and his gaze zeroed in on the bunk.

Well, social hour was over!  Tilly obeyed the unspoken command, moving toward the bunk and settling on it.  To her surprise, however, the nanos not only didn’t immediately arrange her for screwing, it prevented her from assuming the position.  When she glanced at Torin questioningly, however, she saw he was in the process of stripping.

True concern washed over her then.  “I think this is malfunctioning.”

He settled beside her on the bunk on his side facing her and lifted a hand to touch her face again. 
“I know you do not know my language and I speak very little of yours, but I see you are intelligent and I hope to make you understand.”
  He stroked a hand along her arm, touched her breasts. 
“I can command you to yield to me, to offer yourself to me.  But I want to know … I
need
to know if you would willingly allow my touch if you weren’t compelled.” 

He cupped her belly. 
“This girl child growing here is mine.”
  He lifted his gaze to meet hers.  “Baby is Torin’s.”

Tilly felt the blood leave her face abruptly, felt a fear she’d never felt before.  She tried to push his hand out of the way.  “Tilly’s.”

He frowned and then it hit him what she’d thought he meant and he lifted a hand to cup her cheek.  “Yes.  Baby is Tilly’s.  And Torin’s.”

Relief flickered through her.  She wanted to argue that point, but if he was willing to admit the baby was hers they were making some progress in the right direction. 

He stroked a hand down her back and grasped something.  Abruptly the nano-suit withdrew entirely, leaving her as naked and as unfettered as he was.

She looked at him questioningly when he returned his attention to her after carefully placing it on the floor by the bed.

He caught her hand again and lifted it, placing her palm against his chest. 

She stared at his face and then looked at her hand and the broad chest it rested on. 

She was pretty sure he wanted her to explore him.

She hoped so because she wanted to know what his skin felt like and the hard contours of muscle.  She stroked her hand lightly, experimentally along his hard chest to his belly.  And then glanced up at his face.  His eyes, she saw, had slid to half mast.  He was watching her, his face taut—heat, she thought, gleaming in his eyes.

She shifted closer, replacing her hand with her lips.

A shudder traveled all the way through his big body as she explored his male breast with her lips.  He let out a pent up breath as if she’d punched him in the solar plexus rather than kissed him there.  His hands clamped onto her upper arms and he carried her to her back on the bed.  When she looked up at him in surprise and wariness, it was to discover his face descending toward hers. 

A jolt went through her when his mouth covered hers, but the heat of it, his taste and scent as they rolled over her tongue, sent intoxicating heat through her.  She was so drunk with delight within a matter of moments that she lost all wariness of him, all sense of self-preservation, stroking her hands over his silken skin wonderingly, lifting to press her breasts to his chest.

He broke from her lips to explore her face and throat and then her breasts.  She gasped as he caught one nipple between his lips and then suckled it, sending waves of electric heat along her nerve endings to her belly and building a fire there with the smoldering embers his kisses had already generated.

She clutched his head to her, stroked his hair, gasped his name as he moved from one breast to the other.

“Now!” she gasped as he left her breasts at last and headed south instead of north.

He ignored the demand, caught her thighs and parted them and then dove at her clit.  She nearly came out of her skin when he covered her sensitive flesh with the heat of his mouth and began sucking.  She pulled mindlessly at his hair.