Terran (Breeder) (17 page)

Realization dawned. The feleen had been jealous.
Tara cared
. Joy threatened to burst his chest. “That is correct; Anika is, as you say, my sister.”

“I guess I overreacted.”

He would have a few bruises from the objects she had thrown at him. The hut was in shambles. “You did,” he said, although, had the situation been reversed and he’d caught Tara embracing a male, he would have torn him limb from limb.

He shifted her off his lap onto all fours on the bed.

She twisted to peer at him. “I am sorry…Alpha,” she said.

He regarded her submissive pose, her punished and reddened skin, her upturned, remorseful face. He had never wanted her more than he did in that moment. Marlix stripped off his uniform and rolled an elasticene prophylactic onto his erection.

TARA’S HEART THUMPED as Marlix—
her Alpha
—lubed his erection with acca oil, preparing to use her in the Parseon way. The prospect did not terrify or outrage her like it would have a few weeks ago, because in a matter of hours, the world had tilted. All pretense and lies had fallen away to reveal the truth. She wanted to belong to him.

Catching him with Anika and assuming the worst had changed everything. What fool rejected love for political ideology? She wasn’t marrying Parseon; she would be joining Marlix. Sure, his controlling nature would irk her. But she loved him, needed him. And he
cared
. She could tell he did.

She no longer had reservations about obeying him. Just the thought of what was about to transpire had her trembling with anticipation, her womb contracting, wetness pooling. She would be proud to call him Alpha. Even as he’d punished her, she’d yelled, cursed, and kicked, but something had clicked into place inside with a rightness that could not be denied. She belonged with him, in his bed, over his knee, in his life. You are mine, he had said. Well, he was hers.

Her relationships with Terran lovers now seemed like an artificial substitute for true satisfaction. Marlix’s demands, his orders, his dominating nature, enlivened her. That was why she’d stayed when she’d had a chance to leave.

All of which led to the biggest truth of all: she, a Terran female, an entrepreneur, a traveler, an adventurer, the aggressor for most of her sexual life, had a submissive side. No wonder none of her relationships had worked out.

He knelt behind her, and she lifted her hips, prepared to receive him. She held her breath, half expecting him to push into her right away, but he trailed his fingers over her ass. Whether due to her arousal or the effects of the sudon, her bottom seemed to pulsate. His touch felt cool at first, but then left a wake of fire.

He trailed his fingers down her buttocks to her inner thighs and stroked the swollen tissues of her pussy, dipped inside her channel, before moving to her clit. “It is not enough for me to use you, Tara. I want you to want me to.” His voice rumbled in her ear.

She thrust against the hand drawing magic circles around her clit. “I-I do.”

He withdrew his fingers and leaned over her. His breath warmed her neck moments before he bit her hard enough to bruise. Pleasure contracted in her pussy, her clit, her womb, her ass.

“It pleases me to mark you as my breeder,” he said.

Marked
. Such a primitive expression of possession. She tilted her head to give him greater access to her throat and was rewarded with another nip. She moaned.

She could not see what he was doing, but he shifted, reached for something.

“I visited the Bazaar the other day. They have something there called a sex shop. Are you familiar with it?”

“I know of it. I have not been there.”

“I will take you one day,” he said.

A white heat scorched her at the thought of visiting such a place together. She struggled to guess what, if anything, Marlix might have bought on his own, when he guided the head of his cock to her rosette. She focused then on the pressure of his erection, the need to relax to ease the entry. He pushed his cockhead inside, and she gasped.
Ass on fire…ass on fire…ass on fire…

Her ears buzzed, a sound she attributed to panic, until Marlix touched her clit with a vibrating object. She jerked and cried out in surprise. He made no move to plunge deeper but held himself immobile and ran the finger vibe over her clit, igniting urgent sensations. When pleasure chased all pain, he pushed deeper, and an orgasm hit her with a sudden and full force.

Gripping her hips, he drove into her, then picked up momentum and speed on the inward stroke.

The vibe buzzed once again, but the sensation against her sensitive clit now transmitted an exquisite torture. “Noooo,” she moaned. “Too much. Too much.” Protests fell on deaf ears, then her discomfort shattered into ecstasy again just before his orgasm claimed him.

“
Now
you are mine,” he growled in her ear.

Chapter Fifteen

“We must talk,” Marlix said after they recovered and they’d washed in the water Tara heated on the stove. “But first, you must restore the hut to its previous condition,” he said.

She recognized a test when she heard one. She donned her boots and a shift and scurried to complete the task. Her ass cheeks still felt like they were being pinched by fire ants, and inside she was sore too. As Marlix watched with arms folded, she clopped around and swept up the shards and dumped them in a bin. He hauled the table to the center of the room, and she replaced the benches and chairs in their proper location.

He approached her. “Do you understand what it will mean for you to be my female?”

“I think so.” Tara nodded.

“You will belong to me.”

Belong. A euphemism for “own.” They weren’t discussing semantics, the difference between potato and potahto. She would be his property. To have and to hold, to do with as he pleased. But the fact that an Alpha had
asked
her if it was okay spoke volumes. At least she thought it did. “What about you?” she asked.

“What about me?”

“To whom will you belong?”

His face went blank for a moment. “To you,” he finally said.

“Just so you know that.”

He frowned as if he tumbled the concept around in his mind to study all the angles. “I have never belonged to anyone before.”

“Neither have I. What about my shop? Will you allow me to sell textiles?”

“You may run your shop.” Marlix scowled. “The male may not touch you.”

“Ramon? He’s not interested in me. He’s gay.”

“His happiness is of no concern to me, but I will make him exceedingly miserable if he touches you.” Marlix’s expression darkened more.

Tara choked off a giggle. “Not that kind of gay. Ramon is homosexual. He has sex with other men.”

“That does not mean anything.” Marlix still glowered. “Alphas and betas engage in sexual relations, but they still use females.”

“That is Parseon; Terra is different. Ramon is different,” Tara said, but considered the implications of his words. Jealousy gnawed through the pit of her stomach. He had said he would not take other women, but did his promise extend to men? Urazi had admitted they did not have sex, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t take another beta—or succumb on occasion to the convenience of Urazi. “What about other males?”

“What about them?”

“Will you engage in sexual relations with them?”

“No.”

“Have you ever had sex with men?” She gave rein to her curiosity.

“No.”

“Only with women?”

“Yes.”

“So why did you object to the Enclave for so long?”

“You ask too many questions,” he snapped, stalking over to the table and straddling a bench. In the blink of an eye, his manner had shot from indulgent to angry.

What had she said wrong? She’d pried into his past, but considering the commitment she was about to make, wasn’t she entitled to know? If he didn’t want to talk about it, all he had to do was refuse to answer. Tension knotted her stomach as she shuffled around, preparing dinner. Was she going to have to parse every thought before she uttered it? Her appetite had vanished, but she needed to busy herself. It was either cook dinner or curl up on the bed and weep—or lob a skillet at his head.

She jumped when he pressed his large body to her back and flattened his hands against her lower abdomen. “I am sorry,” he said. “Your questions raised some old discomforts, which I have not entirely come to terms with. But that is my problem, not yours. I was wrong to scold you.”

“It’s okay.” She melted against him.

“It is not okay for me to strike at you because of my lack.”

“I meant I forgive you.” She wondered how long it would take before they worked out their cultural and language differences.

“Oh. Well then, that is different.” Marlix curved a hand over her mound and cupped her breast with the other. He held her tight against his muscled body. “Since we have settled things between us, we will leave the Enclave this week after the hunt and return to my abode.”

“Hunt?”

“The animals are in rut, and this is the best time to put up meat for the winter. Since we have been here, the Enclave has fed and housed us. Urazi has suggested, and I concurred, that he should assist with the hunt. It is important to replace what we have taken from the Enclave.”

“I will miss this place,” she said. She looked forward to the comforts of Marlix’s domicile but would always remember she’d gotten to know him at the Enclave and had fallen in love here.

“I will miss it too. Perhaps we can visit sometimes.”

“A vacation,” she said in Terran.

“What is that?”

“It’s when people take a respite from work and go someplace to have fun.”

“I like that,” he said. “I expect we will experience a transition period. You are unused to our ways, and I have never owned a breeder.”

“You know… I cannot have children, and even if I could, we are two different species.”

“I cannot lie that a son would not be an asset, but I would rather have you.”

He pinched her nipple to a taut peak. “You will wear my insignia.” His hardening cock revealed the prospect of owning her aroused him as much as it did her. “And it will protect you and deter males who might be tempted to use you.”

He scrunched her shift in his hand and pulled it over her hips, then touched bare skin. Her clit pulsed under his urgent, almost rough handling. Abruptly he broke away and freed his erection, then spun her around.

Grabbing hold of her uniform, Marlix ripped it off her. He would keep the weavers and seamstresses in business for sure. “Why do you keep doing that?” she asked.

“Because I can.” Fire lit his eyes. Marlix cupped her shoulders. “Kneel.”

Quivering with excitement, Tara lowered herself to the floor. Marlix twisted his hand in her hair and brought his cock to her lips. “Take me.”

She opened her mouth, and he shoved his erection to the back of her throat. His cock wept, spreading the taste of him across her tongue. Tara would have taken her time to lick and suck him, but he did not allow her the control. Keeping a tight rein on her hair, he thrust in and out of her mouth. So large was his girth, so forceful were his thrusts, she could not even create good suction. Unable to swallow, saliva ran down her chin.

She felt helpless, used…yet needed.

There would be moments of great tenderness and then there would be times like this, when he would take rather than give, demand rather than ask. In some strange way, that made her feel cared for most of all.

He growled, and then his cock jerked, and he ejaculated. She licked his still-hard cock clean, and then he yanked her to her feet and carried her to bed.

The last thing she recalled seeing before he bought her to orgasm was the moon beaming through the window.

Chapter Sixteen

Sitting beside Anika, Tara winced with every pothole the conveyance hit. Every jolt caused the telenium ring to yank on Tara’s healing but sore nipple, and the fabric of her shift scraped across the sensitized tip as a further reminder of her new status. Alpha’s breeder.

She hugged her secret like a private treasure, since Marlix still insisted on keeping a low profile.

After the spanking and physical possession, Marlix had come home the next day with a tagger, a piercing gun equipped with a coagulator to stanch bleeding. He’d popped an anesthetizing pellet into the chamber and, after pinching her nipple to hardness, placed the device to the base of the bud and pulled the trigger.

Due to the pellet, only a twinge accompanied the piercing, but the heavy import of her choice on body and mind was immediate. She had
opted
to become Alpha’s breeder, to subject herself to his will in a way few Terrans would experience. If he treated her with kindness, her life would be good; if he abused her…well, she would leave.

She had examined the ring.
“How do I remove it?”
She squinted, searching for the hook, the catch.

“It does not come off,”
Marlix said.

She eyed his bare right nipple.
“You took yours off.”

“Alpha and beta insignia can be removed. A breeder’s generally cannot be. It is melded by the tagger when it is attached. The only way to remove it is to cut it off with a special tool.”

She assumed one day she would become accustomed to the insignia and would not even notice, but with its newness, she existed in a state of hyperawareness of her commitment. And as the anesthesia wore off, her nipple burned.

She’d applied the healing salve Marlix had given her, and after two days, the discomfort had lessened—until today’s conveyance ride to Anika’s hidden acca nut place. As the heavy ring pulled at her nipple, doubts nagged. Was she doing the right thing? Her desire to be with Marlix and to submit to him did not mean she relished living under Protocol. In fact, she counted on his power and authority to mitigate its excesses. Obeying
him
filled her with pleasure—being publiclyflogged for addressing a male out of turn would be horrifying. But when she thought of leaving Marlix and going home to Terra, the desolation she felt made her qualms seem minor.

“You are quiet,” Anika said.

“I am enjoying the countryside,” Tara lied.