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 tow
els. 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.”
“Try me.” Lauren held his eyes with hers. “Go on.”
Xairn’s face grew grim. “Fine. You’ve seen how quickly Little One bonded herself to me, haven’t you? But I had another pet before her. One I cared for so deeply it nearly drove me mad when she died.”
“Oh, honey…” Lauren was almost afraid to ask but she knew she had to. This was some kind of test Xairn was putting her through—a trial to see if she truly loved him as much as she said. Lauren wanted desperately to pass it. “How…how did she die?” she asked hesitantly.
Xairn drew a deep breath. “I killed her,” he said quietly, still holding Lauren’s eyes with his own. “I had no choice. My father found her and threatened to torture her.”
“Oh, no!” Lauren shook her head, not wanting to believe.
“Oh yes,” Xairn said quietly. “I always knew it might happen one day. I had a poison capsule implanted beneath her skin, one activated by my voice alone. When the time came, I commanded her to die and she did, in…in my arms.”
“Xairn…” Lauren didn’t know what to say. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
“I was taken from my mother as an infant and taken away from the nurse who raised me as a very young child.” Xairn’s voice was steady but his hands trembled slightly as he spoke. “My father was…cruel. I knew he didn’t care for me. Sanja was the only thing I had to love in my whole sterile existence. Killing her…nearly killed me, too. I was dead inside. Emotionally lifeless until…until I met you.”
“Oh baby…” Lauren hugged him hard and his arms around her waist tightened convulsively. “I love you,” she whispered. “I still love you, I don’t care what you had to do to survive in that horrible place. It doesn’t change how I feel about you, how much I care about you.”
“Lauren…” He said her name over and over like a prayer and she felt his mouth move, soft and slow and hot against the bare skin of her chest. A caress…a kiss. “You showed me what love was,” he whispered. “Gave me the strength to leave my old life behind. I owe you so much.” Then his lips moved to one side, trailing hot and wet over the thin, damp bikini top that covered her right breast. Lauren gasped softly as she felt the heat of his breath over her suddenly tight nipple. God, she thought. I want this so much. Want to hold him and comfort him. Want to show him how much I love him…
“I want to show you how I feel, too.” He looked up at her and placed a hot, deliberate kiss over the aching point of her nipple. “But I don’t know how I can.”
“Xairn,” she whispered, her voice tight with pleasure and hope. “Honey…” Reaching up, she pulled the damp triangle of fabric to one side, baring her breast to him. “Do it,” she murmured, stroking his hair. “Let me feel your mouth on me.”
With a low growl, Xairn sucked her nipple into his mouth at once, lapping and sucking eagerly. Lauren moaned and clutched at his thick black hair. “God, yes,” she whispered. “Yes, Xairn, yes.”
He moved to her other breast as well, pushing the bikini top aside himself this time in order to get to her full curves. Lauren thrust toward him, offering herself, breathless with desire. At last he looked up at her.
“I want you,” he whispered in a voice that was dangerously near a growl. “I need you, Lauren—need to be in you. But I don’t…don’t want to hurt you.”
“I’m not afraid,” Lauren assured him breathlessly.
“But I am. Every time we get close to making love my Scourge instincts take over and I lose myself…lose the ability to be gentle.”
Lauren frowned. “There must be a way. There has to be. I need you too—so much.”
Xairn looked thoughtful. “Yes. A way to subvert my dominant tendencies so I can love you without hurting you.” His eyes roved over the room, as though searching for something, and then stopped at a certain spot on the kitchen table. “There.” He nodded at the long black nylon leash they’d bought for Little One at the pet store.
“What?” Lauren looked at the leash uncertainly. It was thick and very tough. They weren’t certain what kind of dog Little One was but it looked like she had some Black Lab in her and they got to be a pretty good size. Still, she didn’t understand what Xairn wanted her to do with it.
“Get it,” he said, indicating the leash again. “Bring it here.”
Lauren did as she was told. Standing before his chair she looked down at his n
aked, muscular form, taut with tension. “Now what?” she asked, holding up the black leash.
Xairn took a deep breath. “Now I want you to tie me to the chair and take me.”
Chapter Thirty-one
Far above in the Fathership, the AllFather raised his head. Leaving his current victim in a heap on the metal floor, he began to pace in an ever widening circle. “Sssoon,” he hissed, his lipless mouth moving in eager anticipation. “Sssoon he will take her. Sssoon.”
The Earth girl he had stolen with the transport beam moaned and tried to crawl away. She was a feisty one, all right—twice she’d pulled out the memory wires implanted under her skin and tried to escape. No one would think from her delicate appearance that she had so much fight in her, the AllFather mused. Her diminutive stature along with pale, porcelain skin and long midnight-black hair made her appear almost like a doll. But her small size belied a savage heart and strong spirit.
The AllFather didn’t really care about her temperament. He had chosen her for her hair, as it was the exact color and length as Lauren’s. He was certain that once Xairn saw her image on the local NewsFeed he would know why she had been taken. If that didn’t work, he had planned to take an Earth girl with eyes like Lauren’s. But that unusual shade of amber had proved difficult to find.
“And now it appearsss I will not need to take another after all,” he murmured to himself, still pacing. The huge viewscreen which projected the latest female’s memories was frozen in place, showing the girl standing in a defensive posture with a large Earth male poised to beat her. Truly, the AllFather hadn’t had to twist her recollections much—her past had enough pain to satisfy him without adding much to it. In fact, he was very nearly satiated at the moment. Perhaps he should finish her off another time.