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  He pulled away.

  And because Xia seemed to have interesting things to say, he listened.

  Chapter Eight

  Xia’s brain felt like that sweet pudding they liked on Leerik, sticky and with a texture that suggested it might ooze out of the kitchen and go for a walk on its own if it weren’t in a bowl. But Rahal was willing to listen to her, if only because he figured it would turn her no-for-now into the yes they’d both prefer. She was going to force her focus above her waist and present her arguments.

  Even though she’d rather finish what they’d started, right here, right now, on the floor.

  They’d get to that, she told her impatient body, if Rahal would listen to reason.

  If he wouldn’t, she might have to gut him rather than fuck him, and that would be a marling shame.

  “Here’s the thing. Mik and Gan are heroes, but they don’t want people to know about it. Me, I don’t take part in their heroic do-good derring-do, mostly because they won’t let me.”

  “Because you’d leave too many corpses in your wake?” Rahal was grinning. He obviously didn’t believe she could do something like that. Silly Rahal.

  “Before, because they were afraid I’d remember bad things from my past. But I’ve remembered the bad things now, so, yeah, now it would be the too-many-corpses problem. They like to be stealthy. I’d just eviscerate all the baby-raping driftdwells I could find and worry about the consequences later.”

  Rahal applauded. It sounded genuine. “I like your attitude. It might get you killed someday, but until then, I like it. But can you back it up with action?”

  “Guess Drax didn’t tell you why Nitari Belesku’s after us.”

  “I figured someone on Blemond hired her to clean up after that clusterfuck at the museum on San’bal. That made the news even here, mostly as an example of ‘don’t do crime this way, stupid’. Also, she has a huge hard-on of hate for Drax.”

  “Sure, those, but also because I blinded her in one eye and massively ripped up her face. She wasn’t very pretty to start with, but even with regen, she’ll be downright scary now. I would have gutted her except she was wearing body armor. Small consolation that she’ll have to replace it.” She smiled at the memory. It was daylight in a bright room with a pretty-pretty, clever man who wanted her. The bad parts of that night didn’t seem so horrible at the moment. “Of course, after I found out about the body armor, things went downhill and I have a scar or two, even after regen, but we don’t need to talk about that. If this trick pulls her out of the woodwork, I want another chance at her. I’ve been practicing.”

  This time, Rahal’s applause was absolutely not mocking. “How the…I can tell you’re strong, but how did you nearly defeat one of the top assassins out there and I’ve never heard of you? You should have your own page on the Galaxinet and directors clamoring to make a holo about you. Did your dads train you?”

  There. He was wavering. Time to seal the deal—with the truth, or as much of the truth as he needed to know. “A syndicate on Lysander trained me as an assassin when I was still a kitten. I was a slave, too young and dumb and frightened to know they were giving me skills I could use to escape. They were evil people and the men they sent me after were worse. I’m going to leave the rest to your imagination. Mik and Gan rescued me. Their first rescue together, I think.”

  “And then you rescued them from an assassin. Xia, this could work! Except you’re not as scary looking as Mik and Gan.”

  She laughed, realizing, as she did, that the laugh sounded as carefree as when she and Rita were chatting about romance books, sexy holo actors and the best places for scoring cute clothes cheap. “My dads are obvious badasses. I’m petite and adorable and I look like the worst thing I could do is steal your lover, and I’m a trained killer. How is that not terrifying?”

  “Point.” He started grinning, a real smile, not an aggressive display of fangs that nonfelinoids might mistake for a smile. “It’s classic cinema—you using the skills you learned as an exploited child to take out other evil people. But it only works if the audience isn’t dumb and so many people are dimmer than dark matter. I’m still leaning toward Mik and Gan.”

  He liked the idea. She could tell by his body language, the way his ears cocked toward her, the lilt of his tail. But she needed to sweeten the deal. Time for that good-bad idea.

  She’d had sex for far worse reasons, such as I’m bored and I don’t feel like getting arrested tonight so I might as well pick someone up and It’s cold and dreary; why not curl up with someone warm. And since she wanted him as badly as she’d ever wanted anyone, why not? “Let’s put it this way. You agree to my offer, you get me. Any way you want, for as long as you want.”

  “I’m not sure it counts as a good bribe. I’m all in for sexytimes with you, don’t get me wrong. But you’ve flat out said you’d sleep with me, so I’ll need more than that to consider it a bargain, not just a good time between two people who want each other already.”

  Time for a careless shrug and studying her nails nonchalantly. “I never sleep with anyone. Never spend the night. But I will with you if you want. And, yeah, I was going to sex you once. No one ever gets more than once, even if they’re as good as you probably think you are. But you’ll get me all you want if you let Mik and Gan off the hook. No limits.” Then she narrowed her eyes. “If you say no, I’m out the door and you will never touch me again. But if any harm comes to my fathers because of this little plot of yours, I’ll be the one doing the touching.”

  “In a life-ending sort of way?”

  “In a life-ending sort of way. When you least expect it. I don’t care how tough you are or how good your bodyguards are. Sooner or later, you’ll slip up and I’ll be there.” Not an empty threat, she realized. He was good. He was probably way better than she was. But if he harmed her family, he was dead.

  Rahal laughed. It sounded menacing, but mischievous, and definitely erotic. It made her shiver with lust right down to the tip of her tail. She hoped she wouldn’t have to cut off her chance to taste more of the beautiful body she’d enjoyed.

  “You are so sexy, Xia. Hot and evil and good at the same time, and good’s something I don’t see enough of. You make death threats seem like the most erotic thing ever. I’ve had plenty and, trust me, they don’t usually affect me that way. So I’ll take you up on this, make you the face of my campaign to stop child abuse and slavery. Leave your dads out of it. In exchange, you’ll share my bed every night for as long as I find it entertaining. Which might be a long time.”

  A cold lump formed in her stomach at the words share my bed, but she’d find a way to deal. After all, she’d just told him her deep, dark secret, that she’d been a slave herself. And maybe he’d wear her out so much she wouldn’t be able to find the dark place, so he wouldn’t hear her whimper. “Deal,” she said, extending her hand.

  He shook her hand. “Deal. But I can think of better ways to formalize it than a handshake.”

  She tried to keep her cool. She really did. But what came out of her mouth was “Great stars, yes. Here. Now.”

  “Hands and knees.” His voice deepened to a rumbling, prurient purr. When she didn’t drop quickly enough for his taste, he gave her a little shove.

  She didn’t stumble and she figured he didn’t expect her to. Balance was too well engrained in their species, an instinct that,even spending most of her life among clumsy species like humans and Furagi couldn’t dim. Instead of an awkward fall, she used the energy of his push to spring to the ground, landing on all fours. She looked back over her shoulder, arched the long length of her spine and bared her fangs at Rahal in challenge. Her tiny wrap skirt and halter wouldn’t be in the way, but she untied a few knots and let them fall to the floor.

  Naked was better.

  She crouched lower on her hands, raising her now-naked ass in the air, spread her legs wider to show off her wet sex, t
hen curved her tail high and to one side. Without even thinking about it, she growled deep in her throat.

  He slithered out of his pants. Then he pounced, a graceful, lithe movement that ended with her as trapped as any prey she’d ever caught, his teeth at the back of her neck. “Mine,” he chortled. “Mine, mine, mine.” His voice went singsong.

  The part of Xia that had been raised by Mik and Gan thought it sounded sweet and adorable. A more primitive part of her shuddered deep inside. Rahal was speaking Standard, as a courtesy, but as well as those familiar words, she heard ones she should know but could no longer recall clearly, in a language that turned a chant of “mine” into both a prayer and a challenge. A language in which melodic intonations weren’t cute because when you got more singsong, you were in the grip of strong emotion.

  In this case possessiveness.

  A wave of something almost like sorrow washed over her. At the same time his voice licked and bit at her most sensitive places. Too intense, too soon, too much. Even before they’d gotten properly started, Rahal was peeling away her defenses, the skin that protected her from the dark place. Unfamiliar instincts screamed at her to say “yours”, but she forced herself to make light of the situation, as she usually did—sometimes because it was more amusing, sometimes so no one would see into the darkness.

  “Funny, I was thinking the same thing.” Her voice quavered—not a lot, but enough to reveal she wasn’t nearly as cool as she wanted to pretend.

  The way she was spreading her legs and writhing, trying to get more contact with a cock that stayed teasingly out of reach, though, revealed the depth of her need. With luck Rahal would think that was all that was going on.

  He knew she’d been through a corner of what humans called hell. No need for him to know part of her lived there full time.

  “But I’m on top, kitten. That means you’re mine, at least for now.” He bit down on her neck, a beautiful pain that at least for these few seconds wiped out every other pain she’d felt.

  And while she rode that blissful pain, Rahal entered her. No niceties needed, no further foreplay. They’d take the time for that later, she guessed, but neither of them wanted to wait. Despite the serious tone the conversation had taken, she was still aroused from their earlier play, aroused by the bite and the lithe, powerful body dominating her in the best possible way and the atavistic mine that awakened desires she didn’t know she had.

  For a couple of heartbeats that might have been long enough for the birth and death of a new star, he rested there, his mouth on her neck, but no longer biting, his body hot and heavy on hers, his cock so deep inside her she could imagine the taste of his precome on her lips.

  Then he began to move and she realized he could go deeper still. He slammed into her, pulled back, slammed again, and it was on the edge of hurt and pleasure until suddenly it was all pleasure and with each powerful thrust, she cried out, a mewling howl like nothing she’d ever heard from her own lips. She wasn’t coming yet, but a tension she’d been carrying since San’bal was releasing under the onslaught of pleasure and pure physicality.

  Stars, he was strong, and his strength reminded her of her own. He might be big and hardbodied and powerful—out of proportion to his size, as felinoids tended to be—but he wasn’t afraid to overwhelm her. Men of other species often treated her like she was glass because she was petite. Never mind she’d once carried Drax to safety at a dead run. Never mind that if she hadn’t decided years ago to save her predatory skills for what Mik considered appropriate prey, she could have killed most of her previous lovers without breaking a sweat. But Rahal knew what she could take, what she craved more than she’d ever realized, and he wasn’t afraid to give it to her.

  That meant something, even if at this blurry moment when she was being fucked hard by the most beautiful, scary man she’d ever met, she couldn’t figure out what that something was. Time for that later. Their bargain wouldn’t let her retreat the way she usually did, and that would terrify her when she let it. But right now all she cared about was spending more time with Rahal, fucking hard again and then exploring all the other ways their bodies could fit together.

  The pleasure was fierce and yet so sweet it threatened all her senses, all her defenses. Rahal was murmuring something in felinoid as he fucked. She couldn’t translate the words but they lit dim places in her mind—a scented garden and a gray-eyed male pointing out a small animal and showing her how to hunt it while a gold-eyed, tawny-eared female looked on; sounds from another room that echoed the noises she and Rahal were making, and the knowledge that her parents were “making happy” and she was safe.

  And then a hint of something she didn’t want to see, never wanted to see. She flinched, wanting to retreat because even the cold, dark place would be better than letting that memory surface.

  But she had a better alternative to the dark this time. She demanded, “Bite me again, Rahal. Draw blood.” That sweet pain would wash away whatever dark memory was trying to surface.

  She was proud that no matter how she felt, she sounded imperious and dominant, not terrified.

  Rahal hesitated briefly enough that someone who wasn’t Xia might not have noticed, but her life had left her keenly aware of other people’s body language. “Please,” she found herself begging. “Please, Rahal. Please.”

  When his teeth sank into the meat of her shoulder, Xia exploded like a star going nova.

  “Good kitten,” he growled through his clenched teeth, hurting her more, drawing the orgasm out harder. “Mine.”

  Then he repeated “mine” as a howl, a cry that the stars themselves echoed.

  All right, she knew it was just the acoustics of the ridiculously large room. But at the moment, flying on unfamiliar emotions, she could almost believe she heard the stars.

  Chapter Nine

  Once they’d caught their breaths, they managed to crawl as far as the pile of cushions Rahal kept for visitors.

  Of course Xia made a point of bending unnecessarily far forward and wiggling her ass as she spread out the pillows. Rahal ended up slapping that tempting ass because he could and because it was irresistible, especially with the elegant, tawny curve of her tail rising above it. It had been too long since he’d had a female of his species, though.

  He was taken off guard when she let out a happy growl, then turned and pounced at him. “Playtime!” she purred. Her claws weren’t fully extended, but her hands flexed as she took off; there would be scratching if he was lucky.

  She launched herself with a lot of force but he could have stayed on his feet easily. It was more fun, though, to do a controlled fall backward, twisting as he did, so they landed together on the pile of brocade and cloth-of-gold cushions. He pulled her down to straddle his hips, her moist cleft rubbing against his cock. So soon after that mind-melting round of sex, he didn’t spring immediately to full attention, but he was hard enough to make her let out a luscious little sigh and writhe against him.

  The recent play gave Rahal the advantage of patience he’d lacked before. He gripped the firm curve of her hips—loving the combination of softness and muscle, strength and femininity—and began to move her back and forth. Her slick sex rubbed against his cock, teasing them both. Xia picked up the rhythm, making tiny circles as best she could within his firm grasp. She leaned forward, grinding her clit against him. Her slick heat seared his cock into new life and he would have forced her upright to a more teasing angle if her hands hadn’t found his nipples.

  One claw clipped out and delicately circled his right nipple. With her other hand, she gripped, scratching lightly over his heart. “Mine,” she chirruped. “Mine.”

  “Mine.” It was hard getting even that simple word out. His speech center was scrambled like an egg and all he wanted to do was growl, purr, trill and yowl in response to the painful pleasure of her sex sliding over his, the pleasurable pain of what she was doing to his nipple. B
ut he managed. She needed to hear it, just as he’d needed to hear hers.

  It was one of the first steps of affirming a mate bond—to say mine like that instinctively. She didn’t know that, of course. But she would.

  She’d signed herself over to him for a certain amount of time, for reasons that only partly had to do with her desire for him. There’d been a lot of hemming and hawing about how she didn’t usually commit or even repeat. And that didn’t sit well with Rahal. By the time the Malcolm was ready to leave his planet, Rahal was determined to make her want to stay.

  Xia made a beautiful noise that merged a squeal and a purr. She swayed her hips a little faster, defying his lead.

  He flicked his claws into the delicious flesh of her hips, not hard enough to tear, but hard enough to get the point across. “My speed, at least for now.”

  She growled and pressed back against the intruding claws until tiny trickles of blood flowed where he’d broken skin with her help. “Stars,” she groaned, and raked at his chest.

  “Xia…” He put one bloodied hand on the back of her neck and urged her down into a kiss.

  A kiss that started wild and tender, and moved to sucking and biting, and then back to tender wildness.

  For the first time in ages, Rahal didn’t feel like he was in charge during sex. Guiding, yes. Controlling to some extent, yes. But not pushing, not overwhelming a female who was afraid of him because he was the warlord.

  It felt good.

  Correction—he thought as he tasted blood that he wasn’t sure was Xia’s or his—it felt great.

  He wanted to taste more than blood. Wanted to taste Xia’s sweet, musky juices mingled with his own come, lick her plump little clit and swollen lips. He lifted her from his cock.