Bonded (2 page)

“You Spygian boys sure have a one-track mind, don’t you?”

“I’m afraid we cannot get our transmitter to work,” Neichon said.

She grimaced. “So that means no transporting, huh?”

Neichon shook his head gravely. “It appears we’ll have to accompany you to your spacejet after all. Perhaps among the three of us, we can get it back in working order.”

That wasn’t the most comforting of plans, but unless their transmitter issues were resolved, Valeron supposed it would have to do.

Inara placed her hands on her hips, a habit Valeron had noticed. “So now you boys want a ride on
my
jet?”

“I’m afraid so,” Neichon responded.

She gave a beleaguered sigh. “Well, it’ll be a tight fit.”

No doubt. Spacejets were generally built for two. But they could manage it, for a short distance at least.

“Okay.” Inara directed her gaze toward the distance. “We’d better get started then. We’re still quite a way off, and darkness is quickly approaching.”

With those words, she took off across the forest, leaving Valeron and Neichon to stare after her in frank appreciation, until Neichon finally shook his head and came to his senses.

“Come, brother.” Neichon started down the path after Inara. “We’d best not keep our mate waiting.”

Chapter Three

By the time Inara and the two Spygian hunks decided to stop and camp for the night, it was already close to dark, and her libido was on full blast. Simply standing beside them turned her on as never before. Their big, muscular bodies exuded sex appeal. No doubt it was due to the fact that Spygians were a species who derived their strength from sex. Biologically speaking, they would need some physical tool to draw a potential mate to them.

Biology or not, they were hot. If they had wanted nothing more than a temporary fling, she would have been all over it. But they’d made their position clear—they sought something more than sex. They wanted a mate.

As in forever.

That wouldn’t work for her.

“This looks like a good spot to camp.” Neichon marched over to a copse of tall bushes and pushed some of the leaves aside to reveal a tiny clearing of grass. It looked soft and was almost completely hidden by the bushes.

Inara nodded in approval. “Good eye.”

“It should provide enough shelter,” Valeron said.

“We’ll need a small fire,” Neichon said. “I’ve heard the nights can get chilly on this planet.”

She eyed the spot he’d found. Though it provided plenty of safety, after they built a fire in the clearing there would barely be enough room for the three of them.

“No doubt you’re all torn up over the fact that we’ll have to sleep cuddled up together,” she commented dryly.

Neichon shrugged. “That would have been the case at any rate. Given that none of us have any provisions for camping, we might freeze otherwise.”

Valid point.

“I’ll go gather enough firewood for the night.” With those words, Valeron turned and stalked away. Unable to help it, Inara watched him go. The curves of the Spygian’s perfect ass were visible through the thin fabric of his loincloth and the powerful muscles of his back and calves flexed with every step.

Yu-um.

Inara turned back to see Neichon watching her, a little smile on his lips.

Oh damn.

After clearing her throat to hide her discomfort at being caught staring, Inara said, “Perhaps you Spygians should consider wearing more clothing. You’d be less apt to freeze that way.”

He gave a nonchalant shrug. “The loincloth is customary among my people. It’s what we are used to wearing.”

She couldn’t very well argue with that.

Inara pushed past the bushes, stepping into the little clearing, and sat on the ground. As she expected, Neichon followed her, sitting down right beside her.

“So tell me, Inara, how did you survive your planet’s decimation? What brought you to this part of the universe?”

Ah, the question she’d known would eventually come. The entire time they’d traveled together, she’d debated how she would answer this. She’d decided she couldn’t tell them
everything
about her past. She wouldn’t divulge who her family had been, not when she’d promised her uncle she would never tell another soul. He might be gone but she would still respect his wishes.

“I escaped.” Dragging her knees up, she wrapped her arms around them. “My cousin and I.”

He tilted his head to look at her, and a long lock of silky hair fell over his shoulder. “How?”

“We had a…a friend.” More like one of her uncle’s guards, though she wasn’t about to admit that. “He sneaked the three of us on board a Malucon ship. We stowed away for several weeks, surviving off the cheese and cured meats we’d brought with us. We slipped off the ship undetected when the Malucons stopped at a port on their way home.”

Neichon’s eyes widened. “You avoided being massacred by stowing away on a ship belonging to the very people who decimated your race?”

She gave him a shaky nod. When he put it that way, it sounded crazy. Perhaps it was, but it had been the only way her uncle could think of to get her and her cousin safely out.

He let out a sharp whistle. “That takes a strong force of will, little one.”

“It was horrible,” she confessed. “Beyond terrifying. But we made it.”

As if he sensed her horror at reliving the memory, his hand closed over hers, fingers perilously close to her thighs. To her surprise, his touch was enough to make the emotions surrounding those horrible weeks fade away.

“How did the Malucons learn you still lived?” Neichon asked.

By a horrendously bad stroke of luck.

“Someone spotted us as we attempted to slink away and yelled out a greeting to the ‘Chiveans’. Several of the Malucons from the ship heard it and saw us.”

His brow furrowing, Neichon squeezed her fingers. “What happened then?”

“We fled through the streets, all the while knowing they would eventually catch up to us. Our friend, Bale, spotted a single-flyer spacejet and ordered my cousin into it. Told her to flee to some other planet.” How frightened Cindra must have been. Due to her status back in Chivea, she’d hardly ever been alone. To have to fly away, leaving behind the only people of her kind who remained living…to this day, Inara didn’t know where Cindra had found the strength.

“What of you?” Neichon asked softly.

“Bale distracted the Malucons while I continued running.” He’d given his life for her. “Eventually I found a sheikh who agreed to take me in.”

As his mistress. She’d been too desperate to refuse, though to her surprise she’d found she liked the man. But they’d only had a few short weeks together before the Malucons had gotten him. She’d narrowly escaped the same fate, and had been forced on the run again.

Neichon tugged her hand into his, entangling their fingers. “I’m sorry for what you’ve gone through, Inara. I would not wish such a thing on anyone.”

Her palm tingled where it met with his, sending currents of arousal through her body. Suddenly the ghosts of her past were the last thing on her mind. With his luscious gold eyes staring down at her and his full lips forming a pout, not to mention the barely there clothing he wore, the only thing she wanted was to be with this man.

And who could blame her? It had been months since she’d had a man, and never one so fine as this one. The past year-and-a-half had been consumed with fleeing the Malucons and searching for Cindra, with only a few moments of stolen pleasure in between.

Her breasts heavy with desire, Inara gave in to her impulses. She leaned toward Neichon and tugged his head down, dragging his lips to hers. He gave a little grunt that hinted at his surprise, but didn’t waste any time in tugging her to him, lifting her so she could straddle him. His tongue ran along the seam of her mouth, then slid between her lips, stroking her with sensual abandon.

Heart hammering in her throat, she pressed her hungry body to him. Her pussy quivered with awoken desire, reminding her that she too was a sexual being. Maybe not one who thrived on sex as the Spygians did, but it had always been something she’d very much enjoyed.

Neichon’s hands left her hips, lifting to cup her breasts over the thin fabric of her tank top. She arched into his hands, her nipples pebbling into hard little buds.

“Yes, that feels so good,” she gasped, grateful for once that she didn’t have a bra. Right now, less fabric to get in the way seemed very good.

Neichon made a sound in his throat and moved one hand to tug down the low-cut fabric, baring her breast. He reared his head back to examine the rosy tip, then let out a loud groan. “Gorgeous.”

She grinned, pleased that he found her as enticing as she found him.

When his mouth lowered to her breast, his tongue laving the stiff bud, she let out a soft cry. Heavens, that felt amazing. Just one stroke of his tongue had her on the verge of coming.

Her pussy twinged with desire, aching for him. The stiff rod she felt pressed against her belly told her he felt the same.

She couldn’t take it anymore. She had to touch him. Feel the silky softness of his bare flesh against her palm.

Her hand snaked down between their bodies, brushing across the muscular plane of his stomach. Past the cool, thin barrier of his loincloth. He gasped when her fingers closed around him, the heated flesh of his thick erection practically singeing her flesh.

“Oh my,” she practically purred. He was so big. So thick. Another trait of the Spygians, as she remembered one of her uncle’s maids once whispering to another when she’d thought Inara was out of earshot.

Heavens, but the horrendous chase she’d had to endure over the past few days was almost worth it, to claim
this
as her reward.

“I want you, Spygian,” she whispered.

Neichon groaned, pushing up into her palm, and she moved her other hand down, cupping his testicles while she began to stroke his hard length.

“So good,” he gasped.

He spoke only the truth.

Emboldened by his response to her, she pressed her lips to his once more before breaking away to suggest, “I can make it better.”

His eyes darkened to molten pools of golden liquid, and for one moment she thought he would lay her down right there and rip her breeches off, but instead he did something totally unexpected. He slid her off his lap, depositing her gently to the ground. He rose and stalked to the edge of the small clearing.

Blinking in astonishment, she studied the lines of his back, knotted with tension. “What—what’s wrong?”

“I cannot claim you as I desire until you agree to become our mate,” he said, his words clipped.

Her eyes widened and she wrapped her arms around herself to combat the sudden chill she’d received when he’d gone. When her pussy clenched with unquenched desire, she squeezed her legs together, trying to dispel the pressure. “Surely you can’t be serious.”

He turned to face her, a muscle in his jaw ticking.

“You are serious,” she breathed. When he nodded, she dropped her arms and rose to her feet. “So we cannot just fuck?”

His eyes narrowed, as if by hearing the very word he was almost powerless to resist doing just that. But when he spoke, what he said was, “You are not a common whore, but our mate. The ritual. We cannot dispense with it.”

Ah, that was right. How could she forget about the Spygian mating ritual? She didn’t know much about it, other than that all pod members were to be present. The thought of what it might possibly entail sent a shiver of lust raging through her body. She almost wished she truly was his mate…

Forcing herself to stand straight and strong, she looked him in the eye. “I’m afraid we have a problem then, for I cannot promise anything more than a night of bliss.”

She barely had time to see his face fall in clear disappointment before the leaves crackled and Valeron appeared in the clearing, his arms full of dead branches. Reading the tension in the air, he stopped cold, his gaze going from her to Neichon and back again.

Finally he moved toward the center of the clearing and dropped the branches to the ground. “We’ll probably need another batch.”

“It’s already growing dark.” Neichon’s gaze lifted upward, to where the pink and purple fingers of dusk already crept across the sky. “I’ll get some more wood and check for sight of the Malucons while I’m at it.”

As Inara watched him leave the clearing, she fought the unaccountable feeling that she’d just let something magical go. That was a ridiculous notion. She had her own destiny, and it was not to be bonded to a pod of barbarians. No matter how sexy, delicious, and utterly fuckable those barbarians might be.

Inara turned and let out a sigh as she lowered herself back to the ground on the perimeter of the pile of sticks Valeron was gathering. She planted her feet on the ground and curled her arms over her legs once more.

“Don’t mind him,” Valeron said easily, his gaze focused on the pile. “He hasn’t had a woman in a while. Makes him testy.”

“So you Spygians do have sex with other women? Besides mates, I mean.” She’d been beginning to wonder if Neichon was a virgin, he was wound so tight.

Valeron nodded. “Yes. But only until we take our mate. We had an Enduvean mistress for a period of time, but found it largely unsatisfying so we gave her up.”

She could understand that. As a sexual species, Spygians thrived off sex, but not just any sex. Rather, they had to be life mated to gain the strength and speed of their species, as it only came once a deep emotional bond had been formed. Enduveans wouldn’t make proper mates for Spygians since they couldn’t reproduce with them. But even worse, they were a cold, emotionless lot who valued nothing more than material spoils. The women who chose sex as their profession did it only for the money, and though she’d only known Neichon and Valeron a short time, she could already tell that wouldn’t do it for them. They would want passion. Desire.

Yum
. Just thinking about it made her want to jump one or both of them.

Inara contented herself with watching Valeron start the fire. He hunched over the pile, showcasing his thick, muscular legs. And that back. So tanned, so athletic. Then his arms…

Oh gods, she was so horny. Her encounter with Neichon had left her hot and bothered. On fire for his touch.

She waited until Valeron had started the fire and turned back to her, a charming grin on his perfectly formed face, before asking the question that had haunted her since she’d first met the two men.