Текст книги "Heat"

Автор книги: R. Lee Smith

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Текущая страница: 34 (всего у книги 54 страниц)

She gasped, her legs flying out to enfold his ribs, and he grinned as he explored the sensitivities of her flesh. The thin human skin was a masterpiece of responsiveness, and Daria was unmoored in the storm it inspired in her. She rocked against him, clutching at his shoulders, screaming at the sky. He could content himself with this for hours, just to feel the freedom of her passion and to hear her unbridled cries.

But in the end, she would not allow it.

“C-command you!” she managed, and he lifted his head in surprise. Her eyes were burning down on him from above, fierce and glazed with need. “I command you to make love to me!”

Of all the times to need a language lesson.

Tagen hesitated, lowering her until she found her feet. “Make…?” he echoed. He would do anything she asked, perform any human act of courtship. He was close to winning her. He could sense her desire rippling in the air like, well, like heat.

She laughed again, a tight and frustrated sound, and dropped her hand to grip his rock-hard shaft. “Lie down with me,” she said. “Right here. Right now.”

Ah. That he could do. Growling, he swept her feet from under her, catching her wrists and lowering her to the dry grass. He knelt between her legs, caressing her supple calf before sliding his hand up to cup her hip, lifting her to meet his first careful thrust. She welcomed him with a cry, locking her ankles behind his hips and bringing him home to her.

He could feel her breath panting raggedly on his chest in time with his steady motions, but he wanted to see her face, to read the effects of his labors in her calescent eyes. He rolled to his back, swinging her above him, and groaned as she immediately took up the lead. She rode him wildly, her entire body alive with kinetic interplay, testing every shred of discipline he possessed to keep her in the throes of her ravenous desire.

He knew her climax by the telltale fire in her eyes and the sudden frenzy of her movements. His own was not far behind, roaring through him with an intensity and power he had never experienced. It felt it might go on for hours, searing his senses until he fell into ash, but it faded gentle and warm as the summer wind that blew over them.

Then she lay beside him, one leg comfortably slung over him in a familiar gesture of possessiveness that he minded not at all. Her hand rested on his chest, her breath came soft against his neck, and even if it was too hot to lie together this way beneath Earth’s sun, it was too pleasant a thing to end.

“You understand,” he said eventually, “if we remain here very long, I am going to go into Heat.”

He felt her lips curve against his flesh in a smile.

Ah, she was right. Let the sun shine down.

*

The day lengthened. The sun moved. Eventually, they were lying in the shade. It was still hot, but there was a hint of a breeze now and then, and it was just nice to be outside. The grass was dry, but still soft beneath her. And when Tagen was touching her, kissing her, moving inside her, well, it was just too hard to worry about bugs in her hair. Even when he was in Heat and his needs more urgent than tender, he had a way of knowing her, of coaxing her to abandon that left her weak and helplessly clinging to him. She had never known such powerful sex, such intensity and control. She had never realized how wild she could be, or how capable she was of experiencing such thrilling joy and release.

But now, in the shade and in this course of the little breeze, Heat seemed to be done. Tagen lay beside her, his arm around her and his hand still drifting along the curves of her body. She watched the pattern of trees on sky and he dozed, growling low now and then and sometimes nipping at her shoulder or her neck. He made it impossible to pretend he was anything but what he truly was, and the longer he lay beside her, the less she found she cared about his inhuman nature. She wasn’t quite sure what that said about her, the willing lover of an alien, but she didn’t much care about that either. She was happy. It wouldn’t last forever, but it was enough for now.

“I suppose this is a little late to be asking something like this,” she murmured, and Tagen made a drowsily inquiring sound. “But have you got someone waiting for you back home?”

“Someone…? Ah. I see. No.” His arm tightened on her waist and he drew her back against him, his leg sliding possessively through both of hers.

“No wife? No ex-wife?”

“We do not marry.”

“Ever?”

“Mm.” He nipped at her shoulder. “A female may choose to keep a mate for many years, but there is no ceremony such as you have. And it is a rare thing in any case.”

“No girlfriend?”

“Why should there be, if there is no marriage?” he asked reasonably.

“No kids?” she pressed.

“No.” He paused and raised his head. “Yes,” he said.

She looked at him, startled. “Yes?”

“I have not taken a son,” he told her, “but I have been bred.” He gave her a look that was distinctly roguish, as though he expected that to be a turn-on.

“Is it a boy or a girl?” she asked.

Tagen blinked, drawing back. “Males, I should think,” he said. “I do not know for certain. She was close when my term of on-world service ended. The birth happened while I was away, and she was transferred to another station before my return.” He gave his claws a casual flick. “We have fallen out of contact. What little we ever had between us, that is.”

“She didn’t even tell you what they were? You’ve never even been to see them?”

He gave her a quizzical look. “Jotan do not often keep their young,” he said. “And sires, never.”

“Well, that’s—” fucked up, was how she wanted to finish, but she managed not to. “Different,” she said lamely.

He shrugged and lay back down. “Females frequently raise the young of their first birth,” he said. “Or any daughters. But understand, there are few females and Heat is unwelcome and painful. Females are…ordered to breed.” He was quiet a little while. “That is not the right word, but I have no other. What I mean to say is that save for who she would take for sire, a female may have little choice when it is given her to breed, and it is a considerable disruption to one’s career.”

She sat up and stared at him. “Are you talking about government-sanctioned rape?” she asked.

It was his turn to lie still for many minutes, his claws scratching lightly at his chest as he considered the question. “So some have called it,” he said finally. “But I do not agree. A race has a responsibility to propagate itself. For us, it is less easy and less pleasant than it is for you. But it is not rape the way you think of it. I have never known a female to refuse. She will have known her duty from childhood and, if not entirely enthusiastic, she will be resigned.”

“But she can’t say no, can she? If the President tells her to get pregnant, she has to do it.”

“We have no President,” he said.

“Don’t change the subject, Tagen.”

“I do not know how to answer. There may be laws in place that allow a female to refuse to breed. I am not aware of them, but I am male, and as I have said, I have never known a female to refuse. She who bred to me was certainly not happy when her orders came to her, but it had more to do, I think, with time lost from her work than with the orders themselves.”

“Well, what about the males?” Daria challenged. “Could you refuse?”

“Why would I want to?” he asked, so sincerely puzzled that Daria actually laughed in spite of her growing outrage. “It is a tremendous honor to be chosen as sire,” Tagen continued. “I accepted the pains of Heat gladly.”

That gave her pause. “You can’t have babies at all unless you’re in Heat?” she asked.

“Unless we are both in Heat,” he agreed. “No.” He looked into her face and nodded. “So you can imagine how often we seek it out voluntarily. Hence, the orders that come to our females.”

“Sorry,” she said. “I’m not trying to offend you. It’s just very different.” She reached out for the remains of her clothing and began to dress.

“It is.” Tagen lay back down and laced his hands behind his head, watching her. “I have seen on your tee-vee families of humans with many children. Six. Ten. Even more. All at the same time.” He said this solemnly enough to ring a smile back to her lips. “I cannot imagine raising such a family, and yet it is routine here on Earth.”

“It’s not that easy,” she said.

“It seems to be. On Jota, a man is encouraged to take sons whenever he can. A family is certainly a favored environment over the…” He trailed off, spoke a word in his language, and frowned. “The place,” he said awkwardly, “where the young are taken after birth. Where they are cared for until they are…”

“Adopted,” Daria supplied.

“Just so. Or until they reach their…full age.” He was quiet a minute or two. “I was ten.”

Something in his voice, something buried low beneath the mild tones, made her turn around and look at him.

He stared up at the sky, expressionless, his body in the posture of relaxation but every muscle tensed. “My father put a gun in my hand the day I came to him,” he said, still in that idle, just-passing-time tone. “He would not let me unpack my things first. He gave me ten targets and told me to hit eight. It was a test. His first. And I truly believe that if I had failed, he would have sent me back. My father did not love me. He trained me. And that, Daria Cleavon, is Jota.”

He glanced at her, and then sat up and shrugged into his uniform jacket. “The tee-vee shows me mostly ideals. I understand that. Not every human child is loved. But every human child expects to be, and that is a laudable thing. I still hate Earth.” He gave the sun above them a narrow glare. “But I am coming to admire humans in many unexpected ways.”

“So there’s hope for us,” she said. “That’s comforting.”

Tagen shrugged. “I think there is some merit in the way you raise your young. The man you called father, he was your sire as well?”

“He was,” Daria said slowly. “But I don’t remember him very well. He and my mom died when I was pretty young. I was raised by my Aunt Ellen.”

He waited, looking curious, with no idea of the miniature hell she was having to relive thinking about those awful years. As the silence wore on, his expression darkened and became more piercing. “What did she do to you?” he asked at last.

She didn’t even want to answer, but he’d hear worse things than the truth in her silence. She ran her eyes away, looking over the trees that choked out the horizon so she wouldn’t have to look at him. “She ignored me,” she said.

And that was all, really. No beatings, no shouting, no nothing. A cot in the basement next to the washing machine and exactly three new outfits each year if she’d outgrown the old ones, and that was what she got right up until the day she’d turned sixteen. Her birthday present, the only one Aunt Ellen ever gave her, came at the dinner table. “I bought you a car,” Aunt Ellen had said. And before Daria could even open her mouth to voice her astonished thanks, she’d gone on, “You’re going to get a job. Then I’ll help you get emancipated and you’re going to leave.”

It was the longest conversation they’d had in ten years, and Daria hadn’t even needed to contribute.

“You know,” she said now. “Even after all that time, I’m still not sure whether she was my mom’s sister or my dad’s. No, Tagen, not every kid is loved.”

She drew in a breath, let it out in a rush and clap of her hands, and smiled at him. “Well! That’s killed what’s left of my good mood,” she said cheerfully. “I guess I’ll go in and vacuum something.”

She headed for the house with her stomach still in knots and Tagen came in as a blur of black on her right side and yanked her up and off her feet.

“I refuse,” he said, swinging her onto his shoulder, “to let you clean anything. I will take you inside. I will let you cook only because I cannot work your kitchen, but you will not clean. And if you try, I will pour my dinner out on the floor and draw…”

Tagen’s voice trailed off and he became motionless. Slowly, his head raised and he stared fixedly at an empty point in space.

Daria raised herself off his shoulder as much as she could and tried to look at him. His face, almost perfectly blank to start with, was filling in with an expression of incredulous realization. She spoke his name tentatively.

He roared, a wordless and thunderous exhalation of pure understanding. Then he thumped her down on her feet and brought both hands up with a whip-crack rapport to strike himself in the head. He doubled over at the waist and roared again, and this time there were words: “SHU-RAAAA!”

She didn’t think it meant Merry Christmas.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, hovering at his side.

He didn’t move a muscle apart from what it took to quietly say, “I am a fool.”

“Tagen?”

He straightened up and gave his jacket a brisk pull to even out its creases. He looked very calm. “Daria,” he said conversationally. “When I watch the media programs, sometimes there is an image behind the speaker.”

She nodded, bewildered.

“Sometimes, the image is that of an area of land, marked with names of cities and such.” He looked at her, flexing the claws of both hands. “Do you have access to one of those for this area?”

“A map,” Daria said, and blushed right down to the soles of her feet. “Oh, for Christ’s sake, a map! Why didn’t I think of that? All this time—! Yes, Tagen, I have a map.”

She ran into the house and dropped to her knees beside the desk, pulling drawers open and fumbling madly through many years’ worth of collected crap. There were several maps, actually, but only one was the one she wanted: a great big one with all of Oregon and parts of the surrounding states that would unfold big enough to cover most of the open floor in the living room.

Tagen sat down on the sofa and pushed the coffee table wearily out of the way as she crawled to him on her knees. She spread out the map, sprang up and ran to the kitchen for her printouts of Northwest Deathwatch.

Tagen had his head in his hands again when she came back. “I knew there was something,” he muttered. “I knew it would shake itself free eventually. I simply cannot believe it has taken me this long to see something so obvious.”

“You have a great excuse,” Daria told him, uncapping a marker. “You were dying from Heat.”

“I cannot die from Heat.”

“I, on the other hand, have no excuse at all. Okay.” She looked at the papers in her hand and at the map. “I’m going to mark these by date of death. You holler if something jumps out at you.”

It only took seven marks before Tagen’s claw came down.

“I see it, too,” Daria said.

Most of the marks were scattered across Oregon, Washington and California, but there were three fairly close together and in nearly a straight line. A line that moved east.

Daria flipped back to her papers. “Dead campers,” she said of the first mark. “The man had some head trauma, but mostly because he was beaten to death against a tree. The woman was raped.” She moved to the second mark. “Two dead guys dumped by the road in the mountains. Massive head trauma. One of them had his throat torn open.” The third mark. “Head trauma. A man and his daughter killed in their beds. The girl’s chest was crushed, too.” She looked up. “Is it him?”

“It is difficult to say.” Tagen’s eyes moved restlessly along the line of three. “Continue.”

Five more murders went on the map, and then a motel manager with massive head trauma added a fourth point to the same line east.

“How many days between these attacks?” Tagen asked, tapping each of them.

“Three to five between the campers and the roadside body dump. It’s hard to get more specific than that. One or two between the bodies and the sleepers.”

“Yes,” Tagen murmured.

“Two between the sleepers and the motel.”

“Two?”

She understood his confusion. Although the motel murder was on the right road and in the right direction, it was clear the hell over in Idaho.

“That…that cannot be E’Var,” Tagen said at last. “E’Var is on foot.”

“Are you sure about that?” she asked.

He looked at her sharply, then down at the map. “No.” He leaned back and gazed at her again. “I think it may be possible that E’Var can pilot one of your cars.”

She snorted. “I don’t. If he’s anything like you, it’s hard enough to imagine he fits in one. I think he’s got help, Tagen. I think he’s got a girl. And I think he got her…” She moved her finger back and forth between the first and third marks. “Somewhere in here.”

Tagen leaned forward, but his scrutiny was on her face, not the map. “What makes you think it, Daria?” he asked intently.

“Because he raped her—” Daria tapped the first point. “—and not her.” She tapped the third. “He was in Heat over here, and by the time he got here, he didn’t care anymore. And then he clearly got in a car, so…”

“So.” Tagen nodded and leaned back, rubbing at his eyes. “So.”

Daria flipped through her printed pages and finally put them down. “The Blue Ridge murders were here,” she said, making a last mark. “And that’s not a straight line east anymore, but it’s still on the main roads. Just one right turn and one long drive.” Back she went to the printouts, scanning down the papers for the name of any of the towns on the same highway as the motel or the bar.

She found one. “Three dead at a tattoo parlor,” she said, marking it. “Massive head trauma, one guy with his throat cut.”

“Cut thus?” Tagen interrupted. He drew his claw across his own neck to demonstrate, and then put one claw at the hollow of his throat and made a pushing gesture. “Or cut so?”

“It doesn’t say. Why?”

Tagen tapped his throat thoughtfully. “This is often done,” he said, speaking low, as if to himself. “So that the victim cannot scream.”

“Sounds like our guy, then, doesn’t it?” Daria looked down. “And he’s definitely got a car.”

“Yes. And a pilot.” Tagen bared his teeth and stood up. “And is no more traveling on one road only.” He paced out the perimeter of the living room, deep in thought. “He could go anywhere. Anywhere.” Finally, he faced her. “I will hear suggestions,” he said.

Daria considered the map, heavily aware of Tagen’s eyes on her. “Well,” she said slowly. “He may not be on one road, but he’s still traveling in straight lines. And considering that he could go anywhere he wanted to, he still seems to be sticking relatively close by. Maybe…maybe if he turns around again, and if the distances are more or less equal, maybe we can use that to figure out where his ship is.”

Tagen actually gaped at her for a second. “That,” he stammered, “That is brilliant, Daria! Of course he has a sacrat!” He stared down at the map, his eyes wide and searching. “And it has a limited range. I…” He looked up at her again. “I think I would never have thought of that,” he said, wonderingly.

She half-shrugged uncomfortably. “Even if we can’t backtrack to his ship, if we knew how far he likes to travel before he turns, we can use that to get in front of him on the road he’s on.”

Tagen gaped at her again and she looked away, blushing.

“Of course,” she went on, “it does mean waiting around here for him to kill a busload of nuns first. I kind of hate that. I guess you do, too.” She risked a glance at him; he was watching her with grim understanding. “You’re in a hard position,” she said grudgingly. “I realize now you’re doing your very best to bring him in.”

“Had I but known that Earth possessed cars, I could have been better prepared for this mission,” he said. “And I, too, hate that I must sit idle while he hunts.” He gazed down at the map, then met her eyes again. “I am grateful it was you I found, Daria Cleavon. When I catch E’Var, it will be your influence that put him in my hands.”

It was easily the strangest compliment she’d ever received, but she blushed with pleasure anyway.

“Come to me, my clever human,” he said, stepping over the map. “Let me show you gratitude. Let me hold you while it is cool.”

“You can’t mean it,” she said, startled, trying to ignore the leap of excitement her body sent out at his words. “We just spent all morning…I mean…You just aren’t serious, are you?”

He stopped where he was and looked at her uncertainly. “You…do not want to make love to me?”

He didn’t sound hurt so much as just requesting clarification, but Daria found it a tough one to answer anyway. She stammered a little, feeling that shivery heat bloom out insistently inside of her, and finally blurted, “Well, damn fella, aren’t you tired?”

He drew back and said, “Of you?” in tones of such astonishment that no woman hearing him could help but feel desirable.

She blushed even hotter and dropped her gaze. “Women,” she stammered. “Earth women, I mean, like me…we’re not supposed to…I mean, there’s only one kind of girl who…so often…”

“Ah,” said Tagen. “I have forgotten. On Earth, it is the male who commands.” He closed the distance between them in two steps and caught her arm when she tried to back away. “So I will command. Daria Cleavon, remove your clothing.”

He said it like an officer, like a man who was used to giving orders and seeing them obeyed. Daria’s hands responded to that voice, even before her brain could help her form a word of protest. He watched, his lips curving in a smile as she stripped to the skin. She was trembling a little already, amazed and bizarrely proud to see the desire in the eyes that moved over her.

She’d never undressed so brazenly; she tried once to hide behind her hands and Tagen growled a warning. “I shouldn’t,” she said, hugging herself.

“Why not?”

There was no easy way to answer that. “I’m not supposed to want to,” she said helplessly.

“Do you want to?”

She looked away.

“I want you to,” he said evenly. “I could look all day at your beautiful body.”

She bit her lip and continued to stare at the far wall.

“But I remove you of choice, Daria. I am male. I command. Lower your arms.”

She did, slowly, shivering in the heat.

He growled again, an appreciative ribbon of quiet sound, and ran his fingertips very lightly down her hair. “My beautiful alien,” he murmured. “How can you bear to be covered?” He took her hand in his, his thumb caressing her palm, and placed it over her breast. He stroked, compelling her to caress herself, and bent to brush his lips over hers. “Tell me you are beautiful.”

She wanted to. She couldn’t.

He found her other hand, set it under his on her side and drew it down, over her belly, over her hips. “Tell me,” he insisted. His hand and hers slipped between her thighs, and when she tensed, his tongue darted into her mouth. He stroked, soft and slow, as he kissed her, and gradually, she relaxed. Her fingers parted her folds; they were soft as petals. His hand slid back up, savoring every inch of skin, to plunge into her hair, but hers stayed where it was. “Tell me you are beautiful. I command you.”

“I’m beautiful,” she whispered, and flames rushed across her face, burning the lips that had admitted such a ridiculous thing.

“You are.” He kissed her again, breathing for her, tasting and exploring her, and then standing away from her. “Touch,” he said, when she tried to reach for him. “Your hands are mine. Let me see you know your beautiful body.”

She shook her head, embarrassed and eager all at once, clenching her hands at her sides because they wanted so badly to rise and obey him.

“Show me how you want me to touch you,” he said. “And tell me you are beautiful.”

That was the breaking straw. She thought she would do anything at all to have his hands on her right now, with his eyes burning on her with such desire. She cupped her breasts, gazing at him imploringly, but he did not move. “I’m beautiful,” she said.

“What is beautiful? Tell me.”

“My breasts are beautiful.” She caressed them, her breath quickening. “My body is beautiful.” She ran her hands down the rise and fall of her ribs to her waist. “My hips are beautiful. My thighs are beautiful.”

“Yes.”

“My…my…” Every word she could think of was ugly. “My sex is beautiful,” she said at last. She watched him watch her touch herself, emboldened by his smile and burning eyes. “My sex is beautiful,” she said again, brushing through the down of her pubic hair to cup the gentle mound. “I’m beautiful.”

“You are,” he said again. “Remove my clothing.”

Her hands were shaking, which made finding the unfamiliar fastenings even more difficult. Tagen stood quietly under her increasingly anxious attempts, offering no advice. He seemed to be enjoying her frustration. “I like to see you bare your teeth,” he said, when she shot him an irritated glance.

She blushed and bared them more. “You like it when I look fierce?”

He laughed. “You do not look fierce,” he said chidingly. “You look…cute.”

She gave up on his uniform jacket, cupped his neck and bit him on the jaw, smiling as his muscles locked tight. “Was that cute?” she asked.

He growled, louder this time, and looked down at her with hunger. “Let me show you how these open,” he said, and guided her hands to the fastens of his uniform.

Inch by inch, she brought his jacket off, kissing and biting at each new precious point of skin. She could hear his breath quickening, his heart racing, and it filled her with pleasure. He wasn’t in Heat now. All these reactions were for her alone. She found herself exhilarated and amazed by her power over him. When she had him fully bared to her, she hesitated. He had been naked beside her for hours outside, but this was the first time she had really looked at him, and when she actually saw the greater proof of his passion, her nerve began to fail.

He sensed it and cupped her chin, tilting her head so that she had to meet his eyes. “Do I please you?” he asked.

She opened and closed her mouth, unable to find an answer.

“Do you like my body?” he pressed.

Oh God, at what point was her face going to explode into physical flames? “Yes,” she whispered.

“Then I command you to put your hands on me, Daria Cleavon. I command you to tell me what you like about my body.”

She couldn’t do it. Why were her hands going out to lie upon the plane of his chest when she couldn’t possibly do that? “I like to feel your heart beating,” she heard herself say. “I like to lie on top of you after and feel myself rising when you breathe.”

“I like to feel your weight when you do that, too,” he said, smiling.

“I like the way your muscles feel,” she said, running her hands down his sides and up again. “I like the way they blend into each other. I like to feel them jump when I touch you.” She scratched lightly down his stomach, was rewarded with just such a jump, and she splayed her hands atop his lower abdomen to savor it. She looked down at the unmistakable proof of his maleness. She wasn’t blushing any more. “Tell me the word for you,” she said.

“Chi’ay,” he whispered.

“I like your chi’ay.” She brushed her fingers down its length and then encircled him, stroking once slowly, and then let go. “It makes me feel so happy to see you wanting me. Will you take me upstairs?”

“No.” His voice was strained, but his hands sure as they went around her waist. “That I cannot do.”

He lifted her to him, his golden eyes boring into hers as he entered her, drawing her down slowly so that she had no choice but to feel the fullness of him. She clutched at his shoulders, shuddering with the first pleasures, and he moved one arm to support her back, one hand to cup her bottom. He rocked gently, moving her with a strength and control no one else could possibly duplicate, bringing her to a crashing and immediate orgasm.

“And that I greatly like to hear,” he murmured as she cried out. “Lean back for me. Let me guide you. Let go your hands, Daria, I will not let you fall.”

Her grip on his neck tightened; it took real effort to unlock them. She slipped back by degrees, looking nervously into his molten eyes, wanting and trusting him, but unsure. He took all her weight with ease into his hands and leaned her back from him until she felt as though she were floating in space.

Then he shifted, thrusting up at her tilted hips in delicate, almost circular movements. Daria’s entire body came alive like a hot wire in an orgasm that ran straight up her spine and exploded white behind her eyes. She screamed, clutching at his wrists, her hips bucking uncontrollably, and he laughed, delighted. “I like to feel your little claws dig at me when I please you,” he told her. “I like to see that amazement in your face. You look as though no man but me has ever given you such pleasure.”

No man ever had, but she couldn’t find the breath to tell him. She opened her hands and threw her arms back, letting him suspend her, letting him be master of her. She screamed when the intensity of what he was inflicting on her became too much to keep silent. Her body moved how it wished to move and she gave it all the reins. She would do nothing, nothing, but accept this.

“Yes,” he breathed, and his hands gripped her tighter. “Yes, my beautiful Daria. Yes, I see you. Let all yourself go. Let me lead you.” He said more, in and out of English, but his words ceased to have much meaning. Sensation had eclipsed sound. He was loving her out into oblivion and she was powerless to do anything but let him.

The pleasure kept growing, assailing and battering at her, and he kept right on driving her through to new crests. She could sense something even greater, some monstrous crouching completion just out of range. She struggled to keep it at bay, certain that anything more than this would kill her, but it was Tagen who commanded this storm and he pushed her relentlessly forward. She let go. She opened herself. She took it.

In the frenzy of that final climax, Daria’s senses unraveled. She knew her eyes were open, but she could not see. She knew where Tagen’s hands must be, but she could not feel them through an awakening of sensation that was as brutal as it was clarifying. She knew she was still screaming, but she could hear no sound beyond his triumphant laughter. Everything else was gone, swallowed up by the electric fire that consumed her flesh and spirit. She felt she hung suspended there for entire years.

Slowly, reality crept back in.

She became aware first of him, not her. She was still numb to all but the lingering echoes of that titanic sensual burst. But he was warm and solid and holding her cradled against his sweat-damp skin. One of his hands was combing down her hair. His breath was ragged and still chuckling in her ear.