Текст книги "Sleeping With the Enemy"

Автор книги: Kaitlyn O'Connor

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

Chapter Eleven

    Sybil was tempted to simply leave. She realized she should have known that there wouldn’t be an opportunity to be with Anka even if he’d wanted to. He was trapped by his position among the visitors.

    She might not have felt quite so badly about it if she’d thought that he actually wanted to be with her and couldn’t, but even though she acknowledged the circumstances of their situation, she still felt abandoned and discarded.

    She begged off dancing again with Powell on the grounds of the ankle twinge, but she didn’t want to sit at the table and watch everyone else dance, and think about who was dancing with Anka and whether or not he was thinking about inviting himself to their room. Worse, what if she did hang around, hopeful, and see him walk out with another woman?

   She hadn’t considered that-dolt that she was! She’d been so focused on her own need to be with him she hadn’t considered for a moment that he might not feel the same way.

    After sitting for about an hour, she decided she’d stayed long enough to prevent people from speculating about her early departure and excused herself. “I think I’ll head back.”

    “Want company?”

    Sybil sent him a look. “Thank you, but no.”

    “I was only offering to walk you back.”

    She studied him. “No, you weren’t.”

    He shrugged, grinning. “No, I wasn’t.”

    Shaking her head at him, she got up. “’Night, Powell.”

    “’Night Sybil.”

    She’d already reached the exit before she remembered the damned hotel room and the transport! Well, didn’t she feel like a dumbass! Sighing, she considered the situation for a moment and then checked her watch. To her dismay, she discovered it was far later than she’d realized. The transport she’d arranged should be arriving any time.

    She didn’t want to spend the night alone in the room she’d gotten for two, damn it! It was for sure she wouldn’t be getting a refund, though. Changing directions, she headed back across the conference room toward the hotel transport dock. She’d almost made it when the music stopped and someone tapped on the microphone for attention. Deciding she didn’t care, she kept going.

    “Our guests have offered an exhibition for us tonight of the festival dance.”

    Sybil halted abruptly, her heart hammering in her chest as she turned to look back toward the stage. The dance floor began to clear as the Sumpturians advanced upon it. A few moments later, she heard the exotic music she remembered and then she saw Anka, his head lifted as he scanned the audience. Breathlessly, she waited, hoping he would spot her and that it was her he was looking for. He met her gaze and lifted his brows questioningly.

    Her legs felt like they’d turned to spaghetti. She didn’t think she could make the walk if her life depended upon it. Fortunately, she didn’t have to, at least not alone. Anka left the other dancers and strode toward her.

    As thrilled as she was, she was also hideously self-conscious when she realized he held the attention of nearly every soul in the ball room as he approached her.

    The only thing that could possibly be worse was the nightmarish vision that danced in her head of Anka walking right past her and asking some other woman to dance. Before she could glance behind her to check, however, he’d reached her. He held out his hand in invitation. “You promised me a dance, nodia.”

    She thought she was going to faint. Struggling to catch her breath, she placed her hand in his. “Wait!” she gasped as he turned to lead her back to the dance floor.

    He paused and looked at her quizzically, but she wasn’t about to try one of their folk dances in spike heels! Kicking them off and abandoning them, she hurried with him to take their places on the dance floor, ignoring the stir it caused when she’d kicked her shoes off.

    Someone started the song over.

    Sybil glanced up at Anka and smiled, feeling like Cinderella must have felt when the prince asked her to dance-as if she’d suddenly found herself in a magical dream. He smiled back at her as they began the steps of the dance. She surprised herself by remembering most of the steps and acquitting herself with far more grace than she’d thought she could manage considering she was high with excitement.

    Even the reaction of the audience felt like part of the dream when the dance finally ended and Anka turned to her, looking down at her with his eyes gleaming. “Will you take me to your bed tonight, my nodia?”

    Sybil smiled up at him until a sudden thought struck her. Her smile flattened. “The transport!” she gasped.

    He looked disconcerted. “The transport?”

    She moved closer. “Meet me at the hotel dock. I got us a room!” she whispered.

    He looked more confused than enlightened, but he released her and she dashed away to search for her shoes. She’d been pacing the dock for all of five seconds when he arrived. “I thought you weren’t coming!”

    He made a sound of irritation. “The President stopped me. I believe I may have been rude, but the treaty is signed now. Where are we going?”

    Sybil stared at him. “You were rude to the President… of the United States? Never mind. Like you said, the treaty’s signed now.”

    He looked bemused when she led him to the airlock and from there into the transport. They settled side by side on the bench that faced the airlock.

    “Is anyone else ready to return the hotel?” the driver asked.

    She didn’t know, but she sure as hell had no intention of waiting for them. “No. Just us.”

    “Hotel?”

    “Shhh!” Sybil hissed, anxious now that it looked like they might actually manage to leave without being observed that someone would show up and ruin it.

    “Why are we whispering?” he asked, amused.

    Sybil shook her head at him. “Watch the safety harness!”

    Anka ducked as the bar came up over the back of the seat and secured them, looking at the apparatus, which was actually more like the safety guard on a roller coaster than a harness. “What is this for?”

    “To keep us from floating.”

    He looked startled but the driver pulled out of the airlock just then and his expression was downright comical. “Gods!”

    Sybil bit her lip. “No gravity-not much anyway.”

    “This feels… strange.”

    Sybil was about to point out that he’d experienced it when they’d moon walked before when it abruptly occurred to her that they hadn’t. She’d just been too upset to think about the fact that she hadn’t experienced the micro gravity she should have.

    It must have been the suits! No wonder the military had been so hot to get hold of them!

    “You still haven’t told me where we’re going.”

    “I did. I told you I got us a room.”

    “So, we aren’t going to your quarters?”

    “No, because I’m tired of worrying about being caught.”

    Something flickered in his eyes. “You truly were worried, nodia?”

    “Of course I was.” She looked up through the viewing port at the back of the transport and pointed. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

    Anka dutifully glanced at the view of the Earth. “Yes, it is.”

    “It felt so strange when I first got here to look up into the sky and see the Earth instead of the moon.”

    “When you’re on the Earth looking up at the moon, is the moon beautiful?”

    “Yes,” she murmured. “I guess people always think another place will be better.”

    “Nothing could be better than being home.”

    She glanced at him, feeling her throat tighten, partly because it hurt to realize he yearned for his home when he was with her and partly because she ached for his sadness. “Will you go home soon?”

    “No.” The word emerged harshly. He cleared his throat and glanced at her, smiling a little crookedly. “I have a new home.”

    One he wasn’t particularly happy about. Before she could decide whether to pursue it or not, though, the transport pulled into the airlock of the hotel.

    She didn’t know what she’d been thinking! Almost the moment they stepped from the airlock they caught the attention of everyone they passed. Several people actually ran into things-like other people and the walls. Struggling to ignore the feeling that their ‘clandestine liaison’ was going to make front page news, she walked briskly across the lobby and headed for the elevators. There were three other people on the elevator and all three gaped at Anka as if he had two heads. Sybil glared at them for their rudeness but they were too focused on Anka to actually notice.

    She was more relieved than randy when they finally reached their room and she used her key to enter. Anka, apparently, had other things on his mind, however. The moment they cleared the threshold he slipped his arms around her and waltzed her back to the wall, pinning her with his body. “I’ve been wanting to do this all night,” he murmured against her hair, nuzzling a path downward to capture her lips.

    Sybil had been wanting him to kiss her all night-before the night began, in fact. On the instant, she dismissed the anxiety that had trailed her from the conference center and all the up to their room. She didn’t care if they’d been seen together. She didn’t need to keep it secret anymore-not for his sake or for hers.

    She kissed him back with all the yearning that had been building inside of her. It almost seemed as if they both caught fire. The heat that surged between them as they explored each other’s mouths was nearly blistering. They broke for a gusty breath of air and met again, exploring cheek and ear and neck and throat with their mouths, dueling for dominance. They began tugging at one another’s clothes, impatient to have nothing between them, and then gave up on solving the confusing intricacies of closures and simply tugged clothing aside to touch and fondle.

    Anka caught her buttocks and hoisted her up the wall, spearing into her with the head of his cock the moment he had her positioned. She gasped, tightened her grip on him and fought to engulf his heated, turgid flesh. He shifted, bracing her against the wall for better leverage and curled his hips to drive himself deeper. He’d no sooner achieved full penetration than some inconsiderate son-of-a-bitch pounded on the door.

    “Turn down service!”

    “Gods!” Anka growled under his breath and then bellowed, “Go the fuck away!”

    Sybil bit her lip, but the amusement was brief. Amusement flickered in his own eyes, but it was surpassed by the heat of desire as he claimed her mouth again. A sharp thrill went through her at the double penetration of his tongue in her mouth and his cock inside of her. She sucked his tongue a little frantically, feeling her body racing toward culmination as he drove into her over and over, pounding against her g-spot.

    She broke the kiss as it hit her, crying out, shuddering as the muscles along her channel convulsed in waves of keen pleasure. He uttered a choked sound, drove deeply and spilled his seed even as she began to drift downward.

    They leaned together for a few moments, trying to catch their breaths. Finally, Anka rolled his forehead against hers. “Is there a bed in this room?”

    Sybil grinned at him. “There better be for what it cost.”

    He pulled free of her body, allowing her to slide to floor. “Let’s find it,” he suggested. Bending abruptly and catching her around the hips, he straightened with her across his shoulder.

    Sybil laughed. “What are you doing?”

    “I’m feeling savage tonight,” he growled, glancing around the room and then heading for the enormous bed.

    Sybil gasped when he tossed her onto the mattress. He followed her down, pinning her with his body and then simply studying her face.

    “What?” she asked finally, beginning to feel a little uneasy.

    “That’s my question. What were you doing dancing with Powell and that other wormy man?”

    She gave him a look. “You danced.”

    Something flickered in his eyes. “It was… required.”

    She shook her head, lifting her hand to touch his cheek. “It was just a dance.”

    His eyes narrowed. “It didn’t look like ‘just a dance’. He was all over you.”

    Surprise flickered through her. She considered informing him that it was customary and decided to discard the idea. “He danced closer than he should have. It’s part of our mating customs. The men are the aggressors. The woman either allows it, if she’s interested, or she lets him know she isn’t interested. He asked to go back to my quarters with me. I turned him down because I wanted to be with you.”

    She could tell he didn’t like that answer. He rolled away from her after a moment, lying on the bed beside her, one arm draped over his eyes. Sybil turned onto her side to study him, watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed.

    “I didn’t like it before I knew that much,” he muttered finally.

    The urge to tell him she loved him and had no interest in any man made her chest tight with the need and yet she realized that it was pointless to tell him. He was leaving. He had to leave and she had to stay. Neither of them had a choice, regardless of how they felt.

    And, truthfully, she was afraid of what he might say if she told him. He was jealous, but possessiveness didn’t necessarily mean he cared about her. It might mean nothing more than that she’d allowed him to consider her as a possession. He knew she hadn’t been with anyone before her and she’d welcomed him with open arms when he arrived.

    She didn’t honestly know what to say. “I wouldn’t have told you if I’d known it would make you angry. I only said it because I wanted you to know that I’d made my choice.”

    Sighing, she got up and scooted from the bed, looking down at her shockingly expensive dress with a touch of dismay. Not that she could blame him! She hadn’t made any attempt to dissuade him. Far from it!

    Irritated with herself, she removed the dress, laid it carefully over the back of a chair, and headed into the bathroom. She stopped abruptly when she’d surveyed the luxury bath. “Anka! There’s a… whirlpool!” she breathed in awe.

    Dashing over to it, she studied it for a moment and turned on the water to allow it to fill. Anka appeared in the door just as she shucked her thong and stepped into the water. “It’s big enough for two,” she suggested hopefully.

    He studied her for a long moment and finally looked around for a place to sit and remove his boots. Sybil found a bottle of bubble bath. Opening it, she sniffed it and then poured it beneath the pounding water. By the time Anka had undressed and reached the tub it was almost deep enough to turn on the jets. He climbed in and settled behind her.

    “You still mad at me?” she asked tentatively.

    He released a pent up breath. Slipping his arms around her, he pulled her back against his chest. “I wasn’t angry with you, nodia.”

    He’d given a good impression of it, she thought wryly. “What does that mean?” she asked, twisting her head to look up at him.

    “What?”

    “Nodia.”

    He nuzzled her ear with his nose and then nipped at the lobe. “Beautiful little star child with hair like sunlight and eyes like a cloudless summer sky,” he murmured huskily.

    Sybil smiled, feeling her cheeks flush. “No really.”

    He chuckled. “Little woman with beautiful breasts,” he murmured, opening his mouth over her ear.

    Goosebumps lifted along her neck and raced down her chest to make her nipples stand up into peaks. She shuddered. “That tickles.”

    He lifted his hands to cup her breasts, lightly squeezing her nipples between his fingers. “Is that what makes these pretty little buds sprout?” he murmured teasingly. “Tickles?”

    “It doesn’t sound like that many words. How could it mean all that?”

    “Tickles?” he murmured musingly.

    “Nodia.”

    “Little golden haired… monkey?”

    Sybil sent him a narrow eyed glance over her shoulder.

    He grinned at her. “Adorable little primate?”

    She rolled her eyes. “Fine! Don’t tell me.”

    He leaned down to suck a love bit at the curve of her neck and shoulder. “Short woman who makes my cock hard.”

    She chuckled at that. She could see how he might think she was short considering he towered over her, but she certainly wasn’t ‘dainty’.

    “No interest in the hard cock?”

    Laughing, Sybil got up to face him, pushing his legs together and then settling astride his lap. “Where is this hard cock you keep crowing about?” she murmured, leaning close to nibble at his lips while she explored his chest with her hands and pretended she couldn’t find her way. He caught the back of her head with one palm to bring her closer, opened his mouth over hers, and then caught her hand with his other and guided it around his erection.

    “Mmm,” she murmured against his mouth, tightening her hand and stroking it before she broke from his lips. “There it is… all covered in flower scented soap bubbles.”

    Leaning away from him, she turned the water off and punched the button to start the jets. He had a strange look on his face when she turned back to him. “There’s a hole behind me and water is shooting out of it.”

    “Back massage,” Sybil murmured, resuming her position and leaning close enough to rub her breasts against his chest while she explored the side of his neck with her lips. “You never have told me why you came here… your people, I mean.”

    The question caught Anka off-guard. The suspicion instantly arose that that had been her intention-not that he meant to share. The treaty was tenuous at best and he was well aware they were playing a dangerous game of cat and mouse-his people and hers, perhaps even the two of them.

    Not that she’d ever done or said anything to support his suspicions about her, but that might only mean he hadn’t caught her. It didn’t necessarily mean that she hadn’t or that he could afford to trust her.

    In any case, he was also aware that her people had had him under constant surveillance. Even if he trusted her enough to speak openly, he couldn’t when he knew how likely it was that they were listening.

    He certainly hadn’t wanted to come to this gods forsaken solar system, so far from the world they’d called home and inhabited by a hostile people they had learned all too well would not welcome them. None of them had. Unfortunately, their situation hadn’t left them a lot of choices and of those unpleasant choices her solar system had been the best option. They’d had to weigh their limited resources against the odds of survival among the worlds known to them or at least the solar systems that contained worlds with some potential for terra-forming. The worlds that supported life had indigenous life and, even with their own survival hanging in the balance they hadn’t been able to contemplate taking what they needed and ignoring the needs of the indigenous people, perhaps because their own survival was hanging in the balance.

    “Why have your people left your world?” he countered.

    Sybil leaned back to study his face. She saw no reason not to tell him the truth, though. In all likelihood they already knew, but she’d known that telling him before could be tantamount to treason. The treaty had been agreed upon and signed now, however, and she thought that negated the information being a matter of national, or global, security. “Truthfully? In the beginning it was pure curiosity, the search for knowledge and, for some, adventure and the excitement of discovering new things.”

    She looked down at his chest, exploring it with her fingers. “Somewhere along the line we went wrong, weren’t cautious enough, were too arrogant to care what we were doing or too ignorant to realize it. Personally, I think we really got in trouble when some stupid asshole with more power than brains thought up the brilliantly moronic idea of wasting-disposing of absolutely everything, no matter how huge a drain it was on resources or how small-in order to build a healthy, wealthy economy. Maybe if it hadn’t seemed to be working we would have woke up soon enough to turn things around-and maybe not. Old habits die hard. It took generations to make the mess we did. One generation, no matter how dedicated, couldn’t turn it around.”

    “You’re saying colonization isn’t a matter of want as much as it is need?”

    Sybil grimaced. “Pretty much. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of people want to and would have anyway, but they’ve got more reason to want to with the mess we’ve made of Earth. And that’s a good thing because moving part of the population will give the Earth a better chance at recovering, and more quickly. The exploding population certainly didn’t help the drain on the Earth’s resources or the pollution.

    “Is that why your people decided to colonize, to lift some of the burden of population from your home world?”

    Anka caught her hips, pulling her up onto her knees to bring her breasts level with his face and distracted her by teasing first one and then the other pert bud. It distracted him from his dark thoughts, as well. It was the one thing he needed more than anything else and the one thing only Sybil could give him-escape. “We came to conquer Earth, one woman at a time,” he murmured teasingly, “and I was fortunate enough to win the first draw.”

    Sybil smiled against his hair. “You think you’ve made a conquest?”

    He used her position to align his cock with her body’s opening and slowly began to press her downward to engulf his flesh, watching her face. It was the only time he knew, absolutely and without any doubt, that she was his, that she was completely honest, when he saw the pleasure on her face. “Haven’t I?”

    She opened her eyes to look at him as she settled finally and he felt his flesh buried deeply inside of her. Her eyes, as beautiful as a summer’s day on Sumptra, had darkened with the expansion of her pupils in desire. She couldn’t pretend that. She might gasp and sigh with carefully feigned desire, but her eyes told only the truth.

    The glazed look in her eyes vanished as she rose and settled again and there followed an ominous splash of water on the floor beside the tub. Blinking as she emerged from the spell, she glanced in horror at the mountain of bubbles surrounding them. “Oh my god! I put too much bubble bath in the tub!”

    He tightened his grip on her and rose abruptly. Sybil nearly tipped from his arms as she struggled to reach the button to turn off the jets. She didn’t get the chance to hit the drain release. He stepped from the tub with her.

    “Crazy man!” she gasped, tightening her legs around his waist and looping her arms around his neck. “You’re going to injure that fine thing if we slip in the soapy water.”

    She’d hardly gotten the warning out when he skidded. She sucked in a sharp breath that bordered a scream, tightening her grip around his neck as he flung out an arm to avert disaster. Whipping her head around when she heard the impact of his hand against the frame of the door, she stared in absolute shock at his hand, or more specifically the four six inch, knife-like claws that had shot out from his first knuckles and embedded in the wood.

    He retracted them, stepping onto the carpet of the bedroom floor and striding toward the bed. Sybil was still in a state of shock, however, as he climbed onto the mattress with her. A shiver skittered through her as he dropped from his knees to lower both of them onto the bed. He lifted slightly away from her and met her gaze for a long moment. “It isn’t as easy to pretend I’m man when you’ve seen that, is it?” he growled.

    Sybil stared at him wide-eyed, trying to decide whether to pretend she had no idea what he was talking about or if she should flatly deny the fact that she was shocked to her core. He covered her mouth in a hard, almost hurtful kiss before she could shake her stupor enough to react in any way, however. The kiss took her by surprise, more because it was rougher than any before. Despite everything, it sent a thrill of excitement through her and acceptance.

    Maybe because it was so fierce, as filled with ravening hunger as anger?

    Or maybe it was because she realized she’d wounded him in some indefinable way, however unintentionally. She couldn’t decide if he was trying to punish her or drive her away, but he didn’t succeed in either aim if that was indeed his intention. The assault on her mouth gave way to an assault to her senses as he drove into her relentlessly, lifting away from her only to gnaw on whatever tender flesh he could reach.

    She came within moments, shuddering, gasping for breath. He slowed his pace and then rolled them onto their sides and began to increase the rhythm and depth of his strokes until she felt the rise of tension inside her again. Abruptly shifting to tip her onto her back again, he pushed his hands beneath her buttocks to tilt her hips forward. The angle of his strokes sent her spiraling off into bliss again, held her aloft until she was gasping so sharply with the pleasurable convulsions it was closer to a scream.

    He slowed finally, allowing her to catch her breath. Withdrawing from her completely, he rolled her onto her belly and sprawled atop her, penetrating her from behind and building the heat inside her with slow, deliberate strokes. She was so weak, so drunk and disoriented from the two climaxes she’d already had, she could barely respond, let alone comprehend when he shifted upward abruptly, lifting her hips into the air and pushing at her legs until she was on her knees. He bit lightly down on her shoulder, just hard enough to produce a sting that incomprehensibly caused a chain reaction heat wave that traveled through her and made the muscles of her sex clench around his cock. He groaned against her ear, covered the shell with his mouth and sucked lightly.

    Shivers raced up and down her body, producing a hoard of goosebumps. Her nipples tightened almost painfully. As if he’d anticipated that reaction, he slipped a hand beneath her to tease the tight buds. The third time she came, she seemed to float off into space as if her entire body had exploded into fiery shards. She was barely aware of the shudders that wracked him as he followed her into rapture and then she sank literally and figuratively, flattening out beneath him weakly in the aftermath and drifting toward a dark harbor.

    He abandoned her abruptly, rolling off onto the mattress beside her, but even the sudden chill on her damp skin barely roused her from her near comatose state. She shivered, waiting for him to pull her to him as he always had before. When he didn’t, she debated whether she was even welcome in the shelter of his warmth. Wounded pride kept her where she was until it finally occurred to her that, maybe, he was waiting for some sign of acceptance. Maybe he needed to be reassured that, despite her shocked surprise at the discovery of just how different he was from her, she still wanted him?

    Gathering her strength with an effort, she shifted toward him until she could sprawl limply across him, curled against his side with one and one leg flung across him. He stiffened. For many moments he simply lay unmoving. Finally, he rolled slightly toward her and curled his arms around her. She drifted off with the comforting skate of his hand along her back.

    It was the light brush of his lips along her shoulder that roused her toward awareness. She struggled against attaining full awareness, waiting for another caress. Instead, he rolled away from her. She felt the mattress shift as his weight left it and then heard the distinctive rustle of his clothing.

    He was leaving! Her heart slammed almost painfully against her chest wall. She tensed, readying herself to leap up, and then forced herself to relax again. He hadn’t wakened her. He wouldn’t welcome a tearful good-bye.

    Swallowing against the emotion that abruptly clogged her throat she lay as still as she could, searching the darkened room for him, listening to his movements as he dressed. When he’d finished it seemed he simply stood staring at her. Hope surged through her that he would come back to her, tell her goodbye, maybe kiss her one last time.

    She thought she felt that want in him, but maybe it was only her own desires she felt? After a few moments she heard a faint, unidentifiable sound. The door?

    She’d just decided it was when she saw the light. It had already begun to fade by the time she scrambled up to look. She stared at the faint glow where he’d been standing only moments before until there was only darkness and finally lay down again.

    The urge to cry swept over her in an inescapable avalanche. For once, she didn’t try to fight it off. For once, it was safe to allow her grief and hurt full reign. There was no one to hear, no one to care or judge her for having no control over her emotions. She cried until she was so exhausted sleep claimed her again.

    It was the maid that woke her, tapping on the door and announcing that she was from housekeeping. “Come back later!” Sybil bellowed, uncaring of how surly she sounded.