Chapter 7

The fire crackled against the black sky. Sparks rose between the treetops and mingled with the stars scattered across the galaxy. Sheena leaned back and traced the constellations with her eyes. Rollo waited for her somewhere up there. If only she could get back to him right now, all these questions and doubts wouldn't bother her so much.

Ever since her conversation with Fawks, she couldn't get her thoughts clear. Conflicting emotions fought for control of her mind and heart and body. Why did he have to worm his way into her brain like this, when she was so close to getting free of him? If she could only get off this planet, she never had to worry about Fawks Ulasso again.

Ron Simons knelt to one side of the fire and checked Sophia's pulse for the thousandth time. Sophia lay still on her stretcher. Ashy grey darkened her clammy skin, and deadly shivers rattled her whole body. Ron patted her hand when he set it down. “This is it. I don't see her coming out of this. She started to rally this morning, but she's only gotten worse as the day goes on. We might as well cover her up and kiss her good-bye.”

Jasmine squeezed his shoulder. “Leave her alone, Ron. You'll make yourself sick worrying about her. You've done all you could. Come away and get something to eat before you fall over.”

He hung his head, but he obeyed her and came back to the fire to sit next to Abigail. She put some food in his hands and her arm around his shoulders. He leaned into her and rested his head on her shoulder.

Jasmine sat down across the fire next to Rex. They held hands in sight of everyone present. Dana scribbled in her notebook and didn't notice all these couples pairing off into the night. Sheena missed Rollo more than ever. Too bad she couldn't bring him along on this trip, but she never planned to crash and get stranded on a barren planet populated by raging men like Fawks.

As if in answer to her thoughts, his voice broke in on her reverie. “You must miss your home, Sheena.”

“Sure, I do. I should have been home days ago. The Command will wonder where I am. What about you? You must miss your home, too.”

“I do miss it. The desert has a beauty no forest can match. When you come to love the desert, no amount of greenery can change that.”

She turned away from the romance surrounding the fire to face him. “What about you? Do you have a sweetheart back home?”

“No, no sweetheart. I haven't found any woman I wanted to stay with, although I've kept company with a few.”

“What do you mean by keeping company?”

“Played with them, explored them, gotten close to them—even lived with a few of them for a short time. They never lasted, though. Either I lost interest or they moved on to someone else.”

Sheena stared at him. “Do you mean....do you mean you got sexually involved with these women—casually involved?”

“Of course. Everyone does it. Anyone can get involved with anyone else they take a fancy to. That doesn't mean it will last. How else can you decide who you like enough to marry and raise a family with?”

Sheena shook her head. “That's a sight different from the way we do it among the Allies.”

“It's a sight different from the way the other Clans do it, too. Most Clans stay close to their family Keeps. The young people stay with their families until they find a mate at the gatherings. Then they move in with the man's Clan.”

“What are the gatherings like?”

“They're really nothing more than wild parties. The young people go off together, and the men and women spend days or even weeks in one continuous sexual romp. Often the parents give them a big hall lined with blankets and pillows, and the young people spend the whole gathering there, doing everything they can think of to one another.”

Sheena stared at him. “Are you serious?”

He chuckled. “Can you imagine it? Sometimes a bunch of men will take a woman off to a room in the Keep by herself. Sometimes several women will tackle one man. It's anything goes for everyone.”

“And their parents approve of this?”

“How could they disapprove of it when they did it themselves at that age? That's how most of them find their mates.”

Sheena shook her head. “That's incredible.”

“The Ulasso don't do it that way, though. We don't have gatherings.”

“What do you do?”

“When a young person reaches maturity, they move across their city complex to a place far away from their family. That's the only way they can find a mate not related to them and gain their independence without interference from their parents and relatives.”

“So, you get together one on one? That's a more civilized way of doing it.”

“Not always one on one. We get together on our own, without any adult supervision. We go to each other's houses to play and explore and get to know each other.”

“So, you have no rules at all? Does anything go there, too?”

“As long as a person remains unmarried, they have no rules. They can throw themselves at any person or combination of people. They can take pleasure from any hole in their bodies, and from any part of anybody else's body.”

Sheena closed her eyes and turned away. “Don't say it like that.”

“Why not? What could be wrong with pleasure?”

“How do you ensure the young women don't get pregnant from someone they don't want to marry?”

“They can't get pregnant until they're ready.”

“What's to stop them?”

“They just don't. They don't get pregnant until they want to.”

Sheena's eyes almost fell out of her head. “Are you telling me the women can control when and from whom they get pregnant?”

He pointed at her. “Exactly.”

“This is incredible.”

He peered at her through the flickering firelight. “Would that make a difference to you? Would you let yourself experience pleasure from more than one man if you knew you couldn't get pregnant against your wishes?”

“I never wanted to experience pleasure from more than one man. One is enough.”

“Have you ever tried it?”

“Of course not. That would be perverse.”

“Perverse? What does that mean?”

“It means unnatural. It means it's too crude for any respectable woman to consider.”

“There is no such thing. If you want to do it, it must be natural. All your cravings and desires are natural and good, no matter what they are. If you desire two men at once coming at you from the front and the back, you should do it. If you don't do it, the desire will consume you forever until it controls your life. Better to do it and get it out in the open.”

“Is that what they teach you in these cities of yours? Do they teach you to give in to every twisted craving that pops into your heads?”

He stared in the fire. “My country is a beautiful and civilized world, and my people are kind and generous and loving. I miss that world.”

“Why don't you go back there? You don't have to stay here with us.”

“I thought you wanted me to stay here with you.”

Sheena's cheeks burned. “I don't want you to stay here if you don't want to. If you miss your country and your people so much, why are you still here?”

“Did it ever occur to you than I might want to stay here with you?”

“With me—or with us?”

“With you.”

“You can't mean that. You don't even know me. You don't want to stay here with me. In a few days, we'll get to Assan Keep and you'll go home to your country. I'll never see you again.”

“Then you should experience any pleasure you want with me while you have the chance.”

She blushed to the roots of her hair. He didn't really just suggest that, did he? “Forget it.”

“If you wish me to forget it, I will. If you wish to experience what pleasure I might give you, you have only to say the word. I am willing if you are.”

Her head whipped around. “How can you suggest that, like it's the most normal thing in the world? I told you I have a sweetheart back home. I couldn't....do whatever with you here when I'm going home to him.”

“He can't please you like I can. He couldn't, if he doesn't know what a dominant man is supposed to do.”

“What do you think you could do that he couldn't?” She snorted with laughter. “You've got the same equipment he has.”

“Equipment doesn't mean anything if he doesn't know how to use it. I know how to use it. I know how to give you pleasure.”

“You really think a lot of yourself, don't you? You think you can waltz into my life and throw yourself at me like that, and I'll melt at your feet in a puddle of pleasure. I do have some scruples, you know.”

“Your scruples don't tell you when and where and with whom to seek pleasure, Sheena. You don't really want a submissive man. No woman could possibly want that.”

“Rollo is not submissive—far from it.”

“He's not dominant, though, is he? Don't you secretly crave a dominant man instead of your timid, subservient Rollo?”

“He's not timid or subservient. Stop saying those things about him. You don't know anything about Rollo.”

“Then tell me. What is he like?”

“He's kind and intelligent and talented. He's motivated and sensitive and handsome.”

“Does he please you?”

“Of course, he pleases me. I wouldn't be planning to marry him if he didn't.”

“If he pleases you so much, why do you keep looking at me like that?”

“Like what? I'm not looking at you like anything.”

Instead of answering, he leaned over and kissed her hard on the mouth. His lips crashed into her mouth and smashed her lips against her teeth. She cried out in surprise, and while her mouth was open, he shoved his tongue inside. His tongue touched hers with a bolt of lightning.

He swallowed her cry in one gulp. Faster than thought, he slid one hand behind her head and brought her in hard against his kiss. He locked his mouth over hers so she couldn't make a sound.

His other hand scooted up between her legs to the tight nexus of her crotch. He brought his thumb down against her clitoris while his fingers rubbed the aching slit where the two seams of her pants joined.

She sucked in her breath as well as she could through her nose. For a fraction of a second, she was too surprised to pull away. His tongue tickled her senses inside her mouth and awoke her tongue to respond to its licks of delight. His fingers squeezed the steamy cocktail from her gash, and his thumb pumped her clitoris to a tight, throbbing knob.

All at once, he released her mouth. He breathed down her throat, into her nose and mouth and into her brain. “You want it, Sheena. You want to melt at my feet. I can take you there. I can take you farther than your Rollo ever did. Say you want it, and I'll do it. You know I want you as much as you want me. Let yourself go. Let yourself feel the pleasure you really want. I can give it to you, Sheena.”

Every inch of her screamed for that release, but she tore herself out of his hands with an excruciating effort. Her eyes devoured his crystal-white face, but she couldn't stay near him another second. She had to get away from him before she exploded into something she didn't recognize. She would lose herself if she stayed near him, if he touched her one more time.

She retreated to the far side of the fire and found a place next to Sophia's stretcher. Fawks watched her from beyond the flames. Those flames licked up into his eyes from his soul. No disarming smile tarnished his face now. He wanted her. He wanted all of her, with no holds barred. She could see that written plain as day on his face.

Even from across the fire, she couldn't take her eyes off him. He enthralled her and sparked secret desires she never knew she had. She never considered giving herself to a dominant man in her life. Dominant men didn't exist in her world. What woman in her right mind would want a dominant man?

What could a dominant man do to her, anyways? She shuddered and closed her mind against the possibility. He wouldn't, and she couldn't. The whole suggestion was out of the question.

She lay down next to Sophia and closed her eyes, but that brought all the smoking images and desires roiling up from the depths of her being more than ever. She couldn't stem the tide.

Her crotch ached for.... something. That something certainly wasn't Rollo, though she longed to take shelter in his arms. He was known. She knew what she would get from him, and it certainly wasn't anything anybody could call dominant. Rollo never affected her like this—never!

Her whole body cried out for something she couldn't identify. She wanted. She wanted something male, something cruel and hard and unyielding to take her somewhere she'd never been before, but she couldn't find that in Fawks. He was too alien, too overt. She could never give herself to anyone who grabbed her and forced himself on her like that, who demanded her whether she wanted it or not.

The flames formed a curtain between her and Fawks, but they did nothing to stop him invading and seizing her again and again. His hand prints burned into her skin. She couldn't get rid of them. He made her into something foreign and wild and dark, something yielding to his unyielding hardness.

She drifted off to sleep with the image of Fawks hovering before her eyes. Flames danced across his face, and his eyes devoured her from the other side of the fire. He haunted her dreams.