Chapter Six
“I DON’T HAVE time for irrelevant questions, woman.” Kahn let his annoyance show. She’d gone off track into a raw topic that he never discussed.
“I was once very much in love,” she continued as if he had not castigated her, her voice soft, dreamy and sliced with pain. “And the suit stimulation has something to do with developing my psi powers, doesn’t it?”
She‘d gone from a statement about love to the completely different subject of psi, which revealed that she had a much greater understanding of his plan than he’d intended. He didn’t fathom how her mind worked. How much had she figured out? He didn’t know. Couldn’t ask. However, her guess was close enough to the truth to shock him, and he kept his face implacable and remained silent.
“Right. You cannot tell me that. “She waved her hand in the air as if gesturing away a bad thought. “However, the suit’s ministrations are only exciting my physical reactions. My mind—my emotions are not as involved as they could be.”
No wonder she wasn’t frustrated. She had no idea of the importance of what she’d just told him—or did she? If she spoke the truth, if physical stimulation couldn’t involve her entire spectrum of emotions, she might never break through and engage her psi. Federation members were psi trained during childhood before they developed strong emotional barriers like the ones she put up.
If what she was saying were true, unless he changed his tactics, he might never get through to her. That she’d realized this before he had gave him even more cause for concern. By requesting him to engage both her mind and her feelings, she’d given him the key to her vulnerabilities. And he suspected that she knew it.
Marveling at her bravery, he regretted what he must do. “You are suggesting that I can invoke your feelings with my touch?”
She bit her bottom lip in hesitation, then blurted, “Yes. Kindness. Offering your friendship and sharing mutual passion is another way.”
“What happened to the man you loved?”
Pain clouded her eyes. “He died.”
Before they’d made love. No wonder she seemed both innocent and experienced. He knew all too well what it was like to lose a loved one. “On Rystan we would have found you a new husband to ease the pain.”
“No one will ever replace Mike in my heart,” she spoke fiercely. “But that does not mean that I will never love again.” She looked him straight in the eye. “Human beings have the capacity for much more life than we give ourselves credit for.”
Was she speaking about herself or him?
“What are you asking from me?”
She spoke simply. There was no begging in her tone, just a desire for understanding. “I’m asking for all that you have to give.”
All that he had to give. She’d given the answer of a warrior. Her words struck him like a direct punch to his gut. This Earthling had courage. Not mere physical bravery, but a deep abiding belief in herself that came through despite all the setbacks she’d found.
When he said nothing, she continued, “We have done things your way. They have not worked. You’ve asked me to adapt, now I’m asking you to do the same.”
Honor would not allow him to do less. “Agreed.”
With no knowledge of how the Federation manual’s instructions clashed with Rystani customs, she could not fully comprehend what she’d asked a warrior like him to do, but her words of courage made him realize that because she was much stronger than he’d believed, he had to push her much harder than he’d planned to cause her psi powers to emerge. Because as awful as it sounded to his own sense of honor and sensibilities, he would befriend her, make her believe she’d receive exactly what she’d asked him for, and then he must deny her.
She would hate him for it.
But he could handle her hatred. He had to. He beckoned her to take his hand. “Once we begin, you cannot change your mind.”
“I understand.”
She didn’t. She couldn’t, and although one part of him was reluctant to begin, another part of him hungered to discover more about her. Never had he known such a woman, and his heartbeat sped in anticipation of touching her, holding her. Arousing her.
He led her to the platform, placed his hands on her slender waist, lifting her until she stood once again and faced him eye to eye. He searched her face but saw no sign of panic or regret, just a firm determination.
He threaded his fingers into the hair to either side of her cheekbones and stroked the silky strands back from her face. Her eyes darkened, and she swallowed hard, but she remained still, except for the palm which she placed on his shoulder to steady herself.
“Kiss me,” she demanded.
He almost complied. Almost.
“I will,” he promised, but he didn’t. Instead, he placed one finger on her forehead and traced her finely arched brows, the straight line of her nose, her eager lips. She nibbled on his finger, and he pretended not to notice.
“I want to touch your chest,” she told him.
With a thought, he banished his vest, leaving his skin bared to her eyes and her palms. When she skimmed her fingertips from his shoulders, over his pectoral muscles to his stomach, his breath caught in his throat. Rystani women were not so bold. They didn’t touch their men unless instructed to do so, but the Earthling hadn’t waited for his permission. She’d simply done what came naturally to her. Ever mindful of evoking her emotions, of making her feel comfortable with him, he accepted her touch . . . for now.
Kahn could have turned off the sensors in his suit to avoid feeling her skin on his, but she would have immediately known. A psi shield felt nothing like bare flesh. Which meant she wouldn’t be the only one suffering at the end of this session.
TESSA ENJOYED touching Kahn much more than she’d thought possible. His heat, his muscles, his attempt to listen to her had pleased her. And Kahn had let down his guard enough for him to seem very human. Apparently, his decision to touch her had been difficult for him to make, which made his compliance all the sweeter.
“Kiss me,” she requested again. Although she stood on the platform and he on the floor, she had to raise her mouth to his.
“Soon.”
He curled her hair behind her ears then tenderly kissed her brow, her cheeks, her chin and finally, he claimed her mouth. For a giant, his kiss was surprisingly gentle. He didn’t demand, but tenderly angled his lips to hers, meeting her halfway.
Aware of her bare breasts, she didn’t lean into him, so no other part of her brushed against him. Only their mouths fused.
Oh my.
The star man could really kiss. Tender, yet demanding, he kissed with a heat that stoked a matching fire within her. To think that she’d actually thrown in his face that he’d sent a machine because he couldn’t do the job seemed ludicrous.
She didn’t know exactly when she’d wrapped her hands around his neck or risen onto her toes. She only knew that he was pulling back, taking her arms from around his neck and her eyes flew open. “What’s wrong?”
“Too fast,” he said.
“Not fast enough,” she countered, trying to haul him back to her.
But he countered her move by braceleting each of her wrists in one of his huge hands and placing them behind her back. She arched into him, eyes wide and slightly breathless.
As she stood before him naked and more vulnerable than she’d ever been, her nerve endings fired all over again. When he lifted her chin with his free hand and delayed another kiss, she gazed into his amber eyes that darkened with gold flecks.
She read the hesitation and questions in his expression and allowed herself a lopsided grin that would urge him on as much as her words. “Yes, Kahn. You know what I want.”
She lost the battle of controlling her ragged breath, and she couldn’t ignore the shivery excitement raising goose bumps on her flesh.
She didn’t know this man. Didn’t understand what made him tick. Yet, his stiff reserve hinted at his deep reluctance to go forward, and she didn’t understand why. If their union would somehow create psi power in her, he should have been all for it. If their union would prove she could accept an alien partner and win the Challenge, he should also be for this.
His breath fanned her face, but he didn’t drop his head to claim her mouth again. Instead he held her gaze while he grazed his fingers down her throat, his fingertips causing rippling heat. Damn he was good. Eyes locked, he ever-so-lightly skimmed his palm over first one breast, then the other, only touching the sensitive sides of her breasts, ignoring the yen of her puckering nipples, never dropping his heated stare from hers.
“You have wonderfully responsive breasts. Do you crave more?”
At his question, her mouth went sand dry, and she licked her bottom lip. “Yes.”
“Keep your hands behind your back,” he demanded and then released her wrists.
She didn’t move, wondering what he’d do next. Where he’d touch next. Would he tweak her nipples as he’d hinted? Her lips hungered for his kiss, her breasts ached for more caresses. But he placed his hands on her hips, slid them around her back, and let them slowly rove over her bottom in warm, wonderful strokes.
“I want to touch you, too,” she told him, her voice low and husky.
“No.” His denial took her slightly aback. She stared at his face, but his expression revealed nothing but his pleasure at touching her. When he stroked her back and bottom like delicate porcelain, he made her feel revered and special, especially when he softened his tone. “Tell me how you feel right now.”
She didn’t hesitate to speak the truth. “I want you to kiss me.”
“What else?”
“My breasts need more of your touch.”
“Part your legs.”
She did as he asked but knew better than to hope he’d touch her where she wanted him most.
“Look at me,” he demanded.
She tilted her head back, which thrust her breasts upward. His eyes stared at her, and wanting to draw him closer, she almost forgot to keep her hands behind her back. Instead, she straightened her spine and steadied herself by drawing in a deep, ragged breath.
“Open your legs wider,” he demanded, his hands still stroking her bottom.
Looking right at him, she parted her legs and had never felt so wanton in her life. The aching tension inside her stretched taut. Dampness pooled between her thighs.
Ever so slowly, he traced a path over her hips, past her belly, upward until he cupped her sensitive breasts, until she overflowed his hands. He teased her aureoles, but left her aching nipples craving his attention.
“Please,” she whispered.
“Please what?”
“Don’t hold back.”
He cocked his head to one side like a hungry cat about to pounce on prey. “Are you saying that you would now welcome a pinch, here?” With the feather-soft tip of his fingers, he flicked her nipples.
“Ahhh . . . yes.” Pure pleasure made speech difficult.
He plucked the tips hard, harder than she expected. Surprised at the zinging combination of pain and pleasure, she gasped. To keep her balance, she tried to fling her hands wide.
Only he’d done something to her suit. Her hands were held fast behind her back, not by her will alone—but by his. She needn’t strain to keep her balance, the suit held her upright, and she couldn’t have sagged to the platform even if her knees gave out.
The notion that this man held complete power over her, that he needn’t ask her permission to do anything he wished unnerved her only a little. Time and again he’d indicated he wouldn’t hurt her by going slowly, by carefully stoking her pleasure, and by noting exactly what she liked and then giving her more. What scared her straight down to the deepest recesses of her psyche was the knowledge that his total domination increased her pleasure.
She shoved down the thought for later examination when she could think with some kind of logic. Right now, she had enough trouble remembering to breathe.
He pinched her nipples again. Harder. “Am I hurting you?”
“A little.”
He smiled then, a smile of expectation. Then he bent until his mouth closed over her throbbing breast, and he sucked away the ache, instigating a delightful new torment. His tongue flicked faster and faster until she almost staggered. In fact, she would have taken a step—except that her suit held her fast.
She couldn’t free her hands. She couldn’t close her parted legs. She couldn’t do one thing except stand there and take whatever he dished out. Wait for him to decide when, where, and how to touch her. She bit back a groan of frustration as he unhurriedly moved his mouth from one breast to the other.
His hands began to ever-so-slowly explore the sensitive skin on the insides of her thighs. She wanted to arch her breast into his mouth. She couldn’t. She wanted to twist her hips to urge his hands higher up her legs, but the suit held her immobile.
“You’re going too slowly,” she complained.
He pulled back his mouth from her breast and satisfaction gleamed in his eyes. “If you don’t like the job I’m doing, I could always leave. Try again later?”
“No!” She shook her head, bit her lip before she begged. “I don’t . . . I can’t . . . I . . . need . . .”
He folded his arms across his chest denying her. “Yes?”
She licked her bottom lip. “I don’t want to say the wrong thing. But, I don’t want you to stop.”
“You really don’t understand yet, do you?”
Oh God. She couldn’t think, not with her nerve endings on fire. “What don’t I understand?”
“What you want no longer matters.”
He’d issued the statement so matter-of-factly that she wanted to scream at him that this wasn’t the bargain they’d made. She’d decided to have sex because it seemed likely that this action was necessary to accomplish her mission for Earth, or so he could help her develop her psi powers. Had she assumed . . . assumed wrong? A raw feeling in her gut told her she’d missed something important.
“Maybe we should call this off.”
He shook his head, and the rawness in her stomach churned. “You had your opportunity. I believe your exact words to me were that you wanted me to give you all I had.”
She blew a strand of hair from her eyes, furious with herself, frustrated with him. “You’re holding back?”
“Not anymore.” His mouth slanted over hers, this time, demanding, taking, leaving her no option but to kiss him back. The few moments they’d spent talking had allowed her body to cool, but his kiss sent lava bubbling through her. Only the suit’s rigidity prevented her from throwing her arms around his neck, grinding her hips against him.
The big man did nothing in haste, kissing her with the same thoroughness with which he’d methodically aroused her breasts and toyed with her bottom. From his words, she’d finally concluded that the likelihood of her doing or saying anything to increase his speed was next to nil. In fact talking at all only slowed him down.
When he finally broke their kiss, he slipped his fingers into the slick folds between her legs, his touch so light and ethereal that shivers trembled up her center. “Woman, your heat pleases me.”
Without the suit she would have dissolved into a puddle at his feet. She no longer had the strength to keep open her eyes. She barely refrained from begging as he used those magical fingers between her legs and his clever mouth on her breast to draw her taut with joy.
Her body hummed with an almost electric energy. She was so close to exploding that another few seconds would bring her release.
And he stopped.
At the sudden cessation of his touch, at the loss of delicious, mind-blowing friction, her eyes flew open. He was intently watching her face, and she tried to hide her frantic need. “Why did you stop?”
“You aren’t ready.”
“I am . . . I’m . . . almost . . . there.”
He stepped back and walked around the raised platform, surveying her back and bottom where she couldn’t see him. He’d temporarily abandoned her, leaving her aching with need, standing there, waiting . . . for what seemed like forever.
She couldn’t bear if he drew this out for much longer. “Kahn, what are you doing?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he strode to the middle of the room, and she followed his movements with her gaze. He bent his suit into a sitting position so he appeared to be settled on a chair.
Now what?
He turned control of her legs back over to her, but her arms remained clasped behind her back. Her legs trembled, and only sheer concentration kept her from collapse.
She faced him confused and wary and so eager for release that she couldn’t think straight. Kahn had yet to dispense with the loose slacks that covered him from hips to ankle. His large chest exhibited no signs of perspiration, no high rate of breathing. She noted no bulge at his crotch. He didn’t appear to be aroused until she gazed into his fiery amber eyes that sparked with a heat that made her burn.
Only the discipline from years of training in self-control kept her from instant retreat. She swallowed hard, suspecting that he wanted more from her. And what he wanted he would take.
“Come here.”
Warily, she approached him, narrowing the distance between them. If she’d been a spiritual person, she might have said his aura had changed. But she was a trained martial artist, and although he was sitting, the man was in full-fledged fighting mode.
“Would you like to lie across my lap?”
No, she would not. Then she recalled him asking her about pinching her nipples. When she hadn’t immediately complied, he’d simply kept up a sensual assault until she’d changed her mind. Clearly, he wouldn’t hesitate to pull the same stunt again.
She swallowed hard and forced her feet to take two more steps. “Why?”
“Do you want the pleasure I can give you or not?”
She leaned over his knees as he’d requested.
“Scoot forward some more.”
She wriggled, heat rising to her face as she envisioned his view of her up-tilted butt.
“You have a very attractive bottom. Now part your legs for me.”
As soon as she placed herself in the position he required, he “froze” her suit in place again. Immobilized, she hung face down, her legs dangling, thighs parted.
“Are you comfortable?” he asked conversationally.
“Not exactly.”
“Glad to hear it.”
When he touched the back of her knees and skimmed his hands up her legs, the simmering heat that he’d kindled earlier flared with a vengeance. In moments, she no longer cared if he held her right side up or upside down.
She knew better than to urge him to take her. Reduced to waiting, she was shocked when he adjusted the suit so that she once again felt a mouth on each of her breasts. He’d told her he wouldn’t . . . no he hadn’t. He’d asked her what she’d preferred, and she’d assumed she’d convinced him.
She hadn’t. Her breasts ached from constant attention, and as his fingers stroked the sensitive flesh between her parted legs, every cell in her body tensed, tightened, aching for release. Despite her attempt to remain silent, tiny moans whimpered up her throat.
His hands were bliss and her greatest torment. She couldn’t move, couldn’t rush him, could only pray like hell that he would increase the tempo and pressure between her legs. When he did, he felt so good. She was so damn close.
Release was coming, the pressure building like a volcano about to erupt.
When he withdrew his fingers, she cried out in disappointment. But when his hand slapped her bottom, first her right cheek, then her left, up high, down low, then smack dab over the full curve, she cursed. “What in hell are you doing?”
“Making you hot.”
“I’m already . . . oh . . . my . . . ahhh.”
Oh, God. He was spanking her, not to cause pain, but to stoke her desire. Somehow along the way the sting had become heat, and the heat fed the blaze between her thighs.
He couldn’t do this.
But he was. His hand slapped on more heat.
His spanking was bringing a rush of fire to her aching flesh. She didn’t know she could feel this needy. She didn’t know that a hot spanked bottom could increase her desire. She didn’t know that this sweet torture would bring her so close to climax that just one little touch would put her over the top. But he didn’t touch the center of nerve endings where she needed him most.
Damn him.
He’d said he wanted to make her hot. But she’d never thought, never imagined that the sting of his hand on her bared flesh could create such fire. Blood rushed between her thighs and she oh-so-needed his hand back between her legs. The heat on her stinging bottom was nothing compared to the wild fire blazing from her core.
Panting, cursing, she begged and pleaded for him to give her release. He didn’t.
Instead he gave her more heat. He’d built up from those startling and simple slaps to harder smacks, stoking her until the urgency inside gathered, piled up until every muscle tensed. Until her mind fuzzed and melted.
As he held her right on the edge without letting her go over, she swore that she was going to burst. No one could take endless stimulation. She pleaded with him to touch her between her thighs, just once. He paid not the slightest attention, his hand falling on her hot bottom again and again.
Finally, he stopped.
He gave her hot stinging flesh no time to recover. His fingers delved between her thighs, sinking one finger deep into her. But she needed him to move. She yearned for friction. And he knew. Yet again, the bastard denied her, holding perfectly still. With the suit’s mouths on her breasts never letting up for a second and her bottom radiating heat, she panted, squirmed against the suit that held her locked into place.
“You’ve . . . got . . . to . . . let me . . . come.”
He didn’t.
At her half-sob, half demand, he inserted another finger between her cheeks. At the unexpected invasion, as he slowly wriggled two fingers inside her from two angles, she sputtered as he took her to another level.
“Please.”
Another finger found her clit, and she couldn’t tell where one catalyst began and another stopped. Her entire body was on fire, desperate, needy. Her breath came in pathetic rasps, her throat released urgent moans.
Frantic, she pleaded. She cried out. She cursed him to finish, allow her release.
Instead, he spanked her again. Slap.
He was creating more heat. Slap.
She was burning up with need.
Slap.
Raging with desire.
Slap.
Whimpers escaped her throat. Gasps of delight mixed with sobs of frustration.
When he finally stopped, she no longer recognized her own voice that was hoarse. Once more he gave her pleasure between her thighs.
But not enough.
Never enough.
And she burst into tears.