Nyssa's Guardian Read online

  Nyssa’s reaction was pure instinct. She wouldn’t know to fake such things. Her sarcasm aside, in calling him Sir, there were deep things in her body. Things that called to equally deep, complementary impulses in his own.

  Thoughts had raged through his mind as the padlock closed, thoughts of what he might do to her. He rehearsed them again now, even as he inserted his cock into the pouch and squeezed tightly with the fingers of his right hand.

  So many possibilities. Another kiss, perhaps, one from which she would never recover. Whispered commands in her ear, which she would not be able to defy.

  Drop to all fours, crawl to the bed…cheek to the pillow, ass in the air, facing me. Await my pleasure…legs apart, pussy wet behind the grate…scorching hot…and open.

  Going to her, her body prostrate, naked and submitted, he would rip away the belt, the pathetic metal. He would seize both openings at once in his fingers, telling her that no one else would go there again, ever. That if any man so much as thought of penetrating her, if he dared look within so much as a mile of her with lust in his eyes, he would not be long for this world.

  It might sound cruel to the unknowing ear, but it was the primale way. Only through the fiercest of jealousy could they guard their one and only lifemates, assuring that they would be showered with the devotion and care that their delicate persons required.

  A woman like Nyssa could never endure that sort of possessiveness, from him or any other primale. Yet another excellent reason to maintain his objectivity and not give in to the strange tenderness he felt where she was concerned.

  Theron increased the blood flow in his cock, creating tighter, more delicious pleasure. Bittersweet, to be sure, in the absence of the woman. Closing his eyes, he imagined himself sheathed not in the manufactured material, but inside her sex. It was more than a physical sensation he had felt with her—something that affected every part of him, mind and body.

  Closing his eyes, he imagined himself taking the feisty fem from behind. The vision was as clear as a holo, clearer even. He saw himself ordering her to push her ass against him, to increase the pleasure for both of them. She could not come without permission. He took the back of her hair in his hands, and pulled it tight, like a set of reins. She was his…his…his. He rode her to thundering climax, his cock burying and unburying itself, thrusting, pistoning with the power of a rocket. Her body shook and shuddered…he covered her and loved her and could not, would not ever get enough of her.

  Theron bit down, clenching his teeth, summoning his eruption. A flood of seed spurted into the end of the mitt. He pushed his toes down into the rug, flexing his muscles, straining up and down his torso to squeeze out every drop. Softly, he expressed his release.

  Yes, this was what he needed. What a smart fellow he was. Now he would be able to face the day. Now he would be able to do his job and take care of Nyssa without distraction. All he needed to do was clean up and she would be none the wiser…

  “What the fuck are you doing?” The painfully familiar voice crashed into his consciousness.

  Theron’s stomach clenched. Like being sucker-punched and swallowing a meteorite simultaneously. In a hundred campaigns against the hideous Narthian menace, the mighty Guardian had never felt such a thing. If he didn’t know better he would think he was…afraid.

  Of a fem?

  He wiped his mind clean, opening his eyes. Nyssa was standing there naked, freshly scrubbed, hands on her slender hips, tapping her foot. Her eyes were like moon lasers, burning holes through him.

  “That’s not your business, Nyssa.” He affected a martial tone. “Your only concern is following my orders. You will choose an outfit from the objectifier and be ready in five sub-ins.”

  “The hell it’s not my business,” she fumed. “You’ve been in here jerking away, having a grand old time and I have to fucking pee through a strainer. Did it ever occur to you I might like a little satisfaction, too, Ace?”

  “Primales have certain needs, Nyssa. It’s a matter of biological fact.”

  “Don’t you give me that primale need shit, Theron.” She was pointing at him now, utterly fearless. “You’re using that age-old double standard. Just because we don’t have dicks to wave in the air like frigging beam swords doesn’t mean we don’t get horny. And just ‘cause pussies can be locked down doesn’t mean you have the fucking right.”

  Clearly he needed to deescalate the situation. “You’re violating Rule number one, Nyssa. You may consider this a warning.”

  Nyssa saw the opening and pounced. “Oh, no, that’s fine—go ahead and whale on my ass. Then we’ll whale on yours for violating Rule number three.”

  Theron said the next thing that came into his head. “The rules aren’t the same for me.” He regretted the ill-chosen words instantly.

  Nyssa’s lips curled as she savored her triumph. By the stars and galaxies, how did she keep painting him into corners like this?

  “Of course they aren’t.” She smiled as sweetly as nectar. “What was I thinking? I’m such a dumb little fem.”

  “Stop being so blasted sarcastic. I have rules, I answer to my superiors. I follow the Guardian’s Code.”

  “Some code—lets you bully women around.”

  “For the last time, are you going to get dressed?”

  She tossed her hair proudly, insolently. “If I must.”

  Theron’s soul went mad with passion. It was another bad sign of his over-involvement with her. He seized her as she sought to turn away. There was no reasoning with his body’s desire to pull her against him. She voiced a protest, but it was in vain. The intended words turned to a garble as he owned her lips. She was squashed against him, her breasts flattened against his chest. He could feel her nipples rising helplessly against her will. Her squirming indignation only made it worse—like a red flag waved under the nose of a snorting bull.

  His cock was iron. Compared to this, every other arousal in his life had been pitiful and flaccid. Theron let her register her protest—because it amused him. Her body sensed this almost immediately, and she went into a fem version of what would be called the bloom in an obedient.

  The opening of a woman’s heat, her soul. Her sex. In seconds she was responding. Inviting, pulling at him with small fingers, trying to communicate, leg between his, chest rising and falling in pants, lips moving to moans, mouth accepting the utter invasion of his tongue. Every inch of her begged to be shown, to be put in her place, to know the consequences of arousing a primale.

  In such a state, there is no foreplay. The primale penetrates. He need not question whether the woman will be ready. There is simply no choice, no quarter left her by his touch. She will take every inch of his cock. It will be the best sex she has ever had and they will come…together.

  Theron forgot the grate. Until he scraped his thrusting cock. He cried aloud from the pain. Idiot! How could he have forgotten? He had his hands cupped under Nyssa’s ass. He was holding her, legs dangling. It took a moment for the pain to subside. She put her head on his shoulders meanwhile, sobbing.

  He put her down as soon as he was able. Fuck—he’d made ten times the mess of before. Did he dare wipe the tears from her eyes?

  He made the attempt.

  “Don’t touch me,” she sobbed. “Just…just get out.”

  Theron stoically went to the objectifier. He ordered a new suit, took it to the hygiene room and cleaned himself up. The rays of the cleansing beam did little to refresh. His mind was awash in anguish. A hundred different tortures at once. He had been right in the beginning—he was utterly and completely unqualified for this assignment.

  Nyssa was dressed by the time he emerged from the hygiene room. The objectifier had furnished the outfit while a dressing and makeup robot had handled the rest.

  Theron held his breath. Nyssa looked absolutely stunning. Her dress was short and red with a narrow V that plunged to her waist, revealing a synthetic ruby in her belly button. The waist was snug, accentuating her figure splendidly. Th
e pleated hemline came to the middle of her thighs. She wore red heels with crisscrossing laces that ran up her leg. The upper halves of her arms were nearly bare, the full sleeves having large cutouts from elbow to shoulder.

  It was her hair that dazzled him the most. She had lengthened it to mid-back, and then put it up in a swirl, intricately woven with jewels, a half-dozen shades of red. She had altered the color of her hair, too, to offset the dress. It was a pale copper with golden highlights. She had managed to match the shade exactly to her eye shadow and lush, glistening lip paint.

  All this accomplished in a matter of minutes…

  Theron wanted to fall on his knees before her. She was that beautiful. That worthy of worship.

  “Ready to go?” he inquired as matter-of-factly as possible.

  “Yes,” she replied, expressionless.

  Theron frowned. It was as though she was gone—replaced with a drone, the emotion chips yanked out. “Is that all you have to say? No comments? No discussions?”

  “No.”

  “Oh.” It was the damnedest thing. He had exactly what he wanted at last. A cooperative woman. So why did he feel so totally miserable? Could it be that a part of him enjoyed the challenge of her? That a part of him liked the feistiness?

  I really have been fighting Narthians too long, he thought. I’ve actually turned into some kind of masochist. “So you’re comfortable to travel?” he asked. “The belt won’t…give you trouble?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Good.” He nodded. She wasn’t taking the bait.

  “Is there something you’re waiting for?” she wanted to know.

  Theron blinked, realizing he was standing there staring. “Nothing. Nothing at all. I’m just…pleased you are being so reasonable.”

  Nyssa stood there, unblinking.

  “We need to go,” he said gruffly, unable to endure any more silence.

  “Yes,” she replied without a trace of sarcasm.

  Theron ordered the lights out behind them, feeling lonelier and more confused than he ever had in his entire life.

  Chapter Nine

  Nyssa’s mind danced with questions as they ate their breakfast in the two-person bubble floating a thousand feet above the floor of the hotel lobby. Did he like what she was wearing? What about her hair? The color of her lips? Nyssa wanted to blow him away. She wanted Theron to want her so badly that it hurt him. She wanted him to feel rejection, to experience all the stings that came with being tossed aside, with being used and batted about like a soko ball, like he was so fond of doing to her. Flipping her emotions on and off, flipping her passion on and off. Heating her body—making her unable to do a fucking thing about it.

  More than that, she wanted to follow through on her pledge to break him, to win back her independence, so she could rub it in Fem Dekalia’s face.

  No one owned her. No one foisted things on her or treated her like a child. Not even the High Councilor.

  Let Theron use his super powers. She had powers of her own. She was a woman. And an actress. So he could bend steel and see in the dark? Well he’d never see her coming. She would work him, manipulate him, and drive him out of his fucking mind without him knowing she was doing a damned thing.

  He was weakening already, hesitating to talk to her, feeling uncertain in her presence. All the way through their meal, served off hovering white disks by tiny robots, she had given him the silent treatment. He had actually tried to start up a conversation. She had to keep from laughing over that. Primales were so limited in their worldly knowledge. How on earth he could think it would be interesting to her to discuss the barometric pressure on the outer moons of Lathos or the mating habits of the Turgian mud beetle was beyond her.

  Although the beetle mating thing did remind her of her own current struggles. Sitting on her soft, white cushion, trying to eat her succulent little pieces of fruit, the anal intruder worked her over, making her feel full and yet so empty at the same time. It was a dangerous balance…attracting the man without falling headlong into the pit of lust. Theron thought she wasn’t interested right now, but that was only because she was an actress. She was keeping him at bay. If only he knew how much she wanted him, how badly she needed to be touched. His primale loving was like a drug…if he only knew how little it would take to make her beg for another fix.

  She couldn’t kid herself that she was under his spell.

  She had dressed for him. Changed her hair for him. She was trying to use it against him, sure, but it was still all about him. Everything on her mind, all she was doing and thinking was about him. And the harder she tried to be indifferent, the worse it got.

  She simply could not stay neutral. She couldn’t not be preoccupied with him. She could hate him, she could be infuriated. She could sure as hell feel attraction, too. Attraction so extreme as to be too dangerous to even contemplate let alone touch. But nothing in the middle. Nothing safe.

  When she had seen him before, back in the room, with his cock in his hand, she had swooned. She’d seen that incredible body of his, muscles flexed, arm and hand pumping, the purple bag over his huge cock, the look on his face as he pleasured himself.

  Twice she had gone back in the hygiene room prepared to wait him out. Her time under the warm, tingling sanitizing beams had been hell as it was. Her pussy throbbing so badly, needing just a little stimulation to push her over the edge. She’d tried pressing with her palm and fingertips, tried aiming the cleansing beams into the openings in the grille. But she couldn’t get deep enough, couldn’t get at her clit.

  Twice, she had tried to hide from it. By the second time, she had been ready to go to him on her knees. Ready to take him by mouth, whispering, pleading for the privilege, kissing his body, his knees, his thighs, sucking his fingers, burying her head to his feet, letting her hair spill across the carpet. Hoping against all hope that he would accept her, take her by the hair, raise her up, put her lips to the tip of his cock, allow her to taste the glistening drop of pre-cum, let her feel the weight of his balls in her hands. She would have run her tongue along the underside of his shaft, feeling the pulsing vein, licking the salt, the sweat. Making him sigh and moan with deep, manly sounds.

  She would have devoured him, fitted as much as she could down her throat, greedy to be the perfect vessel—her mouth the pouch, her mouth doing the caressing, the stimulating.

  He could have come that way, letting her swallow it all—she wouldn’t have minded. Or he could have taken something else. Making her stand before him, his hand over the grate he had put on her. “Whose belt is this?” he would ask.

  “Yours,” she would say.

  “Who may take it off?”

  “Only you.”

  “Are you wet?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you ready?”

  “Yes.”

  “What will you do for my cock?”

  “Anything…”

  Only at the last possible second had she managed to stop herself from going to him in such a way, defenseless, completely exploitable. Once again within her that pendulum had shifted, indignation replacing desire, and fury replacing lust.

  She’d gone to him, all right, but standing. Accusing. She had given it to him with both barrels and he had deserved it. She had won the battle, but then, when she’d sought to turn away, she had lost the war.

  That look in his eyes as he had pulled her close. She’d fought him, but it was herself she was fighting—the very part of her that wanted to be taken, silenced with a kiss.

  Forever.

  Oh, it was real all right. Everything they said about primales. A woman could get lost in there. Theron wasn’t even trying and he nearly had her snared—in fact, he was trying not to snare her.

  All the more reason to end this association sooner rather than later, to get him to call it quits, or else to find some way to compromise him and get him reassigned. Maybe a fresh escape attempt.

  Yeah, right, she thought glumly. The man had managed to track h
er halfway across the dome without breaking a sweat the last time. Face it—you’re a mouse to him, a pretty, perky mouse, but still just a mouse to his very formidable cat.

  Unless she could think up some new angle. Some spectacular way to give him the slip. What about at the show tonight? She would never be able to sneak out a back door or do anything behind his back, but what about onstage, right under his nose? Staring down at the forest of artificial crystals in the hotel lobby, along with the rows of bubbled windows alongside them, she got an idea. The hologrid was a beaming device. During the performance, she would be transported to various places in the amphitheater, above the spectators. At the climax, there would be a huge hyper-light explosion during which she would be lifted aloft, a hundred feet into the air.

  Suppose she didn’t come down? At least not in the same place from which she’d gone up.

  It was not impossible. She had friends. Techs who could arrange to re-beam her, say, a dozen or so miles away to a waiting hyper-light rocket. By the time Mr. Super Senses managed to blink and figure something was amiss, she could be in another star system.

  She would still have to arrange things without him knowing, but imagine if she could. Imagine being able to innocently call Fem Dekalia from Rigel or Centaur, wondering where her bodyguard was…hoping he was okay, because he just wasn’t anywhere around.

  She could call his Guardian superiors, too. Oh, this was too rich. Theron would be a laughingstock. He would be yanked off the case, and oh-so very sorry for putting a fucking chastity belt on her ass and treating her like his little slave girl.

  He would spend the rest of his career guarding some pathetic mining colony on the Outer Rim. And she would blow him kisses on the Grid every Universal Solstice Holiday.

  “You’re smiling,” Theron noted. “That’s the first time all morning.”

  She cleared her throat, taking a sip of herbal tea. “I was just thinking,” she replied, sipping loudly. “About my show tonight. I think it will be especially good.”