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  Damn it, why did the man have to be so fucking sexy. He was still a perfect specimen, all the more so for the slight gray in his hair and the tiny character lines around his eyes. He was aging splendidly.

  And she wasn’t doing so bad herself, at least if you went by how much trouble Theron still had keeping his hands off her.

  “Has it occurred to you I might be cold?”

  “You’re wet, too.”

  “Fucking primale sense of smell,” she muttered.

  Theron grinned. “Busted.”

  “We’re both going to be busted if those pirates catch us with our pants down,” she declared, pointing to the looming cargo bay, its main doors open like the jaws of some kind of space shark.

  “Pirates understand about a man needing a wench. They capture them all the time.” He ran his hand over her cheek.

  Nyssa pulled her head out of the way, trying to keep her sanity. “I’m not a wench, mister. I am the Head of the Council.”

  He moved his fingers to her breast. “You’re my wench.”

  She tried to brush his hand away.

  “Leave it.”

  Fuck. He was pulling rank. She might well be in charge of the Galactic Council, but when it came to sex-making, he called the shots. And why not? As a primale he knew instinctively what she needed. Especially when it came to submission.

  “Theron, we can’t…” Gone was her surety and authority. She was just a woman now, trying to bargain with a man notorious for doing precisely what he wanted.

  In fact, her little shows of resistance tended to turn him on.

  “Of course we can. You are my beautiful wife, and I will have you where and when…and how I want.”

  Nyssa sighed, so very full of love for this man. “Oh, Theron…”

  “Clothes open,” he gave the command for the seams on her suit to part.

  Nyssa never failed to get a charge from that, the fact that every one of her outfits was coded to his verbal pattern such that his was the final word.

  At any point in time, in other words, he could render her naked as he was doing now.

  “Let’s get these off,” he patted her thigh, indicating she should lift her ass.

  “Yes, Sir,” she smiled, her anxieties melted away in the moment.

  Theron helped her to strip the suit down over her legs. When she was bootless and completely naked he had her climb over the console between them and onto his lap.

  His own suit was already open all the way down the sides, freeing up his cock. Inserting it inside her hot and open sex, she settled down on his lap, chest to chest.

  “Fuck,” she hissed. “I needed this…”

  “You always need it,” he teased. “You’re insatiable.”

  “Me?” She pushed her palm against his massive pectoral. “You’re the one who can’t ever get enough.”

  “Stop being so goddamn sexy, then.” He grasped her breasts, crushing them in just the right way.

  “Oh, baby,” she moaned. “I love you so much. I love being your woman…belonging to you.”

  “That’s why I have to take you when you don’t expect it. Keep you on edge. At any second, you need to be prepared.”

  She rocked her pelvis, pushing his massive erection against the walls of her throbbing pussy. “Have I ever been unprepared?” she retorted, alluding to the constant state of wetness she maintained in his presence.

  It was true. Never once had he reached for her and found her dry. Not even on those occasions of total surprise. But that was part of the thrill, wasn’t it? Knowing that her man might make use of her at any moment, day or night, that he might lay his hand on her, drawing her close to inspect her readiness, to whisper in her ear, perhaps. Telling her to go to bed and wait for him, or lift her skirt at once, so he could he take her. On the floor, or against the wall.

  “You damn well better be wet,” he growled playfully.

  Nyssa wrapped her arms about his neck, relishing his masculinity. He would never, ever hurt a hair on her head, but she knew damn well from experience what it was to be punished by his hand—and the flogger, too.

  It aroused them both, the rules between them, and the undercurrent of power. If she were found unprepared for sex she could be spanked. If she failed to please him, she could be spanked. Being too sassy, too, was grounds for a healthy peppering to her behind.

  He gave her lots of leeway, of course. She was a fem and he had to treat her as such. She would never find her fulfillment through absolute conformity to a man’s will. For any other primale, that would be a deal breaker. But Theron was not any other primale. He had been made for her—literally, genetically—and she for him.

  She couldn’t explain the science of how it worked, any more than she could define the emotion of love they shared. It was real and profound, that’s what mattered. Sure, they had their disagreements sometimes, like any couple, but the bond they shared was unbreakable.

  “You really are incorrigible,” she lifted herself, partially exposing his glistening cock once more. “You know that, husband?”

  “It’s a characteristic I pride myself on.” He took hold of her hips.

  Nyssa gasped as he planted her back down, firmly.

  “Were you given permission to move?” he chided.

  “You didn’t tell me not to.”

  “Keep it up, wife, and you will be spending the return trip in irons.”

  Nyssa’s pussy spasmed. Just the mention of bondage was all it took. “You would never chain me that long,” she teased. “You would miss the fucking too much.”

  “Who says I can’t do both?”

  Nyssa pictured herself spread-eagled on the bed, left shackled, to be used at his leisure. No doubt he would torment her, leaving her unsatisfied for hours at a time.

  “You’re in a mean frame of mind,” she pouted.

  “That I am. I might even give you to the pirates.”

  She nibbled at his earlobe. “Like that would ever happen. You can’t even stand when other men look at me. Remember what happened with the Gibnian ambassador?”

  Theron swelled his cock. Deliberately. “Damn straight I do. The bastard was drooling over you all through dinner.”

  “He has three mouths. He can’t help but drool. As for looking at me, he has six sets of eyes. They can’t all be staring at the wall.”

  “Never mind. You know what I’m saying.”

  “No, I don’t, Theron. But it doesn’t matter. We’re going to be on that ship any minute. If we’re going to come, you better make it quick.”

  “Who says I’m going to let you come?”

  Nyssa’s pulse raced. Nothing went deeper to her sexual core than when he took control of her orgasms. “Theron, you wouldn’t leave me hanging?”

  He certainly was capable of it. Possessing a will of iron, he could shut down his own sex drive and close up shop any time he wanted. He was also not above orgasming on his own and making her wait under threat of the paddle to her ass.

  “I think I might do just that,” he mused. “You’ll be hornier for the return trip. More cooperative.”

  “Theron…please.”

  “My mind is made up.”

  Fuck. Double fuck.

  “Just one orgasm, baby…” Nyssa wheedled, nuzzling his neck. “I swear, I’ll be extra good on the way home. I could wear that little slave girl costume you like, with the bells? And I’ll push all the buttons and cook for you. Whatever you tell me, I’ll obey the first time.”

  “You’re supposed to do that anyway, not that you ever do. Now get dressed, woman, before the pirates see you like this.”

  Nyssa whimpered as he removed her from his cock and set her back down in her own seat. She made one last desperate attempt to seduce him by putting her head in his lap, but he held her fast, his fist curled in her long, light auburn hair.

  “You’ll have lots of time to worship my erection later,” he promised. “First we need to attend to some cosmic business.”

  “You real
ly are impossible, you know that?”

  “And you love every minute of it.” He flashed a rakish grin.

  She hid her pleasure at the sight of his smile. Why did the bastard have to be so gorgeous? Hustling back into her suit, she gave her prognostication for the much vaunted return trip. “You won’t get a thing from me all the way back to Earth, you hear me?”

  “That’s fine. I’m sure the pirates can supply me with a slave girl or two.”

  “Yeah, well maybe they can supply you with a new cock, too, after I cut yours off.” Her fingers flew over the panel in front of her. “And I’m shutting off the fucking drive system, too.”

  Theron put his thumb and forefinger, under her chin.

  “What?” she demanded as he turned her head to face him.

  “On the way back,” he said, his voice smooth and cool and sexily matter-of-fact. “You’ll be wearing nothing but your collar.”

  Her heart skipped a beat. “We don’t even know if our mission will succeed. What if Theryssa ends up coming back with us once she finds out the truth?”

  “She won’t, Nyssa. Things are already settled, I guarantee it. It will be just us on the way back. You, me…and the collar.”

  Nyssa thought of the circle of steel—a delicate ring encrusted with pale-colored stones. She did not wear it often, but when she did its implications were as powerful as they were unmistakable.

  The collar symbolized that place between them where they were anything but equal. When she donned it, she became a very different creature, one for whom everything, even clothing was at the whim of another.

  It had reached the point over the years where simply touching the metal could make her orgasm. She could scarcely imagine what it would mean to wear it out here, in deepest space, where she would be in Theron’s clutches, alone with no hope of distraction.

  “Do we have an understanding, Nyssa?”

  Her pussy was shamelessly liquefying. He could not have said anything more tantalizing and agonizing in her current state.

  The collar. The fucking collar.

  And all that came with it. The constant sexual charge, perpetual arousal. The groveling, the begging for her every little need. The delicious feeling of being a pet, stroked and petted…and owned.

  And the sex…wall-to-wall fucking horny, wild, endless sex as she dealt with the out of control hormones of a man whose very blood was programmed to respond to a subjugated, totally defenseless woman.

  “Yes,” Nyssa replied, her voice reduced to a croak.

  “Yes, what?”

  “Yes…Master.” The word exploded off her lips, sealing the bargain. It would happen all right, just as he said. She would take off her clothes and put the steel on her throat. Sealing the bond with a kiss. Deep and expressive. Changing everything, for as long as he wished to keep it on her body.

  In the meantime there was reality…

  “That’s my Nyssa.” Theron leaned forward, rendering a kiss to clear her head a little. “You gonna be okay?”

  She nodded. The sex stuff had to go to the back of her brain.

  It was time to carry out their mission.

  To meet with a pirate captain, a self-styled king who had once been one of them. The very same Azar whom they must now convince to help the Council against the Narthians.

  The stakes could not be underestimated.

  It was a matter of survival for every man, woman and child. Beginning with their own child, their beloved Theryssa, whom they had sent out here with a mission of her own.

  Not the one she’d been told about, but a quite different one. One she would have balked at mightily if they’d told her up front.

  For as it turned out, they did not really need her to spy on Azar at all, but rather to seduce him. To become his lover, and hopefully his mate. This in turn would assure her happiness, and also secure his help for the Council.

  It was a wild risk to take, especially where Theryssa was concerned. Their daughter might well never forgive them for tricking her like this. But Nyssa and Theron had seen no other way.

  The odds were against them. But if anyone could believe in the possibilities of love to change the fate of worlds, it was her and Theron. They had witnessed firsthand how passion could overcome suspicion and doubt in the romance of Nyssa’s sister Seria and her husband Raylar.

  Seria’s life had been on a one-way track to loneliness, and Raylar had been threatening to self-destruct. And now, together, they were an unstoppable force. The Council’s best diplomat, working hand in hand with its best soldier.

  They could point to their own story, as well. From initial sparks to open hatred, two unlikely lovers had formed a symbiotic union which allowed each to shine, giving of their best gifts—her as Council leader, and him as Commander in Chief of the Guardians.

  Granted, in her and Nyssa’s case, there was some genetic help along the way, but they had a feeling about Theryssa and the man once known as Azariel. Even before the crisis, when Theryssa was coming of age and they saw how the other males were threatened by her prowess, Theron had told her that his friend could understand their daughter best.

  Nyssa trusted Theron’s instinct, after all the two men had fought alongside each other in some of the worst battles of the last Narthian war, prior to Azariel’s self-exile.

  On one occasion, Azariel had saved Theron’s life. A favor her husband had returned a few months later.

  You didn’t forget a bond like that. Not even if you ended up on opposite sides with someone years later. Or so Theron had laid it out for her. Nyssa trusted Theron implicitly, of course, and if he thought Azar was a good man and that he might click with Theryssa, that was good enough for her.

  Besides, she had seen how Theryssa had reacted to Azar’s holoids. It had been love at first sight. Just as with Seria and Raylar.

  Those were a mother’s hopes, though. Nyssa also had her fears to contend with. Not least of which was that her daughter’s heart would be broken, or that she might even be faced with mortal danger.

  To say that letting Theryssa go had been the most difficult decision of her life was an understatement. Nor had Nyssa’s anguish lessened over the course of Theryssa’s journey. Being able to monitor her condition via the retina transponder they had secretly placed in her retina had certainly helped, but Nyssa was not about to draw an easy breath again until she had her daughter safely back in her arms.

  When Nyssa had first raised the idea of coming out here with Theron as he met with Azar to enlist the pirate’s help and check on the status of things between he and Theryssa, Theron had gone through the roof.

  “I will not put you at risk,” Theron thundered. “It is out of the question.”

  Nyssa had waited for his bluster to subside and then said her piece. Short, sweet and to the point. “Theryssa is my daughter, too, Theron, and if you think for one minute I will sit by, half a galaxy away, while you go after her, you are sorely mistaken. I am getting on that ship with you, and there will be no more discussion. Ever.”

  It was one of the few times in their marriage that Theron had backed down without a fight. He had known she was right, he’d just been afraid for her. She loved that about him, how protective he was. And how he did what he could to keep her calm and peaceful, like playing sex games on the way to the pirate ship.

  She gave Theron’s hand a squeeze as their small ship eased through the doors of the much larger pirate vessel. This was it, the moment of decision. Up to this point, Nyssa hadn’t really considered what might happen if they failed. Theoretically, they could be killed or held hostage.

  Not that her husband was a man to be taken prisoner easily. He was a force to be reckoned with. The Guardian had yet to be commissioned who could beat him one-on-one, in fact. With the possible exception of his brother-in-law Raylar.

  Their personal combat record was a source of much argument between them, much to the consternation of their wives. Boys will be boys, was Seria’s analysis. Nyssa knew there was something dee
per at stake.

  For Theron, maintaining supremacy against his eventual successor was a sign of his own ongoing vitality. More than anything he feared that once he retired he would pass quickly into decrepitude.

  As if that was ever possible. Theron’s predecessor, his mentor Marax was still rim gliding on Cerus Minor, winning races against pups young enough to be his grandsons.

  “Are we ready for this, babe?” Nyssa asked as they stood side by side at the exit portal.

  “We were born ready.” Theron winked.

  Their ship was landing, still under the automatic control of the beams. Nyssa’s stomach tightened a little at the sound of the metal doors closing behind them. There was no turning back now.

  “Should we be armed?” Nyssa wondered.

  Theron tapped the key pad, unlocking the portal and extending the ramp. “I already am.”

  She noted the solid figure of the man she loved. His hands were weapons enough, and the rest of him, too. Happily, proudly, she stood beside him to face their fate.

  “Come out with your hands up,” growled a particularly nasty looking pirate as the portal slid open.

  Nyssa gauged him to be at least seven feet tall, with enough muscle to outfit an orbit ball team. There were five more, gathered around the base of the ramp, armed with beam weapons.

  “Where is your Captain?” Theron ignored the giant of a man.

  “You deal with me,” snarled a bald man, pointing a silver laser rifle. “And you better not give me any trouble, or I’ll melt you down right where you stand.”

  “Look at this, Oleron,” said the giant to the bald man. “The troublemaker brought us a wench for sport.”

  Nyssa leaned instinctively against her husband.

  Theron’s body tensed ever-so slightly. “I’ll ask one more time, politely. We are here to see Captain Azar.”

  The one called Oleron laughed out loud to the others, the sound echoing in the huge, empty bay. “You hear that, boys? He’s only going to ask us once…politely.”

  “I’ll be polite, too,” the giant took a step up the ramp. “While I’m giving it to his woman.”

  Theron moved so fast Nyssa didn’t even have time to think how fucking stupid and suicidal that bruiser was. It lasted less than five seconds. Theron simply grabbed him by the neck, hoisted him into the air and threw him a hundred feet against the far wall.