Assigned a Mate (5 page)

I could only nod. I should feel shame or fear or embarrassment at having Tark touch me so intimately. I was still naked, exposed, and vulnerable and definitely under his control. I felt all of those things, but my mind and my body were at war because his touch made my body feel safe, desirable, and very, very aroused.

I didn’t know Goran had returned until he spoke. “The doctor is on the last convoy to Outpost Seventeen.”

Tark didn’t turn his head from me. “Good. Is everything ready?”

“Yes, sir.”

Tark set aside the silver probe, stood to his full height, reached down and scooped me up, placing me on my feet before him. I could now see what the instrument looked like. It was definitely an otherworldly dildo. If they sold them on Earth, Tark would make a fortune.

Goran handed Tark a blanket and he wrapped it about me like a cape.

“From this moment on, your body belongs to me. No other man shall see what is mine without permission. Do you understand?”

Without permission?
Did that mean he would allow it? I was confused, but before I could question, he lifted into his arms and carried me out of the tent, following Goran. The air was warm and dry, but it was dark outside, the only light provided by small solar stakes that glowed in precise intervals along the ground. I could just see the outline of numerous tents. Tark and Goran both moved like ghosts, their footsteps quiet. Not many people were about; perhaps it was very late at night. An animal noise, something like a braying donkey, broke through the stillness. The men’s footsteps were too quiet for their size.

I looked down and realized that Tark carried me across a vast sea of sand, just as I’d seen along the edges inside the medical tent. I had been transported into some kind of desert camp. He’d said the name of it… Outpost something. I couldn’t remember.

Goran held back a flap of another tent—they all looked the same to me in the darkness—and Tark ducked to carry me inside and lowered me to my feet. Soft carpets were placed in a patchwork that completely covered the sand that I knew was beneath them. A bed of soft blankets and furs was on one side of the tent and a small table littered with bowls of odd-looking purple and blue fruit stood on the other.

“This is my tent for our stay at Outpost Nine. As I’ve discovered, you are not hurt from the transfer and easily aroused.”

Tark walked me over to an odd table in the middle of the room, placed me on my feet before it, and tugged the blanket from my shoulders. My breasts swayed as I moved, the chain brushing against my belly and tugging on my nipples. They tingled from the movement and the weight.

My cheeks burned at his words and I darted a glance at Goran. The man’s expression held no emotion. What did that have to do with being in his tent?

“I will fuck you now,” Tark added. He spoke as if he said he’d drive me to the grocery store. This wasn’t Earth and Tark most definitely didn’t mince words.

My eyes widened. I tugged against his hand as I began to panic. “What? Why? We… wait! I don’t want this.”

He didn’t release me, but his free hand began to stroke up and down my bare back. How was his touch so warm?

“As your mate,
gara
,
I know your true desires. I also know and understand how to protect you here, on my world. Remember, I may not always give you what you want, but I will always give you what you need.”

I didn’t like his response one bit. How could he know my true desires? We’d only just met. My pussy, however, clenched at the continuing reverberations from that medical device. Stupid dildo-shaped apparatus.

“I don’t
need
to be fucked,” I countered, although I didn’t need to look down at my nipples to know they’d tightened at his intentions. When he’d played with my pussy with his fingers, he’d only left me more achy and aroused than ever. Unfulfilled.

He grinned at me and he looked so different, so handsome that my breath caught in my throat.

“Are you sure about that? You were dripping on my fingers just a few minutes ago. You cried out with pleasure with the neurostim exam. I licked your juices from my fingers. Would you deny this now?”

I tried to squirm away, but he was too strong. He stroked his fingers over my folds once again, then lifted them up so we could both see the glistening wetness.

My cheeks flamed.

“Your body disagrees with your mind. Obey me or you will be punished again.”

I gulped at the formidable tone of his voice and still felt the sting on my bottom. “Again? But I’ve done nothing wrong!”

Tark sighed. “You are thinking too much. Sometimes a punishment is just what you
need.
” He tugged me closer to the small table, although my feet slowed and stalled his progress.

“Obey,” he repeated as he looked down at me. “Lean over the table.”

I looked at the strange table, certainly not the kind that one would eat from.

“Why?” I asked, frowning.

He sighed once again, but remained calm. “Are all Earth women this contrary and curious or is it just you?”

With a hand on my upper back, he bent me over the table. His touch was gentle but the intent behind it was clear.
He would have his way, and deep down, I wanted him to.

The table was narrower than I’d first thought, only covering my belly, and I hissed as the cold surface pressed to my skin. My breasts hung down and the chain dangled. I felt the table rise automatically until just my toes were on the carpet. Tark squatted down and affixed my right ankle to one table leg with a smooth leather strap, then the left to another. I tried to kick out, but it was wasted effort. The bonds were very secure.

“You may fight against the bonds, but it will do no good,” Tark murmured, standing once again to push my upper body back down. His voice was hard. Bent over as I was, I tilted my head and looked up at him, but my long hair fell in the way. His eyes were so dark, so intense. His square jaw was clenched. “The claiming process must be completed so no others attempt to touch you.” Tark ran his hand up and down my bare spine with gentle attention to every curve and swell. “You will be fucked. Your only decision is whether I will spank you again first.”

He ran a hand over my sore bottom and I winced. It wasn’t overly sore, but it was definitely a reminder that he would do as he said.

My mind latched onto something else he said. Others? Trying to touch me? Would they try to claim me, too? Was some asshole, like Bron, going to try to fuck me? I didn’t like the sound of that.

Tark took my hands and placed them on small handles, and bound my wrists to the other table legs. Once I was secured to his satisfaction, he stood. I knew that my red bottom and my pussy were on display, the wetness between my legs causing a slight chill as the air glided over my naked flesh. I had never felt so vulnerable or so aroused.

I’d never been tied down during sex before, certainly not like this. The feel of the restraints that wrapped around my wrists and ankles was tight, but also oddly freeing. My mind fought everything that Tark was doing, my thoughts had been constantly tugging at me since my arrival with guilt or shame every time my body responded to him. But now, these straps set me free. Just like with the hand restraints when he’d
examined
me with that dildo thing, I could only give up, to give over control to Tark. He was going to do what he wanted—what he’d said I needed—and I could do nothing, even now, but submit. I had no decision to make, no guilt to feel for making it. No one would judge me or call me a whore if what I wanted was to be taken hard and fast. And here, now, bent over and about to be fucked by the biggest man I’d ever seen, I admitted, for the first time in my life, that being taken like this was exactly what I wanted.

Tark was my mate. Matched to me. Only to me. He’d taken away my choice, and in doing so, freed me in some strange way.

“Tark, I—”

“You will call me master.”

“Master?” I frowned upside down. “Are you serious, because—”

A hard slap to my bottom had me biting back the remainder of my words. It was harder than the strikes he’d given me earlier and I cried out.

“
Gara
,
feisty
gara.
A good fucking is what you need.” He leaned forward and flicked the chain affixed to my nipples and set it in motion. I gasped at the delicious feel of it. “Do you accept my claim,
gara
? Do you accept my protection and my devotion?”

I hung my head. Good God. I was well and truly trapped… one last tug on my restraints had me confirming that. Tark had aroused me, tied me down, and told me blatantly and clearly that he was going to fuck me. What man had I ever met that was so direct and bossy? And why did my body like that so damn much? I wanted Tark. Only Tark. I didn’t want anyone else on this crazy world. His touch, his attention, had me so hot I could barely think. He’d done a good job of arousing me, making me come, then keeping me so turned on that my brain had turned to mush, because otherwise I would have fought and yelled to be released. Instead, I waited to feel his cock fill me.

It was only for a few months until the trial. Then I’d be home, back to my normal life. Back to my boring, lonely, normal life. Back to men I knew were not matched to me, none that would be so perfectly in tune to my psychological profile. In this moment, I had a hot, virile man ready to take me, ready to give me something that I never even knew I wanted.

I lay there, my ass in the air, stinging and eager for more, and I admitted the one glaring fact—the processing center on Earth had matched me to this man, and all the arguments in the world weren’t going to convince me to deny myself this pleasure. There was only one thing I could say. “Yes.”

“For the official records, Evelyn Day, are you now, or have you ever been married, matched, or mated to another man?”

“No.” His question slowed my thoughts.

“Do you have any biological offspring?”

“What? They already asked me…”

Another hard strike and my ass burned. “You will answer the question.”

“Ta… I mean master!” I cried, trying to shift my hips. “No. I don’t have any children.”

“Good. Regardless of our match, I will not claim a woman who belongs to another, nor will I take her away from her children.” Tark’s hot palm rubbed over my ass, where my soft skin had to be a bright, brilliant pink from his firm hand. “Goran, are you prepared to witness the claiming?”

“Yes. Official recording has been activated.”

I stiffened beneath Tark’s warm palm. Recording? And why was Goran still here? Was there anyone else behind me that I couldn’t see? The idea had me in a panic. They could see all of me and there was nothing I could do. They could see my bottom had been spanked before. It wasn’t Tark who scared me, but I did not want to be shared, to be a prisoner that serviced not only my mate, but others as well.

“Tark, I don’t want anyone else here.”

He spanked me again, making my thighs clench. “Call me master.”

“Master, please,” I whispered. “Punish me if you wish, but I… I will not be a whore. I’d rather go to prison on Earth.”

From my position, I could see the men’s legs, but nothing else. Tark came to my side, knelt down, and brushed my long hair out of my face. “I do not know this word whore, but I understand the meaning. No,
gara
,
you are mine. Only mine. No one, and I mean
no one
,
will fuck you, let alone touch you, but me.”

His touch was remarkably gentle on my skin. “But Goran—”

“He must witness and record us for the bride program’s system monitors. That is all. They use recorded neurological reactions to assess other mates and brides for placement. It is standard protocol.”

I frowned, but he said no more and rose to his feet.

As my mind tried to adapt to this new information, Tark went around behind me and stopped to stand where I could see both men’s legs. I heard the sound of a belt, of pants opening just before his fingers returned to probe my core. The sight of Goran’s boots barely two steps behind him made me furious. This would never have happened to me on Earth. Never.

“Standard protocol to be witnessed? To be bent over and fucked like this!” I cried. I fought against my bonds, but there was no give. I would be spanked again for this outburst, for it definitely was impertinence, but I didn’t care. “Is it standard to have my nipples pierced without my permission? And what if I don’t like the chain? What if I don’t want to be adorned?”

As I thought, he spanked me again. The hot sting of it—he didn’t hold back at all this time—had me crying out.

His voice and my position caused a memory to stir in my head, just out of reach. But when a vibration began from the table directly beneath my clit, I remembered. I’d dreamed of this, of being taken like this. Why? How had I seen this when I was on Earth? What had the processing center done to me? In my dream, I’d liked two men talking about me, touching me, fucking me. But that had been a dream.

Not a dream. Some
other woman’s recorded experience.

So, that dream in the processing center hadn’t been a dream at all? I’d been reliving the stimulus and body responses of some anonymous Earth woman’s claiming by her mate?

Was some other warrior going to relive this through Tark’s eyes and decide he really wanted an Earth girl?

Holy shit.

Still, the processing center was one thing. I was awake now and this was
not
the
same at all.

I forgot all about it when I felt his fingers sliding in and out of my pussy. “There,
gara
,
that stimulator pressed against your clit should ease your mind. Remember, I will give you exactly what you need.”

“And what is it that I need right now besides off this stupid table?”

He laughed, but didn’t stop stroking me. “You need to come. You are dripping wet.”

I shook my head. “I don’t want to do this with Goran watching. You people are perverts,” I vowed, gritting my teeth at the gentle, yet very deliberate touch.

Tark laughed. “Since we have been matched, Evelyn Day, you must be a pervert as well.”