Deep Penetration; Alien Breeders I (8 page)

She discovered Tariq was staring at
her stony faced when she glanced at him again, his eyes blazing
with anger. “I hadn’t taken you for a coward,” he said
evenly.

The dart struck home. “I’m not,” she
said tightly, “but there are some battles you can’t win and the
only option is … a strategic retreat.”

“
It’s never wise to
announce your battle plans to the enemy,” Tariq said coolly.
Setting his half empty glass down, he took hers from her hand and
set it down on the table, as well. She resisted when he caught her
hand and drew her toward him—for all the good it did. An all out
battle wouldn’t have stopped him, although it might have saved
face.

She decided an appearance of
compliance was a better battle strategy at the moment, however,
since she had nothing to gain by trying anything else and a lot to
lose. She yielded to his determination, getting up and moving to
him. He pulled her down on his lap, adjusting her more to suit
himself than for her comfort. For many moments after he’d cradled
her against his chest, he merely stared at her.

She wondered what was going through
his mind. He didn’t seem angry that she’d defied him, even briefly,
or complacent that she’d yielded. He didn’t even seem particularly
aroused, although she could feel the evidence of sexual interest
against her hip. She flinched instinctively when he lifted his free
hand toward her face. He hesitated fractionally and then completed
the move, stroking a hand lightly along the hair at her temple and
then downward to grasp the lock hanging across her breast. Lifting
it, he rubbed his fingers back and forth over the strands and
finally brought the lock to his nose and sniffed it.

Emerald stared at him curiously,
wondering what he’d expected her hair smell like. Different in some
way than his own she supposed, but she’d used the soap they
supplied her with and had to suppose it was what they all used. She
emerged from her introspection when he leaned closer. His hair
tickled her face as he brushed the tip of his nose and then his
lips along her throat, dragging in a deep breath.

It aroused him—her scent. She felt his
cock grow thicker and harder against her hip. Her belly clenched in
reaction. Her skin pebbled as he expelled the breath he’d inhaled
and it wafted along her skin, making her nipples tighten in
reaction. By the time he’d brushed his face along her cheek to her
temple, a deep quivering had begun inside of her and her skin felt
flushed all over. He lifted his head to meet her gaze as he reached
for the sheet she had clasped tightly to her breasts.

Briefly, she resisted his tug and then
yielded as she had when he’d issued the wordless command to come to
him. He lowered his gaze to her breasts as he dragged the sheet to
her waist. She looked down at his hand as he cupped one breast,
lightly massaging it.

It was disconcerting enough to
discover her breast looked like an apple on a turkey platter next
to his hand that she glanced at his face. Sensing the movement, he
lifted his head and met her gaze again. There was no amusement or
distain that her breast looked so woefully small compared to the
size of his hand. On the contrary, his face had grown taut, his
eyes dark and glittering with the need his erection gave ample
testimony to.

He lifted his hand from her breast to
cup the side of her face, tightening the arm he had around her
shoulders at the same time to draw her closer even as he tilted his
head toward her and matched his lips to hers. He sucked lightly at
her lips, with a slow relish that belied his display of ruthless
aggression before even while it set her heart to pounding like a
trip-hammer.

He didn’t deepen the kiss. Instead,
after teasing her with his lips until she’d begun to feel a sense
of desperation for more, he lifted his lips from hers and traced
the bridge of her nose to her forehead. His hands tightened on her
almost convulsively for a moment. She heard him swallow and then
his grip on her eased. “Go to bed, Emerald,” he murmured against
her hair.

She lifted her head and stared at him
dizzily, uncomprehendingly.

“
Now!” he growled. “Before
I do something I’ll regret.”

She bounded up from his lap and
retreated to the bed, almost tripping on the sheet she was dragging
in her rush. Embarrassment and anger had joined her confusion and
the fear that set her into flight by the time she clambered onto
the bed. She settled on the bed as close to the far wall as she
could get, but the desire to curl in upon herself was stronger than
the prompting of wounded pride to display her resentment by showing
him her back and her indifference.

The problem was that she
wasn’t indifferent. She drew her knees up to her chest, curling
into a tight ball, and tried to convince herself that it didn’t
bother her that he’d apparently decided he didn’t want her after
all. It wasn’t as if she’d
wanted
him to paw her! She certainly hadn’t
volunteered
for
breeding—as if she was a fucking barnyard animal!

There was nothing
wrong
with her damned
breasts, either! Could she help it if she had perfectly average
breasts and his hands were like—pie plates? No! They’d have to be
the size of fucking bowling balls, or her head, to fill a hand that
size! And who wanted that kind of aggravation?

Her throat closed with
emotion.

She told herself that she was angry
and fearful.

The last part wasn’t a
lie. As resentful as she’d been over the plans he had for her, she
couldn’t help but wonder—now that it seemed she didn’t have to
worry about
that
—what she did have to worry about. Would they use her for
experiments after all?

He’d suggest that he would let Koryn
have her when he was done with her, she recalled, pushing aside the
resentment that had caused her at the time. Would he offer her to
Koryn now? And what if Koryn didn’t want her? What if none of them
did?

Did she have any palatable
options?

She hadn’t realized that it had almost
made her feel safe to think that Tariq wanted her, despite her
anger and resentment that they treated her as if she was chattel,
property to be used and disposed of at will. She knew it was stupid
to feel any sense of security about it all, and yet she had nothing
else to cling to. She didn’t even have that small source of comfort
now.

What was she going to do?

What
could
she do?

She’d told herself that yielding was
the only sensible thing to do and yet she couldn’t even convince
herself that she’d merely tolerated his touch and hidden the
revulsion she should have felt.

She had a bad feeling he knew just how
much his touch had affected her, too, and that shamed her more than
anything else.

She’d almost worn herself out and
dropped to sleep by the time he joined her on the bed and yet the
moment she felt the mattress dip, she jolted completely awake and
tensed all over—fearing/hoping he would reach for her. He did. He
took the cover she’d wrapped around her and spread it over the two
of them. Even as she curled into a tight ball again, however, he
planted a hand on her belly and dragged her back until she could
feel the heat of his body and the tickle of his chest and groin
hair along her back. Tucking her head on one rock hard bicep, he
curled his other arm around her and then a leg and settled his face
against the back of her head.

She was still lying stiff and tense
against him when she heard his breathing slow and grow deeper and
knew he’d fallen asleep. She couldn’t have been less comfortable if
she’d been strapped to a rock and yet, somehow, she managed to fall
asleep.

The nightmare woke her. Even though
she couldn’t recall more than a little of it when it jerked her
awake, she knew it was the same dream. Tariq’s hand glided slowly
up her belly and settled between her breasts as she lay panting
with residual fear. She thought at first he was merely moving in
his sleep, but then he tipped his head downward and she felt his
lips along her shoulder.

Her heart calmed its frantic rhythm.
Shifting closer until she could feel his heat against her back
again, she drifted, comforted by the wall of flesh surrounding her.
It flickered through her mind to wonder if he meant to do more and
then she dropped into nothingness.

Chapter Four

Tariq didn’t regret his
decision although he was willing to acknowledge that Koryn was
right in a sense. He
was
borderline obsessed with Emerald, but he had been
on a purely scientific level and as a potential breeder for the
heir he wanted so badly since she’d begun to develop so he didn’t
see his interest, as keen as it was, as anything to be particularly
concerned about. It wasn’t obsession in the sense of a pathological
need. It was a rational, controllable interest and for equally
logical reasons.

His bloodlines were not
only important to him, they were important to the Anunnaki or he
wouldn’t enjoy the position he did among them. Emerald was as close
to perfection on a genetic level as he thought he was likely to
find among the purebloods, especially considering what they
had
found, so his
decision to breed her was just plain good sense. On a less exalted
level, his sexual urges were also completely normal and
understandable given his situation. They’d expected to be
transporting a large number of the purebloods back to Nibiru and
had limited shipboard personnel accordingly. It was his vessel and
he was the commander and he was fully aware that he could’ve
brought a woman along to provide for his sexual needs. He’d chosen
not to for the simple reason that it would set a bad example for
the lower ranks, which was always a matter of prime consideration
for him, and also because he’d fully intended to choose one of the
purebloods for his bed as soon as one was available.

He hadn’t expected to endure
abstinence quite as long as he had and his superior bloodlines
didn’t protect him from his natural urges any more than it did
anyone else. There wasn’t a man onboard that wasn’t suffering from
blue balls as badly as he was except for those who’d found respite
in a fellow crewmember.

And he hadn’t taken a female
crewmember into his bed for the same reason he hadn’t brought a
woman along to start with—bad example to the others. He firmly
believed in leading by example. If he set the highest standards for
himself—and he did—his men struggled to give him their
best.

He’d been tempted to discard his lofty
principles and take care of his needs, more than once, but he
hadn’t, which made it completely understandable as far as he was
concerned that he was now approaching the point of feverish
desperation to get his hands on Emerald.

It wasn’t obsession. It
was
need
!

Any warm female body would do. He just
didn’t see any sense in having plain bread when he could sink into
a delicious piece of cake only by waiting just a little longer. It
was as much a matter of proving to himself that he had the
discipline to wait as it was the desire to anticipate rather than
capitulate and settle for less than what he wanted.

He wasn’t in the habit of settling for
less than precisely what he wanted.

If he wasn’t entirely happy with the
decision, he had no one to blame but himself—and possibly fate—that
capricious bitch that supposedly controlled random odds and yet
always seemed to stack the deck against everyone, especially when
they were at their lowest ebb.

He didn’t believe his
reasoning was faulty in any way or adversely influenced by his
interest in Emerald. He’d made it a point to remove himself as far
from
that
distraction as possible and consider every angle
carefully.

He fully intended to load
his ship down with purebloods before he returned to Nibiru for the
simple reason that failure wasn’t an option as far as he was
concerned—and returning without them would not only be a failure
for him personally. It would be a disaster for the Anunnaki.
They
needed
the
purebloods. As badly as everyone hated to admit it, they all knew
they were doomed without them. It didn’t matter that it was their
own poor decisions that had brought about the disaster. They had to
deal with it, and the purebloods were their only option of doing
so.

He had to consider the possibility,
though, that his ship might make the return trip to Nibiru without
the numbers he’d anticipated and fewer purebloods meant severely
limited supply to demand. Those with power and position would get
first choice, as was their right. Those directly beneath them would
get their castoffs and so on until supplies trickled down to the
lowest levels. Except supplies wouldn’t be trickling far down the
scale if they were as limited as what he’d discovered so far and
there were too many in the ranks above him, as it stood, for him to
get more than a whiff of a pureblood.

He’d decided to take what he wanted
while he had the chance—right of conquest plus most superior rank
present—and handle any consequences later. He was sure there would
be consequences, possibly very unpleasant ones, but that was
immaterial as long as he ensured his own lines. Assuming he was
successful enough to appease those of higher ranks than he was,
he’d also decided to include Koryn for the simple reason that he
didn’t want anyone of superior rank to his to look too closely at
his prize and run the risk being usurped.