Heat (59 page)

S
teady thumping. Breathy moans. Kane’s name in plaintive whispers.

Raven opened her eyes and saw them. Kane had Sue-Eye up against the wall. He held her thighs, his powerful arms flexing in rhythm with his thrusts. Her hands were digging at his back, kneading at him in catlike pleasure.

She watched. It made her feel…something. Relief, she decided. Maybe Sue-Eye would leave her alone if she got her fill of fucking. Maybe Kane wouldn’t want to oversee the girl-on-girl stuff if he was in and out of Heat all day.

Yesterday had been hell. Sick and cramping and bleeding, and Sue-Eye crawling all over her every time she opened her eyes. The little cabin had been greenhouse-stuffy by late afternoon, but apparently it never got quite hot enough for Kane to go into Heat. He had all kinds of time in which to indulge his lesbian fantasies. Once or twice, he’d joined them, but he’d made it clear that his dick was for Sue-Eye.

Only Sue-Eye.

Raven shifted, tugging the sheet that was her only covering up around her waist. The little sound it made attracted Kane’s eye. He looked back at her, his hips still working smoothly, and then let go one of Sue-Eye’s legs to cover her mouth.

Raven closed her eyes again, drowsing to the now-quiet sounds of them. She already knew she was as good as up. Now that she’d woken, never mind how briefly, she was aware of how badly she needed to clean up. And once she’d showered and changed everything out, the cramps would be set in. At least this would be the last day for that. She was regular as a clock under ordinary circumstances—one day spotting, two days cramping and nauseous, and three days to taper off. If she could get through today, it was smooth sailing.

Kane’s breath began to come in growls. Quiet ones, but enough to make even a doze out of reach. Raven threw the sheet back and sat up.

Kane glanced at her again, long enough to watch her take her feet, and then removed his hand from Sue-Eye’s mouth. Her cries came out with enthusiasm and Kane pulled her thighs up higher and fucked harder, making no more effort to be quiet.

Raven left them to it and went in to shower. Blood swirled down the drain in Hitchcockian clarity. She hated her period. It was disgusting and humiliating and messy at the best of times, but having to have it right out in the open in front of Kane and Sue-Eye made it a million times worse. She wished people could get spayed as easily and cheaply as cats. She’d be the first one in line.

She soaped up and shaved, and for some reason, felt better. She told herself it was just cleaner that way and refused to think about it any more. It had nothing to do with Kane and his pubic hair phobia, nothing to do with making herself more the woman he wanted.

While she was shampooing her hair, Kane opened the door and came into the bathroom. He pulled back the curtain and stepped into the shower with her without speaking. He moved her aside and leaned in under the spray, his head bent and eyes shut.

Raven watched him a while, then lathered up her hands and began to wash his back.

“Mm.” He rolled his shoulders comfortably, and then raised his head and smiled back at her. “Stand away, Raven,” he said gently.

She dropped her arms, stung, and stepped back to the other end of the tub.

Kane scrubbed at his face, turned to rinse his back, and then climbed out and pulled a towel from the wall. “You look better,” he said.

“I told you it wouldn’t last.”

His smile broadened and there was something faintly patronizing in it. “I need my
ichuta’a
,” he called.

Raven rinsed out her hair quickly and got out of the shower as Sue-Eye came to crowd the bathroom.

“Wash up,” Kane ordered. To Raven, he added, “I’ve made you more medicine. You’ve healed up nicely. It should be the last time you need it.”

“Should be,” she agreed, looking down at her breasts. The metal decorating her flesh looked like it had been there for years. She tugged at her nipple ring experimentally. Didn’t hurt at all.

“You go on now and put it on,” he said.

Raven glanced at her box of tampons. “I’m not—”

“Go.”

Raven went. As she rubbed his cooling lotion into her piercings, she heard him speaking in a low voice to Sue-Eye, but she couldn’t make out what over the sound of water drumming. Hopefully, he was telling her to get breakfast. Then they’d probably hit the road. Checkout was at eleven, and it was eight now. She knew they didn’t have enough cash to stay another day. They probably didn’t have enough cash to feed anyone but her. Kane was a fanatical believer in the healing powers of steak. They’d probably have to kill someone for gas money.

Funny how quickly some thoughts became academic ones. Need money? Better kill some people. One plus one and all that.

Kane came out, watched her apply lotion for a second or two, and then sat down at his computer.

Raven lingered in case he had something to say, and then headed in to hang up her towel and get a tampon. Sue-Eye had drawn the curtain, which was as much privacy as Raven could hope for these days. She propped her foot up on the toilet and got herself plugged. “Do you know if we’re leaving?” she asked.

“Not for a little while,” Sue-Eye replied. She sounded as if she were smiling.

Raven returned to bed and curled up, rubbing covertly at her belly to ease the cramps. She closed her eyes, not because she was tired, but sleep was as good a way to pass the time as any.

Sue-Eye rejoined them, but didn’t go to the phone to order food. She came to the bed instead, and at the first dimple of her weight on the mattress, Raven was wide-awake and clenched like a living fist. ‘Not so soon,’ she thought, dismayed. ‘Relax. Maybe she wants to watch TV.’

That thought ended with Sue-Eye’s hand, still damp and soft from the shower, on Raven’s arm. She tried to shrug away. Sue-Eye moved to grip her thigh instead.

“Stop it,” Raven whispered, kicking.

“Raven.”

She winced and slowly raised her eyes to meet Kane’s. She saw no mercy in them, but no overt cruelty either, and she nerved herself for a cautious protest. “I don’t want to.”

“You need to,” he said incomprehensibly. “So lie still. I’ll tie you if I have to.”

Raven shook her head, still trying to puzzle out his use of the world ‘need’, absolutely mortified at the thought of being bound hand and foot for Sue-Eye’s use. She felt the blonde’s hand cupping her breast, and at her touch, a flicker of connection tried to make itself known in Raven’s brain. She looked down at the unwelcome hand and then over, suspicion illuminating her mind. ‘What did you tell him, bitch?’ she wondered.

Sue-Eye’s smug smile was as good as a neon sign admitting culpability. Not guilt. Pride, maybe, but not guilt. This wasn’t something that had just happened. This was a plan.

Sue-Eye’s smile widened as she saw realization in Raven’s face and she leaned in to kiss her mouth, forcing her tongue past Raven’s lips. Invading. Dominating.

Raven shut her eyes and closed her hands into fists stiffly at her sides. Sue-Eye, undeterred, straddled her aggressively. Her hands on Raven’s breasts were triumphant and rough. She was not even pretending to be a partner this time. She knew Raven couldn’t object. She was taking.

A good old-fashioned ‘ouch’ was a tempting thought. Kane would probably have the bitch pulled off her by her bottle-blonde hair if he thought she was hurting her. On the other hand, he’d be just as likely to give Raven a smack for whining before he tossed Sue-Eye back at her.

So Raven was quiet. She kept her eyes shut and let the bitch paw at her, but she couldn’t ignore what was happening to her. Sue-Eye chose to be rough for her own reasons, but she tempered this at times with deliberate tenderness no body could disregard. Skilled hands and a teasing tongue traveled freely over Raven’s flesh, coaxing heat from her however reluctantly.

She was slow to respond, but Sue-Eye had plenty of time. Her mouth invaded Raven’s insistently only to close over her breasts, wetting and sucking the nipples alive so that Raven could not escape the shivery sensation of Sue-Eye’s breasts rubbing hers. Sue-Eye’s hips ground down at her in tight circles until Raven’s own began to writhe, seeking escape before the humiliation of pleasure. Then Sue-Eye’s hand was at her clit, pressing hard in mimicry of a man’s thrusts, and no matter how Raven moved, she was only adding to the intensity of her body’s reactions.

Someone moaned and it was her. Raven turned her face into the pillows, but Sue-Eye grabbed her cheek and turned her back, punishing her with a deep kiss while her hips moved. Sue-Eye’s hands covered her breasts, squeezing hatefully as she licked her way down Raven’s twisting body all the way to her pussy. The feel of her mouth closing on Raven’s clit was as sickening as it was rapturous. She kicked frantically, trying to knock the blonde away, but Sue-Eye had the leverage to grip her thighs and shove them wide open.

Raven’s voice ripped from her in a ragged cry and she surrendered. She came in a swoop of ugly sensation, bucking mindlessly to dislodge the hungry mouth sucking at her core, and then came again when Sue-Eye slid her hands under Raven’s ass and began to move her in rapid upwards thrusts. She wailed, one hand groping through the air, and suddenly she slapped into skin.

Her eyes flashed open and there was Kane, a thousand feet tall, looking down at her. He was smiling.

She closed her eyes again, shutting herself away from the sight of that terrible god. But when she felt his claw at her lips, she opened immediately and sucked with passion as tears of shame slipped from her eyes.

“Cum for me, Raven,” he murmured, and something in her betraying body unlocked for him. “Cum for me. I command you. Cum!”

She screamed around his finger, her awareness of the room washing out with the force of her climax. She couldn’t feel Sue-Eye anymore. She couldn’t feel anything but him, and he was all through her, body, mind and soul. She came three times in overlapping succession, each new wave smashing her further out into space, and when the last one rolled back, blackness rolled in.

She fell limp, gasping for breath and waiting to see if she was going to faint or not. Slowly, her vision returned enough for her to see Kane’s hand wrapping around Sue-Eye’s hair, yanking the blonde off her and sending her tumbling hard to the floor. Raven uttered a grateful mew, and Kane sat on the bed beside her and stroked a claw through her hair.

“Feel better?” he asked.

She couldn’t tell yet. Her nerves were still tingling too much to know what her cramps were like, but she nodded anyway and let her eyes slide shut. His hand continued to smooth across her brow and through her hair, over and over, stroking her to sleep.

“Get dressed,
ichuta’a
,” she heard him say. He pulled the sheet up over Raven’s shoulders and patted her cheek. “I’ll feed you before we go,” he told her. “But you rest now, if you can.”

Raven roused herself, clutching at his wrist and staring pleadingly up into his face. “Please don’t let her do that again,” she whispered.

His smile widened. “Raven,” he said gently. “Don’t tell me don’t. She’ll fuck you until
I
say she’s done.” He cupped her chin and leaned down. “And she’s not done.”

Raven blinked her eyes free of water. “I don’t like it.”

“I don’t care.” His gaze broke from hers, traveling down over the shadowed slopes of her concealed body. He leaned closer, his breath warming her skin, and pressed his teeth to the curve of her jaw. He growled, the sound rumbling through her bones, and murmured, “You’ll do as I say, Raven. You have no idea the things I can do to you.”

She supposed it was a threat, but in his smoky purr, it sounded more like a promise of reward for her obedience. She arched back, offering her throat, and he bit again, just above her pulse. She could feel his teeth dimpling her skin. If he wanted to, he could pull her throat out, but his touch now was one of careful passion. He bit, and Raven could feel her body humming with pleasure.

Kane straightened, combing his claws once more through her hair. “All right,
ichuta’a
,” he said, standing. “Red meat and tea for my Raven, and then let’s make the car ready. I want to leave as soon as she’s fed.”

*

Food. Daria was outside his door, telling him he needed food.

Tagen heard her voice, could even make sense of the N’Glish, but the words themselves held only the impression of meaning, as in the way of distant memory. He was lost in place, gripped on every side by clammy bindings, the light shining through the window on him like pools of molten lead. Heat was coming, as it had done twice already, and the sun had not yet begun to drop. How could anyone eat, knowing that?

The sound of a fist on his door banged him out of his syrupy drift and Daria’s voice called his name again. She sounded frightened. Badly frightened. Perhaps he’d touched her again.

He remembered suddenly touching her in the kitchen. His hand on her back. Feeling her flesh so firm and soft and warm beneath his open palm. And she had smiled. That was yesterday. It had been cooler yesterday. The weather had not turned until late afternoon. He’d had hours and hours without Heat.

“Tagen, answer me!
Answer me
!” Her voice broke in something that might have been a sob. The doorknob rattled. He had locked it. Couldn’t risk Daria opening on him while he was engaged with his stimulator. He didn’t want to upset her.

“Tagen!” she shouted, and beat on the door, this time with her open hand. “Oh please don’t be dead.
Tagen
!”

Dead. He smiled weakly. One could not die from Heat. He had suffered it now only three days. Or four. Surely no more than five. In ancient times, Jotan had suffered for the full season. Nine days. Perhaps more. There had been no suppressants in those days.

But there had been mates, he thought dourly. Mates with whom to thrash away the hottest hours. A female’s oils to bring seed swiftly from him and keep Heat from resettling so soon.

“Say something!” Bang bang bang. “I’ll break down the door!”

Such a ferocious little human. Tagen couldn’t imagine her having enough strength to continue knocking, much less to break the lock and force the door. All the same, he was distressing her.