“Is that why you came?” Katarina remained poised on the last step, her hand on the railing, as though reluctant to step down to his level. Just like the houses on the hill held themselves aloof from the slums of Pas City.
“I came to ask you where the hell you’ve been.”
“Here. Working.”
“You’ve pissed off half the Shareem in Pas City,” he growled. “The bastards like being examined by you.”
“I’ve been busy.”
Too busy to call or send a message?
Gods, he was pathetic. “Whatever.”
“The last time I saw you, you gave me the impression you wouldn’t care if I left.”
“Baby, the last time I saw you, I sucked you raw. I don’t do that to women I never want to see again.”
She shrugged, the silk moving on her body. “You were angry.”
“You wanted a piece of my skin. I don’t like being treated like an experiment. I got enough of that at DNAmo.”
“I was trying to help you.”
“They all try to help. Every medic, every doctor I’ve ever seen. They all think they have the miracle cure. None of them do. Their techniques improve but my body doesn’t, and I refuse to become a cyborg.”
“I don’t want you to become one either.”
“Then leave me the hell alone.”
Katarina finally stepped off the last stair and flowed to him. “Is that why you came all the way up here? To tell me to leave you alone?”
I was worried about you. I thought I’d never see you again.
“I came here… Shit, I don’t know why I came here.”
Calder swung away. The door was still open, letting in the cool breeze from the garden. Everything here was unreal. Maybe Katarina was too. Maybe everything he felt for her was unreal.
If that was true, why did it hurt so damn much?
“Calder, wait.”
Calder stopped on the threshold. He heard her move toward him but she stopped too far away.
His cock ached. Here he was, a level-three Shareem, close to falling on his knees and pleading
her
to fuck
him
. Right now, right here in her beautiful front hall with the breeze and tree-scent wafting in.
Please, love. Have pity on me.
“I’m glad you came,” she said. “I planned to come to your apartment, but it will be better here. My house is more comfortable.”
Calder turned. She stood a foot away from him, her scent, her pheromones pouring over him. The silk sheath was thin, her nipples sharp little points behind it.
He pictured himself lounging in a large, white-sheeted bed, a boy toy for a rich lady. Not a bad scenario. Especially when the rich lady was Katarina d’Arnal.
“Will you stay?” she asked.
“Yes.”
Calder reached for her. Katarina stepped forward, raising her hand.
He saw the hypo too late. Calder growled and twisted away, but she’d already touched the pad to his neck and injected her concoction.
Calder’s glare could have crumbled her big house and the vast gardens beyond into dust. Katarina recoiled from his look of near hatred.
“
What the hell did you just do
?”
“This will work, Calder. I swear it will.” She bit her lip. “I’m pretty sure it will.”
The nano-protein combination started quickly. Sweat poured down Calder’s face and he clawed at his clothes. “What the
fuck
?”
He flung his tunic and leggings from him, then his loincloth. His scars were stark and angry in the soft light of her hall. He didn’t belong here, a giant of a man, rough-hewn like desert rocks in her house of elegant softness. Calder raked his hands through his hair and shuddered, body gleaming with sweat.
Katarina darted forward, another hypo raised. Calder swung away, his rage cutting. “Stay away from me!”
“This will ease the pain.”
“It doesn’t hurt… Aw,
fuck
.” He shivered suddenly, violently, his face losing color.
Calder jerked her to him, grabbed the hypo and injected himself.
After a second or two the tight lines around his eyes relaxed, but he clenched the delicate hypo so hard it broke.
Katarina touched his face. “I love you, Calder. I know you hate me right now, but I want you to know how much I love you.”
“I don’t hate you,” he growled. His shivering escalated, his eyes closing in agony.
His lips formed another
fuck
—then he went down.
The crash on her floor brought the servants running. Katarina fell to her knees beside him, anxiously checking his vitals. His heart raced and his skin was hot, but not
more than normal for a Shareem. She kissed his damp forehead then got to her feet and ordered her servants to get him upstairs to one of her spare bedrooms.
*
For the next few days, Katarina didn’t leave his side. Calder swam in and out of consciousness, but he was never coherent. Katarina hooked him up to machines to keep him hydrated and fed, checking his vitals every hour.
She’d hired the equipment, thinking she’d have to transport it down to his place in Pas City. He’d saved her a step by coming up here, looking for her.
Why had he? Calder had made it clear how angry he was, how much he didn’t want Katarina trying to cure him. How much he didn’t want
her
, period.
But he’d braved Serestine patrollers to come to her house and ask to see her.
Why? And when he woke up, would he still want to see her?
It didn’t matter. Katarina didn’t want to heal Calder so he’d be grateful and pathetic but because she wanted to make his life better. He was Shareem, so it would be only so much better, but at least he wouldn’t have to hide his body anymore. If her regenerating technique worked, he’d let himself wear the light clothing of his Shareem friends and laugh and talk with them. He’d no longer keep to the shadows.
Whether this worked or not, if he didn’t want to see Katarina anymore, she’d let him go. She promised herself this.
She understood now why Braden had told her that all women wanted Calder.
Calder focused his Shareem-blue eyes on a woman and made her feel like she alone existed. He delved into her fantasies and laid her bare. When he was done, there wasn’t a secret in her head she hadn’t trusted him with.
His women wept when it was over. Katarina would too, but she’d let him go. It was more important to her that he was alive, whole and happy.
She repeated this brave litany all through her vigil. But when she was honest with herself in the dark hours of the night, the thought of losing him for good made the misery come.
*
Calder woke with a jolt.
He was alone, flat on his back on a bed. Tubes snaked from a machine in the wall down into his arms, and a cool sheet rested lightly on his legs.
A body on a slab.
Again.
He lay in a large room painted a cool shade of green with gold mosaic patterns running along the tops of the walls. White curtains billowed at a window, which was open to soft air.
Everything spoke of luxury and taste, including the mattress beneath him. He must still be in Katarina’s house, but how long he’d been here he didn’t know.
He sat up slowly, his limbs sore, but only from being immobile. A second later, he realized that his burning pain had completely vanished.
Calder pulled the tubes from his arms, sliding them out quickly so he wouldn’t bleed. He’d learned how. He threw back the sheet and stood up. His legs shook a little, but not too much.
A look out the window showed him trees moving in a faint breeze. The canopy surrounding the house must allow for artificial weather. It felt like sweet, cool springtime, not the perpetual summer of the bone-hard desert.
Must be nice to be so stinking rich. Calder had money after years of being The Beast, but Shareem wouldn’t be allowed to set up in something so nice. He stashed away his money so he wouldn’t have to worry about survival, and to help his friends.
Let the Bor Nargan ruling family think Shareem were just this side of broke.
As he turned away from the window, he scratched his arm. Whatever Katarina had shot into him made him itch a little.
As soon as he stopped scratching, the itch came back, stronger. His legs started to tingle and then suddenly the skin all over his body was one burning, massive itch.
Calder let out a growl, rubbing his palms across his arms and torso—which were still scarred, by the way. Stupid cure didn’t work, and he’d known it wouldn’t.
He kept rubbing but the itching increased. “Damn it!”
The door slid open and Katarina ran in. Part of him enjoyed watching her silken clothes move with her body, part of him wanted to throw her to the ground and screw her senseless. Part of him didn’t want her to see him.
“What are you doing out of bed?” she demanded.
“Itching like crazy. What the hell did you do to me, woman?”
Katarina smiled. “That means it’s working.”
“It’s killing me.
Shit
.”
“Come with me.”
Katarina took his hand and led him out. She took him into another room, again with windows overlooking the garden. This one had a square marble tub in the middle of the floor and benches for lounging around it.
The tub was full, and Calder jumped straight in.
His skin burned like a thousand needles jabbed him, and he threw back his head and shouted his agony. Katarina watched, hands touching her mouth, eyes worried.
After a few minutes of horrific burning sensation, the feeling lessened. And then lessened again. “Thank the gods,” Calder breathed.
“It’s healing,” Katarina said. “The itching means healing. This is what’s supposed to happen.” She sounded relieved and happy.
“Warn me next time.”
Katarina looked down at him in the tub, a smile on her face. Water blotched her skirts where Calder had splashed them jumping into the water, and the breeze from the window lifted her hem to show her shapely legs.
Calder suddenly had the biggest hard-on he’d had in years.
He reached up and grabbed her ankle. “Come in here.”
“I shouldn’t. The servants.”
Calder rose, wrapped his wet arm around her waist and dragged her into the water with him. She shrieked as her dress quickly became sodden.
“You should,” he said.
Calder easily pried off her silk dress and dropped the soggy mass on the edge of the tub. Sloshing more water from the tub, Calder lifted her into his arms, wrapped her legs around his hips and slid her onto his waiting cock.
The sex was swift and brutal. Calder used the buoyancy in the water to thrust hard into Katarina, and she clung to him, her noises of pleasure driving him on.
He finished with him on top of her beside the tub. No elegance, just him spreading her and shoving inside until he shot his seed. She made a frustrated noise when he withdrew that made him harder than ever.
“Not finished, were you?” he asked.
“I was. But it was…awfully fast.”
“That was me taking the edge off. If you want slow sex, Katarina, I’ll do you the rest of the afternoon and all night.” He kissed her swollen lips, the bridge of her nose.
“Would you like that?”
“I think so.”
“You’d better be sure. Once I start, I won’t stop. I’m Shareem. I have to give you that warning.”
Katarina smiled and laced her arms around his neck. “I believe you have my signed consent form.”
“Baby.” Calder kissed her lips again. “I’m going to make you regret looking so sweet when saying that.”
*
Calder knew some amazing things. But Katarina refused to regret anything as she became his willing slave for the night.
He carried her into the bedroom and laid her on her bed, which was a cushion of pressurized air instead of a mattress. When the bed was covered with quilts and pillows, it looked like an old-fashioned four-poster, but a person could sleep floating or adjust the pressure to make it a firm surface. Katarina had always found her bed relaxing but Calder used it in ways new to her.
He’d brought some interesting things with him, tucked away into the pockets of his tunic. She wondered if he always carried such things about or if he’d brought them especially for her.
First he parted her legs and examined her pussy, shaking his head when he’d seen she’d let the hair start growing back.
“You should have had it done permanently.”
Katarina wondered how he could be so calm while she was so excited. All he had to do was look at her and her cream began to flow. “I didn’t know whether you would like me bare before I made it permanent. And then I didn’t see you again, so I didn’t think there was much point.”
“Well, I do like it.” Calder brought out a small shaver that he strapped to his first two fingers and used it to remove the hair that had accumulated. The shaver was warm, the vibration of it stimulating.
“Go back to your clinic and get it permanently gone.” He gave her a dark look.
“Unless you want me shaving you all the time.”
Hmm, which would she choose? A cold depilatory alone in a cold room at the clinic, or Calder’s hot hands moving on her pussy?
Calder put away the shaver and soothed her skin with a cream. More oil followed, his fingers dipping into her vagina and then, surprising her, into her anus.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting you ready.”
She gulped. “For what?”
“For The Beast, Katarina. He wants to play.”
“I see.”
“No, you don’t. But you will.”
He strapped onto her a small pad that formed itself to her clit but left her pussy open. Calder warmed her with his hands while he fitted the device, then he activated it.
“Oh!” It tickled her clit like his tongue or his finger. Katarina lifted her hips, tightening against the sensation.
“Don’t fight it. Relax. Go with it.”
His voice lulled her. She felt her limbs easing, going limp. And then it felt wonderful.
“That’s right. I’m Shareem, sweetie. Made for your pleasure.”
“Yes.” Katarina stretched. The vibration on her clit made her hips rock. “I love it.”
Calder reached beneath her and pressed something warm to the opening of her anus. She gasped, tensing, then relaxed again as he calmed her.
She’d read that Shareem could soothe with hands and voice so the lady was open, pliant, game for anything. So when Calder slid a device inside her anus, she barely tightened her muscles.