They wouldn’t really hurt her if they caught her. Would they?
Would they?
She suddenly understood the complete appeal of Shareem, why women would pay fortunes for an appointment with Calder.
Shareem would do anything in the name of pleasure. And there was a hint of uncertainty about how far they would go.
Braden took a step toward Katarina, moving like a predator. Calder waited, his eyes intense and blue.
Katarina had signed the consent form in Calder’s room. With her thumbprint, she’d given them permission to do anything they wanted to her.
“Crap,” she said, and started to run.
They didn’t follow. She reached the maze of greenery and plunged into it without hearing their footsteps behind her.
The rain continued here, coating the plants and giving off a fresh smell, water channeled into troughs on the floor. This was better than a holo room because it was all real, the branches slapping at her face, the flowers bright red and as big as her head, and the inch of water soaking her shoes.
But there seemed to be more plants and vines than yesterday, or else she’d plunged into a part she hadn’t seen before. The branches were thick, the path narrow, and in some places the greenery closed over the path and she had to push her way through.
Her soggy clothes slowed her down. She was tempted to remove them but resisted, realizing that’s what they wanted her to do. Run through this place naked for them.
She shivered. A few moments ago the water felt cleansing and arousing. Now it was distracting and heightened the sense of danger. She only knew that she had to run, to hide before they caught her.
She ran on. Somewhere was a fountain, she remembered. It was alabaster, with a glittering mosaic-tiled bowl. Why she thought she’d be safe there, she had no idea, but she became obsessed with finding it. She kept going, hoping desperately to find the fountain around every tight turn. It was like a dream, pushing through unfamiliar ground in the half-light, the rain making every step precarious.
Katarina shoved aside a branch—and the black form of Calder loomed over her, tall and menacing.
She screamed and swung around. Nearly a step behind her was Braden, naked, water gleaming on every muscle and flattening the curls on his chest.
Braden smiled like a wolf baring its teeth. “Decide who you’ll run to, Katarina. Who will you trust to save you from the other?”
Katarina knew her choice. There was only one. She whirled around and ran straight into Calder’s strong arms.
She felt him start as he gathered her against him, black leather warm through her rain-soaked clothes. He nuzzled her cheek and she started to relax, to feel safe.
“Wrong choice, sweetheart,” he whispered.
Chapter Seven
No
, Katarina thought, looking up at Calder’s dark, hard face.
I made the right one.
“Braden might have saved you from me,” Calder purred. “I won’t save you from him.
Or
me.”
“I made my choice.”
Calder gave her an odd look, eyes glittering, then his mouth hardened. He slid his hands down her back to her buttocks and cupped her ass, separating her cheeks through the rain-soaked leggings. She felt the heat of Braden’s body behind her, his hands warm on her waist.
“Braden loves to tongue-fuck,” Calder said. “He’s known for it.”
“Aw, and here I was trying not to get a bad reputation.” Braden’s words burned the nape of her neck.
Katarina knew that Calder was hoping to frighten her, but she felt anything but frightened in the circle of his arms. His words told her one thing—that he’d let his friend hunt her—but his body language told her another. He’d protect her.
Daringly, Katarina rose on tiptoe and brushed a kiss to Calder’s lips.
He jumped as if a spark had sprung from her mouth to his. Before Katarina could draw a breath, he seized the nape of her neck in his big hand and slanted his mouth fully across hers.
Katarina’s world stopped. Even the sensation of Braden’s hands on her body faded to nothing.
Calder plunged his tongue between her lips, forcing her mouth open. Katarina had never kissed a man before. She clumsily fit her mouth to his, trying to let his big tongue take hers, but her teeth bumped his lips, unpracticed.
He broke the kiss and stared down at her, his breath coming fast. Katarina reached for him again. If she practiced kissing him, maybe she’d get better at it.
Calder shoved her away and in a sudden movement, grabbed her tunic and yanked it from her body.
Katarina stood in a thin silk undertunic, which was wet and plastered to her torso.
Calder’s gaze moved to her breasts, which must have been almost completely visible through the white fabric.
Braden brought his hands up to cup her breasts. His palms were comforting against her cold skin but she looked up at Calder.
“No, I want you.”
Braden nipped her earlobe. “Aw, sweetie, you break my heart.”
He didn’t sound heartbroken. He sounded amused and delighted.
Calder’s mouth hardened. “What you say you want doesn’t matter, because you will want what I tell you.”
“You’re very sure about that,” Katarina said.
Braden chuckled.
“Because I know what you really want.” Calder touched Katarina’s temple. “In here, I know what you truly crave, what you want deep inside yourself.”
His touch was warm, soothing, melting. She’d love to fall to her knees and tell him she longed to obey him. But somehow she knew he wanted her to do that. He was using his Shareem pheromones on her, or trying to.
“No, I don’t think you do,” she said.
Calder’s brows went up the slightest bit, the only betrayal of his surprise.
Otherwise he stood like a rock.
Braden laughed and let Katarina go. “I think you’ve met your match, my friend.”
Calder yanked Katarina to him again, his mouth coming down on hers. She realized their last kiss had been gentle. This one was brutal, demanding, Calder not caring that she didn’t know how to kiss him back.
His unshaved whiskers burned her face, his hand bruised her neck. He stroked his tongue through her mouth, commanding complete surrender. She’d taken his cock into her mouth, swallowed his semen, but that was nothing to this powerful kiss.
Katarina touched his face. The left side was smooth with scars and skin grafts, the right side almost normal.
Calder pulled back, his brows jamming together. Katarina caressed his ruined cheek, wanting to pull his head down and hold him against her.
“Tie her hands,” Calder growled at Braden. “I don’t want her touching me.”
“Nah.” Braden’s voice had receded behind her. “It’s more fun to watch you squirm.”
“Then get out.” The harsh command was directed at Braden.
Katarina didn’t hear Braden leave. She wanted to turn and look at him, but she was too mesmerized by Calder’s eyes. She again ran her fingertips across his face.
“This is my house, Braden.”
“Your lair, you mean. I think I’ll stay and make sure the lady is all right.”
“Why wouldn’t she be?”
“Because you can get a little…exotic. She’s not ready for exotic, and she’s too cute to be broken by you.”
Katarina felt Calder’s fury mount. “Do you think I’d ever hurt her?”
“I know what Judith told me,” Braden said.
Calder’s mouth flattened. “I knew what Judith wanted.”
Dismay lanced through Katarina’s delight.
Who is Judith?
“I think I’ll stay as long as Katarina does,” Braden said.
Braden sounded worried, but strangely, Katarina didn’t feel worried in the slightest. Was it because of the soothing Shareem chemicals or because she believed Calder truly wouldn’t hurt her?
She’d believed in him yesterday, even with all he’d done to her. She’d been thoroughly pleasured and not hurt at all. Excited, not afraid.
“It’s all right, Braden,” she said, still caressing Calder’s face. “You don’t have to stay with me.”
She liked the contrast between the warm smoothness of the scarred side, the rough whiskers of the other. Both were strong with muscle, his cheekbones hard and even.
“This is
Calder
, sweetheart,” Braden said. “One of the best level threes ever made.
Means he’s gentle as a kitten one minute, dangerous as a desert tiger the next. You never know what he’s going to do.”
But that made him more exciting. “I don’t mind.”
Calder closed his hands around Katarina’s wrists, his grip like steel manacles.
“Take her and go.”
Katarina chilled but her nipples were tight, her heart beating hard and fast. “I don’t want to go.”
“We are finished.” Calder moved his hot blue gaze to Braden. “Don’t let her come back.”
“Calder, don’t be a stupid fuck,” Braden growled.
“I don’t want
you
here, either.” The light that had been trained on Calder went out, and he disappeared into deep shadow.
Katarina ran forward, reaching for him, but found nothing but another seamless black wall. Calder had used the tricks of his lair to elude her yet again.
“Too late, he already is a stupid fuck,” Braden said.
Katarina shivered, suddenly bereft. Calder was gone.
She turned to find Braden next to her, stark-naked. His body was perfectly formed, his black hair flowing over well-muscled shoulders, his eyes intense Shareem blue.
She’d touched this man, taken him into her mouth.
And yet she didn’t respond to him like she did to Calder, not even when he put his arm around her.
“My clothes are wet,” Katarina said, biting her lip against the tears that filled her eyes. She couldn’t leave in wet clothes. How stupid that this practical detail made her cry.
“It’s all right. He keeps spares.”
Braden’s voice was comforting but what he said made Katarina’s tears spill out.
Foolish Katarina. Of course she was only one of dozens of women who’d fallen under Calder’s spell. What made her think she’d be special to him?
“Poor sweetie.” Braden pulled her against his warm, wet body, stroking her hair.
“Forget about him, love. It’s the best way.”
Damn it, why was Braden so
nice
? He was a Shareem, a being meant to be shunned, a man who lived for only one thing.
Here he was, naked and aroused, comforting her because his friend had rejected her. And all Katarina could do was cry on him.
*
Katarina tried to take Braden’s advice and forget about Calder. After all, she’d lived twenty-seven years without knowing the man existed. She could return to life before Calder and continue her job.
Calder would likely find a different clinic for his next six-month checkup, and she’d never see him again. Shareem could go to any clinic because information on their scans and inoculations was fed from the medic’s handheld to the centralized Ministry of Non-Human Life Forms computer. It didn’t matter which clinic did the actual checkup.
The practical side of Katarina’s mind told her that. But every time a Shareem entered the clinic, her heart beat wildly in hope.
Braden had spread the word that Dr. Katarina d’Arnal was a medic nice to Shareem, and so Shareem had started coming to her.
Katarina seemed to have a Shareem in every week. Some came for their six-month scans and inoculations, but some returned for her to treat their every minor cut, scrape and bruise. When she pointed out that Shareem were amazingly healthy and didn’t need much medical attention, they said they came because they liked playing doctor with her. They’d laugh—charming, seductive laughter.
Katarina found that she liked their attention. She met level ones, who smiled lazily and turned every medical exam into a striptease. Level twos liked to tell crude jokes and promise a night of unforgettable fun if she would just come out with them.
Level threes confused her a bit. They didn’t tease and they weren’t playful. They told her, blatantly, what they envisioned doing with her, not caring when she squirmed.
She would smile and turn down the offers from all of them. She wondered at herself, knowing she could have night after night of amazing sexual experiences. And foolish Katarina only craved Calder.
Katarina never saw him. Calder didn’t come in, she never saw him when she walked from her flat to the clinic, and she didn’t see him when she purposely lingered in the market near his warehouse.
She’d ask the other Shareem, casually, if they’d spoken to him, but they always said they hadn’t. Some of them had never even met him, although they’d heard of him and his pleasure palace.
Katarina also met a few women who’d become the permanent lovers of Shareem.
Two Shareem, a level one called Aiden and a level three called Ky, visited for their six-month at the same time, accompanied by a lovely young woman.
“I have to come in with them because they’re shy,” the woman told Katarina as all three of them squeezed into the exam room. Then she laughed.
“Right, Brianne, baby,” said the blond one, Aiden. “Ky’s about as shy as a rock.”
Dark-haired Ky growled, “Fucking level ones.”
He began stripping off without embarrassment, as though being naked were more comfortable for him than being clothed. Katarina supposed it was, since Shareem body temperature was higher than a normal human’s and Bor Narga was a hot place.
“Hey, you like fucking level ones,” Aiden said.
“Asshole.”
“Exactly. Mine.”
Katarina kept her face averted during this crude exchange. She’d gotten more used to Shareem, but their casual approach to everything sometimes caught her off-guard.
“Get on with it,” Brianne said. “Dr. d’Arnal doesn’t have all day.”
Aiden smoothed Brianne’s hair and gave her a tongue-filled kiss. “Sure thing, sweet baby. I know you like it when we get naked.”
Brianne blushed rosy red but she didn’t look unhappy. Ky finished stripping his powerfully built body and stood under Katarina’s scanner. He kept muttering about fucking exams, fucking Ministry, fucking clinics.
Aiden laughed at him as he slowly shed his clothes, conscious of his audience.
Katarina kept her eyes averted but Brianne watched with enjoyment.
Brianne unnerved Katarina even more than did her two Shareem. Brianne d’Aroth was not only a highborn woman but a member of the ruling family of Bor Narga. Last year she’d broken up with her fiancé, forsaken her luxurious lifestyle and moved in with not one, but two Shareem in the slums of Pas City.