Stud (19 page)

“Yeah, right. Although how you could say that after meeting my father…” She shuddered and then shook her head as though trying to erase the memories. “Hey, I thought we were supposed to be having fun.”

“You’re absolutely right. Here, have some more tea and sit back and relax.” He refilled her cup and got to his feet. “I’ll throw these dishes in the washer and be right back.”

Lucy watched him as he walked over to the speeder.
So
much
for
being
able
to
spoil
him
rotten.
Thus far, he hadn’t given her the chance.

He was right about the importance of family, though, no matter how much of a pain in the neck they were. Even so, she remained firm in her decision to let them stew for a while. Let them miss having her at their beck and call and see how they liked it.

No, that would be punishing them, and Lucy didn’t feel the need to punish anyone. She only wanted her freedom, and she had that now. She felt no residual animosity toward them at all. Funny how removing yourself from a situation could make you view it with new eyes.

Eyes that were still riveted to Tarq. He was simply leaning over the side of the speeder to put away the dishes, but it was all she could do not to jump up and run after him. She’d never breakfasted with a man she’d spent the night with, and if she ever had, she was sure he wouldn’t have looked even half as good wearing nothing but sandals and a pair of jeans.

Tearing her eyes away from him, she got up, finding it difficult to sit still while he took care of the chores. Aside from that, all the tea she’d drunk was going straight through her. After initially attributing this symptom to her pregnancy, she realized she’d never lingered over breakfast long enough to drink that much before.

Upon her return from a brief trip behind the tent, she found Tarq in the creek, washing her clothes. He must’ve also been washing his jeans because he wasn’t wearing a single stitch. She was about to ask if that was his only pair of pants when she remembered the bit about getting nailed after breakfast. If he was trying to lure her into jumping his bones, he was doing a damn fine job of it.

Not that she needed any encouragement. The unfortunate truth was that she was afraid she was getting hooked on him. She already suspected that she’d fallen in love with him, but knew that love could be fickle, could turn to hatred on a whim, and could be found in many places. However, the bond between a Zetithian man and his mate seemed to be stronger than love. It was physical, chemical, and undeniable. The more she mated with him the stronger the bond would become. No wonder he seldom stayed as long with other women. If he did, they would never have let him go. He’d said he felt comfortable being with her, but in actual truth, he was playing with fire.

What would a woman do to hang onto him? Throw herself at his feet? Lock him in her bedroom? Stow away in his speeder? Lucy wasn’t sure, but giving in to him, even out of pity—convenient though it was—couldn’t end up causing her anything but heartache, or withdrawal symptoms, or whatever it was a woman went through when she lost her Zetithian mate.

Surely it wouldn’t kill her. She might feel like someone had ripped her heart out, but she wouldn’t die. Anything short of that, she could endure. People didn’t die of broken hearts, no matter how much they might want to.

“Aren’t you cold?”

“Actually, it feels pretty good. The water isn’t as cold as you might think, and the sun’s already getting hot.” A slow, seductive smile touched his lips. “Care to join me?”

“I probably shouldn’t,” she replied. “In fact, I should probably stay as far away from you as possible. I wouldn’t want you to get all crabby again—although a dip in the creek might make me smell better.”

He stared at her, aghast. “Would you wash a rose to get rid of its scent?”

“Well, no…”

“Lucy, right now you smell better to me than anything. Better than any flower or any food. It draws me to you like a magnet and makes me feel like I’m drowning in…” He paused as though searching for the right word. “Chocolate.”

“Oh.” Lucy nearly choked on the word.

He smiled again. “But fortunately nothing can wash it away completely. Don’t even bother to try.”

“Then I don’t need to help you wash the clothes?”

He shook his head. “Not if you don’t want to.”

“It isn’t a matter of whether I want to or not. It’s a matter of feeling like I should.”

His eyes narrowed. “You know something? You aren’t a bit good at letting someone else do stuff for you.”

“That’s not too surprising. I’m used to doing chores all by myself most of the time.”

“Well, if it’s such a hardship for you, would you do me a favor and pull my bedroll out of the tent and spread it out there on the bank? I could use a towel, too. There are some in one of the rear compartments in the speeder. The one with a white sticker on it.”

Lucy nodded and did as he asked, thankful for the opportunity to do something other than simply stand there and watch him while he worked—even if he did appear to be enjoying himself. The fact that he was naked made her feel even more strange—sort of voyeuristic in a way.

She pulled out the bedroll and then went to get a towel. The compartment was easy to find. Not only did it have a white sticker on the handle, but it was also clearly labeled “Bed and Bath Linens.” It was even written in the Standard Tongue.

Did he think she couldn’t read? She would have found the towels as soon as she checked the cargo space, whether he’d told her where to look or not. Examining the other storage lockers, she noticed that they were all labeled the same way—the original printed labels along with a different colored sticker on each handle. Everything else in the speeder was a pictograph, some of them hand painted.

The truth slapped her in the face with a force that left her stunned. It wasn’t
her
ability to read that he questioned; it was his own. He probably had to rely on the color coding because he had no idea what the labels meant. She thought back to the first day they’d met. He hadn’t ordered off the menu; he’d asked her what she recommended. While this wasn’t an uncommon thing for a new customer to do, the fact that he’d done it a second time should have made her wonder. Then what he’d said about not being very smart and saying stupid things all the time. And his comment about how smart she was when all she’d done was read the directions on how to heat up his dinner.

But he functioned so well otherwise. He was traveling all over the planet—and this wasn’t the first place he’d done it. He’d known that it was a two-day trip in a speeder to Yalka. Lucy wasn’t familiar with the controls on the speeder, but she was beginning to suspect that the navigation system was not only voice activated, but gave voice commands and directions. He hadn’t needed it after he’d picked her up because the way to Yalka was perfectly obvious to anyone.

Closing the compartment, she took the towel back to Tarq. He was still in the creek wringing out her clothes. “Here,” he said, tossing her the shirt. “Hang that up on those rulbnach trees.”

Lucy was on the alert, or she probably wouldn’t have registered the fact that he knew the trees by name. “You must’ve been here a while to know the names of the trees.”

“Not really. The bark is exported. It’s used to smoke meats on several planets. I forget where I first heard about it.”

“Yet another of those culinary herbs and spices you can identify?”

“Yes, but I wouldn’t have known what kind of trees they were if I hadn’t used some deadwood on the fire last night. The smoke has a very unique aroma.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him to spell rulbnach, just to test her theory, but she stopped herself in time. If he couldn’t read—and hadn’t told her himself—he was probably a little touchy about it, maybe even embarrassed. “I didn’t know the bark was exported. But then, there are a lot of things I don’t know about this part of the world.”

Smiling, he wrung out her khakis and tossed them to her. “You need to get out more.”

“No kidding.” She draped her pants over a low branch. Even in full sun they would need several hours to dry. Tarq was taking this vacation thing further than she’d thought. “Couldn’t we tie our clothes to the speeder and let them blow dry on the way to Yalka?”

The way his face fell at this suggestion made her wish she’d stopped herself from saying that as well. He opened his mouth to speak, but hesitated a few seconds before he replied. “They’d pick up too much dust and end up dirtier than they were to begin with.”

“I didn’t think speeders kicked up any dust.”

“Maybe none that you can see, but I’ve tried drying clothes that way before. It doesn’t work.”

His subsequent smile contained a trace of relief—but why would he be relieved? Was he deliberately trying to delay her, thinking her father would catch up with them? Lucy certainly hoped not, but what Tarq had said about not cutting herself off from her family made her wonder—though insisting that she’d come home when she got hungry enough was exactly the sort of thing Uther Force would say. She comforted herself with the assumption that camping out along the trail for a day or two was the sort of thing Tarq did all the time. If that were the case, her presence wouldn’t have made any difference—though if he’d intended to take time off from his procreative duties, that plan had fallen through.

Tarq gave his jeans a few quick twists, but they were still dripping when he climbed up the bank. Lucy handed him the towel and hung his pants up beside hers, thinking how domestic this whole scenario would appear to the casual observer—as though she and Tarq had been together for five years instead of going on five days.

Tarq finished drying himself and lay down on his bedroll, stretching out on his back with his hands behind his head, his hair spread out on the pillow. His cock was standing straight up and he was purring. “You said you aren’t in any hurry to get to Yalka, right?”

“Well, no, I’m not…”

“Good, because I just want to stay here and take it easy for a while. It’s been a wonderful day so far—great sex, a delicious breakfast, a nice dip in the creek—but if you’d care to take your clothes off and sit on my face, my morning would be complete.”

The sight of Tarq’s nude body lying on the bank already had Lucy’s thoughts headed in a decidedly carnal direction, but his request sent a gush of warmth running down her thighs from her aching core.

Tarq inhaled deeply and his cock quivered, its color instantly changing from deep pink to bluish purple. “Got to you with that one, didn’t I?”

“B-but that’s not fair!” she sputtered. “I can’t help it if you can smell every little emotion I feel!”

With a snicker, he ran his fingers down the length of his penis. “Like you can’t see exactly what I’m feeling?”

She wanted to snap at him for touching what she was beginning to think of as her own personal property, but she bit back her retort as he used his whole hand to spread his slick fluid all up and down the shaft. Tarq might not be able to read worth a darn, but when it came to driving women wild, he was a freakin’ genius.

“Come on, Lucy. I’ve had breakfast. Now I’m ready for dessert.”

“Um… there’s some chocolate pie left.”

“I don’t want pie,” he growled. “I want
you.
I want you to sit on my face while I eat your sweet wet pussy.”

He’d never talked like that to her before. No one had. It wasn’t what anyone would call romantic, but it certainly had the desired effect. Without another moment’s hesitation, she stripped off her clothes and went to him.

Tarq took her hand and pulled her down beside him. Guiding her with his hands on her hips, he soon had her on her knees, her weeping body hovering just above his mouth. “Now, sit.”

His hot tongue slid deeply into her core, its tip teasing her mercilessly while he lapped up her juice. “Oh, Lucy. You taste like love.”

Lucy reached down and grabbed handfuls of his hair, using it to pull him in deeper as she rose up and down on his tongue. Tarq made an indescribable sound and, a moment later, Lucy felt his warm semen hit her in the back. With a snarl, Tarq sucked her clitoris into his mouth, rubbing it hard with his rough tongue. Lucy couldn’t take any more. Falling forward onto her hands, she felt her clit pulsating in his mouth and heard herself making sounds that were more animal than human.

Tarq gave her another deep lick and lifted her from his lips. “Now, do me another favor and turn around and suck my dick.”

Closing his eyes, he let out a gasp as her warm mouth closed over him. While she sucked, he pulled her down, lightly nipping her luscious ass. His
snard
lay in a glistening stripe down the middle of her back, which he smoothed toward him until it trickled over her anus. Circling her tight hole with a fingertip, he felt her lurch forward to avoid the contact, letting go of his cock.

“Don’t worry, Lucy. This will feel very good.”

Using his semen as a lubricant, he teased her gently, gradually probing to the full depth his finger could reach. Her pussy lips still dripped enticingly, and he leaned in for another delicious taste. Smiling as she sighed and went down on him again, he found her sweet spot, caressing it carefully at first, and then bearing down harder as he felt her respond. The orgasms from his cock syrup came and went, but he could tell the difference between those and the kind he was hoping to give her.
Just
a
little
longer…