Stud (20 page)

Lucy let out a cry as her body crashed down on him, her hot core bathing his face with its amazing essence.

“I need to get inside you, Lucy… Please…”

He wasn’t sure she could move without help, but Lucy somehow managed to crawl down his body and impale herself with his shaft. Tarq groaned as the blunt head penetrated and she settled down on him, taking his full length inside her. She not only smelled like heaven, but she fit like she’d been made for him—in every possible way, from her head to her toes and everything in between.

As he gazed up at her, she pulled the clip out of her dark hair, letting it cascade down her back as her body arched backward, driving him in even deeper. He rocked upward, his cock sweeping through her slick core in a slow, deliberate circle. As he moved, his thrusts became more frantic, his body urging him onward—seeking, reaching, grasping—until the moment finally came when infinity opened up and sucked him in.

Tarq pulled her into his arms, kissing her with a ferocity that astonished him. If he’d had any doubts before, they evaporated as her lips melted into his. No other woman had ever affected him the way Lucy did. She was his mate, the one he’d been searching for all his life.

Tarq was about to blurt out everything he was feeling when Lucy rolled away from him. Feeling more bereft than if he’d lost an arm, he stole a glance at her. She was gazing up at the sky with an expression that didn’t bode well. She was thinking about something. Hard.

Chapter 13

Tarq truly had no idea what he could do to a woman. None. Otherwise he would have known better than to keep tempting her with words guaranteed to make her give in to her own desires—desires that could only result in more suffering in the end. She reminded herself that sex was a job to him, one that he obviously enjoyed, but a job nonetheless. Even so, Lucy didn’t understand how he could keep going from planet to planet spreading his
snard
the way Johnny Appleseed had planted trees without having some regrets about some of those he left behind.

Lucy wondered if he’d ever heard that old legend. It seemed unlikely, but she wouldn’t have thought that your average Zetithian would have been able to describe Colonel Sanders, either. Tarq was something of a mystery. Culturally, he could have been born on Earth or one of its colonies, as his speech patterns and style of dress would suggest, and yet in other ways, he was so very alien.

All she knew about his past was that his family had all been killed and he’d “inherited” a large sum of money from the nut who’d tried to destroy the Zetithian race. The
snard
spreading she could understand from the perspective of an endangered species, but she had no idea why he couldn’t read or why he’d decided to sell the use of his dick to any woman with a thousand credits to spare. Maybe it was simply to earn enough money so that he could do what he was doing now.

“What are you thinking about?”

She frowned slightly. It was difficult to put into words. “About how I’m camping out in the middle of the Malturn Wilderness with someone I don’t really know.”

“Is that a problem?”

“Yes—no… Well, it should be, but maybe it isn’t. I don’t know.” She paused, scratching her head. Only a few minutes before, she’d done some really kinky stuff with him. She shouldn’t feel so odd asking him about his life.

Then again, perhaps it was best if she
didn’t
get to know him. Learning all about him might make him that much harder to give up.

“What would you like to know?”

“Nothing. I don’t mean to pry. Forget I asked.”

“You wouldn’t be prying, but there really isn’t much to tell. After my family was killed, I was picked up by a refugee ship and spent the next twenty-five years in space.”

“Just flying around?”

Tarq nodded. “We didn’t dare to stop on any world or even leave the ship. Amelyana would go down to the surface in a shuttle, bringing back enough supplies to see us through until we came to another inhabited planet.”

“Amelyana?”

“She was the wife of Rutger Grekkor, the man who tried to destroy us after she took a Zetithian lover.”

“I heard something about that. He must’ve been really crazy.”
And
she
must’ve felt terribly guilty…

“That’s putting it mildly. Amelyana was afraid to even let us establish a colony somewhere. She knew Grekkor would find us and try again, so she kept us aboard her ship until she heard he was dead.”

“On a ship for twenty-five years?” Lucy shook her head, unable to comprehend what kind of life that must have been. “Geez, how many of you were there?”

“About a hundred,” he replied. “All of us orphans and most of us boys. I was twelve at the time. My friend Dax—he’s the one who got Grekkor’s personal ship and gives me a ride from planet to planet—was only two.”

“So you still remember Zetith?”

“Better than most.” His eyes grew wistful. “Our planet was beautiful. Thick forests, deep rivers, open plains, oceans—a lot like Earth, actually—and this planet too—but greener.”

“So how come you seem more Terran than Zetithian? I mean, you
look
Zetithian—and I know you are—but you wear jeans and know about Colonel Sanders.”

“That’s Amelyana’s influence,” he said, chuckling. “She was Terran and taught us her culture as well as our own. There was a huge database in the ship’s computer. Dax was—” He stopped abruptly.

“Dax was what?”

“The smart one,” he said with a wince. “I was more interested in girls.”

Lucy giggled. “Why does that not surprise me?”

Tarq grinned sheepishly. “It’s what I’m best at—and believe me, you had to be good because there were a whole lot more guys than girls. Looking back, I think Amelyana collected mostly male orphans on purpose. Our women could care less about sex and won’t cross with any other species.”

“You mean it takes a Zetithian guy for a Zetithian girl?”

“Oh, yeah. And you wouldn’t
believe
what you have to go through to mate with one of them.
Very
picky.”

Having experienced the full force of Zetithian male sexuality, Lucy should have suspected that, but with nothing to use for comparison, she hadn’t considered the need for it. She could have been happy with a human male—and would have been, if it hadn’t been for Tarq—but had a feeling that nothing less than a Zetithian—no, nothing less than
Tarq
—would do from now on. Not that she’d ever have that option. “And you boys aren’t so choosy?”

“More so than you might think. If a woman doesn’t smell right, nothing happens.”

“Nothing? You mean you can’t even…?”

Tarq grinned. “I mean
nothing
.”

“Not even if you’re, um, by yourself?”

“Not even then.”

“Hmm… Definitely different from human males, then—or so I’ve heard. I figured the whole scent thing was just the icing on the cake, but you’re saying you can’t do
anything
without it?”

“That’s right.”

She was looking at his face, but a quick glance out of the corner of her eye was enough to assure her that the damn thing was already standing straight up again. “You probably need a break. How far away do I have to be for it to stop doing that?”

“Depends on which way the wind is blowing.”

“Guess I ought to at least be downwind from you then.”

“Who said I wanted it to stop?”

Rolling her eyes, she got to her feet. “Don’t you ever get tired of it?”

“The sex or the erection?”

“Either one.”

“Sometimes,” he admitted. “But not today. I—I’ll leave you alone, though. I’m sorry for bothering you so much.”

Lucy stared at him for a few seconds, not quite sure what she was hearing. He’d apologized the first time for being a little rough, but—

Oh, yeah, right. Pity fuck.
She’d forgotten. He even seemed a little embarrassed. “I don’t mind. But you did say even you get tired of it sometimes.”

Tarq sighed. “Yeah, I did, but that was mostly when I was on Rhylos. We were turning four or five tricks a day, and the last year or so it started getting old. Since I’ve been traveling, it’s been easier.”

“The last year or so? How long were you there?”

“A little over four years. It took us a while to get the place going, but our appointments booked up really fast once the word got out.”

Lucy did some quick mental math. Not only had he been earning up to five thousand credits a day, he was older than she’d previously supposed. “That makes you what? Forty-five?”

Tarq grimaced. “Oh, so now you think I’m old.”

“I didn’t say that. I’m only trying to understand—”

“Zetithians age more slowly than humans do, and we have a longer lifespan.”

“So, a forty-five-year-old Zetithian is comparable to a human in their thirties?”

“That’s about right.” Cocking his head, he studied her closely. “I’m guessing you’re in your twenties.”

It was Lucy’s turn to grimace. “Not for long. I’ll be thirty in a couple of months.”

The terms
spinster
and
old
maid
might have been outmoded for centuries, but Lucy felt like they still applied—to her, anyway. However, there was some consolation in knowing that she wouldn’t wind up as a
childless
old maid; plus, she’d had some sexual experiences that most married women would envy.

And she owed all of that to Tarq. The need to spoil him rotten came hurtling back. “Can I get you anything? Some tea, maybe?”

He opened his mouth to speak but hesitated. “Uh, yeah. Sure. Tea would be nice.”

She tossed a few more pieces of wood onto the fire and then refilled the pan with water from the creek. Setting the pan on the trivet to boil, it occurred to her that she’d done all of that without putting on so much as a pair of shoes.
You’ve come a long way, baby.

Tarq must’ve noticed her bemused smile but misinterpreted it. “I’m not so old that you have to wait on me.”

The most logical explanation was much easier to admit than the real one. “Force of habit,” she said with a dismissive gesture. “I’ve been a waitress all my life.”

Tarq frowned. “And I’ve been a stud all my life.” He smiled ruefully. “We make quite a pair, don’t we?”

Except that they
weren’t
a pair and never would be. The twinge she felt near her heart didn’t bode well. With a brief nod, she gathered up her clothes. “I’m going to get dressed. I’ll be right back.”

She headed toward the tent, fighting back tears. Once inside, she let them flow while she wiped away every trace of him with a
scrail
cloth. If only she could wipe him out of her mind as easily.

Tarq went over to the speeder for another pair of jeans and put them on, unable to figure out why his erection wouldn’t go down now that she was—

She
was
sitting
on
your
face, dumb-butt.
Opening a bottle of water, he doused his face before wiping away her essence with a clean
scrail.

Spreading the cloth out on the speeder’s canopy, he let the sun do its job. Within minutes, the cloth was clean and dry again. Tarq let out a snicker. If only
his
task was that easy. Getting to know a woman was a lot more difficult than simply fucking her. His body was primed and ready for sex, but the right things to say to Lucy eluded him. For a while there it seemed like things were going fairly well, but something upset her; he could smell it and knew the emotion, but the root cause was a puzzle.

His other plan wasn’t working very well either. She didn’t know how to accept what he was trying to do for her any more than he knew how to talk about anything other than sex. His whole life had revolved around it, and yet the workings of the female mind still weren’t clear to him. He might know how to press the buttons on the female libido, but everything else…

He glanced back at the tent. Lucy was still inside with the flap closed. She obviously didn’t want him to see her in the nude anymore. Perhaps she thought she was being kind to him, keeping herself out of his sight and out of the range of his nose, giving him a break, as she’d suggested. Unfortunately, all she was doing was making him doubt himself even more. Either that or she didn’t want him at all and was letting her actions speak for her.

The fact that she’d let him fuck her didn’t mean a damn thing. Tarq knew very well that human females found Zetithian men irresistible. Too bad their response was less of a choice and more of an instinct.