Gods, her pussy honey was sweet! He felt guilty for tasting it, even though he’d only licked it off his fingers and not tasted it straight from the source, as he had longed to do. It had taken every bit of self control he possessed not to lean forward and bury his face between her thighs, not to lap her sweet, soft little pussy while she was moaning and calling his name…
No! Need shook himself. What was wrong with him, wishing he could taste her pussy?
You swore off females, remember? he asked himself sternly. You made a vow to yourself never to take a mate again—it only leads to heartache and despair. Remember that, Need. You’ve done your duty by the girl and healed her—let that be an end to it. From now on, you have no reason to touch her again.
Right. He wouldn’t touch her, ever again. And he would get her back to where she had been taken from as soon as possible and then never think of her again.
Need nodded to himself, mentally sealing the resolution. He wasn’t going to get caught in the trap of desiring the girl and then falling for her and then, inevitably losing her, as he had lost Cleah. He would keep his distance—both emotionally and physically and before he knew it, the girl would be out of his life.
Feeling better about his decision, he went to his clothes storage unit and looked for something to give the girl to wear. Of course, everything he owned was far too big for her, but her gown was ripped and bloody and dusty—ruined beyond repair and he couldn’t let her run around naked. So it was his clothes or nothing for her—and Need didn’t think he could keep his resolution not to touch her if he let her hang around his cabin in the nude.
At first he feared he wouldn’t be able to find a single thing that would work for her but then, at the very back of his storage area, he saw a glint of metallic bronze.
Reaching far back into the storage unit, he grabbed the items of clothing that had caught his eye and pulled them out.
They were his old uniform shirts—the ones he’d worn whenever he visited the Mother Ship. There were two of them—long-sleeved, button-downs, made of a heavy, satiny fabric and dyed a deep bronze which happened to be the same color as his eyes. They denoted him as a Kindred warrior and Need hadn’t worn them in years.
Don’t even know why I still have these, he thought, examining the shirts. It wasn’t like he was ever planning to go back to the Mother Ship and renew his allegiance to the Kindred Nation or to visit the Sacred Grove to pray to a Goddess who had deserted him in his darkest hour. The girl might as well wear them—he had no other use for them.
He examined the shirts for a moment. Yes, they ought to hit her around mid-thigh and make a kind of dress—albeit a rather loose one.
Need looked for a cord to belt them with and came up with one of his old neck cravats, which were sometimes worn by males on formal occasions on his home world. Well, he had no use for that either. Life on a smuggler’s ship tended to be on the informal side, he thought dryly.
It wasn’t like he had to dress for dinner—although Captain Glo’ll did expect everyone in his crew to take Last Meal together. That was going to be interesting, considering that Drung had been bidding on the girl too and had lost.
Need wondered if he could get the girl excused from the nightly Last Meal ritual. He hoped it might be possible, since she wasn’t technically part of the crew. He would have to ask the Captain when he went up to the bridge to lay in a course for their next destination.
His mind still full of calculations for the near future, Need took the cravat—a long length of black silk—along with the shirts and brought them into the sleeping chamber.
The girl (he tried not to use her name, even to himself if he could help it because it made her harder to keep his distance) had covered herself modestly with the towel. She was sitting up in the center of the bed, looking around his sleeping chamber curiously when he came back. She jumped a little when he walked in and her gold-flecked eyes scanned his face, as though trying to read his emotions.
Need kept his features blank, hiding the immediate surge of agitation he felt when he saw her again…and smelled the sweet scent of her sex, which lingered in the air like an alluring perfume.
“Here,” he said, dumping the shirts on the bed and tossing the cravat on top of them. “These should do for you to wear. They’re mine so they’ll be too big, but you can roll up the sleeves and belt them with that.” He nodded at the cravat.