Chapter 4
Gwen
“Put me down.” I could walk. I wasn’t some helpless little girl who needed to be carried around, no matter how good it felt to let go and trust someone else who seemed to want to take care of me. But I took care of myself. The fact was, being so up close and personal to the sexiest man I’d ever laid eyes on was making it difficult to breathe. He smelled like heat and sex and wood and some alien spice that made my pussy clench and my breasts grow heavy. I’d never smelled anything like it. Like him. I couldn’t think. Thank god I’d never gotten too close to him before now, close enough to smell him. I’d have been climbing him like a monkey, ripping at his clothes.
I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it wasn’t for him to stop moving completely and set me on my feet in the hallway that led to the private quarters. “No?”
“What?” I swayed, leaning toward him, drawing his scent deep into my body. We were alone and he knew I wanted him. Hell, I picked him out of every guy on the planet. I didn’t have to pretend not to want him anymore.
“Mine?”
What was he asking me?
He moved to lift me into his arms again and I shoved his hands away.
“No?”
One word. Again. His voice was unnaturally deep and the fangs I could see peeking out from his upper lip were making me hot. I’d heard about the Hyperion bite, the rush of pleasure the women experienced when the males bit their mate, claimed them. I’d heard rumors that the bite was orgasmic, that black market dealers had created a synthesized version of the chemical and sold it from the shadows all over the galaxy. But I wouldn’t have to track down a drug dealer out on a space station or back alley world. I had the real thing staring at me, asking me something. I wanted his cock inside me, his fangs deep. Which was stupid, because if he bit me, he’d never let me go. He’d be just as ridiculous and possessive as the rest of the cavemen on this planet.
I was just horny. Really, really horny. I didn’t need fangs and serious stuff. I just needed to come and come hard. Surely this beast of a man could give me a few without any biting or… claiming stuff. It wasn’t like he was a virgin. No fucking way had he been celibate his whole life. There was fucking and then there was claiming. I was fine with fucking. Very fine with just that.
“No?”
“What?”
But then again, he hadn’t shown any interest in me before—other than the blatant bulge of his huge cock in his pants as he’d made his way down to me from the stands. That had been impossible to miss and that didn’t mean claiming. It meant he obviously wanted to fuck, too.
It was biological. All of it. Why would I even think he’d want to bite me and make this permanent? That was foolish. It wasn’t as if we’d been tested and matched like Rachel or Kristin and their mates through the Brides Program. We didn’t know anything about each other. We could be hot for each other and still not get along. Sure, the look in his eyes in the fighting pit had been all male, and he’d been ready to fight every single Prillon there to win me, but that was after I chose him. At that point, it was probably more a matter of his male ego, of pride, than actual desire for me. It wasn’t as if that pride would allow him to deny me in front of everyone.
I tried not to allow that thought to worm its way into my heart and make it hurt any more than the day’s events had already caused, but I failed. Miserably. I was a freak with a pussy. The only available va-jay-jay on the planet and Mak wanted some. I wasn’t super-model beautiful or cute, small and thin. I was a mixed-race mutt from Earth with cyborg parts and no feminine grace to speak of. I’d rather kill something than cook dinner for it. And now, in a moment of selfishness and weakness, I’d chosen a male who didn’t even want me to begin with. I should have chosen Marz. Or Tane. Any of them. It wouldn’t have made any difference because each and every one of them wanted to gobble me up with a spoon. But no, I had to trap the one male on the planet who didn’t want anything to do with me in the first place.
First rate fuck up. I didn’t think with my pussy very often, and this was why. Nothing but trouble, that needy bitch. “I’m sorry, Mak. I shouldn’t have forced you.”
“Gwen.” He backed me up against the wall, and I used the cold, hard surface to brace myself as he got closer, his lips hovering over mine. “We have been talking in circles. Let me ask you plain. Yes or no, female? I want you. I want to fuck you, fill you with my seed. Devour you. Eat your pussy and make you scream my name. Yes or no? No more games.”
Oh. Yes or no. He meant him. Him and me.
He wanted me after all. At least the fucking part. And I was a go for the screaming. Screaming meant orgasms. Lots of orgasms.
Mak didn’t touch me, his entire being inches from mine, as if he were waiting for the answer to make contact. The heat from his frame was melting me where I stood, making my knees weak. Feeling bold, and desperate to touch him again, I lifted my arms and wrapped them around his neck, pulling his head down. He allowed me to move him and I took advantage, closing the distance between our lips. “Yes. And I’ll speak plainly in return. I want you to fuck me.”
My lips brushed his and I sighed, melting, pressing my body to his heat. His strength. God, he was huge. And strong. Maybe even stronger than me. I wouldn’t have to hold back, worry about hurting him, breaking him. Scaring him away.
I tilted my head to the side almost instinctively. I wanted him to bite me. It was stupid, I knew, but right now, I didn’t care. I wanted him to lose control, to really want me. Me. And not in a fuck and forget it way, despite what my head was screaming at me as I tilted my head even farther to the side, practically begging for his teeth. His mark. His claim.
I wanted to be more than a walking vagina, an available female. As stupid and empty a dream as it was with all the cyborg enhanced parts in my body, I wanted to feel beautiful and feminine and desired. My heart was in charge, swirling in Mak’s scent and heat and alpha-male hotness. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I’d regret it tomorrow, but my mind had been kicked to the backseat and my body was fully in charge. I knew it.
I didn’t care.
“Bite me, Mak. Do it. I need you inside me.”
With a groan that made my pussy clench with demand, Mak bent over me, nuzzling the exposed skin of my neck with his fangs. I shivered, the air frozen in my lungs in anticipation. Lust. One bite and I’d come, could feel the rage of need building in my body like a coiled spring pushed to the breaking point.
“No.” It wasn’t a question this time, but a refusal, and I stilled. Frowned. My fragile heart, which had just begun to beat again, slipped away, back into the dark corner where I’d left her all those weeks ago when the Hive took me. Broke me.
I’d put myself back together, stronger than before. Then Earth had rejected me. The males on this planet didn’t know me, didn’t bother to know me. They only wanted a female, a hot, wet pussy, someone to breed, and I was the only female available.
I was an idiot. I never should have agreed to the governor’s stupid demand that I choose a mate. I should have chosen Tane, or even Captain Marz. At least they actually wanted to be with me. If I had to fuck someone, I didn’t want to be with a male who didn’t actually want me. A mating? That was a whole different level. I knew that. But when every other male in that arena would have had me naked and stuffed full of his cock already, Mak’s refusal to bite me made me feel three times as stupid for following my little cracked heart. For choosing him.