Surely even my subconscious mind didn’t want a man who sought the comfort of others.
I felt the warm air on my skin as Tark carried me across the outpost. It had been dark the last time I’d been outside. A full day had passed, and once more the light of day had faded. Inky blackness surrounded us, and on top of that, I was upside down. My mate was not giving me much opportunity to glimpse my new world.
Quickly enough, we were inside once again and I was lowered from Tark’s shoulder. He was slow about it, and when he set me upon my feet on the carpeted ground, he looked me over with an assessing gaze as if to assure my well-being.
We were in Tark’s tent.
“Where’s the fucking table?” I asked. “Do you expect me to bend over it again? Is that how Mara likes it? Or is tying a woman down the only way you men on Trion can fuck a woman?”
Tark stood quietly and let me toss out those barbed words. He wore attire similar to the previous day. Black pants, gray shirt, although this one had short sleeves and was a pullover, with buttons down the front. His broad shoulders and chest were well defined beneath the trim fabric. He was so big and yet he was the most perfect specimen of a man I’d ever seen. They didn’t make men like this on Earth, at least I’d never seen one. His dark hair was a little tousled, perhaps from carrying my heavy weight about.
It was his eyes, though, that were so expressive. I saw a glint of anger there, but he was remarkably calm. Calmer than I was. His gaze also held surprise and definitely heat.
“Are all women on Earth so difficult?”
“Do all men on Trion fuck everything with a pussy?” I countered, my voice shrill.
Instead of yelling, he knelt in front of me. Before I could figure out his intent, he had reached under my thin gown and removed the stimspheres from my body with a gentle tug on the dangling chain.
I gasped as they slid out and my pussy felt empty. I clenched down and it felt odd to have them gone, even though they’d stopped vibrating sometime while I’d been asleep. He set them aside, forgotten on the carpet.
“It seems that I will have to come up with alternate forms of punishment, for my device appears to have made both your mouth and your temper worse, not better.” I opened my mouth to speak, but the look he gave me had me remaining silent. “We barely know each other, and today I will remedy that.” Tark came to his feet, so close that the heat of his chest reached me across the narrow space. “You are questioning my honor, but I find that your anger pleases me.”
That was not what I expected him to say. I expected him to yell and wave his arms around and perhaps even toss me over some fucking stand and spank my ass again. But please him? He’d stunned me into stillness.
“It… it pleases you?” I asked.
“Yes.” He grinned and wrapped his strong hands around my upper arms just tight enough that I felt treasured, but not threatened. He knew how to disarm me. Damn the man, he was even more handsome when he grinned and my heart rate kicked up a notch. Just seeing him smile could be bad for my health. “You believe that I have done something dishonorable and you are upset about it. It pleases me that you would demand honor in your mate.”
I had no retort for that.
“I wish to know what dishonor you would lay at my feet.”
“You are well aware of your actions. Or perhaps there is a short-term memory problem here on Trion?”
Tark released my arms and I covered them with my own hands instantly in a sorry attempt to hold in his heat. He moved to a chair, sat down and leaned back, stretching his long legs out before him. Placing his elbows on the armrests, he put his hands together. “I have a perfect memory, mate. Now, tell me what displeases you.”
I sighed. Perhaps all men, no matter which planet they were born on, were obtuse.
“Did you forget that you’d just fucked me when you sent for another?”
His eyebrow arched then. “I requested another woman? Who?”
While Mara didn’t like me, I didn’t want to get her angrier. I felt like I was tattling like a child, but Mara hadn’t gone off in search of Tark, she’d been requested. I was only stating fact.
“Mara.”
Tark frowned. “Now your earlier statement about Mara makes sense. But Mara belongs to Davish, and I assure you, even if she did not, she would not be a woman I would request.”
It was my turn to frown. I was starting to feel a little uncomfortable, as my anger was quickly falling away. My insecurities were beginning to show. I looked down at the patterned rug.
“Oh.” I replayed the scene from memory. The harem guard had not mentioned Tark when he told Mara to go. Just he. That he had obviously been her mate, Davish.
What a bitch.
Through my lashes I saw him shake his head slowly. “I sent for the woman I wanted, and she refused me.”
My head came up then. He crooked his finger, beckoning me closer. I swallowed as I stepped toward him, the rug soft beneath my bare feet.