I hoped her mate found peace in death because I was going to take this female and make her mine. Bury my cock in her core and watch her shudder with pleasure as I filled her. I would make her beg. And scream. And forget who she was. Where she was. Forget everything but me.
Let go.
But not like this. Not until she admitted what she wanted, what she needed... and asked me to give it to her.
Reaching between us, I grabbed her wrists and secured them at her sides. I felt her resistance, her fight. “What are you doing, gara?”
She shook her head and twisted her wrists in a half-hearted attempt to break my hold. If she had fought fully, I would release her immediately, but I knew—hoped—that was not what she desired. Not at all.
“Let me go,” she hissed, her eyes narrow. Heated. Furious.
“Tell me what you are doing.”
Surprisingly, a tear gathered in her eye, slipped down one cheek. Yet she remained stubborn in stony silence. I moved to secure both of her wrists behind her back in just one of my hands and used the other to gently wipe the tear from her cheek.
And just like that, I found the chink in her strength. She’d been through so much since her transport from Earth. More than any female should endure, especially alone.
She was not that way any longer. She didn’t need to be so brave. So… strong.
“I will give you anything you desire, gara, but only if I know what you need.”
She choked back an angry cry and twisted. Hard. Ah, she was not yet ready.
I released her at once, and she scrambled away from me on hands and knees, chest heaving like she’d run a long race. “I don’t need anything. I want—”
I waited in silence. I would not take advantage of a female who did not know her own mind. Or couldn?
?t voice her needs aloud. I would not guess with her, and I would not push. She would need to discover it on her own, for it was within her, this need she didn’t realize she even had.
What had her life on Earth been like to hide such desired beauty?
She was an Interstellar Bride. Her mate was dead, but she was a true prize, a female who not only longed for the comfort and safety a dominant Trion mate could provide but hungered for him. Needed to surrender control.
She’d volunteered to be matched. The testing had plumbed her subconscious, found her deepest needs and desires. Matched her to Trion, the planet where females were the most submissive in the galaxy.
Zara struggled to her feet and wiped at her eyes, where I assumed more tears streaked her soft cheeks, tears I could not see. Or perhaps the tears were imagined. Emotional wounds. Invisible to my eye.
Our gazes locked, and I rose slowly as well, not even attempting to hide the bulge of the hard cock in my pants. Proof of my desire. Lust. I had needs of my own, and she was stirring everything primitive within me to a dangerous level. She’d felt it in the palm of her hand. “What do you want, gara?” I asked, my voice soft. Soothing.
She used trembling hands to rub both of her arms, as if cold. The ship was anything but sensing our body temperatures and adjusting the environmental controls accordingly.
“Don’t call me that,” she hissed.
One of these days, she’d preen and be soothed by that endearment, know it was honest and filled with desire.
Taking a step forward, I approached. Another. The room was small, and in moments, I stood toe to toe with the defiant female. Using every bit of tenderness I could summon as my body raged at me to turn her around, shove her against the wall and make her mine, I grazed her chin with my fingertips and angled her face up so our eyes met. Held. “Anything, gara. But I do not take what is not freely given.”
Her tongue traced a rapid line across her lips and her breathing hitched. A flush heated her cheeks, but she did not pull away. “What do you want me to give you?”
Everything, I realized. I wanted this female to be mine. Her fire and courage, her sass, the flash of defiance in her eyes. More, I wanted her heart and her body and her trust. I had never encountered another female like her, not even Ivy, with her Hive implants and mate, Zenos, by her side. Never had I met a woman, a human woman, who could escape Jirghogis and steal his titan stick, face down Ulza of Cerberus legion, and stand toe-to-toe with a thief and smuggler she barely knew but instinctively trusted not to hurt her.
She was remarkable. One of a kind.
Mine.
“Isaak?” Zara’s prompt made me realize I’d been staring. I needed to maintain control. Never had I been so close to giving in to my body’s demands for a mate. The need to bury my cock deep drove me with a sharp, knife-edged pain that I welcomed. Embraced. I would ride my need for hours if she would allow me to pleasure her, glory in the fire building in both mind and body until my release was an agony of bliss.
But my desire was built on a lie. Out here in space, I had no home to offer a female. No family name, no riches, no security. I would never take a female into Hive controlled territory on one of my raids. And I could not leave a mate unprotected in this sector of space long enough to go on my own.