Parallel Attraction Read online

  His eyes tightly closed, he gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head. "None necessary."

  "Shall I continue?" she purred, but his only reply was to throw his head back in lusty enthusiasm. That was a definite yes. Again she wrapped his erection in the sheath of material, stroking him with a fevered pressure. "Ah, Kelsey." He said nothing more, simply repeated her name like the most joyous of chants, over and over, lost in the pleasure she offered him.

  At last, he clasped her by the wrist, shaking his head. "Stop, love!" he cried out. "You must cease." Or he would obviously spill himself all over that satin sheet, and never get inside of her. She understood. And she had to agree with his assessment of their predicament. She lay there on her side, her head propped on one elbow, feeling mightily pleased with herself.

  "So, Jared, what else should I know about your people?" she asked in a throaty voice. She was only partly joking.

  Opening his muscled, dark arms to her, he wrapped her against his side. "Not now," he said.

  Now this had her curious—apparently there was something more she needed to know, but with both of his large, golden-skinned hands he grasped her, urging her closer. "Please, mate," he moaned in a tight voice, "let me bed you."

  With a flash of barely concealed energy, he pushed her down into the mattress. In that half second, he moved from being the pleasured to being her master. God, he was heavy— she hadn't felt the full weight of his large, solid frame either of their earlier times of making love, but now—oh God, she thought, feeling his hugeness atop her—the alien nearly knocked the breath out of her lungs.

  Easing himself between her legs, Jared settled his hips atop hers. There were so many ways he longed to join with her—ways he knew she didn't yet understand. His own people's ways. There would be time for such. Right now he hungered to plunge deep within her warmth, to feel her all about him. He lifted a hand to her cheek, brushing curls away so he could gaze into her clear, lovely eyes. He yearned to take her to the same ecstatic pinnacle she'd been drawing him toward.

  "Now you're shaking," she whispered, capturing his unsteady hand against her cheek.

  Swallowing hard, he nodded. "The . . . intensity," he managed to get out, though some distant, Refarian-accented voice told him his body's reaction to her was far more complex than that. Only an hour had passed since they'd initially mated, and already ever-spiraling heat swirled through his body.

  For a silent, profound moment, they just stared into each other's eyes. He searched her face, sought to believe she accepted all that he was. God, she had no idea. No true notion of all that his alienness might mean, especially in their marriage bed. As if reading his thoughts—which, perhaps, she had done—she lifted silencing fingers to his lips.

  "Come inside me, Jared," she urged, bucking her hips upward against his. "Don't keep teasing me."

  Burying his face in her hair, he released a pent-up growl of yearning, and thrust within her. And then they stilled, lost in each other, as his soul met such an explosion of color as he'd never known before. Purest gold showering over him, brilliant magenta caressing him. "Ah! Kelsha, nyaat lansvari! A cascade of love pledges tumbled through his mind, none in English. He was a dolt at translating his love for her when they were in the throes of lovemaking.

  He gave a gentle thrust of his hips: she threw her head back, crying out her pleasure, the smooth, creamy skin of her neck exposed to him. Nibbling her there, he kissed and licked her, feeling her warm hands cupping him from behind, urging him deeper. Fuller.

  Flashes of golden-eyed purples, wavering teals. His lover's soul was a beautiful otherworldly tapestry. He wasn't sure what brought him more rapture at the moment—her soul joining or her lovemaking.

  Warm hands pulled at his upper thighs, holding on for a harder ride. She seemed to be demanding it, requiring it; he let all gentleness fall away, pushing and thrusting and driving into her with his unrestrained warrior's needs.

  She met every thrust. Every dip of his hips, she answered with a thrilling charge upward, her cries keening across his mind. And then suddenly, she shoved at his chest, both open palms forcing him apart from her—as if she meant to stop him. Shaking his head dazedly, he stared down at her. "What, love?" he asked, panic teasing at the edges of his awareness. Had he been too rough? Too hungry? Too alien? "What've I done, love?"

  She settled into the pillows beneath him, fingering both of his nipples as she studied him. "I just wanted…." She stared up at him, blinking her eyes, which glimmered like royal jewels, and shook her head. A strange smile played at the edges of her full mouth.

  "More? Or was it too much?" he rushed. "I can go slower—faster?" Gods, he was in a full-throttle shambles. It had been too damned long since he'd taken a lover; he was useless in bed—that had to be it.

  "Shh," she whispered, caressing her fingertips over his neck, his chest. "I just wanted to slow down a little."

  "I am sorry for being so clumsy," he apologized. "Too much time in warfare—" he began to lament, but she lifted upward, covering his mouth with her own to silence him. Her tongue teased his lips open, twining and mating with his own. She tasted human. She tasted like no other woman he had ever lain with in his life. She tasted and smelled like his mate.

  I wanted you to slow down, Jared, she explained, the words a gentle sigh across his soul's edge. That's all. You know how perfect this is—you are. All I've ever felt is your perfection.

  Panting, he broke the kiss, "I have never felt this," he blurted, hardly able to breathe for the tightness their bond had formed in his chest; he was reminded of a hunter's bow, strung impossibly taut.

  "Hard to breathe," she agreed, swallowing hard.

  "Need to ... finish." He gulped, his voice hoarse beyond recognition. Warm hands clasped his hips, taking hold again. Burying his face against her cheek, he slid his own palms beneath her, cupping her full, round bottom. With his mouth, he nuzzled her collarbone, nipping at the soft, exposed skin there.

  Kelsey felt the' enormous hard length of him and she struggled to breathe with every fevered thrust he made. His body was on fire—ravaged by fever—and he didn't even seem to realize it. It was just as when he'd first returned to the bedroom, his entire body golden, only now the raging heat had pooled most intensely within his groin area. It felt as if a blazing sword, lifted straight from a forge, were being dipped within her, over and over again. A sorcerer's sword, capable of bringing light and pleasure and love beyond knowing.

  The alien was just so damn big! She'd never had a lover so large—Refarians were definitely built to last. And last and last and last. He seemed never to tire, as he led her to the highest crescendo of pleasure, only to send her soaring even higher the longer he tumbled with her in the bed.

  They rolled in each other's arms, panting and crying— real tears at one point in both of their eyes. They grew still, tangled in his satin sheets at the singular moment when their souls—which they'd already felt touching and pressing against each other all through their lovemaking—seemed to weave together, blazing so hot between them that for a full minute, neither could speak or breathe or even move.

  "Oh, gods," he finally moaned with a shuddering reaction inside of her, rolling her atop him again. Yet still he forged ahead strongly, hard and full and raging hot, their souls clasping as tightly as their physical bodies did.

  Atop him, she had a quiet, centered moment to gaze upon her mate. To take in his lean, dark face, colored the golden red of Native American skin as much as it was the dusky olive of an Italian. Beautiful beyond comparing to any race on this planet, Jared's exotic, Refarian features made her blood burn. Made her feel feral and untamed; maybe that was what happened with his people in bed. She wasn't sure, and raising herself up slightly, she reached between her own legs to stroke the man while rocking atop him. Now, this . . . this touch finally did her king in.

  With one blinding cry of pleasure, he arched his back, pressed his eyes shut, and let loose the rumbling growl of a warrior-beast, shu
ddering all the way up inside her core. He squirmed and bucked upward so hard he lifted her right up with him, murmuring, "Gods, Kelse, gods . . . never so sweet. So beautiful. Never before."

  "Me neither," she agreed, feeling tears of joy fill her eyes.

  Collapsing atop him, she lost herself in all the royal colors that sped through her senses—Jared's colors, blazing within her soul.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Kelsey woke to the remains of a slight champagne headache. She couldn't believe Jared loved champagne. The man had definitely embraced Earth culture. Not only that, but last night, when they'd finally started to drift into a warm, hazy sleep, wrapped in each other's arms, he had unexpectedly bolted upright in bed. "Hang on a second," he'd said with a boyish grin, and fumbling with something on the nightstand, she suddenly saw he had an iPod. (An iPod! Jared had an iPod?) Her mouth had snapped open, but before she could laugh or tease him or even say anything, Jared had rolled back close to her, enfolding her in his strong, warm arms. And Duke Ellington had begun to play from a small speaker in the background.

  Jared Bennett loved Earth. It was a strange realization. One she was considering as she lay beside him, not quite willing to open her drowsy eyes yet, despite sensing that he was already awake. He didn't seem to need much sleep at all. Maybe a couple of hours a night. With a quiet sigh, she nuzzled closer against him, tucking one hand beneath his muscled bicep.

  "You're awake," he whispered, slipping a large palm down to the small of her back and snuggling her closer.

  "Almost," she murmured against his chest. Beneath her ear, his heartbeat quickened, its steady beat sending a thrill through her whole body. She lay curled against him on her side, one of her legs tucked securely between both of his. She loved the tickling feel of the hair on his legs. Not too much hair—she couldn't stand that in a guy. But just enough. The similarities between his body and that of a human male were astounding. Almost as if he were human . . . but not quite. There were a dozen different ways that he seemed . . . well, for lack of another way to describe it, just a click off. Not quite human in some fundamental way that seemed just beyond her power to explain.

  "Ah, Kelsey, please wake." She leaned up, blinking at him through sleepy eyes. He grinned at her, a boyish, lopsided smile that almost made her heart stop. More than any other time since they'd met, he seemed free. Unfettered by tension or concern. His eyes almost always had a driven intensity to them, a kind of worry haunting their edges. This morning it was as if every single care had been swept away from him; he'd been washed clean. Renewed by her love.

  He lolled his head back into the pillow, studying her. His subterranean room had no windows, and she wished she could see him like this by golden morning light, reclining all gorgeous and nude like some sated Greek god. "I've been waiting three hours for you to wake," he complained, reaching one dark hand to cup her breast. Instantly, her body tightened at his touch.

  "Three hours!"

  "Yes, it is already past seven a.m.," he said and she had to laugh at his idea of "sleeping in."

  "You don't sleep."

  "I do, some," he disagreed languidly, taking his rough fingertips and stroking them just as languidly across her right nipple.

  "Not"—she gasped aloud as he tightened her nipple between his fingertips—"enough!"

  "There is far too much to accomplish," he answered with a wicked, kingly grin. "Now more than ever, in fact. I shall save the sleeping for other men, while I"—he cupped her breast firmly within his palm again, causing her whole body to tremble in pleasure—"occupy myself in more valuable ways."

  "Yes." She gulped. "I'd like that."

  "Then I shall continue," he said courteously, with a heavy-lidded look of appreciation, his rough fingertips teasing her to greater arousal.

  But as much as she ached to make love with him all over again, she'd woken needing a few answers. Very gently, she covered his caressing hand, stilling the action. "Let's just talk first," she whispered breathlessly. She smiled at him, hoping he wouldn't be offended—she didn't actually know if he was the kind of guy who got offended when a woman denied him what he wanted, but she was betting on the fact that he wasn't.

  "Something is bothering you?" He lay there, gazing up at her as she sat beside him in the bed. She fingered the edge, of the satin sheet, searching for words. Finally, she managed, "We don't really know each other very well yet."

  His eyes widened, and one elegant black eyebrow shot upward in question. "You're not breaking it off with me already?" he said with a husky laugh. Yet his eyes betrayed a seriousness that belied the humor. She just rolled her eyes at him, and he blew out a sigh of relief. "Ah, good," he said, smiling again. "You panicked me for a moment there, Kelse."

  "You're the one who told me there's no going back."

  He offered her a gentle, tender smile. "Not much recourse at this point, I'm afraid."

  "I don't want any recourse. I want you."

  "That you have, my love. Always."

  "It's just..." She drew in a strengthening breath. What she wanted to ask wasn't easy, but it had been niggling at her during the night, even to the point of entering her dreams. "You said something when we were making love that kind of got me thinking. When I asked what more I needed to know about your people." She paused, looking down into his eyes; he said nothing, but nodded his encouragement. "Actually, I think you said 'not now' about telling me more. That's what you said when I asked what I didn't know," she added, feeling her face flush.

  "That's what I said," he repeated softly, a slight smile playing at his lips. But despite the smile he didn't look all that happy, she noticed.

  "So, it got me wondering," she continued, forcing her voice to sound upbeat, even though the inscrutable expression on his face was starting to making her nervous, "about what all I don't know about you. Of course, there are obviously tons of things, but I mean, well. . ." She sucked in a breath and blurted the rest. "I'm talking about in bed." There, she'd put it out there. And—dang it all—the man blushed. Terribly. With a cough into his hand, he. rolled onto his back and a little bit away from her.

  "Is it okay if we talk about it now?"

  Throwing an arm over his head, he blew out a heavy breath and stared at the ceiling. "You may ask me whatever you wish, mate," he said, his voice husky with emotion. "I'd never deny you anything. Never. I love you and I want you to know everything about me. Gods, I want to know everything about you." His roving gaze lighted on her meaningfully. "Everything. So, yes, of course you should know."

  "Know?" She waved her hand between them, urging him to continue. "Know?"

  "Our species are definitely very different," he allowed, his gaze resting on her for a beat before he stared upward at the ceiling again. Both of his cheeks were still a deep reddish hue. From emotion? Embarrassment? Maybe even from arousal—she couldn't be sure.

  She wanted to put him at ease, though, because he was way too self-assured to seem unsettled like this. "But we're a lot the same," she reminded him gently.

  Again his gaze rested on her. "You've seen what I am, both sides of me, and you've seen the change I'm capable of. But you've no idea all the things I've done in this war—"

  "You've already said that—"

  "Or the people I've killed. Killed. With my own hands, Kelsey, and with my own power. If you only understood, truly understood—"

  "Are you trying to scare me?"

  "I'm trying to make you understand that you don't know what I really am. I am an alien species; don't fool yourself that I'm human." The coldness from last night had returned, as if he wanted to challenge what she knew him to be: a good man.

  "You're fighting a war," she said, thinking of her father and all the endless political fracases he'd been involved in. "I'm not naive about all this stuff, Jared. Lives are always sacrificed in war, and it's part of the cost—"

  But he cut her off. "As a Refarian, my sexuality is different from yours," he blurted in a voice so quiet, she nearly missed
it. In fact, she leaned closer toward him to be sure she really had heard him.

  "What?"

  He set his jaw for a moment, his black eyes narrowing to slits, and then hissed, "I said that my sexuality is different from yours." He closed his eyes in what appeared to be mortification.

  "Uh, I don't think so."

  "Think so," he cried angrily, his eyes flying open.

  She lifted the satin sheet that covered the length of his body and made a point of staring down at his groin area for a long moment. Then she swung her gaze back to his face. "It went in just fine, thank you very much. Repeatedly, I might add. Very human in its functions, I've gotta say. Or perhaps universal might be more accurate."

  "Kelsey, it's not the, uh, equipment that I'm speaking of." He groaned, staring up at the wood-beamed ceiling overhead. "Don't you understand?"

  "Not even remotely."

  Jared blew out a frustrated sigh and rolled over to the edge of the bed, putting his back to her. In All's name, he'd never found himself in a situation quite so uncomfortable and complicated and sad in his life. And he'd lived through quite a host of situations: from being captured by Veckus to losing his virginity at seventeen to being lost in his Change for a full day once and unable to shift back. That had been more than awkward, to have his soldiers wonder why their commander seemed determined to stay in his energized state. Fortunately no one had mentioned it when he finally found his way back to his other self's form.

  But this . . . this moment eclipsed all of those previous occasions. And it didn't help matters that the woman was just so determined, so frank and unconcerned about his royal status. Everyone he knew had been intimidated by him at one point or another. But not Kelsey. Behind him he sensed her waiting, and it only made what he had to tell her all the more horrible. She would hate him. If she'd been angry about his seeing inside of her without her permission, what would she think about this new revelation? Forget the horrid shame of it—she would feel betrayed. She would have to. He should have revealed everything last night before taking her across the bonding threshold. But you loved her; you wanted her . . . you were afraid of frightening her off.