* * * *
Kate felt an odd mixture of disappointment and relief when she woke to the discovery that it was morning and she had her bed to herself. Struggling to dismiss the disappointment over being abandoned, she turned over onto her belly and sprawled out, telling herself she was more relieved than surprised. It felt good to stretch even if that immediately brought the night before back to mind in the form of abused muscles that hadn't been given such a thorough workout in a while.
Well, that wasn't the only reminder of the night before. Her linens still carried the faint scents of her lovers-enough that the faint throbbing in her nether regions from the pounding punishment it had taken the night before increased.
And then there was the sticky residue that proved they'd enjoyed themselves as much as she had!
Thank god men were required practice birth control these days! The procedure was simple, painless, completely reversible and did not damage their fragile ecosystem as the chemicals used for birth control for women had. Of course nothing but abstinence was one hundred percent guaranteed to prevent pregnancy, but the margin of error was infinitesimal now that the procedure had been taken completely out of human hands.
She'd just rolled to the edge of the bed to head for the shower when the sound of rushing water abruptly broke the silence surrounding her followed almost instantly by a sharp male gasp. Amusement flickered through Kate. If that sound of dismay and surprise was any indication, whoever had decided to make use of her facilities wasn't familiar with the temperature adjustment feature.
After a brief debate as to whether she should intrude or not, Kate got up and crossed the bedroom to the door to her bath and tapped on the panel. "If you don't mind company, I'll adjust that for you."
She nearly fell in at the door when he snatched it open. Disconcerted, she righted herself after she'd plowed into him and discovered 'pretty boy'. She felt her cheeks heat with discomfort. Moving past him, she went to adjust the water temperature. "Uh … you know, I didn't catch your name last night. This is a little awkward."
She discovered when she glanced at him that he was frowning. For a few moments she thought it was because he was digesting her comment and trying to 'interpret' and wondered if he'd understood her at all.
"Jarek," he responded finally, studying her piercingly.
The name sent a jolt through her. Her eyes widened on his face, but despite the wave of heat and then cold that swept over her, she swiftly dismissed the unnamed fear that had generated it and pursued the half-formed suspicion that rose in her mind. What were the odds that two of the guys she'd picked up at the night spot would have two of the names from her recent studies? Astronomical! She knew it had to be! "That's
… odd," she said a little stiffly. "By strange coincidence …." She broke off as it hit her with another wave of cold that her project was a security level four and she wasn't allowed to discuss it even if the project had been terminated.
He had to know something about it, maybe a lot about it, but that didn't change the fact that she wasn't allowed to 'leak' information!
It wasn't as if any of the names she'd chosen were commonplace. Besides, in a very real sense, the Sirians had given her their own names. They weren't inclined to make much in the way of verbalizations, but Noo, Dae, and Rak were some of the sounds they did make when they were together and she'd chosen familiar names for them that included those sounds-Ronan, Dax, and Jarek.
She was still trying to figure out a way to discover what he, or they, knew about her project without giving him any information she shouldn't, when he surged toward her. She tensed, but he merely stepped past her and into the shower. When she turned to look at him questioningly, he reached for her, curled the fingers of one hand lightly around her upper arm and urged her to join him.
She'd actually lost interest in that particular activity, but she didn't resist. After lathering a bathing cloth, she handed Jarek the container of liquid soap and focused on her own bath. "What's your brothers' names?" she said, keeping her voice carefully neutral.
"Ronan firs. Dax sec'd."
Kate sent him a sharp look. He returned her look with a gaze that seemed calculatedly guileless rather than actually innocent. Even though she'd more than half expected the answer she got, though, it threw her into a state of turmoil that made it difficult to produce a coherent thought. He didn't give her a chance to recover.
Dropping the container, he surged closer, plastering himself against her as he crowded her against one wall of the shower.
Given the suspicions that had gathered in her mind, Kate's foremost reaction was alarm. The adrenaline was still racing through her when he began to explore her soapy/wet skin with his hands and dipped his head to suck at a patch of skin just beneath one ear. Her skin pebbled all over in reaction, his touch creating more havoc as her mind and body struggled to assimilate the conflict between assessed threat and rising desire. The confusion seemed to catapult her almost instantaneously into a state of high arousal. It flickered through her mind that she shouldn't be feeling any desire at all, but her body had a mind of its own. The slippery friction of his skin gliding against hers in his restless moments made her hyper-aware of every point where their bodies touched and pleasure poured through her system and into the pleasure centers of her brain in such a rush that it was impossible to fully assimilate it all.
Fortunately, she didn't need to. She had a dim idea that keeping her wits about her would have been far safer for her, but her mind had dismissed 'threat' and determinedly focused on pleasure and she was lost and not particularly sorry for it. By the time he shifted her up the wall to mount on her his thick shaft, she'd produced more than enough moisture to allow the claiming.
It was still a delightful labor to encompass his thick flesh and by the time she'd managed it, she was well on her way toward fireworks! She focused on her goal fiercely until it seemed her entire being registered little besides the intimate friction of his cock along the walls of her sex. Pleasure radiated through her with each plunge and retreat, gathering, building, pooling until her breath began to hitch in her chest in anticipation.
Blindly, she sought his mouth in demand for the impetus she needed to boost her over the top. His reaction was gratifyingly prompt. Almost the moment he opened his mouth over hers and pierced the cavern of her mouth with his tongue, the volcano began to erupt. She sucked his tongue a little frantically. It touched off the explosion she'd been awaiting with so much anticipation and she groaned around his tongue as molten, white-hot ecstasy poured through her.
Her orgasm seemed to light his own powder keg. He tore his mouth from hers, uttering his own animalistic groans of satisfaction and began to mutter to her in his native tongue.
Jarek's struggle to prevent himself from connecting his mind to Kate's as he was inundated with rapture was only partially successful. The discovery that her mind was as filled with pleasure as his own and that it magnified his own made it even harder to draw back and ignore the urge to voice his pleasure in coupling with her. In the end, it was only the reminder of the effect Noo's probing had had on the woman at the mating place that inspired caution and made him withdraw. He couldn't risk damage when none of them fully understood why the connection had had such a profound effect on that woman when it had never seemed to cause harm before.
Instead, he found himself struggling with her tongue for a few moments. Giving up the effort when he realized it was nearly impossible to think coherently even in his own language, he told her how pleased he was that she'd accepted him and would carry his off-spring and that he would protect her and their child from harm with his life if necessary. Even knowing she didn't understand, it gave him a sense of peace and pleasure to make the vow to her.
She smiled, almost as if she understood, when he knew she couldn't possibly understand any of it. She confirmed it when she finally spoke.
"That was nice … better than nice, actually," Kate murmured and then chuckled. "Now we'll have to bathe again, though, and I'm not sure there'll be enough hot water for your brothers."
Jarek turned the comments over in his mind as he reluctantly yielded to her urging to disengage his body from hers and release her. "Dey used to cold," he managed to respond after a few moments and was pleased that he had managed it. He needed to practice vocalizing anyway, and in her tongue, he reasoned, since it did not seem entirely safe to try to communicate with her with his mind. It made his chest and throat feel strange to make sounds, though, and he was not entirely certain he liked the vibrations in his chest and throat.
She sent him a strange look, which made him a little uneasy.
"No spek right?"
Her lips trembled on a smile for a moment. "I'm not entirely sure," she responded with a slight chuckle.
"Why would they be used to cold water? Or did I misunderstand?"
Jarek frowned. Moving away from her, he retrieved the small thing she had given him and focused on trying to get the foaming stuff out. "Like cold," he muttered finally when he saw she was still waiting for an answer, and then shrugged.
She lifted her brows. "But you don't if that sharp gasp I heard before was any indication," she said, amused.
He grinned at her and shrugged. "Used to cold, too. Like hot better."
Kate's uneasiness returned to tease her as she dried off and left the bathroom to get dressed. It couldn't be sheer coincidence that she'd met three men who had the same names she'd given the Sirians. The odds were just too astronomical to calculate that that sort of a coincidence was possible.
So where did that leave her?
She couldn't believe there was any way, when they could barely speak English, that the brothers could have infiltrated security and learned about her project. It also seemed too farfetched to believe they were some kind of spies. Granted, her project-everything to do with the project-was top level security, but what possible use could spies make of the information?
Besides, most of the world governments were united in the project and those that weren't were way too poor to make use of any of the technology or discoveries that had come out of the project. Of course their lack of familiarity with so many things she took for granted did point in that direction, and yet that still took her back to why would they?
One of the lunatic organizations that was trying to prevent colonization?
The chill that thought produced created a rash of goose bumps.
Everyone rarely agreed on everything-or even much of anything-despite the fact that they'd formed a world government under the United Nations umbrella. The nations had finally hammered out an agreement, but the people of the various nations certainly hadn't embraced colonization wholeheartedly. She'd figured the protests and complaints were mostly from random kooks and troublemakers, though. She certainly hadn't considered the possibility that there were enough of them out there to organize any sort of resistance to colonization!
All in all, though, she conceded that it was possible that the factions opposing colonization had managed to organize themselves under a common flag, even if their reasons differed. It seemed unlikely that the religious nuts who opposed colonization on the grounds that it was 'playing god' and the naturalists who believed humans shouldn't sully other worlds with their wasteful ways and the economists who felt like it was an outrage to put money into the project when the money would be better spent in making things better on Earth would agree with each other on any level. However, the fact remained that they certainly had one thing in common! None of them approved of colonization! And all of them wanted to prevent it.
She studied Jarek surreptitiously as he left the bathroom-already fully dressed although she didn't recall noticing his clothing in the bathroom-trying to decide if he seemed to 'fit' any of the groups.
She hardly knew anything at all about him, but she decided his comments might indicate a naturalist.
Maybe it wasn't that he came from a country too poor to have much in the way of technology. Maybe he was a hardliner who eschewed all technology except what was essential for survival?
He hadn't actually seemed particularly disapproving of the technology, though, she realized. He'd seemed disconcerted but curious.
That assessment was supported by the fact that, when she emerged from her room with Jarek, she discovered that Ronan and Dax seemed to be exploring her home thoroughly. It seemed to go way beyond mere curious snooping and they didn't seem the least bit discomfited at being caught in the act. Both of them glanced at her, frowned at Jarek, and then continued their intense scrutiny of her belongings.
Kate was more than a little irritated. She was accustomed to her privacy-paid dearly for it! She dismissed it with an effort, however, and decided to play hostess. "You guys hungry?"
That caught their interest. "Yes," Ronan agreed for all of them.
They followed her into her tiny kitchen. Kate's irritation and her uneasiness increased, but she did her best to ignore their rapt attention as she went about the business of preparing food for the four of them.
It struck her as she settled at the eating bar to share a meal with them that there was one possible explanation for the 'coincidence' of their names that she might have dismissed far too quickly.