The Bid (11 page)

Jhon saw her orgasm like the ephemeral possession of a wild animal. She arched up, hips seeking and fingers swirling and she screamed like an untamed thing, the pitch like the cry of a cat.
Here, kitty, kitty.
It was his last coherent thought as he dropped to a kneel between her knees, his own orgasm an internal match to her primal scream. It felt as though the other day had never happened. As though he hadn’t had release in years. He wouldn’t close his eyes for all the freedom in the worlds at that moment as he watched himself ejaculate in great staccato bursts across her belly and breasts. He ground his teeth together to hold back his own primal cry, releasing it in low, masculine grunts of pleasure personified instead.

If that weren’t enough to drive a man insane, she ran her free hand up her wet body and spread his essence into her skin and onto her lips and tongue. The sight kept him coming far longer than was natural for him, but long enough to hear her chase her first climax with a second. This one was painful for her, her body raw and oversensitive, the stim playing its angry tricks. She cried out, jerking her hand away from herself as if she’d been burned. Vejhon sat back hard on his heels, shaking head to toe as droplets from his sweat-drenched hair skipped onto and down his body.

For a long time, the only sound was of their labored breathing.

N
ajir stood on the other side of the wall, looking down on Hanna and the man with her.

When he had returned from the yards to find Hanna missing, he had instantly known she was with him and had felt a full-blown fright unlike anything he’d known in his life. He had run all the way to Vejhon’s room and, disregarding any thought of privacy, he had not even hesitated to go to the viewing room. He’d activated every portal, racing down the corridor in a frantic search for her. He hadn’t seen them beside the bed at first because it hadn’t occurred to him to look along the floor. Now he did see them and he stood frozen as he watched the unbelievable tableau playing out before him.

Hanna had always been indescribably gorgeous in the throes of orgasm. It felt like such a waste to turn her back to you sometimes, where you couldn’t watch her face as easily, but sometimes it was so worth it….

He understood. Despite the agony screaming through him on a distant level he was in too much shock to access, he couldn’t possibly blame Vejhon for the act of coming across Hanna’s pretty skin and body. He knew what it felt like, knew what it looked like…he just knew.

And now he knew what it looked like from a whole new perspective. He laughed a little, the sound tremulous at best as he laid a hand against the wall and closed his eyes. Strange, how he still had the taste of terror in his mouth. It seemed so obscene now.

How had she done it? How had she taken Jhon from plotting their deaths to
this
in just a matter of hours? Oh, if anyone could, it was Hanna, he made no mistake about that. But he had expected time. Just a little time to prepare for it. A day. Maybe two. And he had never wanted to see it.

He had only himself to blame. Anyone knew Hanna could take care of herself. Who did he think he was, trying to play her protector? The reality was, she protected him. Without her…

Without her.

He was without her.

But nothing else would change. He had sworn it. And he never, ever broke his word. He just wished he’d promised not to break the bastard’s neck as well, because if Mach so much as bruised Hanna’s feelings, Najir was going to be in a hell of a mess.

And then Hanna made a pitiful mewling sound that struck through both men with a horrible sense of impending trouble. Vejhon forced himself to attentiveness, leaning over her to see her face. She rolled onto her side, her back to Najir, her hair sliding away from her shoulders.

Najir bolted, running for the other room.

Jhon caught Hanna before she made it to her side and rolled her back, scooping her into his arms just as her skin drained of color until even her lips looked pale.

Hanna screamed as he clutched her tightly to his chest and rose to his feet. She tried to shove him away from touching her, the overload of feedback from the stim like torture of a whole new variety, but Jhon resisted without realizing the harm it was doing.

“Let her go!”

Jhon stumbled at the unexpected voice resonating with fury at his back. He jerked to look at Najir as the other man closed on them with purpose blazing in his dark eyes.

“I’m not trying to hurt her!” Jhon barked, too impatient to explain his goal was to help. Why waste time speaking of it when action was so desperately needed?

“I know that, fool! If you were, you’d be unconscious by now.” Najir crossed past Jhon and jumped down into the tub. It immediately began to fill with its remarkable speed as Najir looked to Jhon. “You gave her a stimulant?” he demanded to know.

“It was an accident….”

“I’m not placing blame! I’m trying to tell you, you can’t touch her now. The stimulant is a nightmare after orgasm when given in two doses. Even the simplest of touches—”

“I didn’t give her two doses! It wouldn’t have been an accident then if I had, now would it?” Regardless of the argument, Jhon responded when Najir beckoned to him to hand Hanna into the tub. He passed her to the other man and watched as he sank to his knees with her, settling her into the water.

“Then this doesn’t make sense.” Najir cast about for an explanation as Vejhon dropped down into the bath as well. “One dose shouldn’t do this. Hush, Hanna, hush,” the slave soothed softly. Jhon watched him stretch her out and immediately understood what he was doing. Keeping his touch limited to her ankles, and Najir keeping his only on her shoulders, they kept her almost entirely submerged except her face. Like a sensory deprivation tank. Their voices dropped to whispers.

“An overdose?” Jhon suggested.

Najir looked up at him. “How would that happen?”

Jhon heard the suspicion in the other man’s voice and hardly blamed him. Coming into the room because his mistress was screaming must have aged him a millennium. “How the hell would I know? It’s her damn ring.” Jhon saw her flinch at his raised voice and he instantly regretted his temper. “Shh, Hanna, it’s okay….”

“The ring. The one she used on you?”

“She gave it to me…said she wanted to level the playing field.” Vejhon grimaced. “I swear, I had no intention of using it. Not after knowing it firsthand. I just forgot I had the thing on.”

“And it sounds like Hanna forgot to dial down the dose,” Najir said grimly. “She must have gotten one meant for a man our size and race. The PAN are notoriously more sensitive than we are and Hanna in particular has a…unique chemistry. On the plus side, she will process it out quicker than we would.”

“Good.” Jhon paused to study the other man for a moment. “Our race?”

Najir looked up in surprise and rapidly reviewed what he had said. Damn. A slipup he couldn’t afford. Worse, one Hanna couldn’t afford.

“I mean aliens in general.”

Vejhon had interrogated enough prisoners in his time to know when someone was lying to him, and Najir was lying big-time. Why? If Najir was from Wite, why lie about it? He would think the man would celebrate seeing a fellow patriot after a decade of living in this alien culture.

“I see,” Jhon said nonchalantly. “How long will we have to keep her in here?”

“Until she stops crying at least,” Najir said softly, his large fingers reaching to lightly touch her forehead. It was a touch of such simplicity, but it also reflected a depth of affection Vejhon instantly recognized, simply by virtue of never having known it. Not to receive, and certainly not to give. He watched carefully as Najir frowned when she shook him off. “Still very raw,” the other man murmured, completely oblivious to how much he was giving away.

Love. Najir loved her. Not the adoration of slave to master, as Jhon had thought, but as a man loves a woman. Did Hanna return the feeling? If so, what was her purpose in having Jhon there? She’d locked herself in those restraints fully expecting him to use her body however he liked. She’d eagerly made the offer, so she must have felt free to do so. He made no mistake about her wanting him. She had kissed him with pure need and desire, had devoured him like she was starving for him…all this before the accidental stimulant. It may not be her only desire for him, but it was a central one.

If it was for the sake of variety, why select a male nearly twin to that which she already had conquered and was devoted to? Or maybe, he thought with a sick sensation in his belly, he was to play stallion for her, providing fertility Najir could not.

No. She had had the opportunity to use him as such without needing to bother with how he felt about it. Regardless of the goal he couldn’t see, he didn’t understand Najir. If he loved this woman, why would he purchase his own rival? He had to have known the risk he was taking bringing a second male into her sphere; why had he purposely done so? As Vejhon looked down at Hanna, he couldn’t help but become angry with Najir. What kind of man would give away, or even so intimately share, a crucially prized possession so easily? Jhon felt a furious sensation of surety that if he were ever to finally know love for a woman, for anyone really, he would never be so cavalier about it. He would never risk the loss of that love and he would do what he did best to keep it secure. He would fight. Any way he could.

After a few minutes, Jhon managed to calm his overworking thoughts. He seemed to feel better as Hanna relaxed, easing away from the worst of her pain as they gently turned her between them, trading her weight. Hanna stirred, reaching out of the water to close her hand around Vejhon’s forearm.

“A good sign,” Najir informed softly. He moved to rest her feet against his thigh as he reached to get soap and a bathing cloth. He built a lather in the cloth, then held it out to Jhon. Their eyes met across her body and the other man nodded down at Hanna. “She needs to be cleansed.”

Vejhon suddenly recalled what had happened only minutes before Najir had entered. How had the other man known…? Understanding dawned even before the question could be completed. Taking the cloth, Jhon submerged it in the water.

“I take it there is an observation window into the room.”

It was a statement, spoken low and carefully, but in no way in doubt of itself. Najir cursed himself for a fool, but he didn’t lie this time. He gave the man that much respect.

“I was out training with the security forces. When I found Hanna missing, I overreacted. If you recall, you have threatened to kill her several times. Not to mention making the attempt on me.”

“I recall,” Jhon agreed.

“I shouldn’t have invaded your privacy. Hanna will be unhappy with me if she knows I had done so while you were together…more so when she realizes I have given this detail away before she had the opportunity to tell you herself. Rest assured, Hanna and I are the only ones with access to that room…and I will never use it again. You have my word.”

There was a bitterness to the oath, and Jhon instantly forgave Najir the trespass, as well as accepted his word as bond. It was clear that the slave had gotten a good enough lesson in respecting privacy without Vejhon losing his temper over the matter. It must have been like a knife in Najir’s gut to watch the woman he cared for so deeply play palette to another man’s sexual art.

“This won’t bother her?” Jhon asked as he began to wash the canvas of her body clean of any remaining traces of their encounter.

“Not anymore. She’s stopped weeping and she initiated contact with you.”

“But she is still in some form of shock,” Jhon noted as he drew her back against his chest gently to better balance her.

“Exhaustion is more like it.”

Najir let her legs rest freely in the water and rose to his feet. Jhon watched the other man get out of the tub, water streaming from his clothing as he crossed to the wardrobe and pulled out one of the embroidered shirts from within. He returned to the tub just as Jhon finished his task. Together they raised her up to Najir’s hold, her wet hair plastered to her back and body everywhere. To Vejhon’s surprise, Najir didn’t bother with drying her before quickly pulling the shirt over her, hair and all, and buttoning her up. Was he now, suddenly, trying to shield her from Vejhon? It made no more sense than anything else, considering recent events, but Vejhon knew that somehow all these odd actions and discrepancies added up to a singular thing. A single secret between Najir and Hanna that he wasn’t privy to…but was somehow going to become a part of.

“I’m going to take her to her room,” Najir said. “She will sleep for a while, so don’t be disturbed if you don’t see her for some time.”

Jhon could only nod, not seeing how he had much choice in the matter. This time he was very certain of the emotion he felt because he
had
felt it before. The twinge of jealousy rode through him like a whip, the hardest snap of it coming as the door sealed behind Najir’s exit with her.

But jealous of what? Of their freedom to come and go? Of their knowledge and understanding of things he was in the dark about?

Jhon couldn’t escape the feeling that although those were excellent reasons, they didn’t quite touch on the truth.

Najir walked the short way down the hall to Hanna’s room. Once within, he brought her to her bed and stripped her of the sodden shirt. He retrieved towels to dry her with, patiently patting dry the length of her hair. Then, holding it aside, he gently dried her back and the silver rosettes that spotted her between her shoulders, all the way down the length of her spine.

The man he had purchased for Hanna was too shrewd by half. It wouldn’t have taken him long at all to realize that none of Hanna’s race had these marks…and certainly not much longer than that to figure out why.

Hanna awoke with a startled gasp, sitting up quickly. There was no describing her relief when she realized she was in her own bedroom. That relief lasted all of two seconds; then she saw Najir sitting beside her bed, his dark eyes glittering in the sunlight of what she hoped was only one day later than when she’d last been awake. He didn’t look very happy. Or angry. In fact, his expression was like stone, something she wasn’t used to seeing on him at all. Not since he’d first arrived in her home.

“How much damage have I done?”

Najir broke his tableau of stoicism to give her a brief smile. He rubbed the back of his neck, telling her he probably hadn’t left her side for a minute.

“I can’t say for certain. I don’t know everything. I came in…later.”

Hanna narrowed her eyes to slits of suspicion.

“When later?”

“Later than the stim, sooner than I wanted to.”

Najir had become too used to showing his emotions to her over the years. His voice stumbled over the sentence just enough to tell her she had done exactly what she hadn’t wished to do. Hanna quickly left the comfort of her bed and drew up the lengthy skirt of her nightdress so she could climb into his lap like a young girl, wrapping her arms around him in comfort.

“I never meant to cause you hurt,” she said softly beneath his ear. “You shouldn’t have gone in the observation room while I was alone with him. You knew what you might find.”

“I wasn’t thinking of that, was I?” he snapped, his words harsh and mean. “I was too busy being scared to death the barbarian would hurt you as he’d promised! It was too soon for you to go in there without some sort of security. And it was utterly insane for you to let him have that ring!” Najir grabbed hold of her hair and pulled her back by it so he could let her see the fury in his eyes. “I don’t even want to know how else you tried to ‘level the playing field’ for him,” he hissed softly, “because knowing you I can only guess too well!”