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  "If you don't wish to talk, that's fine. We do have other ways to communicate."

  She tensed further, and Jaran lowered his brow, casting a feral gaze at her that would leave no doubt as to his intentions.

  "Either way, Laramee, you are my mate and I intend to claim you as mine. It can be easy or it can be difficult. The choice is yours."

  "No, my liege. The choice was yours entirely. Do with me as you wish, but don't expect me to enjoy it."

  Stung by the acid in her tone, Jaran stepped forward quickly. Lara held her ground as he approached, head high, hands clasped behind her back, wings at rest. She would not meet his gaze, even when he hooked a finger under her chin.

  "Your duty to me, Laramee, is to obey my wishes and serve at my side. My duty to you is to see that you enjoy everything I do to you. I suggest you prepare yourself 39

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  because you will not leave this room until you can tell me you not only revel in my touch, but crave it."

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  40

  Icarus Unbound

  by Bernadette Gardner

  Chapter Four

  The spot where Jaran's fingers met her skin burned, and Lara finally dared to pull away. Though she held herself still as a statue, her body trembled so badly on the inside she thought she might burst apart.

  The thought of Jaran claiming her, making her desire his touch, had her shivering in anticipation, and she hated herself for it. How could the prospect of lying beneath him make her heart pound so hard and her sex clench with need?

  How dare she allow herself to want him?

  This sexual hunger that had her clit pulsing and her nipples aching had to be the result of her symbion's natural urge to mate.

  Even though the winged creature had been fused to her body for two thirds of her lifetime, it still retained many of its own biochemical responses. The nearly irresistible urge to mate was one that would never fade fully.

  Like the bipedal Icarians, the symbion had a ten-year mating cycle, and the bird's biochemistry kept its host infertile in between those cycles. Shortly before the fertility period began, the need to find sexual release became almost impossible to ignore. That had to be it. Human or not, Lara was at the mercy of the alien who shared her body.

  "Go ahead then, do what you will," she told her symbion as Jaran began to circle her, eyeing her naked body up and down as if deciding which part of her he wanted to devour first. "I will endure this because you want it."

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  A wave of amusement crashed through the psychic link between her and her symbion. "We want it, and we are one."

  Lara closed her eyes as Jaran loomed close. "And this is the first time in my life I regret that."

  Her skin prickled where his warm breath rode over her cheek and her neck, and moisture began to seep down between her tightly closed thighs when he spoke. "Spread your legs for me, Lara. I want to touch you."

  The dryness of her throat made her unable to give voice to the derisive comment she wanted to make. Instead, perhaps spurred by her symbion, which seemed to be in control at the moment, she did as he commanded.

  She hated that her obedience pleased him, that he expected it. She could have fled, gone straight to the administrators and demanded a dissolution, but that humiliation would be worse, as if anything could shame her more than standing before her lifelong nemesis practically trembling with sexual desire.

  The scent of her own arousal reached her, mingled now with the masculine flavor of Jaran. The heat of his muscular body rode over her sensitized skin as he walked in a semi-circle around her once again.

  "I'm sure you won't believe me, but I'm going to say it anyway. You are beautiful, Laramee."

  She tried not to react to his mockery. How often had he ridiculed her for being shorter and stockier than the half-Icarian females? How often had he looked at her with disdain in his eyes?

  "Does it matter if I believe you?"

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  "At the moment, no. I'm going to say whatever comes to mind anyway." Now he lifted one hand and placed his forefinger on her jaw.

  The muscles there clenched and the folds of flesh between her legs pulsed in anticipation. Slowly, Jaran moved his finger down her neck to the hollow of her throat. He pressed gently there, as if testing the depth of the small indentation. "I've often dreamed of putting my tongue here. I've wondered if you would moan or sigh if I licked this lovely little spot."

  Lara pursed her lips. She'd die before making a sound for him. Instead of following through on his threat to taste her though, he moved his finger lower and to one side to trace a wicked circle around her left nipple. The skin there puckered tighter and the flesh of her entire breast drew tight.

  "You like this, don't you?"

  She said nothing.

  "Surely a male has touched you before."

  "Yes."

  "Who?"

  "Is that really your concern?"

  "Lian and Soren both asked to be considered as your mate.

  Have you been bedded by either of them?"

  Now Lara smiled. She wondered what affect her youthful escapades would have on Jaran. "I have had sex with Lian."

  Jaran's finger halted, and his lips flattened. Clearly he'd expected her either to lie or not to have indulged, as most Icarians did, in meaningless recreational sex during the infertile years of their twenties. "So, Lian has had you."

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  "Many times, my liege." Lara spoke slowly, drawing the words out and adding a sensual purr. She'd enjoyed Lian, and as Kiala had said, he would have made a more than adequate mate, but he didn't make her body quiver the way Jaran did.

  "Did you come for him?" Jaran's voice took on a predatory quality. His question seemed to end in a growl.

  "Oh, yes. Many times, my liege."

  "Good. Then at least I know you'll be capable of achieving climax when we make love."

  Lara bit her tongue. Now was not the time to lecture Jaran about the difference between making love and having sex. Let him believe what he wished about this ill-fated liaison, there would be no love involved.

  Seemingly satisfied by her answer to his probing question, he continued his journey down her body. The path of his finger down her abdomen made all of her muscles clench along the way. She let out a puff of breath, fighting not to moan.

  "You are responding to me," Jaran said. "Your body knows what it wants."

  "My symbion wants to mate, my liege."

  He leaned close again, his lips grazing the skin beneath her ear. "So does mine. It wants to dispense with this game and mount you right now, but I won't allow it to take control of me. You are a special case, Laramee, and you require very special handling."

  He punctuated the end of his sentence by placing his spread hand across her lower belly, just brushing the dark hair of her mound.

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  Lara gasped, a blunt, truncated sound of surprise at the pleasure his intimate touch evoked. The warmth of his hand spread through her belly, creating liquid heat. Her sex began to weep in anticipation, and deep inside her, a tickle of arousal grew to an itch that would need to be scratched before she went utterly mad.

  He had to know this was torture for her, yet he persisted.

  Keeping one hand flat on her stomach, Jaran shifted his position and placed his other hand on her backside. He began to massage the muscular flesh there, squeezing and caressing. His fingers delved into the space between her cheeks and teased her anus.

  Lara clenched, praying he wouldn't go any farther, but he did. Slowly, he eased the hand on her stomach down to pet her mound. He had to feel the dampness there, he had to smell the scent of her d
esire wafting up between them, musky and unmistakable.

  One finger found the erect nub between her intimate folds and flicked it playfully while he slid his other hand between her thighs from the back.

  "Do you know how much power I hold over you right now, Laramee?" he asked, his voice as rough as the sandstone walls from which the royal aerie had been carved.

  "You rule me, my liege. My life is yours." The words tore at her throat, leaving it raw. Her breath rasped.

  "More than that. Right now, I can bring you to your knees with a touch. I can make you come, and I can make you beg for me to do it again."

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  Her symbion agreed. If he flicked his finger over her clit one more time, her body would explode in orgasm. She was so close, drawn up so tight trying to resist, that she would break if he moved a millimeter.

  "Ask me to do it, Laramee. Ask me to make you come."

  Lara bit her lip to keep from obeying instinctively. God, she hated him.

  It was bad enough he'd brought her to this precipice simply by putting his hands on her, bad enough she'd spent the entire day imagining what it would be like when he fucked her, when she came with him inside her and when she finally conceived his child.

  This was more than she could bear.

  "If you want me to come for you, my liege, then make me.

  I will not ... beg for it."

  "Won't you?" He pressed his intruding finger deeper, rubbing the long, slender digit along her most sensitive flesh until he reached her opening. "I think you will ask for it." He pushed his other hand farther between her ass cheeks, pressing the pad of his thumb over her anus just hard enough to set off a chain of fireworks inside her body.

  Lara gasped as lightning struck behind her tightly closed eyelids. Her body arched backward then forward, pushing her sex down onto Jaran's finger. He breached her slit and her anus at the same time, not deeply, but just enough to stake a claim, just enough to push her over the edge of reason.

  She shuddered and cried out as her sex began to clench around his finger. Either way she moved with the contractions forced him deeper into her, and he held his finger rigid, 46

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  affording her no relief from the intimate penetration. Her wings fluttered, attesting to the pleasure her symbion experienced, and finally her knees buckled as arrows of sensation raced up and down her spine.

  "Ah ... Jaran, please!" No! She'd said it. In the throes of orgasm, she'd begged him for what? More?

  "Yes, Laramee. Anything you want from me from this moment forward is yours." Jaran eased his body against hers and allowed her to sink to the floor. His finger, wet with her feminine cum, trailed out of her, along her thighs, over her ass. As he knelt beside her, he placed it in his mouth and licked her essence from his skin.

  "You have only to ask as sweetly as you just did, and I'll grant you anything you desire."

  Panting and weak, Lara placed her hands on the floor and concentrated on not curling up into a quivering ball at his feet. She'd just done exactly as Jaran wanted. She'd let him enslave her with her own misguided desire for him. "Are you

  ... are you finished with me now, my liege?" She prayed he would dismiss her, having received no physical satisfaction of his own.

  He'd had his fun. He'd brought her whimpering to her knees. Surely that was triumph enough for one night.

  "Oh, no, my beautiful mate," he said as he tilted her chin up so she was forced to meet his smoldering gaze. "I've barely begun."

  Jaran's symbion was practically screaming for release. Had their bodies not been fused, the headless bird might have taken flight and tried to mate with Lara's symbion on its own.

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  The alien beast to which he'd been joined wanted her badly, but not as much as Jaran himself did.

  This slow seduction he'd planned would be the death of him, but he knew the only way to reach Lara's heart would be to replace all her unhappy memories of him with pure, illicit pleasure. He had to make her crave his touch and to feel cherished in his presence. One night in his bed would not be enough to change the way she felt about him, so he had to make her want to come back to him while the choice was still hers to make.

  Still fighting his own physical responses, he scooped her trembling body up in his arms and carried her to the bed that Daralei had prepared for them. Unlike the traditional pallet of softened plant fibers most Icarians slept on, the private chambers of the royal aerie had been recently equipped with a bed of human construction. The mattress, a square platform covered in soft fabric, had been stuffed with leaves from the alor plant, the vine which grew on almost every island on the planet. The scent of the leaves was soothing, and they resisted decay so their downy consistency would last for years.

  On top of the mattress lay a sheet of cotton fabric imported from the colony on Daedalus. Daralei had explained this was not for warmth as much as a measure of comfort and modesty for his bride. She believed Lara would feel better in the morning if she could cover her body. This made no sense to Jaran who had never slept beneath a blanket for warmth or worn a stitch of clothing in his life. In the consistently balmy temperatures of the equatorial islands, nakedness was 48

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  accepted and preferred. It also cut down on wind resistance and made flying easier.

  Regardless, now Jaran placed Lara on the bed and pulled the pure white sheet over her. Amazingly, she looked even more alluring with her body partially hidden from his view. He didn't understand that either.

  Finally she met his gaze. "Why are you doing this? There are hundreds of females you could have chosen for yourself.

  Why do you insist on having me?"

  He sat for a moment at the edge of the bed and gazed down at her. He'd never wanted anything in his privileged existence as the adopted son of Jidar and Namara, except for the touch of the woman now lying in his bed. The answer to her question was so simple, but he wasn't ready to say the words and have her reject his love as just another form of childish mockery.

  "I chose you for exactly that reason, Lara. Any other female would have come to my bed willingly and easily, thrilled to be chosen to fill the role as co-leader. You, however, offer the one thing none of them could give me."

  "And what is that?"

  "A challenge."

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  49

  Icarus Unbound

  by Bernadette Gardner

  Chapter Five

  Despite the warmth of the crisp cotton sheet Jaran had arranged over her body, Lara shivered. Her mind whirled with recriminations. How could she have allowed this? She should have simply flown off to one of the abandoned aeries in the far-reaching southern island chain and hidden until Jaran forgot about this plan to humiliate her. Certainly the public shame of disobeying her liege would be preferable to this.

  Lying in Jaran's bed, her sex pulsing from the orgasm he'd given her, she felt like she'd betrayed herself. The ten-year-old girl who had wished her tormentor would fall off the edge of the world would never forgive the woman who had agreed to become his lifemate.

  The teenager whose palms had begun to sweat and whose heart had raced every time Jaran looked at her might have secretly enjoyed this erotic interlude, but she could never forget all of the times his careless remarks had made her wish her parents had retained the good sense to mate with full-blooded Icarians instead of with each other.

  Lara closed her eyes, hoping Jaran would assume she'd fallen asleep. For several minutes she listened to him move around the room, dimming the sconce lights, pulling tarps across the windows to control the flow of the evening breeze.

  Her heart still pounded erratically, and each time she recalled his promise that he hadn't yet begun to play with her, something gripped t
ight in her belly.

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  Anticipation spiraled out from her womb, causing an uncomfortable heat between her legs and a blush to creep up her chest to her face. Her wings twitched, and through their psychic link, her symbion expressed desire to be claimed by a potent male.

  Lara moaned, then covered her mouth with her hand, hoping Jaran hadn't heard. Finally, the feather-soft mattress dipped as he slipped beneath the sheet and settled his body next to hers.

  "I know you're not asleep."

  "Mmm?" She feigned confusion and kept her eyes closed.

  Jaran chuckled. "You cannot hide behind your eyelids." To punctuate his point, he slid a hand down between their bodies and cupped her mound.

  The contact shot arrows of awareness through Lara's body.

  Her muscles tensed, her sex wept and her eyes flew open.

  "I don't need permission," he said. "I may touch you wherever and whenever I wish to." Carelessly, he delved his fingers between her folds and Lara bit her lip. "You're so soft and tight. Your desire heats your flesh and your cum smells of passion fruit, but it tastes like alor berries."

  Lara swallowed her embarrassment. She'd never had a man comment on her taste before, and the words made every nerve ending in her body begin to tingle.

  Watching her with dark, hooded eyes, Jaran slipped a finger along her slit and then deftly entered her. Involuntarily, she spread her legs, hating herself for complying, and at the same time so eager to feel the sensual intrusion.

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  "Yes, perfect. I love the way you move." Jaran thrust his finger a little farther and Lara gasped. Pleasure cascaded along her nerve endings, colliding with the shame of knowing she was responding just as Jaran had expected her to.

  With each rush of erotic sensation that swept through her, Lara relinquished a bit more control to her symbion. After several moments reveling in the feel of Jaran's finger sliding in and out of her body, raising her awareness to new heights, she'd almost forgotten where she was and who she was with.