And she kissed him. There was no likeness to the previous times. All such comparisons fled his mind. He banked his hunger and gave himself up to this purely human pleasure: lips touching, mouths opening, tongues twining in a dance humans must have known for millennia before they reached the stars.
If he had been shaauri, he would have felt disgust. If he had been shaauri, he would forgo all sexual pleasure rather than embrace a furless, voiceless human.
You are not shaauri. You never will be, no matter what you do to earn the right…
He growled and nipped her shoulder. She gasped.
“Is that what you call… a love bite?”
He peeled back her robe and licked the sensitized skin beneath. “Does it please you?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Remove your covering.”
She laughed. “That sounds like a command.”
“Do humans not prefer nakedness in mating?”
She clutched the edges of her robe. “What do you prefer?”
In answer he stepped back and stripped off the loose shirt and trousers the house servants had left him for sleeping clothes. He folded the clothing neatly and set it on a nearby chair.
“Is it satisfactory?” he asked, suddenly uncertain. “Does this body please you?”
She closed her eyes. “Mother Sea,” she whispered. “It does.”
* * *
Chapter 13
« ^ »
Cynara had seen Ronan naked aboard the ship, when he was under Dr. Zheng’s care in the infirmary. Then he had been a vulnerable patient. There was nothing vulnerable about him now.
His readiness was obvious, and he was certainly not ashamed of it. Why should he be? He’d always been clear about what he wanted, even when he seemed to contradict himself. During his adult life, sex had been virtually his only link to humanity.
For Cynara, sex had become a pleasure unsought and nearly unthinkable. Until now, she had hardly missed it. To crave such contact would mean testing the very nature of her sexuality, discovering once and for all if Tyr had banished all desire or altered it beyond recognition.
But what she felt for Ronan had nothing to do with Tyr. It wasn’t just sex. Oh, that was part of it… a very large part in more than one sense. She was almost prepared to jump on top of him before he moved a muscle.
She’d known this was coming since the moment Ronan walked onto her bridge, though she’d denied it again and again. Tonight she had gone to Ronan, and he’d met her halfway. There could be no violence in this joining, no matter how urgently they wanted each other. It might be their only chance.
“You are very handsome by human standards,” she said, finding her voice. “Did none of those women ever tell you?”
He shook his head. “It would not have mattered.”
Because of the scars? Had they looked upon those numerous ridges and stripes on his body and deemed him disgusting?
For the first time Cynara felt no pity for his suffering. He felt none for himself. He was strong, and beautiful.
As she was not.
“I would see you,” he said, very quietly. “Will you remove your covering now?”
How very formal and polite. She wanted to laugh, but there was nothing amusing about the knot in her stomach.
Utterly irrational. She knew that when she took off the robe, the body underneath would be exactly as it was before Tyr’s dying gift. The various parts would be in all the right places. Nothing would have appeared that shouldn’t be there.
She knew. Yet, in her mind, the body she wore was wrong. When she dared to look into a mirror, she expected to see her curves vanished, breasts diminished, waist thickened like that of some bizarre androgynous mutation.
“Wait,” she said. “Let me turn out the lights.”
Ronan grasped the end of her sash. A gentle tug opened the robe from neck to ankle. He rested his hands on her shoulders and pushed the garment down her arms.
Cynara closed her eyes. He was breathing very deeply, speaking not a word. Curse him.
His palm stroked her cheek and slid down to her neck. “Cynara,” he whispered. “You are beautiful.”