Page 65 of Hot Zone

She trailed off, as if unsure how to finish that argument.

He commented casually, “My kind have mated with humans before. We breed with most of the races we discover, to test the genetic interaction. My kind and humans can produce offspring, and they’re not monsters, if that’s what you’re worried about. They appear like humans, with a slightly pronounced spine. Or, if you will, like my people, but with a smaller spinal ridge than usual.”

“I wasn’t even thinking about children!” she exclaimed.

“Then what’s wrong with us sharing sex? If we both enjoy it and it makes us feel good, why not indulge?”

She paused, as if debating inwardly. She seemed convinced it was wrong but wasn’t having any luck coming up with a good reason why.

He didn’t feel at all inclined to help her out. In fact, wickedly, he nudged her in the other direction. “Are you sore from last night? There are many other forms of pleasure in which we can partake. I would be happy to show you a few of them.”

Her eyes went dark as her pupils widened sharply. Violet sparks flew of her, and the musk of her desire filled his nostrils.

He shrugged, feigning a casualness he did not feel. “We’re all alone. It’s going to be a cold night, and at a minimum, we ought to share blankets and body heat.”

She scowled at him. “I’m not so gullible that I’ll crawl into the sack with you, all innocence, and let you seduce me.”

That surprised him. Centaurian females either were that gullible, or they joyfully crawled into his bed, pretending to innocence, but knowing full well he planned to mount them. It was a common ploy among females to worm their way into a prestigious harem, in fact.

He frowned at Tessa. “What do you want to do, then? Freeze?”

She sighed, and with that shocking honesty of hers, replied, “You are right. It is going to be cold tonight. But I don’t trust myself with you. If you kiss me and start doing some of those things you did to me last time—”

Her breath hitched at the memory, and he smiled knowingly.

“You and I both know what would happen.”

It was incredibly difficult to sit here and do nothing, when every fiber of his being was shouting at him to go to her. To kiss her and stroke her to climax and lose himself in her. He clenched his fists, concentrating ferociously on the pain of his fingernails digging into his palms.

“Will you promise to behave yourself?” she asked abruptly.

He blinked, startled.

“We really ought to sleep together,” she explained. “I’m already shivering and it’s going to get a lot colder than this. But there can’t be any hanky-panky between us.”

He’d never heard the term hanky-panky, but what it meant was self-evident. “Are you trying to kill me?” he muttered.

She laughed ruefully. “No. I’m trying to do the right thing.”

“Right in your world,” he grumbled. “Emphatically not right in mine.”

She studied him quizzically.

“What?” he retorted a bit irritably. He couldn’t help it. She was resisting his charms far too well, and it made him cranky. There wasn’t a Centaurian woman alive who wouldn’t be crawling all over him already, what with these sexual vibes flying thick and fast between them.

“It is a little presumptuous of me to assume that we have to do things my way, isn’t it?”

Yet again she’d managed to surprise him. He mumbled, “It is not the way of my culture to rape women. If you are not willing to lie with me, I will not force you. Since your culture seems to be the one with the prudish attitude toward sex, I suppose yours will have to prevail.”

He watched in silence as she kicked dirt over the fire and then, in the darkness, drew her bedroll over beside his.

“Thank you for being such a gentleman about this,” she murmured, as she stretched out cautiously beside him.

He didn’t feel much like a gentleman. He felt like a damned fool. This woman was a fire in his blood…and his consort…and he couldn’t have her. He was worse than a fool. He was insane to have agreed to this arrangement.

“It’s strange that you should accuse me of being prudish about sex,” she commented from the shadows.

He about jumped out of his skin. She could stop talking about sex, now. He was already so aroused he was in physical pain.

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