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She was desperate for that not to happen. Once upon a time she had thought she would never ripen—that she would be a “dud”—a female who failed to undergo the cycle of increased fertility that most of the women of her people went through. Now it seemed that her ripening had only been delayed, but it was common knowledge that the longer a first ripening was put off, the stronger it would come on once the right man was found.
And now I’ve found him, but what if he doesn’t want me? Makenna asked herself anxiously.
But do you want him? whispered that little voice in her head again. After all you’ve been through, do you really want another man to touch you?
The answer came to her at once—she did if that man was Bard. He might look scary on the outside—he was so big that she was sure her head would barely reach his elbow if the two of them stood side-by-side and his grizzled black and gray beard marked him as older than her. But Makenna didn’t care about any of that—she knew a good man when she saw one and her body was telling her that Bard was good. Not only that, he was the one to guide her through her ripening.
I hope he starts soon, though, she thought, wincing as she rubbed the stiff peaks of her nipples through the torn and dirty gown. Her ripening was far advanced and now that she had found the right man to guide her through it, her body would soon begin to ache and burn with the need to be touched and taken.
But what if he doesn’t want to take you once he finds the spreader? What if he doesn’t understand?
Makenna shook her head. There was no point dwelling on such an idea. She wished she could get the spreader out herself but she had tried, many times at the Pleasure House with no success. She knew it was impossible.
As she stroked the huge, hairy creature called “Tiny,” she only hoped that Bard would have pity on her and that he could find some way to remove the wretched thing so that her ripening could run its course.
If not, it might kill her.
8
“You will not jerk off. You will not jerk off!” Bard growled at himself in the 3-D viewer over the sink. He was standing in the fresher—what the humans called a “bathroom”—and giving himself a stern talking to about the way his body had reacted to Makenna’s.
His shaft was still hard in his trousers, his Mating Fist throbbing with need he hadn’t felt in twenty years when he remembered the way her soft little pussy had pressed against him…the way her full breasts had swayed…
He shook his head, trying to rid his mind of the forbidden images. What in the Seven Hells was wrong with him, acting this way about a female so much younger than him? Especially one who had been traumatized and wounded in unspeakable ways.
“You oughta be ashamed of yourself, you old fuck,” he growled in the viewer, glaring at his image, taking in the crows’ feet around his golden eyes, the gray in his beard and at his temples. When had he started looking so fucking old?
He couldn’t help contrasting his own image with the youthfulness of Makenna’s smooth brown skin and her big, dark eyes with no wrinkles around them at all. She was beautiful and he was fairly certain she was of age, but she wasn’t his age—not anywhere near it—which would have put her strictly off-limits, even if she hadn’t been through hell on Passion Prime.
“Leave her alone, old man,” he told himself. “She’s not for you. She’s a guest in your house and a female in distress and you’re Goddess-damned going to treat her with respect and compassion and not be a lecherous fuck!”
This idea seemed to finally sink in and Bard was relieved when his shaft at last began to soften. Good—finally he was decent again, he told himself. Now what he needed to do was give the girl something to eat and then try to get her to take that damned translation bacteria pill. After that, they could go back to the Med Center and Dr. Olivia could examine her and find a nice suitable place to put her out of harm’s way—out of his way.
“That’s what I’ll do,” he told himself, giving a firm nod in the 3-D viewer. “Feed her and find her a place to stay.”
Someplace that wasn’t in his suite, anyway, he told himself.
Taking a deep breath, he left the fresher. It was time to put his plan into action.
9
Bard wasn’t sure what the girl might want to eat, so he popped several meal cubes into his re-hydrator and laid the resulting food out on his dining area table before calling for her.
