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“I’ve decided to embrace the idea. After all, you want nothing to do with me and you’ve made that quite clear. I’ve decided I’m going to marry him.”
“Rakkur, you haven’t even met him yet.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m going to agree to the contract.”
“Sight unseen?”
“Yes. Looks aren’t everything. You’re handsome, and yet you have a terrible personality.”
“Fine. Do whatever you like.”
“I am. Don’t worry, this has nothing to do with you, and the fact that we’re bonded. And don’t worry, I won’t say another word about all that. You’ve made it clear that you still love your husband and definitely not me. The husband who’s dead and gone now. For three cycles. I know that you have no interest at all in me, even though I’m right here. As you said, your feelings for me are purely biological. Nothing more.”
I gave him a look, and he had the grace to blush a little.
“Anyway, you said you don’t love me. You’re finished with me. You’ve made that quite clear.”
“Not clear enough, apparently.”
“You just want to hurt me, don’t you?”
I sighed and closed my eyes. It seemed the gods weren’t through torturing me quite yet. I wanted to snatch him across the table and hold him in my lap while I instructed him thoroughly on proper behavior in public. Then I’d carry him to my room and show him how “done” I was with him. My fingers had already erupted into small claws. Rakkur had spent the entire morning pushing my boundaries, and my tyger was restless and near the surface.
“Anyway, I was thinking,” he continued to blather on. “You see, my brothers, when they got married, mostly didn’t know much about sex. Except Mikos, because he was still pretty wild when he left home. But the others were all kept very innocent, the way my omak wanted it. We aren’t told anything about it really.”
He had piqued the interest of both me and my tyger, who was hanging on every word once he mentioned sex. I felt I had to intervene in all this.
“Rakkur, it isn’t proper for you to talk to me about this subject. Stop it.”
“No, you have to know, because of my plan. You see, before I meet this king, I need to know certain things. I mean, I know a little. Especially since what happened between us. But I need to know more. I refuse to be like my poor brother Vannos, who didn’t even know what was happening to him on his wedding night. Or Derrick, who didn’t know until it was too late. Most men my age have been with men. My friends have all done everything you can do with another man except exchange body fluids, because they’re Tygerian, and you know only too well what that leads to. But I’m human, according to you, so I decided that I want to try it too. More than what we did before, which was mostly just fooling around, I think. As my guard, it’s your job.”
“M-my job? What are you talking about? My job to do what?” I managed to get out.
“To teach me everything I need to know. How else will I recognize something that this king shouldn’t be doing to me? I know about oral sex…or I know men do that sometimes. But I’m not sure what happens exactly. I need a demonstration. And frottage? I need you to demonstrate it for me too. After all, you have no feelings for me and never could, or so you’ve told me. You say I’m not Tygerian, so I can’t bond with anyone, so there’s no reason not to experiment a little, even with sex, because you’ve already formed a bond with me a long time ago, and you’re mostly unaffected by it. Or so you say. Except for the part where you transformed to your tyger. You should be able to show me whatever I need to know.”
I got to my feet and took him by the wrist, jerking him out of the chair he was sitting in. We got more than a few interested looks, but I couldn’t stop to care or even notice much. I had to get to someplace more private. I just hoped I could make it behind a closed door before I exploded and told him just what I thought of this so-called “plan” of his.
Once in the corridor, I managed to stop digging my fingers into his wrist and walk mostly normally back to his room, tugging him along behind me. Shoving him inside, I pushed him down to sit on the bed and then paced up and down the tiny room until I calmed down. He hadn’t said a word the entire time, just watched me with those big, blue eyes of his.
When I thought I could look at him again, I leaned against the wall opposite him. “Rakkur, we have to talk. This constant teasing of yours has to stop before I lose control again.”
“I don’t mean to tease you.”
I scoffed out loud at that. “Yes, you do.”
“But just listen to me—please. I just made you a proposition that will be mutually beneficial to both of us. Really.”
“No. The answer is no. The answer will always be no. We’ve been over and over this, and my answer will never change.”
I turned to leave, with him sitting there on his bed reaching out to me. I barely managed not to slam the door behind me. I had no idea what crazy idea he’d come up with, but I wanted no part of it, and I could feel my control slipping. I rushed over to my room and went straight to the adjoining bathing room. Because we were in a ship, space was at a premium, so the engineers had designed a “shower” idea like the humans on Alliance ships used, even though Tygerians preferred bathing pools at home. I went straight to this shower room, undressing as I went and throwing my clothes on the floor, because I needed to stand under a spray of cold water. Desperately.
I’d been standing there for perhaps a little less than ten minutes, though it hadn’t helped a great deal yet, when I heard a voice just outside the shower room door. “Colonel Tariq…please open the door. I need to speak to you.”
I felt absolutely thunderstruck. I thought at first I was hallucinating that familiar voice so close by. I turned off the water and listened again, certain I must be mistaken.
The voice came again. “Tariq? It’s me, Rakkur. Please come out here so I can talk to you.”
I was so furious that he was somehow in my room that I threw open the door, holding nothing but a towel in front of me and glared down at him. His big blue eyes traveled slowly up and down my body and his full lips curved into a smile.
