“I don’t care about your apol­ogy. I told you I never wanted to see you again.” Jes­sica an­gled away from him, putting the lounger be­tween them.

  Cla­jak cir­cled the lounger in an un­hur­ried pace, not try­ing to catch her. Yet. “You also told Egilka you’re not go­ing to Kalquor. That’s not ac­cept­able, my sweet. We need you.”

  Jes­sica mea­sured the dis­tance to the door, know­ing the Kalquo­rian was far too fast for her to es­cape that way. Run­ning through Is­rala’s house prac­ti­cally naked didn’t ap­peal to her ei­ther. Cla­jak was toy­ing with her, and it pissed her off.

  “You and Egilka can go fuck your­selves. You’ve proven to me how un­de­serv­ing Kalquor is of my ser­vices.”

  Jes­sica en­joyed curs­ing at the ar­ro­gant prince. Pro­fan­ity had its uses. No won­der Michaela had such a foul mouth.

  Cla­jak’s smile re­fused to dim. “You like Be­vau. That bite you gave him was im­pres­sive.”

  “Be­vau is the ex­cep­tion. If two out of three Kalquo­ri­ans are ass­holes, then the one isn’t enough to make up for the rest.”

  Jes­sica stood be­hind the lounger, and Cla­jak was on the other side. He stopped mov­ing. “We will in­tro­duce you to the finest clans on Kalquor. You’ll have your pick of the most pow­er­ful and rich­est men in the Em­pire.”

  She snorted. “I don’t care if their cocks are made of gold and their balls are di­a­monds. Money and ti­tles do not real men make. Es­pe­cially those with royal pedi­grees.”

  Jes­sica’s in­sult only seemed to amuse Cla­jak. His grin grew broader still. “I see I’ll have to find an­other way to con­vince you. So be it.”

  He launched him­self in the air, spring­ing at her like a pan­ther. Jes­sica screamed and tried to duck away, but the Kalquo­rian’s mus­cled arms closed around her like bands of iron. Cla­jak bore her down to the ground, let­ting his weight set­tle on her.

  He pinned her arms to her sides, ex­pos­ing her breasts to his vo­ra­cious gaze. Jes­sica lay de­fense­less be­neath him. She screamed again, this time in frus­tra­tion. “Get off me, you hate­ful bas­tard!”

  “I only wish to make amends,” Cla­jak said, his ex­pres­sion a par­ody of in­no­cence. He snug­gled his groin against hers, and she gasped to feel him hard. “Let’s start with this.”

  “I don’t want you,” Jes­sica snapped, try­ing to wrig­gle free. She froze when he opened his mouth wide, dis­play­ing his fangs.

  “I can change your mind about that,” Cla­jak whis­pered. His head darted down, and she felt the twin pin­pricks against her throat. He stopped short of sink­ing his teeth into her flesh.

  “Don’t Cla­jak,” Jes­sica said, hat­ing to beg him for any­thing but hat­ing even more to give her­self the way his bite would make her.

  “Then shut up and lis­ten to me,” he growled against her throat.

  “I’m lis­ten­ing.”

  The prince drew back so he could look her in the face. His ex­pres­sion was se­ri­ous as he re­garded her. “I am sin­cerely sorry I let you think you were to be my clan’s Matara. I should have had the sense to en­sure your un­der­stand­ing of the sit­u­a­tion.”

  “Yeah, that would have been the re­spon­si­ble thing to do. I sup­pose it was ask­ing too much of you.”

  Cla­jak ig­nored her in­sult. “I think you’re a beau­ti­ful, in­tel­li­gent woman. You have much to of­fer any clan lucky enough to at­tract your at­ten­tions. Yes I am a jerk, but you shouldn’t judge the rest of my peo­ple based on my self­ish ac­tions. I beg your for­give­ness and ask you to re­con­sider com­ing to Kalquor.”

  “It’s a pretty speech,” Jes­sica said. “How much prac­tice did it take be­fore you were able to make it with­out laugh­ing your head off?”

  Cla­jak’s cat-eyes dark­ened and anger flashed across his face. “I meant it, you stub­born lit­tle beast. Why does ev­ery­thing have to be a chal­lenge with you?”

  “Be­cause I don’t like you,” she snarled back. “I am not go­ing to Kalquor. Get off me.”

  A cruel ver­sion of his smile re­turned to spread his lips back, show­ing her his fangs had un­hinged once more. Cla­jak ground his hips against hers, let­ting her feel how much he en­joyed him­self. “You may not like me, but you like what I do for you.”

  “I don’t want you,” Jes­sica an­swered through grit­ted teeth. “You dis­gust me.”

  “Liar,” he whis­pered.

  Cla­jak pinned her wrists over her head with one hand. The other hand dove down to cup her sex, and Jes­sica cried out to feel his fin­gers slip­ping into her panties to dis­cover the tell­tale wet­ness. The mo­ment she’d seen him in her suite, her trai­tor­ous body had clam­ored for his touch.

  “Tell the truth,” Cla­jak mocked her, his fin­gers run­ning up and down the slit of her sex. “You want to fuck me.”

  “I hate you,” she yelled in his face, writhing in his grip.

  “That may be, but you still want my cocks in­side you. Tell me how bad you want it,” he coaxed, press­ing two fin­gers into her soft­ness.

  A groan slipped from Jes­sica’s throat as her body thrilled at the pen­e­tra­tion. Cla­jak’s thumb stroked her cli­toris as he worked her with his fin­gers. She gushed honey.

  He leaned down, his mouth brush­ing hers. “The clan com­pared notes on what you like,” he said, nib­bling at her lips. “You en­joyed Be­vau hold­ing you help­less. Egilka shared his knowl­edge about that spot in­side that drives you in­sane with plea­sure. I can give you what you want. Beg me to fuck you.”

  Jes­sica glared into his con­fi­dent face and un­leashed a string of ex­ple­tives fit to make even Michaela blush. She kept at it un­til she ran out of breath.

  Cla­jak didn’t blush. He stroked in and out of her body the en­tire time she cursed him. She couldn’t keep her hips from ris­ing to his fin­gers.

  Damn it, why couldn’t she stop her body from be­tray­ing her?

  “Where would a vir­tu­ous Earther girl learn lan­guage like that?” Cla­jak won­dered out loud. “It is most un­be­com­ing, my sweet. Keep it up, and I’ll make it my per­sonal mis­sion to teach you man­ners.”

  “Go fuck your­self, gurluck.”

  Jes­sica never felt him turn her over. She was sud­denly ly­ing on her belly, held down on the floor by one big hand be­tween her shoul­ders. Cla­jak’s other hand de­scended on her but­tocks with a loud smack.

  The prince spanked her hard and fast, hold­ing her down with one hand. Jes­sica’s bot­tom warmed from the smart­ing blows, and she screamed. She scrab­bled to es­cape, but she was help­less against the Kalquo­rian.

  “Don’t you ever call me that again,” Cla­jak hissed as he wore her bot­tom out. “Don’t you ever.”

  He spanked Jes­sica un­til her cries be­came sobs and she begged, “Please stop, please, I take it back, I’m sorry, I’ll never say it again.”

  Cla­jak quit the mo­ment the apol­ogy left her lips. Jes­sica pressed her face against the soft car­peted floor and cried shamed tears. Her but­tocks ra­di­ated heat that licked through her thighs, her back, her sex and her belly. She shud­dered.

  “Why won’t you let me be nice to you?” Cla­jak’s quiet voice came from above her. His fin­gers stroked up the in­side of her thigh. Jes­sica stiff­ened, but she didn’t re­sist for fear he’d pun­ish her again. “Let me be nice to you, Jes­sica.” His fin­gers brushed against her sex. She shud­dered.

  “You’re soak­ing wet,” he said, his voice sur­prised. “I have heard of women like you who ap­pre­ci­ate dis­ci­pline, but I didn’t know Earth­ers were ca­pa­ble of it. My sweet, it’s as if you were born to tempt me.”

  “I hate you,” Jes­sica said, her voice weak.

  “I know. I’m sorry you feel that way.” Cla­jak’s tone was still soft, and he picked her up and cud­dled her against his chest. He lifted her tear­ful face to kiss her mouth deeply.

  Such ten­der­ness af­ter the harsh dis­ci­pline fed her al­ready height­ened senses, and the low rum­blings of de­sire ex­ploded into an al­most des­per­ate need. Jes­sica moaned into Cla­jak’s mouth and rubbed against him. He re­sponded with a growl and yanked her thong off, leav­ing her naked in his lap. His hands went all over her, and she was on her back be­neath him once more.

  His hands worked be­tween them, fight­ing to free his sexes from his form­suit as he con­tin­ued to kiss Jes­sica. His mouth on hers was fran­tic now. His cocks leapt free of his pants, and he pressed against her with des­per­a­tion. Her body opened to him, their com­bined wet­ness help­ing him to bury him­self in her with one thrust. Jes­sica grunted at the heady com­bi­na­tion of the plea­sure and pain the sud­den fill­ing of her womb and back­side in­cited.

  Cla­jak held noth­ing back, his hips jack­ham­mer­ing against her. The sound of his groin pound­ing against hers was sim­i­lar to how it had sounded when he spanked her. It hurt won­der­fully, this fu­ri­ous tak­ing, and Jes­sica screamed in a high, thin voice. She clung to the slick fab­ric of his form­suit, gath­er­ing fist­fuls of the stretchy ma­te­rial on his chest.

  Cla­jak’s head reared about, and he roared as his rhythm fal­tered, his fangs ex­tended. Jes­sica gasped as a drop of in­tox­i­cant es­caped one nee­dle fang, fall­ing on her cheek. The prince’s head came down, and he buried his teeth in her neck. Jes­sica shrieked at the mo­men­tary pain. Her body clenched in or­gasm.

  Cla­jak screamed against her neck as cli­max took him. His teeth re­mained em­bed­ded, and Jes­sica felt eu­pho­ria spread through­out her body as he rut­ted against her. She rode waves of bliss from the or­gasm and the in­tox­i­cant he pumped into her body. Ev­ery mo­ment was sweeter than the last, and her sighs came so con­tin­u­ously she al­most hummed.

  Even when the prince fell quiet and with­drew his fangs Jes­sica still moved be­neath him. She rubbed her­self against the strong body cov­er­ing hers, her cli­toris feed­ing on the hard groin it ground against. Cla­jak let her use him to sate her pro­longed need. The plea­sure came slower and slower, but she rode ev­ery warm pulse her womb pro­vided.

  At last her body re­laxed. Jes­sica’s arms slipped from their em­brace around Cla­jak’s neck and flopped bone­lessly to the floor. The Dramok propped him­self on his el­bows and smiled down at her. For once the smile seemed gen­uine, not cocky.

  “Did you en­joy your­self, my sweet?”

  “Mmm-hmm,” Jes­sica purred. She en­joyed look­ing at him, this strik­ing alien male who gave her such plea­sure. Too bad he’s the big­gest jerk ever. I could fuck him ev­ery day of my life, she thought and gig­gled. Her fin­gers drifted up to stroke his soft, steel-tinged hair.

  “You drive me mad with lust.” Cla­jak caught one of her hands and kissed each fin­ger, one at a time. “I haven’t lost such con­trol since I was very young. I apol­o­gize for pump­ing you so full of in­tox­i­cant. You’ll be float­ing for awhile. I’m sur­prised you’re still con­scious.”

  “S’okay,” Jes­sica slurred. “Feels good.”

  He laughed. “I’m sure it does. You’ll be an­gry with me later though.” His look sobered. “What can I do to make things bet­ter be­tween us?”

  Jes­sica tried to think about that. Fi­nally, she man­aged to say in Eng­lish, “Get over your­self.”

  “I am un­sure of this mean­ing,” he an­swered in her lan­guage.

  “Hey, you know how to talk like me!” Jes­sica said.

  “My clan has stud­ied var­i­ous Earther lan­guages. Eng­lish tends to be one of the most dif­fi­cult. There is too much slang.”

  “Re­ally? You’re do­ing pretty well with it right now.”

  “But I do not know what ‘get over your­self’ means. The lit­eral trans­la­tion makes no sense.”

  “It means stop be­ing so high and mighty, like you’re the only per­son who mat­ters in the uni­verse. Cause you’re not.”

  Cla­jak chuck­led and pulled free of her. Af­ter ad­just­ing his cloth­ing, he picked Jes­sica up and car­ried her to the lounger where he laid her down. He sat next to her.

  Stroking her cheek, he said in Plasian, “I’ve been told many times I’m self­ish and I need to grow up.”

  “Be­vau says you’re afraid to be em­peror.”

  “I think it’s more ac­cu­rate to say I’m afraid to fail as em­peror.”

  Jes­sica reached up to stroke his shin­ing, sleek hair again. She couldn’t re­sist touch­ing him. “What makes you think you’ll fail?”

  The prince frowned, his eyes go­ing dis­tant. “My peo­ple will ei­ther breed with yours and cre­ate a new race or go ex­tinct in the next 300 years. My clan might be the last to rule our planet if Kalquor doesn’t claim enough Earther Mataras. Ob­vi­ously the mat­ter of the ill feel­ings be­tween Earth and Kalquor com­pli­cates our sur­vival. We’re on the brink of war with the very peo­ple we need to save us.”

  Jes­sica knew she should care about what he said, but un­der the in­tox­i­cant’s in­flu­ence, she was more in­ter­ested in the de­light­ful honey-smooth­ness of Cla­jak’s voice. “Who is fore­cast to win if our plan­ets go to war?”

  “Our tech­nol­ogy is far more ad­vanced; how­ever Earth­ers out­num­ber us a hun­dred to one. It’s im­pos­si­ble to tell who the vic­tor would be.” Cla­jak’s face be­came grave. “The ca­su­al­ties on both sides would be phe­nom­e­nal. Fight­ing a war could has­ten the ex­ter­mi­na­tion of my peo­ple.”

  “You’d bet­ter find a way to keep from fight­ing then.” Jes­sica’s hands roamed down to trace the con­tours of his chest. She didn’t want to have sex; she was sore from their rough love­mak­ing. Cla­jak was sim­ply too beau­ti­fully formed to not touch.

  “We hope it doesn’t come to that. Earth is try­ing to force our hand though.” He sighed, his ex­pres­sion un­happy. “They’ve be­gun raid­ing some of our out­posts, and this bar­ri­cade of Pla­sius is bad busi­ness. They’re now threat­en­ing to do the same to our other al­lies.”

  “All be­cause of one woman, Amelia Ryan, and the clan that claimed her. If their Nobek hadn’t killed Gen­eral Croft, you wouldn’t be in this mess.”

  “Nobek Breft’s killing of Croft was just the ex­cuse Earth was look­ing for to es­ca­late mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions. Breft was cleared of all charges at the in­quiry. We couldn’t blame him af­ter what that beast did to his preg­nant Matara.” Cla­jak shook his head. “Earth thinks it can win a war. Your planet is de­ter­mined to push ahead with hos­til­i­ties be­cause it doesn’t want us spawn­ing with your peo­ple, and if they can get their hands on the riches of Kalquor, so much the bet­ter.”

  “Your opin­ion of us sounds as low as Egilka’s.” Jes­sica moved on to ex­plor­ing his broad, mus­cu­lar shoul­ders. The man was a liv­ing, breath­ing sculp­ture. She could run her hands over him all day.

  Cla­jak snick­ered. “Egilka is lick­ing wounds to his pride. His opin­ion of Earth­ers, par­tic­u­larly fe­male Earth­ers, has changed since he spent time with you. For my­self, I can sep­a­rate the am­bi­tious greed of a few power-hun­gry Earth­ers from the gen­eral pop­u­la­tion. Most of your peo­ple are be­ing dragged into con­flict as un­will­ingly as we are.”

  “That sucks,” Jes­sica said in Eng­lish. In Plasian she com­plained, “I’m re­ally sore. Can you get me the pain in­hibitor from the kitchen? It’s on the shelf over the cooker.”

  “Of course, my sweet. I’m sorry I was so rough, but sex­u­ally arous­ing an an­gry Kalquo­rian can be dan­ger­ous busi­ness.” Cla­jak brought her the tube of in­hal­able pain re­liever. He shook it ex­per­i­men­tally be­fore hand­ing it to her. “Do you use this of­ten?”

  Jes­sica sucked on the in­hibitor. She sighed as the ache of her vagina and anus eased. “Michaela is a brute about dance prac­tice. I can barely walk when we’re done.”

  “The way you’ve been touch­ing me, I thought you might like an­other frolic. If you’re sore enough to use that, we’d bet­ter not.”

  Jes­sica tit­tered. “You’re just so yummy, I can’t keep my hands to my­self. Aren’t there any ugly Kalquo­ri­ans to turn me off?”

  Cla­jak grinned. “If you like us so much, then come to Kalquor and pick your clan.”

  “Nope, nope, nope.” Jes­sica was speak­ing Eng­lish again. “Not gonna hap­pen. Hot, sexy mus­cles can’t weaken this girl’s re­solve.”

  “Is it re­solve or stub­born­ness?”

  Jes­sica didn’t have an an­swer to that, so she child­ishly stuck her tongue out at him.

  “That’s what I thought.” Cla­jak stood. “If I can’t sat­isfy any other needs at this time? No? Then I will let you rest and re­cover.”

  “One more thing, Cla­jak.”

  “Yes?”

  “What is a gurluck?”

  He stared at her, his ex­pres­sion shocked. “You don’t know?”

  “I said it be­cause I knew it was a good in­sult. I have no idea what it means.”

  Cla­jak groaned. “You are an im­pos­si­ble crea­ture, Jes­sica. If I’d known you didn’t re­al­ize what you were say­ing, I wouldn’t have pun­ished you.” A mis­chievous sparkle ap­peared in his eyes. “Al­though I en­joyed it, and ap­par­ently you did too.”

  “Pain seems to ac­cen­tu­ate plea­sure in cer­tain cir­cum­stances. I’ll feel em­bar­rassed later when I’m not high as a kite.”

  Cla­jak’s grin was huge. “I’m thrilled to know you like such things.”

  “I can tell.” Jes­sica ogled the bulge in his form­suit.

  “If given the op­por­tu­nity, I’ll be glad to spank you again. As to your ques­tion, gurluck refers to a man who forces him­self upon his own mother. Since Kalquo­rian men re­gard their moth­ers with al­most sa­cred rev­er­ence, it’s a very nasty in­sult. If a man were to call me such a thing, I’d kill him.”